OPTION FOR Autism
The Option Institute and Autism
The Son-Rise Program® was created by Barry Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman to reach their own son, diagnosed as incurably autistic with an under 30 IQ, and transformed him into a young man with a near-genius IQ, who graduated from an Ivy League university and has no trace of his original condition. After directing a learning center for adolescent students, he became a teacher and trainer at The Option Institute and recently became the CEO of the Institute as well as Autism Treatment Center of America, a division of the Institute, where The Son-Rise Program is taught to parents and families from all around the world.
This unique treatment program, based on an attitude of love and acceptance, is profoundly gentle, non-judgmental and respectful of the child's world and creates maximum opportunity for growth.
For more than 25 years, The Son-Rise Program offered by Autism Treatment Center of America has helped parents of children challenged by Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Asperger's Syndrome, and other developmental difficulties to help their children. As a parent conducting home-based Son-Rise Program, you learn to be there for their child in the most caring and helpful ways. You gain expertise in implementing unique and useful techniques. Most importantly, just as you ask your child to grow and change, you yourself have grow and change.
As a Son-Rise Program parent or volunteer, you learn that, although techniques are vital, it is your own attitude, drive, clarity and ability to believe in yourself and your child (even when no one else does) that help you to implement a successful program.
Over the years we've found that parents conducting home-based Son-Rise Programs find personal development programs at The Option Institute invaluable in gaining greater clarity, comfort and ease in working with their child and others.
Do you want to become a stronger program leader providing powerful feedback to volunteers, therapists, and even I.E.P. decision-makers? Would you like to develop skills to counsel those who work with your child so that they can become calmer, clearer and better able to help him or her more effectively? How about developing a relationship with your partner that is deeper, sweeter, closer and more fun? Or, how about (dare I say it!) taking a week to actually focus on YOU, building an unshakable sense of internal strength that can’t be rocked by what others say or do?
Any one of The Option Institute personal development programs can help Son-Rise parents and volunteers in their Son-Rise Programs and in their lives. However, there are several courses that Son-Rise parents who have completed The Son-Rise Program Sequence have found particularly useful.
Programs for Son-Rise Parents and Volunteers
Son-Rise parents who have completed The Son-Rise Program sequence have found the following programs particularly useful.
Optimal Self-Trust
Do you ever second-guess yourself when trying to be creative in the playroom? Have you ever doubted yourself when leading a team meeting? When making a controversial decision (with your program, with your child's diet, with your job), do you have the confidence to see it through when those around you don't agree or criticize? In Optimal Self-Trust you'll learn to make choices with absolute confidence. You know. We'll teach you how to know what you know.
PowerDialogues
In the PowerDialogues workshop, you'll acquire an amazing set of tools that you can use to help your child reach the next level of communication or help you volunteers overcome limiting beliefs and discomforts. for example, have you ever provided feedback to volunteers who seem not to respond or change? Most likely, the issue isn't technical, but attitudinal.
In PowerDialogues, you'll learn how to help your volunteers move beyond attitudinal issues (fears, discomforts, frustrations and doubts) that limit their work with your child. You'll gain a proficiency in our core counseling method so that you can help others in the same manner that we have helped you. With just a few simple questions, you'll help others (and yourself!) gain ease, clarity and comfort.
Fearless
Most parents experience fear, even with typical children. For Son-Rise Program moms and dads, Fear can be a bigger challenge, impacting your Son-Rise Program, your relationship, and other areas of your life. In Fearless, you'll overturn the myths that make fear seem uncontrollable. You'll see how all of your fears are actually rational, not irrational. As you discover the rationale behind your fears, you'll learn how to disarm them and banish them, permanently.
Empower Yourself
You know that running a successful Son-Rise Program requires you to be a powerhouse -- willing to see the possibilities when others doubt, willing to take decisive action for you child even without the support of those around you, willing to ask volunteers to stand and deliver, and willing to remain focused and strong in the face of opposition. In Empower Yourself, you'll gain practical, hands-on training to develop the skills, the focus and the stamina to pursue everything you want with strength energy and power.
The Son-Rise Program
Over the last 25 years our team of dedicated professionals have worked with more than 22,000 parents and professionals from around the world teaching them a system of treatment and education.
We have seen that:
- Children with Autism are capable of learning, communicating, experiencing real joy and happiness, and developing warm and satisfying relationships with the people in their lives.
- Children with Autism, no matter how severe, can be helped to experience intimacy, comfort, warmth and love.
- Children with Autism can learn to enjoy affection and to run toward a parent to be tickled, hugged or held.
- Children with Autism can learn to look into another person's eyes and laugh with genuine, shared delight.
We believe:
- Although your child may seem withdrawn and disconnected, he has the capacity to love, to laugh, to enjoy a cuddle or a tickle.
- Although your child may react aggressively or erratically, she can be helped to digest her environment so that smiles, hugs and a real sense of caring engagement are the norms, not the exceptions.
- Although your child may be falling behind in areas of development such as language, self-care skills and social skills, he is capable of learning and of having that learning process be enjoyable rather than stressful both for you and for him.
- Although your child may be highly verbal with a high I.Q. while experiencing huge struggles socially, she can learn to look into another person's eyes with shared joy, to laugh at jokes, to find diverse interests, and to become truly successful at building meaningful friendships