"Monster, Monster, do you want a potato?" Franklin Henry asks tentatively.

Across the room, Frank’s dad crouches in a cardboard lair while his son, tater in hand, advances one cautious step at a time with his mom.

When Franklin reaches the monster’s nest, Joe Henry pops up like a giant wind-up weasel, wearing a wide grin and a silly hat.

It’s the kind of game a toddler relishes for its little surprises, the laughter, the eye contact and the chance to share emotions. For Franklin, a 7-year-old with autism, it’s a tremendous challenge.

Joe and Karen Henry of Medford bring Franklin to a little white cottage in Central Point to play such games with Geni Moots Plotnick. The Gold Hill woman uses a play-focused approach to autism and other disorders that helps children and parents share emotional experiences.

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"It’s all about relatedness and communication," she says. "You can’t have communication without emotional involvement."

Moots Plotnick was trained in the techniques of "relationship development intervention" by Steven Gutstein and Rachelle Sheely, the husband-and-wife team of Texas psychologists who developed the approach. It’s designed to help people with autism not only learn to tolerate change, but to enjoy it.

RDI "specifically focuses on social relationships," says Moots Plotnick, who has worked for three decades as a speech pathologist and special-education teacher. She’s one of fewer than two-dozen certified RDI providers in North America, and works with clients from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California.

"They’re all so different," she says, noting that her clients range from extremely bright high-school students to children who cannot speak. She evaluates each child to determine his or her development level and then works with the parents "to blend it with as much variation as the child can comfortably deal with."

Most people ("neurotypicals" in the language of behavioral science) learn to connect emotionally with people during the normal course of development without even trying.

"Children are intrinsically wired to please other people," Moots Plotnick says. "A 1-year-old who’s beating on a pot looks around to see what Mom is doing. If Mom’s frowning, he stops."

For reasons nobody knows, people with any of the disorders in the "autism spectrum" (such as Asperger’s syndrome) miss the signals and turn inward. Change in any form often causes intense anxiety that can be reflected in bad behavior.

"Kids with autism don’t follow the herd," Joe Henry says. "They miss all the social cues."

Gutstein and Sheely believe that children learn two fundamentally different styles of interaction to function in the world, what they call "instrumental interaction" and "experience sharing." Only experience sharing is used for reciprocal conversation, empathy and close emotional relationships.

Autistics typically do not learn how to share experiences, but often become adept at instrumental interaction — using people as an instrument to achieve some desired end, such as going to a friend’s house just so you can play his new game.

Using the RDI approach, Moots Plotnick videotapes children’s interactions with parents to assess their emotional development level. Then she helps parents organize games and activities that will help the children become aware of, and attend to, the person or people they’re with.

"It’s what we call ‘social referencing,’ " she says.

RDI is just one of several approaches for treating the autism spectrum. Others, such as applied behavior analysis, train children through systematic repetition and reward.

"This therapy goes back to the beginning (of emotional development)," Moots Plotnick says. "We try to pick up all the pieces that might have been missed in early childhood."

It also requires a time commitment from parents and immense reservoirs of patience — "more patience than you think you might ever imagine you could have," Karen Henry says.

Franklin’s play sessions with Moots Plotnick have yielded dramatic results over the past eight months, the Henrys say.

"He’s learning to give you eye contact," his mom says. "I see the gears in his mind starting to understand humor."

Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail bkettler@mailtribune.com

RDI workshop Saturday

The $85 program includes presentations about the RDI method and how it can be applied for children with autism spectrum disorders.

For more information, contact Moots Plotnick at 664-7820, or visit the Web site at: www.bridgestofriendship.com