2080 S.

Undermountain Road, Sheffield, MA 01257

1-877-SON-RISE  (413)-229-2100
www.autismtreatment.com
 My Diagnosis

•Severe autism
• Tested I.Q. of less than 30
• Mute/non-verbal
• No eye contact
• Moved away from any physical contact
• Spent my days performing repetitive behaviors:
 Spinning plates (and other objects)
 Rocking back and forth
 Flapping my hands
 Moving my fingers in front of my face
 My Prognosis

•My autism was an irreversible, lifelong condition

• I would occupy my own separate world for the rest of my life
• I would never:
• Learn to speak
• Prefer people over objects
• Learn to read or write
• Go to a typical school
• Laugh at a joke
• Go on a date
• Have a circle of friends
• Drive a car
• Have a career
• Live on my own
• Recover and live a “normal” life
 The Recommendation

Eventual institutionalization
In My Own World
In My Own World
 What Did My Parents Do?

•Defied the doomsday prognoses

• Developed their own home-based, child-centered program:

The Son-Rise Program®

• Worked with me for over 3 years

The First Son-Rise Program
 The Results

• Full recovery from autism

• No trace whatsoever of my former condition

• Went on to live a “typical” life

• Graduated from Brown University with a degree in

Biomedical Ethics
After My Recovery

My father, Barry Neil Kaufman, wrote

the book, Son-Rise (recently
expanded as Son-Rise: The Miracle
Continues) documenting our story.

Our story was recounted

in an NBC TV movie seen
by over 300 million
people worldwide.
The Autism Treatment Center of America
TM

A division of The Option Institute, a non-profit, charitable organization

Located in Sheffield, Massachusetts
The Autism Treatment Center of America
TM

A division of The Option Institute, a non-profit, charitable organization

Located in Sheffield, Massachusetts

• Our methodology: The Son-Rise Program®

• Our children: Challenged by autism, autism spectrum

disorders, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Asperger’s
Syndrome, and other developmental difficulties.

• Our program: A system of treatment and

education designed to help families and
caregivers enable their children to dramatically
improve in all areas of learning, development,
communication, and skill acquisition.
Professional TRAINING and CERTIFICATION

Child Facilitator Certification

Teaches students to work directly with
children and adults with varying
diagnoses

Teacher Certification
Trains students to teach all aspects
of The Son-Rise Program® to
parents and professionals
The Autism Treatment Center of America
TM

--- Son-Rise Program: Key Differences ---

• Was created by parents for parents
• Has helped more than 25,000 families from 75 countries
• Begins with the premise that children with autism are capable of
limitless growth
• Sees parents as the #1 resource for their children, and thus helps
them to recover their children in some cases and achieve
significant improvement in almost all cases
• Starts by joining children in their world rather than forcing them
to conform to ours
• Utilizes children’s motivation, rather than repetition, as the
doorway to learning and growth
• Addresses parents’ attitudes as the platform for effective program
implementation
• Advocates addressing the whole child – education and physiology
• Prioritizes human interaction over academics and tasks
 The Son-Rise Program START-UP
A 5-day training program for parents and professionals

PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES COVERED:

 Facilitate interaction  Training others

 Eye Contact
 Reactions vs. Non-Reactions
 The Isms & How To Join
 Your Child’s Sensory Environment
 Inspiring Growth
 Using The Social Dev. Model
 Videos With Real Examples
 Q & A Sessions
 The 3 E’s
 Using The Social Dev. Model
 Creatively Challenging Your Child
 Handling “real world” situations

 Create and sustain an attitude of hope and optimism about your child 
 Interventions for children with Autism:
Investigating the Son-Rise Program.
Kat Houghton, Charlie Lewis (Lancaster University, UK) and Cynthia Thompson (Northwestern University, USA)

Background Two outcome measures were used. Presented here are data New Coding System Results for Child 3
The Son-Rise Program is an autism intervention used in the UK derived from the ADOS (Lord et al, 2002) only. This is a semi- Child 3 used more varied and frequent types of
and the US that, in spite of abundant anecdotal data attesting to structured series of highly standardised opportunities for communication than Child 1 and so provided greater scope
its efficacy, has not been tested scientifically. Although created interaction designed to elicit social gestures from children. The for more in-depth analysis.
without exploiting a specific theoretical model, the program is current published coding protocol is not designed to support the Function of Communicative Acts
consistent with “coactive” theories of autism. The social- use of the ADOS as an outcome measure. Thus sessions were All communicative acts used by the child were coded as
orienting model of autism (Mundy, 1995) assumes a disturbance video recorded and later subjected to an additional coding being one of four possible functions (from Prizant et al,
in the predilection to spontaneously orient to (and process) protocol measuring the child’s social and communicative 1993): Function Description
social information. This lack of bias to social information impacts behaviours to allow for more fine-grained analysis than the
how an infant participates in the social environment and diagnostic coding system. Behaviour
Regulation (br)
Adult used as a tool to meet
child’s demands

subsequent social learning and understanding, including the Social

ability to develop skills of joint attention. Elevated measures of Interaction
(si)
To maintain, or participate in a
social routine

social-orienting and joint attention have been seen to relate to

Results
increased language acquisition (Dawson, et al, 2004), social and Joint Attention To share attention about a object

Presented here are the preliminary results from two children (ja) or event

cognitive outcomes (Sigman & Ruskin, 1999) and processing of

only. Unclear (un)
Appears to be a communication

social-affective non-verbal information (Diassanyake, Sigman & but purpose is unclear

Kassari, 1996). The Son-Rise Program aims to remediate Child 3 showed an increase in use of communicative
ADOS as an Outcome Measure using published Coding
autism by directly increasing a child’s preference for social acts for the purposes of behavior regulation and joint
System and Diagnostic Algorithms for two study
engagement. attention, and a decrease in use of communicative acts
participants.
Hypothesis for social interaction or with an unclear purpose.
Following this theory it was hypothesised that, following an Responsive vs. Initiated Communicative Acts
intensive period of Son-Rise Program intervention, children with When the above data were further separated based on
Typically developing whether the communicative act was either in response to
autism will show an increased preference for social orienting (and 0
possibly joint attention). an adult or was spontaneously initiated by the child we see
ASD Classification Child 3 the following:
7
Method
16 children with autism whose parents had already chosen to Autism Classification
12 Child 1
use the Son-Rise Program (and opted to travel to the USA for
intensive training) were selected. Children were age 7 or
Time 1 5-day BASELINE Time 2 5-day INTERVENTION Time 3
younger, did not have additional diagnoses and were PHASE PHASE

assessed as Module 1 on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Child 3 showed a positive change in diagnostic classification
Schedule (ADOS) (the lowest functioning level). A mixed when sessions were coded with the ADOS coding system.
between and within-subjects design was employed as shown Time 1 (pre-intervention) = 13 This shows that the observed increase in communicative
in Figure 1. Time 3 (post-intervention) = 9 acts for the purpose of behaviour regulation can be
Child 1 changed from a score of 20 to19. attributed to events where the child is responding to an
Figure 1. Experimental Design adult.
Family stays at Family stays at
Family arrives
at intervention
intervention center but no
intervention is provided
intervention center and
Son-Rise Program
New Coding System Results for Child 1
center intervention is provided Applying the new coding protocol illuminated other changes. The most obvious changes in initiated communicative acts
Treatment DAY 1 DAY 5 DAY 11 are 1) a decrease in unclear acts, and 2) an increase in
Group ADOS Using the new
BASELINE PHASE INTERVENTION PHASE
coding system
initiations of joint attention (2 increased to 16)
ADI-R ADOS ADOS
Vineland Other Other an increase in Discussion
Other Measures Measures
Measures
social behaviors These preliminary results suggest that the Son-Rise
can be seen for
Family stays at home, no professional Child 1. This
Program intervention, as hypothesised, leads to an
ADOS
intervention is provided. They travel to
local university for the assessments. child used no increase in social orienting and joint attention skills in
Control ADI-R ADOS other types of children with autism. Continued analysis is underway.
Group Vineland Other
Other Measures communication
Measures Child 1 in either test.
To fund one of our 3 studies, e-mail: KatHoughton@taconic.net
The Son-Rise Program is based
upon this simple idea:

The children show

us the way in,
and then we show them
the way out.
 JOINING

Participating
in your child's
repetitive &
exclusive
behaviors
 An important Son-Rise Program difference:

The focus of more traditional programs = change behavior

The focus of The Son-Rise Program = create relationship

Rather than forcing our children to conform

to a world that they don’t understand,
we enter their world first.
 The “ism”

• Repetitive

• Exclusive

• Useful to each child

• Can be curative or palliative

• The key which unlocks the door to your child’s world!

 Backed By Published Studies

University of Washington 1984, 1990

Geraldine Dawson (et al)
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
Development and Child Psychopathology

Mothers imitated child for 20 minutes/day for 2 weeks  Significant increases in duration of
gaze at mothers’ faces and creative toy play

When facilitator engaged in imitative play with children 

More socially responsive, more eye contact, and played with toys in a less perseveration
manner
__________________________________________________________________________

University of Miami 2001

Tiffany Field (et al)
Autism

2 groups of children for 3 sessions: 1 group imitated, 1 group adults tried to play with them
2nd session: Imitation group  More time than the other children looking at adult, vocalizing
to adult, smiling at adult, and engaging in reciprocal play.
3rd session: Imitation group  More time than the other children sitting closer to adult and
touching the adult.
 Facilitating SKILL ACQUISITION
By Capitalizing On Your Child’s Own MOTIVATION
Customizing the presentation of curriculum
to match your child’s highest areas of interest
 Motivation is the Single Largest
Factor for Growth

• On the one hand  widely acknowledged (w/typical students,

athletes, etc.)

• On the other  Rarely, if ever, put into practice with children on

the autism spectrum in a consistent manner

• Typical academic settings: the teacher decides what and how the
class will learn  The message: learn on my terms, not yours.

• However: this runs counter to the idea of creating rapport and

building on motivation

• Often: the mode of learning and the child’s interests

are not matched
For children with autism spectrum disorders,
traditional learning modalities will
rarely be motivating.
• Therefore  customize the presentation of curriculum to
match the child’s highest areas of motivation.

• How: locate the child’s primary areas of interest first, and

then decide how to teach them.

• Thus: we use learning skills and interests our child already

has instead of trying to “work against the grain”
 The Added Bonus

Spontaneous, self-generated communication and action

(instead of “programmed”, “robotic” responses)

Generalization of skills
(instead of requiring a prompt or reward)
 Backed By Published Studies

University of California 1998

Robert Koegel (et al)
Seminars in Speech and Language

Game based upon child obsessional theme  Increase in social

interaction…
And generalized to non-obsessional themed games
________________________________________________________

University of California 1987

Robert Koegel (et al)
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Activities chosen by adult  Child more socially avoidant

Child-preferred activities  Child less socially avoidant
Teaching SOCIALIZATION Through INTERACTIVE PLAY

Utilizing dynamic relationship-building

techniques to accomplish
developmental goals
 The Son-Rise Program Developmental Model ®

Self Help: Toileting; Feeding; Dressing; etc.

Cognitive: Math; Reading; Reasoning; etc.

SOCIALIZATION The Four Fundamentals

Autistic Eye Contact: Duration; Frequency; Quality Friendship Skills Socially
Basic
Child / Intermediate Adept
Adult Communication: Vocabulary; Sentence Length; etc. Advanced Child / Adult
Conversation Skills
Mechanics
Interactive Attention Span: Duration; Frequency; etc. The Art of

Flexibility: Rigidity; Activity Variations; Spontaneity; etc.

Gross Motor: Limb mobility & Coordination; Balance; etc.

Fine Motor: Hand/Eye Coordination; Sensory Perception; etc.

2 Key Components of Your
Child’s Learning Process:

Socialization goals
BEFORE
academic goals
Prioritize interaction
over the goal
 Backed By Published Studies

Case Western University in Ohio 1986-2006

Gerald Mahoney (et al)
Topics in Early Childhood Special Education

Relationship-focused, responsive style of interaction where the

child was given control precipitated increases in cognitive
functioning, communication, and socio-emotional functioning
 A Non-Judgmental & Optimistic ATTITUDE
is the CRITICAL ELEMENT

Not judging
where our children are today

while believing
they can go
anywhere tomorrow
 “Could we kiss the ground that the
others had cursed?” –
Barry Neil Kaufman, Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues

Discomfort + judgment = more withdrawal

Comfort + acceptance = more interaction

A non-judgmental, optimistic attitude  interaction magnet.

The Key: Make you and your world attractive to your children.
 Backed By Published Studies

Case Western University in Ohio 2005

Gerald Mahoney (et al)
Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

The facilitator’s (parent, other) having a visible affect of

acceptance, enjoyment, expressiveness, and warmth 
Significantly related to increases in the child’s language, social
competence, joint attention, and self-regulation.
 The Recovery Mode
Using The Son-Rise Program
To Enhance Biomedical Intervention
And Promote Sustained Physiological Repair
•Dr. Scott Faber: Found chronically high stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline)
•In perpetual “fight or flight” survival mode – NOT in Recovery Mode
•Cannot engage in Sustained Physiological Repair (SPR)

•Supplementation (zinc, magnesium, etc.), probiotic treatment, anti-fungal treatment, dietary

intervention, chelation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, secretin, anti-viral and anti-bacterial medications,
the
Listening Program, and other sensory integration therapies…
•Child’s body must absorb supplements, rebuild the gut, eliminate toxins, build the immune system, etc.
•The key: Shift your child from “fight or flight” survival mode to Recovery Mode

•Use The Son-Rise Program principles to: build trust, increase feelings of safety and control, reduce
over-stimulation, and increase satisfying social interaction and communication
•Dr. Faber: Found that joining, giving control, creating an environment free from over-stimulation, and
providing “emotionally-attuned intervention”  stress hormones dropped into normal ranges

•Immune, digestive, neurological, and nervous system enters the Recovery Mode
•Biomedical interventions implemented with our children’s cooperation instead of resistance
•Also: Isms are a coping mechanism
• Entering our children’s world and building trust  enter social and emotional Recovery Mode 
opens the doorway to communication and socialization – with their permission and motivation
 The Son-Rise Program START-UP
A 5-day training program for parents and professionals

PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES COVERED:

 Facilitate interaction  Training others

 Eye Contact
 Reactions vs. Non-Reactions
 The Isms & How To Join
 Your Child’s Sensory Environment
 Inspiring Growth
 Using The Social Dev. Model
 Videos With Real Examples
 Q & A Sessions
 The 3 E’s
 Using The Social Dev. Model
 Creatively Challenging Your Child
 Handling “real world” situations

 Create and sustain an attitude of hope and optimism about your child 
 The Son-Rise Program START-UP
A 5-day training program for parents and professionals

WHAT MAKES OUR TEACHERS UNIQUE:

 Thousands of hours working  Not academics / not just directorial

directly with children – rather, they learned from doing

 Our two main teachers recovered  Trained in counseling parents, not

their own daughter from autism just in implementing techniques

 Any experience you’ve had with

 Most of our teacher have been your child – they’ve had 50 times
doing this for more than 15 years
 This isn’t their job. It’s their life. 
 The Son-Rise Program Sequence

• The Start-Up
Everything you need to begin your program

• New Frontiers
Create social curriculum and hone program goals

• Maximum Impact
Take your program to the next level
 Booking Your Initial Call:
Who To Talk To

• Talk to one of our Family Counselors

(no charge)

• If you still have questions: Get answers

• Get help booking your Start-Up slot

• Today: Put your name on the list the list

to get an appointment
 www.autismtreatment.org
• Webinars (free of charge):
• Raun, other teachers, Raun & Kristin
• Find a topic that excites you

• Interviews with parents – and, in

some cases, their children!

• Autism Solution – Getting Started with

The Son-Rise Program

• www.autismtreatment.org/research

• www.autismtreatment.org/fundraising
 Take-Home Resource

Provided for You Free of Charge

Take-Home Resources
Joining Jaxson
Jaxson Looking Into My Eyes
About To Be Tickled – And He Knows It!
Jaxson Smiling For The Camera
Super Jaxson!
The 2009 Autism Grass-Roots Tour
• Enzymedica + The Autism Treatment Center of America
• Raun K. Kaufman + Kristin Selby Gonzalez
• Year-long cross-country lecture tour
• Speaking in states such as: MN, IA, PA, WA, CO, OR, ND, IL, KS,
MO,MI, IN, NC, OH, SC, CA, NY – register on our website
• All lectures are FREE
• Lecture title: “The Autism Hope Action Plan”
• Techniques from The Son-Rise Program, diet, enzymes,
biomedical, sensory integration, living toxin-free
• Enzymedica is funding 100 parents nationwide  Start-Up
• Parents must attend a Grass-Roots lecture
• Parents must be in financial need
 The Myth of “False” Hope

Hope is the spark that ignites the human spirit!

Hope leads to action.

My recovery from autism is the product of hope.

There is no false hope, only false pessimism.

You don’t ever have to apologize for hoping for your child.
There is no “false” hope! Let’s give our children a chance!
2080 S. Undermountain Road, Sheffield, MA 01257
1-877-SON-RISE  (413)-229-2100
www.autismtreatment.com