Without The Son-Rise Program, I would have seen Nathan’s scripting as his deficiency, his autism, a tragedy, the brain injury the doctors saw from his baby brain scans. Thankfully, I see it now as my son trying his very best to communicate given what he has.
About 6 months ago, Nathan would string the craziest words together like, “dragonfly-spam” or “pumpkin-faucet” I would join him by stringing the same words together in a song or peek-a-boo manner, which made him laugh.
It was not what was said that mattered but how exciting it was repeated, how he looked at me and maintained eye-contact and how willing he was to keep this interactive game going.
Today this scripting game has evolved into an interactive game with questions and answers. One of us will ask while the other would answer then we would both laugh and cheer at how funny and interactive the game was. We ask silly questions like: What’s the sound of Teacher Eden sneeze (cough, laugh, fart, etc)? Then move on to anything under the sun like: What’s the sound of ? What’s the sound of ? Who (should make the sound next)? In the end we would have asked tons of questions all in lengthy “conversation”. Yes, a conversation with my son with autism!
We started our Son-Rise Program 2 years ago. Back then, Nathan had no intentional speech, he had very little eye contact, he would not even respond to his name. Back then, his future, or at least my impression of his future, was bleak.
Today, he is learning to spontaneously ask and answer “what” and “who” questions without dropping his glance. He is learning to make conversation. He craves for attention and approaches me anytime of the day wanting similar games to play. This is all because I chose to celebrate his scripting instead of fear it.
Life is beautiful! Thanks to the Son-Rise Program!
