Son-Rise Program

Wow, so much time has flown by! Luiza and I went to Massachussettes in September to attend a training course on a program called the SonRise program. It is similar to RDI that we were doing before. The main difference is that instead of you having to lead your child in activities that you think he should do, you instead follow your child's lead and do what is interesting to him. This allows you to work on building a rapport with your child and really reach your child, because you're involved in the activities that they are interested in. For example, if Calvin wants to play with his Thomas trains, then I play with them. I "join" his activities. Eventually, he starts to notice that I'm with him, and then, when Calvin give me a "green light" (a glance, a word, a touch aimed at me, etc.), I can interact with him.

We first heard about the therapy in August, when Raun Kauffman visited Portland to discuss his parent's therapy and how he had been diagnosed at a young age of severe autism, retarded and no hope of ever having any relationships or skills. His parents refused to believe it and spent years working with him in the room that had the least distractions, their bathroom. Now he's perfectly normal, just graduated with a Master's degree in bioethics, and is living a happy life.

We started implementing their ideas right after we got home, and we saw immediate changes in Calvin. In the past few months, he is so more engaged with us, a lot of facial gazing, looking at us. His vocabulary has jumped and his desire to play with us, and even his big brother Brendon, has also increased.

Last night, for example, Calvin took the Legos on the living room floor, and for the first time ever, started putting them together to build something. He's never done that before, preferring to destroy whatever Brendon has created. We joined him, and I spent about a half hour playing Legos with Calvin for the first time in his life.

We've also gotten volunteers to come and help us. The last few weeks we have been training 4 people on how to work with Calvin. This week was difficult because 2 people were sick and not able to make it, and another was out of town for her anniversary. So, it's been a long week.

Luiza tries to spend 3 to 6 hours a day in Calvin's playroom. I work for about 1 hour or more when I get home at night. Our volunteers put in about 5-8 combined hours a week all together. So, it's a full time program at this point.

We took Calvin's bedroom and removed all the furniture and toy bins off the ground. Now, all his toys are up on shelves, his floor covered by a rubbery floor mat (great for tumbling and playing on your knees), his door replaced by a door with a glass middle so our volunteers can see us and we can see them while working with Calvin, and there is a play table, mini-trampoline and a little potty in the corner. This allows Calvin to have a distraction free environment where he can concentrate on us rather than being over stimulated by objects and noises. It's very effective.

So, we're seeing nice progress. Calvin is doing well. It's a ton of work, but it's worth it.