How to get started...

Besides just getting in the playroom and doing it, there are a few things we need to do to get the party started.  Most importantly plotting both kids on the Developmental Model.  My friend who attended over ten years ago said they didn't even have this tool then, but I'm so glad they do now as it will give us some concrete goals to work on.  The name of the game is joining them in their repetitive exclusive behaviors but when we get those green lights for interaction we add one thing.  We join, initiate, and inspire growth.  For example, Clark spends a lot of time playing with strings or blades of grass.  He's totally in his own world when he does this.  The house could be burning down around him and he might or might not look up and take notice.  So when he does this you find your own string or blade of grass and do the same thing he's doing.  This is called joining.  And it really helps sell it if you get into it, enjoy it like he does, or try to see what's so fascinating about it.  The more you feel it, the more likely you are to get some sort of response from him.  This is what you'd call a green light.  A glance, a smile, a touch....most likely Clark will take your string too, so you just have to be clever and pretend to have one or do the same action with something else.  Taking your string and continuing to not notice the person isn't a green light.  He's still being exclusive.  When you do get a green light, you try to inspire growth by adding one thing.  An example might be to make the string dance, and since our particular focus is language you might say, "dance" and ask him to do the same.  If he tries, you give exuberant praise!  The attitude of this program, the 3 E's-energy, excitement, and enthusiasm, is what's going to make or break it.

So here's the Developmental Model.  Basically, you need to plot your child on this model and work through the social stages.  There are five stages and once you've completed all the goals for each stage you move on to the next.  Once you've completed all five stages you probably won't qualify as Autistic anymore because you'll have all the social skills of a socially successful person.  Autism is a social challenge after all.  The four main social components of the Model are eye contact and non-verbal communication, communication including vocabulary and sentence length, interactive attention span, and flexibility.  You know, all those things normal children do naturally without the need to be taught.  Check out the link to read about all of this in more detail.  It all makes quite wonderful sense, and I'm thinking my kids will be way better equipped socially than both Brad and I were at a young age, if we can make the goals.  All of the other things that present themselves as challenges to individuals with Autism, like self-help, gross and fine motor skills, and cognitive skills are truly secondary to these social functions.  Yes, I said cognitive!  Really, how important is it if my child is on par cognitively if he can't look a person in the eye or talk to someone?  Like one of our teachers last week said, people come to this country not knowing anything; language, customs, etc., and make their way because they have the social skills.  Once these things are in place your motivation for the other fundamentals will most likely fall into place automatically or you will be self-motivated to acquire them.

So, we have to find out where both boys are on the Model so we can see the specific goals we need to work on.  This outlook and awesome, user-friendly tool provided quite the eye-opener for us regarding Bernie specifically.  We were not quite sure how to do this whole thing with him besides just using the attitude, etc. and were under the impression that he is doing so well.  Well, he is really, but the model has given us specifics to work on with him.  Once we hit all these marks, he'll be good to go for life.  Clark is going to be much more labor intensive.

The other things we need to do to get started are recruit volunteers, or namely make a flyer and get a plan in action.  We learned a lot about it last week and feel confident we can do it.  I'll talk more about that later, but the prospect of creating a new family is exciting.  We also have to buy and install a camera in the playroom to provide feedback on sessions.  Feedback is crucial.  This is all very exciting and will be a lot of hard-work, but it's the kind of hard-work that could not be more rewarding.  No paycheck required.  Love appreciated.