Here is Jade's video, and how she recovered from autism, thanks to her parents and Son-Rise volunteers. This is a story of a little girl who lost her skills and then regained them again, and is now living a normal life. Not all children can fully recover like this, but I hope that this shows the world that there is no such thing as false hope for autism. - Sandra Sinclair, www.autismvoice.com

The website for Son-Rise intervention is www.son-rise.org .

I highly recommend the Son-Rise program for autism.  Son-Rise, like RDI, is very empowering for parents, because as a parent you realize how very important you are and how much influence you really have on your child's progress.

Most children with autism respond well to Son-Rise, because the program establishes trust quickly with the child and as a result, they are usually more willing to interact with you more and accept more because of that level of trust and interaction. I also love how there are no limits or expectations put on how far your child can go with this program. There is a healing that happens in your heart and mind for your child and for your family regarding what autism means to you through Son-Rise, and I'm very grateful for their approach.  

Shortly before Thanksgiving, John and I were fortunate enough to attend the Son-Rise New Frontiers Program in Sheffield Massachussetts.

Son-Rise, like RDI, focuses on the interpersonal, communication and flexibility goals first, then uses those skills to build other friendship and conversational skills, and focuses lastly on academics, reasoning, self-help, and motor skills.

New Frontiers is an advanced training program that builds on the foundation of the Son-Rise Start-Up. In New Frontiers, we learned specifics on how to establish program goals, and the techniques on how to achieve them, as well as looking at our own beliefs about what's possible.

We learned how to use both our child's activities and our activities to achieve our goals - to build length of interactional attention, to increase flexibility, to build language and communication skills, and ultimately to build friendship and conversational skills.

This is not done in a static way, but rather in a more flexible way, through interactive play and later on adding role plays, always adding to what we're doing and what we've done before. We learned how to keep growing and expanding our goals and activities to make them gradually more and more complex and changeable over time so that a child can learn how to deal with the world effectively within our program first.

We also learned how to be students of ourselves- regarding our feelings, attitudes and beliefs about our child, ourselves, our program, and how our child exists in our world. This is the only program out there that deals with the head and heart of the parent, and the people working with your child. You learn how to learn from yourself and from your child, how to examine and question your beliefs about what's possible and what's important, and how to ultimately be in a good place with all of this, while always trying for more.

The foundational idea of Son-Rise is total acceptance of the child as he is, while always extending kind invitations for more growth. Son-Rise goes with the child instead of against the child, so the child feels some control and trust in working and playing with you, and that helps the child to feel safe about gradually allowing new things in. Consequently, there are very few "no's" at the beginning. Once the child has mastered basic flexibility, social, and communication skills, that's when more "no's" start to come in.

In my experience, when a child is learning the basic stuff about how to be flexible, how to trust another, how to communicate and how to interpret and respond to the world around them, that you can use Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) or Son-Rise. However, just speaking from my own experience, Son-Rise is probably the easiest and quickest way to get through those really tough early stages with the least amount of resistance from your child.

I'm so glad that we looked into Son-Rise. It's a highly practical and healing way to remediate a child's autism.

Sandra Sinclair, www.autismvoice.com

As some of you know, I'm currently attending the start-up Son-Rise program in NYC. All I can say is that the appoach is incedibly life-affirming, empowering, and effective for autistic children and their families.

What I'm seeing during this week is that each morning parents are coming back happier, with reports of surprising progress in terms of eye contact, connection with their child, and feelings of empowerment and enjoyment of their children. Of course it differs for each child, but many parents are surprised at these quick changes their children are making literally overnight, with just a few simple changes. Just speaking for myself, I saw an increased intensity of eye contact and connection with my son, and an increased desire to seek me out just after doing the changes for about a half hour. It gets you close to you child faster than anything else I've experienced.

Son-Rise has some similarities here and there to some other interventions I've experienced, but it differs in a few aspects -- the child is seen as a gift and not someone that needs to be fixed, yet opportunities are constantly given for growth. Expecations of the potential for each child are extremely high, compared to what we've all been told, regardless of age or diagnosis. There is an incredible acceptance and respect for the whole child and the entire family. Also, nothing is forced on the child, and apparently this level of respect and acceptance gets initial results very quickly for many children.

The intervention philosophy and style may be strange for some, because it all starts by accepting the child totally, including their autism, and joining the child fully by participating in their "stimming" behaviors without trying to stop them or redirect them. This is not done to manipulate, but rather, to fully appreciate, enjoy, and engage with your child by accepting them as they are. Then as opportunities present, the child is gently challenged more and more to expand their awareness, flexibility, frienship skills, communication, and knowledge. Everything at the beginning is based on trusting your child to lead and teach you, and then as time goes on, the parent takes more and more of the lead in the interaction.  

I can see this intervention used throughout a child's program, and I think that you can creatively use it in conjunction with some other interventions as well, such as RDI and speech, etc. With RDI, I can see it as really helping to smooth out the transition in some of the early stages. And I can also see it as a much more organically easy way to do a program such as RDI, by being able to let go and allow some of those goals to happen more naturally.

I don't think that this program conflicts with behavioral philosophy, but it does conflict with most present-day behavioral programs. What I mean is that I can see Son-Rise definitely uses some basic behavioral principles in some of what they do, but the difference is in what they're trying to accomplish -- (creating a happy independent adult with relationships, self-acceptance and self-esteem), the accepting attitude behind it, and the emphasis on social and communication outcomes that are truly important long-term, rather than on short-term fixes or compliance issues.

The family and child's self-esteem and happiness is put first in this intervention. It's a healing balm for the spirit of a family that's been challenged by autism. I highly recommend it, and hope that all families with an autistic child or adult might have an opportunity to experience the Son-Rise program for themselves one day.

http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/

-- Sandra Sinclair, www.autismvoice.com