AutismWeb Forum

http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/webinar/index.php

I love this webinar. Its free and presented by Raun Kaufman recovered fully from autism.

He uses examples sort of midway through about how we try to stop our kids from doing what they like (stimming) and insist they do what WE want.

I wish every ABA provider would watch this video. Joining in our kids stimming is sooooo important. Its the way in to their world. Their stims show us the way in, and as raun says, we then show them the way "out".

We are so busy picking apart our kids seeing what is wrong...but you know what is interesting? our kids dont react abnormally, they are acting exremely normal to an abnormal situation. They use a stim,(ism). An ism has 2 attributes - its repetitive and exlusive....by exclusive its designed to tune the rest of the world out and that means our kids are being controlling, they are not responsive, they are not doing it to be difficult but because of unpredictability...the ism starts to regulate the child.

They do something in a focussed repetetive way .... this creates an island of predictability in a sea of unpredictability. They use all their focus so they can tune out all of the predictability so they can focus. They come up with a way to cope.

what do we do ? "quiet hands, we talked about trains enough, now cmon". EVeryone else is trying to disregulate them. |

Raun uses an analogy of an annoying person who comes over to you in the park whilst you are there with your kids just wanting to enjoy the day, to explain how we impose ourselves on our kids day and daily to their detriment. We need to create a relationship with our kids on their terms, a relationship that they want to have.

We want our kids to want to interact with us, not just do the motions. Joining does this. Joining creates a relationship like no other. If you go and sit down next to them, not too close and start doing their ism, this will change you, Raun says.

"honouring where are kids are changes us and creates a bond like no other. when we join, it absolutely does not produce more stimming. We see the exact opposite. The more we join they become less insterested in their isming, because they learn that interaction is safe, and more fun than what they are doing.


very good video, its free and there are so many more of them.

You must see this. I am so glad i am a sonrise mom, i dont know what i would have done without it. It has changed our lives forever.

Wow, respect, some of your past opinions have certainly changed.

http://www.autismweb.com/forum/viewtopi ... butt#63610

It seems that autism actually isn't a static condition -- for the children or for us parents.

As a non-Sonrise mom, but putting in good bit of time as an ASD mom, I can say that IMHO the stim factor is VERY delicate. Some stimming is OK, and if your child is in autie-zone, and the only way to reach him is via stimming, then by all means, stim along. We've probably all done it instinctively some, even without formally being in a program.

Here is where it gets trickier, though:



When my son was non-verbal and I used to hear this from parents of verbal kids, I used to think- oh, I wish I had their problem. Well- I got my wish- my son would gladly talk about his favorite topic (music) all day long. Communicative intent = zero. Words per minute = a lot. I look at this as the 8-year old equivalent of the nonverbal 2-year old lining up puzzle pieces stage plus some OCD-ish behavior.
I think that joining in and letting him set the pace of this and expecting a reasonable decrease in the perseveration is the equivalent of asking an alcoholic to drink only a glass of wine and then stop. By the same token, nobody, autistic or not should be deprived of being able to pursue their interests. So there is an EXTREMELY fine line that needs to be walked. I would imagine the same to be true with earlier age stimming.

I was recently reading a book about neuroplasticity (very uplifting reading about the amazing capability of the brain to regenerate itself)- and their suggested approach for OCD was by making sure the mind stays occupied with something else during the time the compulsion is set to occur- otherwise you just end up with self-reinforcing , very hard to break circuitry. I see that with my son- so I'm becoming again somewhat anti-stimming (and I'm trying to set a limit to stim time).
The problem as I see it with autism, is that there is so much brain malfunction on so many levels (with apologies to the ND- hearted and to the ones who were fortunate enough to have less impacted children)- that it is almost impossible to separate all the issues and address them in isolation , let alone give blanket recommendations.

In our home, it seems the children stim more when overloaded. If we are out in a public place that is too sensory overloading for one or more of our children, we observe how deep into stimming they get.
If what is making them stim is because it is upsetting to them, we leave the situation....we always follow their cues.
If the stimming is because they are happy...then happy they will remain.

It has worked for 17 years for us.

I don't know much about the SonRise program, but I remember the Made-for-Tv movie years ago. I think we have incorporated a bit of what they do in our home.

Watch the video - Raun explains about perseveration especially in speech.

For example he explains about how if all your kid wants to talk about is trains, then you become the train "master", you let your kid know that you have a boundless interest in trains and you can then make a connection. Then you can turn that interest around, by talking about stopping at different train stations to go and find the best hot dog stand, or restaurant.

Another girl whose main interest was the Jerry Springer show and would only talk about Jerry Springer was given her own "jerry springer show', where she was given a mic and two chairs and was given opportunity to play like she was jerry, interviewing two people. Instead of her going on and on about Jerry, the conversation turned round to actually interviewing the two people in the room in teh style of jerry springer, but she got into it, asking questions over and beyond just the jerry springer show.

if you know what i mean.

the idea behind joining is to learn what motivates the child.

and yes, winnie, i will respond to you this time - my ideas have changed. I had to flexible to help my son the best. I still dont think you are right, or that I am right, or wrong, but if we are not flexible we will fail.

In fact flexibility is what protects the species, and inevitably will help recover my son from autism. And even if he isnt recovered I will be ok with that cause I totally accept him for who he is at any given moment, he is doing the very best he can, as am I.

Perhaps those of you on this list who have read my previous posts will see how much the Sonrise program has helped to flex my inflexibility regarding my boy and autism in general.

It has been such a blessing and my boy is flourishing all down to my attitude. Its amazing what this program has done. If your child is stimming, he is doing it for a reason, to protect himself/herself the best way they can. By entering into the stimming (not mimicking it) you might learn what is motivating them to do it. But most of all, they will notice you noticing them and that creates opportunities for real and valuable intereraction.

When i think of what we use to do with ABA I feel sick. I try not to beat myself up over it anymore, but for us, we were definitely taking the wrong road trying to impose our will to have behaviors "checked".

Our boy now says "i love you" and means it, as opposed to the attempts we use to have by our practitioners to make him parrot those words.

its just fabulous. Sonrise can be learned so easily and is the most respectful child led and easy program of loving and acceptance of children, any children, that i have ever come across.

When we challenge our own belief systems about what we are seeing with our children, we, like me, might be in for a real shock.

If you believe your child has to stop stimming or reduce stimming or that there is a value judgement to be made about it, question yourself as to why?

when i did this for myself, i realised to my chagrin, that i was uncomfortable with the stimming because of what others would think, and also because it reminded me of how autistic my boy still is. That was uncomfortable. Now I welcome his stimming as such an opportunity for interaction. He stims a lot less now and we interact much more and the interaction is so much more meaningful and useful.

Respect,
I do sense a more calm approach to your forum messages. I think, and maybe I am wrong, but you have come to the realization that we, as parent's, have to follow the cues of our children.
For years, I was called the mother who sat and did nothing to help my children with Autism, because I did not get into the biomedical side.
What I did was far from "nothing". My husband and myself followed our children's cues and acted accordingly.

Only one of our children are non-verbal, I truly think that Kiernan will talk...but, we really have no problem with him letting us know what he wants.

Best wishes to you and your family.

I still know biomedical interventions are key, and for our boy have been wondrous.

I dont think we have the option of sitting back and letting our kids just "be" per se. My boy is five, he has just "been" for most of those five years, being messed about by school and in our lousy ABA program.

Our program is now a lifestyle and we are in the playroom about 6 hours a day, we dont have the option of sitting back and just "letting" things happen. He is, however, even more happier than he was (he was pretty happy alr eady though) and is talking up a storm, ready to interact, he is so with us now.

WE take advantage of every opportunity for learning and interacting in a way that he doesnt even know we are doing it, everything about our program is totally led by him and he is loving it more whilst in the playroom than out of it.

In fact we dont go to the park anymore, we can go to the park, or swimming or whatever, till the cow''s come home. We could go to the park hoping for him to interact with others for the next 10 years, but he will still be "autistic" and will still have all the same difficulties he has now.

Our prime goal is to foster social interaction, this more than anything else in the world is important for us now. It doesnt happen magically because our boy still does not understand many things. But through our own training and via those who now work with our boy we are succeeding at teaching him that interaction is so much more fun than being his in world.


We watch, we assess, we build and motivate and request all the time. Its a constant learning curve and we are always on guard for ourselves, making sure we are checking our attitude, and constantly coming up with new ideas to use.

In some ways, its the hardest thing I have done so far, because of having to change my belief systems, and in other ways, its the easiest because my child is my greatest teacher, i just didnt know it.

Whether my role is teacher or student, I have a lot of work cut out for me. I cannot take the chance of just letting my son "be" because the world takes over our kids soon enough - he has so much to learn about being social much less enjoying being social.

Hello all haven't posted in a while. I have to say that the "Sonrise" Book and the ones that followed were the first things I ever read about Autism. Then I found this board mainly on the BioMed side. In the book for those that have and have not read it they did do a diet change in their home also. It is one of the most beautiful and loving approaches to Autism I have come across period bar none. I agree about the being flexible as I have learned more and more my opinion evolves not so much changes. Hopefully all of us are learning how to help our children more each day. I would highly recommend reading "Sonrise" and the second book about Autism Barry Kaufman wrote. Many tricks I learned in reading those books have helped in all settings with my son.

YAY David's mama is back!

This video is fascinating. I'm glad I stumbled upon it. It makes me think of how people without autism act when we feel as though we aren't getting what we need. When we really need to talk about something, but people keep brushing us off, we become fixated on the topic in our mind. But the moment someone stops and listens, we no longer feel that grasping sensation. I think that's the way it is with our autistic children. We need to stop and listen in their language, not ours.
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