Build Your Parenting Toolkit: Guiding Children to Become Flexible Thinkers

This pilot project is a cooperative effort between the Leisure in Fun Environments (LIFE) Program and the Specialized Communication Resources for Children (SCRC) Program at the Rehabilitation Centre for Children (RCC). The investigators will blend and enhance two pre-existing programs in order to provide a new, specialized program for parents of children with ASD or developmental delay. The two programs that will be blended together are "Promoting Flexible Thinking and Interaction with Your Child at Home" and "Saturday Cooking Club." This new program will be a series of ten workshops that alternates between "parents only" learning sessions and practical "cooking club" sessions that allow parents to focus on practicing what they are learning with their child. These programs are based on the principles of Relationship Development Intervention (RDI®), which focuses on providing opportunities to establish a guided participation relationship, which will lead to development of dynamic intelligence and important social thinking abilities. The program is individualized to each child and builds on the principles of typical development to assist the child in achieving social competence. Using this program, children are expected to develop sociability in a naturally progressing order of complexity.