Curing Autism Together

Anna uses the word "freedom" spontaneously & in a novel sentence, first time using and abstract noun

ANNA'S FIRST SIGNS OF UNDERSTANDING/ SPONTANEOUS USE OF AN ABSTRACT NOUN

The last few days of Chinese - and life too, actually - have been really challenging with Anna, where she struggles to learn basic things from language most people knew before school age, like what "this" or "that" are used for (ie, "this" is usually used for nearby stuff, "that is usually for stuff farther away), which was what happened yesterday.  She has trouble understanding what I'm saying and what we're learning at Chinese again because it's doing something she can't or doesn't do in English most of the time, now.  I get so frustrated having to explain to a 20 year old how to use "this" and "that" in a sentence, and there's difficulty even having her understand the teaching that we often have to so sideways into teaching other basics of language just for her to understand my current point - all stuff even a 5 or 6 year old would normally have no problem with.  It's so frustrating I wonder what I'm doing trying, like I am crazy to keep trying. 

 

But here are occasional signs that she's moving developmentally in language she's been using here and there, especially in the last several months since we've "hit a wall" on harder language in the chinese duolingo app.  We work on chinese every day and every day she learns something better about language in general, but we're so behind in terms of the parts of speech and clauses being underused or not used at all that it's easy to feel overwhelmed despite small signs of success creeping in lately.  It's not like when she was starting her recovery, where any improvement or change at all was huge, in part because we were imagining a change in the learning curve that could approach normal or even high functioning, whereas now at 20, little glimmers of progress after years of never spontaneously using prepositions, nor adverbs, nor adjectives, nor conjunctions, nor clauses that make sentences more complex.  It's so easy to feel hopeless or upset with myself for spending so much time trying.  

 

Anna shown here, helping me clean up.  I made a shape with her out of plastic packaging we were going to recycle/ toss, before-hand.  

 

But still, the occurrence of these changes need to be encouraged and focused on by me much like blowing on embers to ignite a flame, is how to speed and encouraged the "sticking" of the newly emerging skill.  There was at least one or a couple changes lately, but the one I just heard was exciting and hopeful a few minutes ago, so I had to write.  (I often write to create a timeline, what happens with her that is hopeful, without ever posting it publicly, because that takes more time than I have at the time when I was recording, but I thought I should post this because it's a big deal.)

 

Anyway, Anna said "I was organizing my christmas paper toys into a zip lock bag so they won't get wet and if I want to I could have the freedom to play with them".  Notice the abstract noun, "freedom", not something we talk about often, not something she has a reason to have rehearsed using.  She often talks about organizing, something I've included her in for many hours as I have cleaned and organized myself, including labeling, cleaning and boxes and folders, etc. but never using new language that I know of.  Since she "hit the wall" as a child learning all the nouns she could that she could see or draw, and unable to learn any "concepts", I've been wondering for years how and when she'd ever be able to learn a concept she couldn't point to in the physical world of nouns and verbs.  Well, how glorious and poetic that "freedom" was her first abstract, spontaneously used abstract noun!  I figured she's use these parts of speech more masterfully first, but getting abstract nouns is something I've been waiting for since she was failing to develop at a year old, worsening, so I've been waiting almost 2 decades for this.  I guess I'll take what I can get and glad this was one I didn't have to coach to directly, a severe rarity when working with autistic people.

Autism 101: Celebrating Autistic People for Interacting - Overview - the Why & How

In the attempt to get my Son-Rise home therapy program participant training automated - at least in part - I am recording and uploading training videos so i don't need to repeat myself with new trainees, who are mostly coming from UWM (Univ of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) and Marquette.  As you recall, I have a "Training Pyramid" of I train people, and am constructing a website with an organized training library which I can put on for them to watch based on what I have that's available, with the intention of putting all my training online.  For now I'll just post them how I find or record them but subscribe to my youtube channel and/or to this blog (see the "feed burner" box at left to do so), and you'll at least be able to see them as they come and decide if they have value for training people who are around your autistic child.  Let me know if there are any topics you especially want dealt with and I'll do a post on it.

 

Today we're focusing on CELEBRATING INTERACTIONS, or what I often call CELEBRATING INTERACTIVE GESTURES, which can be any form of interaction, such as looking at you, helping you, talking with you, looking at your eyes, asking a great question (to you), etc.  This video is after a first session  - AFTER the INITIAL TRAINING (see that video here on my channel), where the trainee did little if any celebrating but did the other elements - (1) "The" attitude (loving, accepting, nonjudgmental, happy, and playful), and (2) joining in the "isms" (the child's autistic behaviors, those they do when withdrawing into their own world) - well.  There are around 25-30 things I teach people about celebrating, but this is a typical first overview of the topic of celebrating interactive gestures - that are so hard for autistic people - in order to encourage them do do more of them.  As you know there are pep rallies and cheerleader in sports for the reason that people observe that those encourage more efforts and enthusiasm of the participants.  Your autistic child who is working hard to communicate and interact with you, would benefit from cheering and encouragement, too!

 

First Son-Rise Training Session for an "ABA" (Applied Behavioral Analysis) Person in our Program

I have contrasted ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) and Son-Rise Program® before but never posted a training video for someone coming from that perspective, so here you go!  I recorded this at the spur of the moment - I didn't even take time to fix my hair before recording because a person was there for their training session and I felt like it was a bit over the top to do that! 

BTW, I always have in Informational Meeting before asking people to come back for training, and some of the Son-Rise perspective has already been set in that person's mind.  Then they come for their first session, like this one, which begins with me asking what they remember and about the program and their experiences (if any) with autistic people.  Then I base the training to build on what they already know.  In this case it's ABA, but that's just one of many possible approaches to teaching this material.  (If the person knows nothing about autism coming in, I have a basic training that I've already posted that is about the "5 things" - 1) The Attitude, 2) Joining, 3) Celebrating (interactions and flexibility), 4) Adding Variety 5) Positioning (for mutual peripheral vision.)

 

 

 

This is my spontaneous rendition of the "ABA person" training at a first session in ourSon-Rise program. I hope its useful for new people to Son-Rise to see.

 

Anyway, the points that came up for me were as follows:

• Son-Rise amps up quality, varied social rewards (such as varied cheering, really fun, novel and improvisational games and behaviors), for social goals, while ABA misses the point by rewarding social goals that aren't genuinely felt to engage in with non-social rewards, leading to "robotic" behaviors (which are never the case in Son-Rise).
  • Behavioral Therapy (ABA) is based on animal training, like Pavlov's Dog:  you ring a bell and give the dog a steak.  Later you ring the bell and the dog drools, because it's anticipated the sound with the steak coming after it before.  In ABA they reward the child with a positive reward - something they want - when they do a behavior that is desired, such as saying "Hello" to someone or looking at their eyes, primarily ABA gives autistic kids non-social/non-people rewards such as jelly beans to eat or electronic toys to play with, but is particularly stingy with and opposed to cheering and positive support and a flexible approach to maximally motivate the child.  They are not ushered into the joys of actual interaction being fun which limits their ultimate feeling of ease and social success, which is what we want from the Son-Rise perspective.
  • The Son-Rise rewards social elements (such as eye contact, communication and flexibility) with a amped-up social rewards, such as a friendly happy person cheering them for talking/ looking and/or more of an interactive activity they want and love, such as pulling them around the room again on a blanket as a pretend sleigh ride, or playing a game they love because the child has asked for it.  As a result "Son-Rised" children look at your eyes or talk to you because they come to enjoy your smile, enjoy seeing you understanding them, or want to hear what you want to add, while ABA children learn to speak so you will give their stuff back and leave them alone (ABA therapy includes primarily interrupting, taking stuff away the child is playing with, to get them to ask for it back), or to get food like jelly beans or something else. 
• ABA believes there are "good" and "bad" behaviors that they are the arbiters of, and rewards good and ignore (or in the old days, punish) the "bad", while Son-Rise believes that these children are doing the best they can in their situation, and loving and accepting them as a whole including the autistic behaviors they love, paves a way to bring their mind together in an organized way and to motivate them to be more social with people they feel great interacting and sharing with.  
  • ABA comes from the perspective that there are good and bad behaviors and those that the child most wants to do - their autistic behaviors such as hand flapping, rocking and spinning, which we'll call "autistic behaviors" or "isms" - are bad, and what the behavioral therapist thinks are good behaviors are, well, good.  They start with judgment and wage war on the child's autistic behaviors by taking things away and telling them to stop 24/7.  The child responds by hiding their autistic behavior from people around them and internalize there is something bad or wrong about them, or shameful, which destroys the relationship and splinters the child mentally into two spheres - the true self and the one they have to show you to not get punished by scowls or other negative treatment such as losing their preferred toys - as well as teaches them that fake, inauthentic behavior is what gets rewarded while their true passions that have the power to draw them out of their world and into ours languish.
  • Son-Rise in contrast is nonjudgmental and accepts the child's autistic behaviors as the child is doing the best they can based on their beliefs, experiences and biology, and recognizes that they serve a useful purpose to the child or they wouldn't be doing them.  That respect leads them to be like your best nonjudgmental friends or family, where you can just be yourself, work on your challenges and grow in a safe environment.  The child's connection with you gives them increasing calm and safety, and is the place social ambitions and practice take root.  We don't want to hinder that by telling them they're being bad to be what they are, autistic!

After that I went over the basics again with him - 

1) the attitude

2) joining

3) celebrating interactions

4) adding variety

5) positioning

and sent him in the room with my daughter.  Good luck and feel free to have a trainee from the "ABA perspective" watch this while you get something else done to help yourself and your child!  Best wishes and respond or contact me if you want to discuss further. Thanks for watching! 

The Work-Your-Way-out-of-Autism Method! Big Learning Opportunities in Basic Work 2017-07-11

Anna has autism and I often create curriculum for her out of what I might have or used to do FOR her which I help her do herself; often really mundane work reveals core autistic deficits precisely because they are so unadorned and basic. I find helping my child do the basic elements of work I might do for her, done with my skilled and supportive help and instruction, makes it an interactive, in-context and compelling activity for her since she gets something she wants out of it when she succeeds finally. She earns money learning cognitive skills like counting "backwards" (down) and wants to add money I paid her to a spreadsheet to make sure she has enough, which is handy way to start using graphs, negative numbers, buying on credit (with a loan from me!), budgeting, addition/ subtraction, and spreadsheet skills. She doesn't NEED to do this to get the toy, but I'm making it a condition of getting the toy that she engage in all this learning to get it, since I'm making her know what she has to spend, has left, etc.

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Youtube video:  Mundane, ordinary work algorithms reveal autistic mental architecture and movement-based cognitive challenges, and provide a clean opportunity to work on them. 

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Even in this simple activity of transferring written entries to an income vs expenses spreadsheet - the lowly task of data entry - we reveal one of the autism core challenges again: the inability to have a smooth linear representation of the flow of anything, it's all chopped up and erratic / uneven. She doesn't seem to be able to represent a number line and make incremental adjustments to it. In the same way I identified her counting one number plus another on disparate hands and in sometimes opposite directions which reflects no innate concept of a single number line to which things can be reduced, here she cannot read a list without jumping down a few and losing track of where she was, which for those functioning normally we know to not leave gaps in any number line and skipping spaces throws it alll off.

She keeps jumping several levels down because she doesn't hold her place with her finger so she keeps losing her place over and over. This is another example of how movement is underrated in it's involvement in cognitive problems and how ABMN (Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement) techniques. It reminds me of how I taught her to count with the unfolding of a single finger for each number she incremented up.

I also threw in a few impromptu ABMN directions partway through - moving slowly, asking her to do different movements she's not used to doing, in this case with her elbows because she put her elbow out toward me - an atypical movement - and I jumped on it. Leading your child in intentional, slow, atypical movements that require thought and body awareness throughout are at the heart of the ABM Neuromovement toolbox, and can help boost your child's neuroplasticity, which can speed their recovery from autism, as if making them younger again when recovery was easier.

Autistic kids learning number lines to grow more linear brain architecture, plus learning to brush hair

Autistic kids struggle with mental fragmentation, and this makes the concept of an unbroken linear, regularly spaced "number line" foreign and hard to absorb for them.  Imagine if someone asked you to count and you had 7 tape measures each measuring different parts of it - like 1-7 is on one tape measure, 9-10 on another, and 8 and 11-13 on another, etc.  It's confusing.  There is nowhere to see them as an unbroken line and no habit of trying to merge them.  This is what it's like for autistic kids, in my opinion.  This is also why kids with autism get so focused on and successful in science and math and music because it's the first place linear concepts are taught and we hold into that (yes I'm autistic too!) for dear life and see things built upon that, without which regular social interactions and "regular life" has no such anchoring and we feel confused by it.  I remember being so great at the Periodic Table and a brilliant science student because those things could explain everything and nothing was left out.  It's like the linear space for those kids gifted with math - there is nothing you cannot describe mathematically, or model, at least at some level and eventually.

 

Teaching Anna about number lines and brushing hair today 7/1/17

 

In this video I'm trying to teach my daughter in such a way that she has can create that continuous number line in her mind's eye - or the conceptualization of it - as the anchor on which to build all math comprehension.  (There is a big section on brushing hair that happened in passing at the beginning - I'll do another video about hair brushing and washing challenges at another time.) My recent computer science studies reminded me how computers in the end only do incrementing, decrementing and comparison (greater than / less than / equal) so, fundamentally I understand people as doing the same with numbers at the most fundamental level.  (For example, multiplication is just multiple incrementing, exponentials are just multiple multiplication, etc.)  All math then falls apart, makes no sense or has foundation to grow on if you have no mental construct of an unbroken and potentially endless number line.  I get so upset when all the people I have ever instructed to see things in fundamentals over the last 8 years don't see what I see but I think this may be a special gift I have since I'm autistic too - at least borderline so at this point.  If you don't understand regular movements of the same size - like stepping and counting for each step or counting up a number as you lift each finger one by one, you don't understand what those numbers "mean" (this is Anat's influence on me - seeing how movement underlies cognitive comprehension, and how knowing is impaired by disorderly movement).

I have worked with my daughter so many times on creating a regular number line on her fingers, as well as on a meterstick.  I realized I should start recording before she understands it all and people won't have the opportunity to see how to teach this themselves.  

In this video I'm catching the end of our session today where we're working on putting numbers on a number line in a context she cares about and is motivated to accomplish it. Son-Rise and Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement ("ABMN") both couch learning in a context that the child actually wants to develop the skills you want them to, too.  Anna ran out of digestive enzymes/probiotic (Enzymedica Digest Gold + Probiotics) that were part of the cure of her Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).  (This IBD cure which I designed succeeded - see past blogs on this - and I am writing a book with the protocol).  I have always wondered if these supplements were an essential element of the cure or not, since she used them at the time she was cured and never stopped. This was an opportunity to test whether they were key in maintaining her recovery.  I told her she needed to put the prices per capsule on Amazon - which I calculated - on a number line in order to determine the least expensive per capsule.  I did this because she couldn't tell me which of the 5 numbers was the least expensive - she flat out guessed at numbers in the middle of the range - and I thought she needed the number line to understand my question.  

She demonstrates she doesn't understand what least and most mean.  In fact, I decided to record this video when I asked her which was least expensive and she was flat out guessing the answers incorrectly, and when I asked her what it it would "mean" to buy something least expensive, or what "most expensive" meant, expecting she might say "you pay more money for it" or something else evidencing comprehension through rewording, she could only repeat back that least expensive meant it was least expensive.  She didn't understand the word or math concept of what I was asking.  The more fundamental, huge and "worse" the lack of comprehension, the more important to address and focus there and the more the return.  It means you've struck gold in understanding how to recover someone from autism.  Yeah!!  

She struggles but eventually gets it.  Then we celebrated and ordered the supplements after the video.  A happy ending and she is finally, through visuals, coming to understand least and most and how that is expressed through a number line.  Thanks for reading, do try this at home, and let me know if it's useful for you!  Do like our video, too, if you want to encourage me to publish more!

Adding ABMN elements to a Son-Rise Program; Strengthening autistic short-term memory; Anna's first homework

Anna is "moving" developmentally in response to some new elements I've been adding to her Son-Rise® Program, some that I invented, some drawn from the Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® (ABMN) approach (I became an ABMN practitioner in May 2017). While actual ABMN requires someone who has been through the training to do physically with someone or directing them physically, lots of elements are about thinking and general awareness (what they call "being present" in the Son-Rise Program) can be incorporated into working with autistic kids or adults by anyone as play therapy goals that require no touch or special touch, which ABM does of course.  (See earlier posts where I mentioned teaching body position awareness, balance, and my teaching my child how to brush and wash her hair, for other examples.)

 

INCREASING SHORT-TERM MEMORY
In a past video I mentioned how I theorized from the data that autistic people have as a cause, result or co-occurring sub-normal short-term memory ability, and have been creating opportunities for my child to use her short term memory in a context where she would be motivated to do so.  BTW I've decide to coin a term for this formerly elusive but now to me obvious phenomenon that I've never heard anyone before describe or address, for now, "Autistic Short-Term Memory Deficit" or "ASTMD".

Today's session 06-29-17

For example, drawn from my insight around a year ago that curriculum can/ should come her learning to do everything I do for her, I started working on my child remembering phone numbers as I look for commercial real estate space for my office for ABMN and Option Process® Mentoring. I'm teaching her exactly what I do, which is to repeat the number I see on a sign as I drive past it until I can pull over to write it down or make the initial call (for example at the next light). I remember doing an exercise at the Option Institute's (home of the Son-Rise Program) week long adult programs that involved using our short term memories for an extended period and noticed an improvement in my short term memory that to this day is an asset I can use, an obvious demonstration of neuroplasticity of the adult brain, and that practicing using it would improve this ability. My child gets rewarded with buying whatever she wants with the money, usually toys but sometimes organizational containers, books, etc. for her toys, trading cards, etc. 

Also you can see her interrupt me several times while I'm in mid-sentence, which I believe is a combination of lack of awareness that I'm talking and inability to remember (or belief that she will not or cannot remember) long enough to share it after I finish.  I'm working on asking her to hold her thought, then say it later, but still refining the goal. I'm thinking now I can have her hold her thought, count to 2, then say it, then increase the counts over time.  I still celebrate the urge to share which is an interactive gesture, which is a Son-Rise core technique.

 

USING ADULT DOT-TO-DOT BOOKS TO TEACH THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MATH SKILLS

 My daughter is still struggling with the most fundamental math skills, and I have to in the end teach them to her because despite people best intentions, all the math she's done so far still doesn't stick or allow her to do most of the most basic things because people don't "get" what's going on autistically, but I do.  She never learned incrementing, decrementing and comparison, which is what's doing on in a computer CPU and what's beneath everything we learn mathematically.  It's too big a topic to cover here but counting this was is the product of regular and ordered movement done in a consistent way which my child never did, and requires a map of a continuous, regularly stepping number line in her mind's eye.  I have taught her regular stepwise counting on her hands involving regular "pumping" of her arm accompanied by lifting a single finger as she counts (using ABMN skills of observation), bought several meter sticks which I use whenever I need her to picture adding or subtracting as moving up or down the meter stick for a visual, and finally, using dot-to-dot books to teach her how to increment, and now how to decrement.  In this video you can see how effective these books are because they're fun and the skill is learned while the child is having fun. Making learning fun is a core Son-Rise goal, and I'm always mining what my child loves to do - such as doing dot-to-dots - for what can be learned from them, where in society any piece of any activity she likes can have value and she can make a living with it, and I develop activities with those "motivators" in that direction. 

 

ABMN ELEMENTS   

Noticing Distinctions

Anat Baniel, creator of ABMN, always says that a noticing distinctions is THE stuff of learning, so whenever I can offer my child opportunities to notice and expand on observation of distinctions between things I do so.  If we're looking at two houses out of the window I start noticing and pointing out distinctions and ask her to notice and name differences too and celebrate as she does, in keeping with the Son-Rise goal to reward flexibility (the child doing what you ask for, mostly).  When my child recently started replacing her My Little Pony Ty Beanie Babies with the "sparkle hair" versions, I immediately saw an opportunity to compare then, and offer her $5 to list at least 10 differences between old and new ones.  She has to be present and use her "outer sensory loop" (see my prior post about autistic "inner memory loop" over "outer sensory loop") throughout the activity and sees finer distinctions within the whole, thus creating mental refinement as well, that can generalize to other activities such as math or more subtle language.

 

Anna has come such a long way! This was the child that used to run in the street to see me get upset, and here we were surrounded by something like 6 different roads including 4-lane highway feeder roads, on this little island, and I realized I was trusting her not to do something crazy like that - trusting her with her life!  She had found the world made sense and she wanted to be in it, and that I could laugh and she could get the reactions she wanted from me reliably doing other things, now.  Her brother, looking like a like secret service agent, is there too, as we walked back from downtown Milwaukee, taking our first ever spontaneous bus adventure trip, which was pretty impressive how cool she was too.  

 

First Homework

Anna's FIRST HOMEWORK EVER happened in the assignment of this activity, and by "homework" I mean assigned thinking work done when she was on her own. She will sometimes vacuum or clean things on her own, but NEVER done assigned "thinking" work on her own before.  She had this activity twice before with two other prior ponies she upgraded so I thought this was a pattern she could feel confident doing on her own.  I set up the activity in one of our life curriculum books and asked her to go ahead and do the contrast while I was out.  After suggesting this sort of "on-your own" activity before - again, that I have done almost every time I've ever left the house, so at this point hundreds or thousands of times - AMAZINGLY she did!! She didn't get all the way to 10 elements but had listed something like 3-5 additional elements, after my first 1-2 examples I had gone through with her before leaving.  She was eager to show me several times when I returned that night, which I celebrated with her (substantially inwardly as Anat recommends, which percolates through to positive attitude, which is what Son-Rise advocates, although with some outward praise in keeping with Son-Rise).  

 

Don't force - be easy with the child's timeline

Note that she did this first homework when she felt sufficiently comfortable with the pattern of activity expected and confidence in her ability that it demanded.  This is similar to Son-Rise and ABMN totally accepting the child's timeline and not forcing it; we offer opportunities but not punishment if they are not ready, without judging that timeline.  Anat always says the brain is a quantum system and that as long as there is any change, that's all that matters, no matter how small.  Every outward change in behavior reflects a change in the brain, and we never know whether the small change is the first, middle or last snowflake to a dramatic quantum shift.  So have faith that the step the child just took is necessary on their path to recovery from autism and don't believe you can force the speed to increase.  A core ABMN principle (see 9 essentials from any of Anat's books) is doing things "slow", which means the slowest speed that system can see the distinctions, and when the child feels they can go at their slowest necessary speed that's when greater learning happens. 

 

Don't strain newly acquired abilities or connections in the brain

In keeping with ABMN, I didn't ask her to "finish" the activity, although I would been tempted to - seeing that she is so close to her goal - prior to getting the ABMN training.  Forcing someone to keep going when they have had an initial success, Anat says, may destroy or limit the progress that day or in the future. Instead I celebrated my daughter's success and let her feel good about it and leave the next step until the next day, facilitating her to integrate it into long-term memory.

 

ABMN's "Slow" concept helps us work on the Son-Rise Goal of sensing & articulating the desire for breaks

Incidentally, our Stage 3 Son-Rise Developmental Model goal "appropriately communicates when she wants to change or stop an activity" - probably not accidentally the only one from stage 3 we didn't complete.  I'm finding lots of opportunities to work on with her in implementing her desire to take breaks to integrate her new learnings.   Anat teaches us not to force someone to learn or do something they are just learning past where they naturally want to stop after initial success, anyway.  It's only after they have been successful, let it drop, and return when they're ready, that the ease and pleasure around mastery really takes root, and she suggests "drilling" is less effective than the "declare victory and leave the field" approach.  Forcing continuation of something when they feel done makes it feel unpleasant and a person's brain wants to avoid it, and this will make the person NOT keep that route, due to the unpleasant outcome, I'm guessing.  

One of our longer-term Son-Rise program participants, Brandi, at her yoga studio "Zen Gen" grand opening with Anna.   She had participated since 2014 while in business school to accomplish this goal and will only be an alternate now.  She's one of 3 yoga instructors we have had in our program, since many principles of yoga are well suited to Son-Rise.  I just offered her to write up a post on how yoga and Son-Rise mesh and I will post all or parts in a separate post, in exchange for publishing more links and info for her business, which would be a win-win.

 

ABOUT ME

Skills for sale!  

I continue to use both systems of thought to help myself now with my own high functioning autism.  I'm setting up a practice to do Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement Lessons and Option Process Dialogue sessions in person in Milwaukee WI, and am finalizing customizing an online scheduling web app that will allow me to do phone sessions as well as be at platform for other Option Process Mentors to be open to getting sessions through the Power of Clarity® LLC, which is my new company name under which I offer both services (ABMN and Option Process).  I will post about it once it's open for registration.  

 

Son-Rise + Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement: Invaluable, possibly necessary for full recovery from Autism

Option Institute / Son-Rise training, classes and "Option Process Dialogues" helped me choose and have more conscious control over my emotional reactions to things which used to overwhelm and stop me as an autistic person before, and have the "why not?" attitude toward going for what I wanted as well as determination to persist at it.  However ABMN training allowed me to see challenges, which used to always look like mountains, rapidly and effortlessly crumble into doable pieces that make momentum toward whatever I'm doing increase. Both were and are invaluable to my recovery from autism which is nearly complete.  I am just trying to share what I know before I decide to move forward, so email me at barb@powerofclarity.com for more information or call 800-800-0321 between 9:30am-9:30pm central time (US) to discuss; leave a message if I am unable to answer. 

 

CONCLUSION

Good luck using these techniques at home.  The Son-Rise® Program and the Anat Baniel Method® Neuromovement® are the best things I've found to help with people of any age with autism improve dramatically and lastingly, including myself!