FRIENDS in Autism Treatment- #5 ABA vs. Son-Rise Program

http://www.autismhelp.com In this playful video, The Son-Rise Program is compared to ABA with regard to its approach to social development. The Son-Rise Program Social Developmental Model prioritizes social goals (communication, eye contact, interactive attention spans, and flexibility) above academic goals. Academic goals, while important, will do nothing to help our children with Autism overcome their central challenge of connecting with others socially. As first priority, do we want our children to have more math or more friends? Do we want our children to compensate for their socialization challenges or overcome them? With The Son-Rise Program, socialization is taught first, and seeks not to help the child compensate for social skills deficits but rather to overcome them, so they can make friends and develop a real social life first, and focus on academic development secondarily.

INTERESTING FACT: The actor representing The Son-Rise Program in this video, also the script writer, is fully recovered from severe Autism himself.

The Autism Treatment Center of America™ is home to The Son-Rise Program®, an effective treatment for children and adults challenged by Autism Spectrum Disorders, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Asperger's Syndrome , and other developmental difficulties. Our team of committed teachers represents over 100 years of real life experience working with children using The Son-Rise Program. Over the last 35+ years, more than 25,000 parents and professionals from 78 countries have been trained in The Son-Rise Program techniques and methodology to help challenged children worldwide.

We believe that every child has unlimited potential. For some of The Son-Rise Program participants, this means their child returns to mainstream school or completely recovers from Autism. For other families, this means improvements in their child's development, social skills, communication, skill acquisition and quality of life far beyond what most would have ever predicted.

The Son-Rise Program® focuses on respect and deep caring as the most important factors impacting a child's motivation to learn, and from the beginning has made love and acceptance a meaningful part of every teaching process. In The Son-Rise Program, the children show us the way in to their world, and then we show them the way out to ours.

The Son-Rise Program® was created by Barry ("Bears") Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman when their son, Raun, was diagnosed as severely and incurably autistic. Although advised to institutionalize him because of his "hopeless, lifelong condition," the Kaufmans instead designed an innovative home-based, child-centered program in an attempt to reach their little boy.

The Kaufmans' unique treatment, which featured joining Raun in his repetitive rocking and spinning, marked a complete departure from existing methods of Autism treatment. Raun was transformed from a mute, withdrawn child with an IQ of less than 30 into a highly verbal, socially interactive youngster with a near-genius IQ.

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[meadowlotus]

Have you noticed that the best things in life are not things? Relationships with the people whom I love are the highlight of my life. I chose the Son Rise program because of it's focuses on relationships. I found that by making relationships the primary focus of my Son Rise program that my son actually learnt all the other stuff anyway without my need to create lessons to teach it. You can go through life without being able to tie shoelaces - buy slipons, but who wants to go through life alone?

[abancroft1]

Love The Son-Rise Program !! xxx

[meadowlotus]

@Reichieru1 It seems that ABA judges the agenda of the adult as being more worthwhile than the child's agenda. One of my child's behaviours that you would have sought to reduce is him walking around the room 'writing' in the air. He did this for many hours and didn't sit at a table at all. However instead of attempting to stop this I joined it. After many days I realised that he was working out the 1812 overture by Tchaikowsky. Now he can play it on the piano. I'm so glad I went with him on this

[Reichieru1]

@meadowlotus ABA is just a set of principals that govern all actions of all people, and there is far more to it than setting up the environment. Setting up the environment is about providing opportunities to communicate, making the child comfortable, and reducing the behaviours that interfere with their ability to learn, not motivation. That being said, if a child likes playdough, we may put it on a high shelf to provide them with the chance to mand for it.

[meadowlotus]

@Reichieru1 Ah an ABA program. I understand where your comments are coming from. As I understand it ABA is based on a set of beliefs that by setting up an environment with predictable desired/undesired consequences the child will learn the things that we the adults want them to learn. So essentially you are hoping that the child will look outside of themselves for the cues to motivate themselves. That is, one of the fundamental differences between Son Rise and ABA

[Reichieru1]

@meadowlotus Provincial just means that is where the funding comes from, the province. It's not a particular technique. They adapt based on needs of the children, which is very easy with ABA because ABA isn't a technique, just a set a principals that apply to how all behaviours work. The children learn how to talk about how they feel. They talk about what friends are, any social skills they need to learn, and then practice them, taking into account all the individual needs of the children.

[meadowlotus]

@Reichieru1 It looks like the Social Circle technique is a differnet one to the one that I was refering too - as you could only carry that out somewhere that had groups of children to enlist as 'friends'.

What sort of program is your 'provincial' program?

[Reichieru1]

@meadowlotus Not once did I say school. The programs I am refering to are designed for people with autism that take into account all of those needs.

[Reichieru1]

@meadowlotus Not once did I say school. The programs I am refering to are designed for people with autism that take into account all os those needs.

[meadowlotus]

@Reichieru1 I used to work in a school and taught using social circles and I agree they do have some success. However I used to find that the children were very overstimulated at school by the environment which meant that they learned more slowly, plus the other children kept dropping out as they found it challenging. With the Son Rise Program you create a very low stimulus room in which to teach, with adults one at a time, my son has learned so much faster like this.

[Reichieru1]

@meadowlotus The provincial programs in Ontario have social circles in which they do all that stuff, and not all children can just absorb the information other information, anyway. Some still need to be explicitly taught. And you're right, what is the big deal about not being able to tie your shoes? Any ethical therapist will focus on the skills that matter the most to the parents.

[seanpdineen]

brainwashing, instead of encouragements