Special times and autism
01 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Special times/children Tags: autism, Sonrise
If you have a child with autism, you know how much time is involved. Sometimes your whole diet changes so cooking, shopping or even planning outings aren’t near as easy as before. You may spend time shuttling your child from school to therapy to doctors and specialists. Even with all this time spent, there is still a benefit to planning special one-on-one time with your child.
In the early days of autism, I spent a lot of the time on ABA and speech therapy. Last year, I discovered Autism Treatment Center of America. I requested the free information and was so refreshed by their approach. I didn’t go to any of the training sessions but I did buy two of Barry Neil Kaufman’s books, Happiness is a Choice and Sonrise. You can find them rather inexpensively on Ebay and Amazon. You don’t have to agree with all his spiritual concepts but his success with his son is proof that he figured out something awesome with autism.
The primary concept is that time is spent one on one with your child. The child is accepted as he or she is but we enter the world of autism for that child and walk with them hand in hand into our world. By the time that I found this, Davy had already improved a lot with eye contact and beginning to use language. But I could see how this approach would help expand his social skills if nothing else. We rearranged his room so that his bed was against the wall. We put toys away in his closet so they wouldn’t be distracting. We added an exercise ball and a small trampoline. We spend time one-on-one for an hour several times a week. We might spend time drawing on the chalkboard while we sat on the exercise balls. That’s a great occupational therapy tool. One day, we just made a tent out of a sheet and laid down and talked about the shapes on his sheet. Watching the videos from the Sonrise program will give you ideas for incorporating it into your child’s life.
The greatest thing about the Sonrise program is that the focus is on the child, not the behaviors desired or not desired. There’s so much debate in the autism world about what should or should not be done. The neurodiverse crowd believes that autism is just a higher evolved state and we should accept autistic children as they are. Then there are those like myself that will do whatever we can to ensure that our children have a chance at a satisfying adulthood. Although this program is 30-something years old, it perfectly blends the two. We accept and love the child where they are but constantly work at expanding the child’s skills while having fun.
This is a way to give special time for a child with autism and count as therapy as well. It’s a great thing for children like Davy that have other children around constantly. It’s nice for any child to be able to shut the door to their room and have time with mom or dad to themselves.
So think of skills that your child needs. If your child has trouble with B sounds, bring in balls, balloons, buckets, etc. If your child needs to work on gross motor skills, add steps and a balancing beam that is low to the ground. If your child needs to work on fine motor skills, bring in lacing cards and big beads to string onto shoelaces. You can provide the opportunities to expand skills but still allow the child to lead the play session.
Hope this gives you some ideas. You can talk with a consultant at Autism Treatment Center about solutions for your child. The most important thing is that you show your child on a daily basis that you love them. You can hate autism and fight daily to reverse the effects that it’s had on your child. But by showing your child that you love them no matter what, you take the pressure off both of you. This reduces stress which will help therapy be more effective. You might have a little fun as well. Blessings to all the autism children and families. May God bless your journey.
