Tag Archives: Singapore

Counting my blessings

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As I sat in church yesterday, I recalled how I first stood in front of our former church (back in Japan) to ask for volunteers who could help us run our son-rise program.

Marie was one of the first to respond to our invitation. She even recruited another friend to help us.

She came to our home every week after school. Even on school holidays, Marie to use her holidays to be with Nathan. And she never missed a monthly team meeting.

When she first came to play with Nathan, there was no words (at least no intentional speech), there was no interaction and there was no eye-contact. Marie simply “joined” Nathan in his world of autism and learned his autism language first before inviting him to speak our language. Above all, Marie simply loved playing with Nathan and Nathan knew it! During their sessions, I would enjoy listening to their laughter.

With the rest of that first son-rise team, Nathan started asking us for things, his “voice” was finally heard, his eye-contact went from 5% to 90%. He started looking right at us and he started wanting to be around people more. All this happened in as little as one month of part-time son-rise.

We have moved to Singapore since but Marie, will always be a special to us.

For me, as a parent, Marie gave me the ability to believe that there are people out there who can love my child for who he is and who will to hold our hands as we journey through autism.

What an amazing world we live in and how blessed we are to be surrounded by such amazing people!

Mother’s Isms

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I gave birth to my twins and youngest via c-section.  As typical, an epidural anesthesia was given and I had no sensation of my body, from waist down, for the rest of the day.  “This is how it must feel like to be paralyzed,” I thought.  I pinched my leg, and it felt like I was pinching a giant ham, something separate from my own body.  I lifted and dropped my leg with my hands and no sensation.  As the hours passed, I kept pinching, poking, dropping, hitting my legs just to see how the sensation changes as the anesthesia wore off.  After every hour, the sensation changed which got me to continue pinching, poking, dropping and hitting my legs until I could finally feel them completely.  Then it wasn’t fun anymore.  Everything was just back to normal.

 

I was recalling all that as I sat next to Nathan in the son-rise room, “joining” him as he ismed (autistic, repetitive behavior).  He was feeling the sensation of the pages of his book as he flipped it across his fingers.  “Joining” is the son-rise’s unique way of showing a child with autism that he is loved and accepted no matter what crazy, repetitious, seemingly random behaviors he exhibits.  It is also the most powerful tool parents can use to really get into their child’s world and understand how they feel…as I was doing earlier.  Just as I couldn’t feel my legs because of anesthesia, Nathan probably cannot feel his extremities well because of his cerebral palsy and/or gut issues.  Back at the hospital, I “ismed”  on my leg trying  understand the mystery of anesthesia and nerve connections.  Nathan also isms to try to get a better understanding of his sense of touch.  When he isms he is only trying his best to cope considering he has problems with nerve connections.

 

Conventional therapy tells the child to stop isming because the behavior looks “different”.  Son-rise finds out why the child needs to ism.  And the more they are allowed to ism, the more they are able to heal themselves until they do not need to ism anymore.

 

Another thought entered my mind.  As I sat isming away, my mind could really fly into a parallel universe and totally block out the person in front of me.  Exactly what what kids with autism do.  I finally snapped out of it and realized that Nathan had already put his ismy book down and was now looking straight at me.  Once again, “joining” has accomplished what it usually does:  gets the attention of the child who normally will just stay in their own world.  When Nathan looked at me, it was as if he said, “Thanks for understanding me and speaking my language, now I’m ready to come out of my world and enter yours.”  He gave me his full attention and allowed me to finish reading the rest of my book for him.

 

I love son-rise for giving me these moments to reflect and truly understand my child.

 

Amor seems to be responding to MMS

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I took Amor to the mall. Today I was more confident, it’s day 9 since starting MMS. I’ve noticed she is more calm and understands/follows instructions better. Usually, her biggest challenge (or my biggest challenge when I’m with her) is her transitioning issues/flexibility. It’s usually hard getting her to go home at the end.

However, today Amor was good. She looked at toys but I eventually steered her away to get some groceries. On the way home she said, “Hey, look at that!” I though, “Oh no, should I move on and keep walking like I didn’t hear her? I’ll never get her home if she really likes what she ‘s seeing.” It was a car ride. I was brave enough to allow her to ride. I even gave her a dollar to drive. Amazing after her ride, I told her it was time to go. Still allowing her full control (son-rise way), I offered that she could stay if she wanted. She decided to come home with me…thank goodness.

Furthermore, while walking to and from the mall, she corrected her steps when I reminded her to “roll your feet.” Otherwise, she unconsciously tip-toe walks.

Day 3 of MMS

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Today during our son-rise session, Nathan started singing songs that he learned about 2 years ago from Barney shows but he hadn’t sang them for those 2 years. My eyes started filling with tears because I was recalling how Nathan regressed into autism.

At age 2 Nathan knew his nursery rhymes. In fact we even had our own version of “name that tune” and he even made me his mommy-dukebok as he requested songs.

At age 2 1/2 Nathan was singing all the songs from our favorite kids CD. He would hum as he thought what song to sing next. I got a little worried when his humming between songs got longer and longer….At the end of a year, there was no more songs, just humming. Eventually the shocking diagnosis, autism.

But today, on only the 3rd day of MMS, he’s suddenly recalling songs from those few years when he was slowly regressing. Is this happening?

As I cried, Nathan stopped and looked at me. His face was trying to ask, “why to do you have tears in your eyes?” I just returned the gaze with amazement…and more tears. He was concerned about me. I explained those were tears of joy.

Later in the evening he got an old book that I used to read to them as babies. As I guided him, he “read” through it, instead of flip the pages and feel the texture.

If MMS can get Nathan to his 3 or even 2 1/2-year-old level, in terms of interactive attention….we can son-rise all the way and catch up on those missing years. He is now 6 years, 4months.

More than ever, please pray for us. MMS is giving us so much boost (from viewing stories of other families and now this, only day 3 of MMS). Is this it? The burden made easy?

Keeping faith.

My first impression of Son-Rise Program for autism

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When I first encountered the son-rise program, I thought, “What a crazy type of autism therapy!”

A unique quality of the son-rise program is joining a child’s “isms” (autistic, exclusive repetitive behavior). I thought, “Why would I want to copy the exact behavior that I want to eradicate?” I mean if today you were to watch my son-rise sessions with Nathan, you would see Nathan tapping a Lego on his face and I would do the same and see how that would feel. If he spins the wheels on a car, I would follow. Then you might ask, “Ok, which one was autistic again?”

Luckily, it didn’t feel bad about joining Nathan’s verbal isms. If he said the craziest thing like “alimtayao”, I copied him. Hey, what did I have to lose? To my surprise, he smiled at me. I kept on copying his crazy language and I got more laughs and good eye-contact in no time. In about a month Nathan started social referencing. Something he has never done before. He would go do something mischievous but right before doing it, he would turn around to check if I was looking, then he would do it and laugh knowing that I was paying attention. What a delight for me. Eye-contact and social referencing, giant steps after just a month of copying Nathan’s crazy language. How could I not want to learn more about son-rise?

We asked for the son-rise starter’s kit. As I read through many of their books and listened and watched their CDs, everything was making sense…and making me cry. I was crying that something so wonderful as a possible cure to autism was out there! Nathan was 5 and it took me that long to discover it.

Attending the son-rise start up got us embarked on a wonderful journey through autism. My world changed from worrying what would be of my son’s future when my husband and I pass away (would his siblings take care of him?) to knowing that Nathan would do just great!

The results of joining an autistic child’s “isms” are immediately evident. Autistic kids start to crave for social attention. Plus they will give us so much more because we have not demanded anything from them. Work on social skills and everything else follows.

Seven months after I attended the son-rise start-up, my husband also attended. Nathan’s autism recovery changed from being just my sole responsibility to a family endeavor. Another big burden taken off my back. The road ahead made easier. And the thing is, my husband enjoys son-rising Nathan.

Does son-rise take away time from other kids? Quantity-wise maybe, but it actually enriches relationships with them. Because we have learned to be fully attentive to Nathan and his needs during son-rise, we know to do the same for the other kids. Traditional, I would brush them aside like, “hey, you’re smart enough, go do that by yourself.” Now, we learn to pay more attention to their needs and figure out quality time for them.

Loving our son-rise journey through autism!

Curse or Blessing?

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In 2010, we learned that my husband’s job would bring us from Japan to Singapore. Knowing that there were many special schools for my twins in Singapore, we were excited about the move. In fact we requested the company to move us even earlier, 2011. Negotiations brought us to Singapore by 2012.

Meanwhile in Japan, I was in what I thought the most tragic situation. Nathan was too old for Peter Pan Pre-School, German School did not have the resources to handle autism, even St. Michael’s, which accepts special-needs kids and where Nathan had a great interview (he must have answered 99% of the items, colors, letters, etc. right), rejected him. Marist School was starting to open up for special needs kids but again the familiar rejection letter. After Nathan’s official autism diagnosis, in about that period, I found myself crying every afternoon, asking God, “Why me? Why Nathan? When will I know why we have to go through all this?” Finally we found a wonderful Japanese School for special needs kids. It was great with the most wonderful teachers, but how far could Nathan’s communication improve if everything was in Nihongo? Still I had to keep searching…

Looking back I realize that all that was actually my blessing. If we had moved to Singapore earlier, we would have found a special-needs school and found some sort of comfort that Nathan would be ok. I wouldn’t have looked any further. I wouldn’t have tried Stem Cells or studied Applied Behavioral Analysis in search for what the best program was for Nathan. I wouldn’t have found the Son-Rise Program and realize that that was the right way to go.

In the end, everything that we
went trough was actually our blessing. Our Son-Rise journey continues to be our blessing.

Physical Developments

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Last week Nathan had another developmental assessment (for the nth time) just to establish baseline (again!) for our new Singapore Neurologist.

At the assessment, the Physical Therapist said that Nathan does not look like he has cerebral palsy (limited mobility of legs) at all . She said, “He may be tip-toe walking from sensory or accustomed/patterned walking. But a child with CP wouldn’t be able to do that “…as she pointed to Nathan climbing into a hamper. Nathan also showed-off other skills like walking backwards, with assistance.

I didn’t know if I should be upset because I wasn’t confident in her ability to diagnose. I mean Nathan was born premature and needed a respirator in his first 3 days of life. Oxygen deprivation affected the area in his brain responsible for walking. All his doctors and therapists in Japan and the Philippines have confirmed his CP.

On the other hand, maybe I should be super excited that Nathan has progressed so much that they cannot detect his CP anymore, other than tip-toe walking???

A few months back, in Japan, Nathan’s Physical Therapist did say it looked like Nathan woke up new muscles after his Son-Rise Program. With more time and constant use it those new muscles, improvements would be inevitable.

More proof that son-rise can fix anything neurological! Yes, there is a mountain in front of me, but slowly I shall chip it away until it flattens itself!

Son-Rise elements that helped:
1. Give child full control.
Whenever Nathan wants to climb in table tops, so be it (just ensure safety). By giving full control, the child learns, “I can achieve anything I set my mind on doing.” Many times autistic kids are stopped from doing many things: touching buffet tables, getting some else’s fries, running around, flapping their hands, etc. They aren’t given enough control and encouragement to pursue further.

2. Kids always do things (“isms”) for a reason. If you spend enough time joining them and investigating what it is they enjoy about their “isms”, you will soon discover how those “isms” benefit the child. In Nathan’s case he needs extra sensory input (from climbing and standing on table tops) to help his brain “recognize” his legs and thus improve balance and muscle tone.

Gaging Progress

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Looking back: We started Applied Behavioral Analysis (a conventional autism therapy) in 2011, when Nathan was 5-years-old. In early 2012, Nathan’s ABA therapist recommended that we target teaching Nathan a useful skill that he could use. We identified: To teach him to point by August 2012 (before our move to Singapore). A six-month target, which they believed was reasonable. Prior to that, Nathan had never pointed in his life.

Simultaneously, Nathan’s speech therapist targeted for Nathan to speak with intention. At that point, Nathan was highly verbal, but many times I would wonder if he meant what he said or was simply pulling out quotes from TV or songs. The speech therapist wanted Nathan to intentionally say “I want raisins” and this would be indicated by Nathan picking up a raisin flash card.

Those therapist were of course wonderful people, trying their very best to help Nathan.

Continuing with the time line…on February 2012, I attended the Son-Rise Start-Up and got our program running soon after, as best as I could. We were lucky to have a hand-full of great volunteers. We all really learned (and continue to learn) as we went along.

The results of the Son-Rise Program:

By March, Nathan all of a sudden points accurately, several times in one day. From that day on, pointing became his regular gesture, used to aid his communication. ABA targeted 6 months. Son-Rise achieved in a month. In fact, it was not even a target but a result of helping Nathan learn better social skills the son-rise way.

About 5 more months after, Nathan begins to communicate his needs. His communication is not only confined to “I want (food)” as targeted by his speech therapist. Now, 7 months after we started Son-Rise Nathan can tell us exactly what he needs: I want to eat, the book, to turn off the lights, go to sleep, take a bath in tub, go in the big pool, do 1-2-3-jump, mama to carry me, piggy back ride, take off my shirt…the list is limitless. He can even plan now: I want to put on my shoes, ride a wheel chair, go outside. He even tells us how he feels: sad, angry, funny (when laughing).

The Son-Rise Attitude that helped:
Nathan’s words are powerful, it moves Mom (and volunteers). No matter how wrong the sentence or even if the word was only approximated, celebrate! and reward immediately by giving him what he wants.

At the start, when Nathan would say “cookie,” I would burst out of the son-rise room (celebrate!) and get that cookie from the kitchen as fast as I could (reward). It really made a big impression. In the first few months I found my self running to get stuff from the kitchen (or books from the shelf)…and praying all the time that our kitchen had all the stuff he requested for.