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Playroom Miracles

7/30/2011

7 Comments

 
I just had an amazing 2 hour Son-Rise therapy session with Ka’eo, Jr.  What’s even more  incredible is the session started with him crying his heart out when Mommy left the room.  When he cried I just loved and accepted him and let him know it was okay to cry and Daddy was right
there when he was ready.  He cried for about a minute or so, then he started to play with his marble game.

As I enthusiastically joined him in his marble game, his frown grew to a smile and he started giggling as we played with his “kick ball”(marble game).  After he was done with his marbles, he led me to the closet and asked me to “open please” so I could take out his Mr. Potato Head set.  We played with all the different eyes, ears, noses, mouths, as I labeled “big”& “small” for him.  He actually said “big”with me a few times.  

I started sorting the pieces into like parts, ears together, arms together, shoes together, etc.  He looked at me and, almost as if to show me who’s room it was, he threw everything up in the air, mixing all my sorted piles around, pieces flying every which way.  I celebrated his act of dominance.  “Yey Ka’eo!  It’s popping like popcorn! Pop! Pop! Pop!”  He smiled and continued to toss pieces in the air as I kept feeding him more and more pieces to pop up like popcorn.

 He said, “Pop! Pop!” with approval of our newly changed game.  Then he smiled and twirled some plastic teeth between his fingers.  I relaxed and joined him by twirling a nose or two.  He looked down and grabbed the big moustache and searched the pile before picking up the small moustache.  Was he matching?  

Next he grabbed a small red tongue and looked at me, “help me”.  I was astonished.  I looked down to see he was indicating he wanted me to help him find the other tongue. 

“Okay, you want this one?” as I handed him the pink tongue.  

“This one,” he said as he gladly took the matching piece.  Not a few moments later he picked up the small set of teeth and matched it with the bid set of teeth.

He was matching!  Only a few minutes earlier I was trying to show him how to match and it  seemed he was ignoring me.  So awesome!  He then decided to show me that he could take his marbles and send them rolling and twisting down his slide.  I said, “woo hoo!  That looks like fun!” and positioned myself at the end of the slide so the marbles would roll down the slide, across the carpet, and up against my leg.  He rolled the marbles down the slide and I gathered them up for him.  We created a new game!

This went on for 15 minutes or longer and by the end of it, he would roll the marbles down the slide, I would gather them and ask, “again Ka’eo?”  To which he would reply, “again!”and come and pick them out of my hands. After he filled his hands with marbles, I asked him, “where’s my kiss?”he said, “kiss” and give me a sweet peck before return to the top of the slide to make his next roll.  I swear I must have gotten 15 or more sweet kisses this way. What a game!

After the first hour, Mommy brought his favorite dish to the door, turkey bacon and brown rice, yummy! I pulled out his chair and asked him to “sit down please” to which he eagerly complied while grabbing some bacon bits and devouring them.  I looked at the plate and saw that Mommy had given us a 3 inch branch of cooked broccoli. “Oh my, this is going to be a challenge.” I thought to myself.  So I cut the broccoli up into little pieces and gave him a few pieces with each big bite of bacon and rice.  Lo and behold he ate the entire meal!  All the broccoli, the mountain of brown rice, his juice with supplements, and of course his crispity crunchity bacon!  Woo hoo again for team Griffin!

Ka’eo danced around the room for a while, singing Old McDonald, celebrating his delicious feast. He then pulled me over to his bookshelf and said, “up please!”  

“Oh, okay Ka’eo, let’s go up, up, up!”  I said with excitement.

“I want book.” He said as he reached up toward his Little People book.  We pulled it down off the bookshelf and he started to flip the pages with great interest.  I pointed at one of the pages and he pushed my hand away.

“Okay, no problem Buddy. I’ll read my book too.” So I grabbed my fish book and read next to
  him.  

This was a regular occurrence because Ka’eo Jr has never let anyone read his book with him, except Mommy. I remember that morning talking to Jackie and telling her about the fact that he never lets me read with him.  She said just that morning they were reading a book together and he was telling her who Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Zoey were.  She said, “next time he gets a book out, take a pillow of the bed, lay down with your book and invite him to read with you…you never know!”

Remembering her words of wisdom, I slid a pillow off his bed, laid down next to him and started reading my fish book.  Amazingly as if by habit, he left his book and laid down right next to me on the pillow and started to look at my fish book with me.  He was laying down and reading a book with me for the first time in his life!!!  I was so excited, I thanked him for reading with me and I started to flip the pages as he pointed at the different fish (he pointed!).  I said, “see there’s Max Ka’eo, he’s looking for his friend.  Purple fish.  Yellow fish.  Max the fish.”

In agreement he then said, “fish.  Hello. Max.”   Oh….My….God!!!!   Really? I couldn’t believe it!

I was so happy I couldn’t stand it! Three E’s???  Oh yeah, I was definitely feeling the Energy, Excitement, and Enthusiasm today Baby!  After about 3 minutes, he got up and started looking at his book again, but what a three minutes it was!  Yee hee!

I looked up on the shelf and realized there were some new fuzzy toy balls that Mommy said he played that morning with her.  I took them out of their bag and showed them to Ka’eo.  He jumped up and grabbed them out of my hands and ran to his slide.  “Oh, cool!  Let’s play our game Ka’eo!” I said.  He started to roll the new sillies down the slide and I gathered them up for him. We fell right back into our routine of “Again please.”  Gather the balls. “Kiss Daddy” Sweet kisses.  “Ready, set, go!”  Down the slide they go!  He was smiling and laughing as we played this game for more than 10 minutes together.  

We just hung out and enjoyed each other’s company for more than 2 hours today.  It was so much fun. I had to write about it.  This week Ka’eo had more than 22 hours of 1-on-1 playroom time! Our best week yet!  We are charging forward with our Son-Rise Program and Ka’eo Jr continues to show us its exceptional effectiveness.  
 
It seems like there’s a new miracle everyday in our house.  We are so blessed!  Thank you Lord for my wife and little boys, for Ka’eo’s autism, and for Son-Rise  :o)


 
 
7 Comments

Excuse me, did you say $8000???

7/27/2011

0 Comments

 
I'm choosing to be really bummed now!!! 

We were all excited about Dr. Dorinne Davis from the Davis Center whom we
met at the Autism One Conference in Chicago this May. 

She is this amazingly intelligent Dr. who is certified in over 20 different listening programs that help heal issues with your inner ear, etc.  She can analyze your inner ear to see exactly which program is the best fit for you...  So we paid around $400 or $500  each for Jackie and Ka'eo Jr to get assessed by her while we were there in Chicago.  Everything went great, her diagnoses seemed spot on, so she said we would be contacted to get set up with the 2 programs Ka'eo Jr and Jackie would be right for...Auditory Integration Training and the Enlisten Training Program.

So today we get the call that they are ready to ship out the AIT equipment to us, it's a 10 day program, then we would start the ETP over the next 6 months.  So I find out the AIT would cost $2000 (for 10 days) and the ETP License would be another $6000 (for 6 months) !!! 

I was floored.  I said, "um...we can't afford $8000, we have a child with autism and we're already spending every penny we have to help him recover..."

She said, "oh, I'm sorry.  I thought you were already invoiced for this..." 

I said, "No...I knew the AIT was $800 after the initial assessment and that's it...but actually it is $800 after the intial assessment that costs $600 (which isn't the first assessment we did in Chicago, its different), then it's another $600 for the 2nd person's AIT..."

OMG...anyway I could go on and on, but you get the picture...I'm just choosing to be bummed at this moment...then I'll get over it and move on. 

I just had such high hopes for this because Ka'eo Jr really shows us he has inner ear issues, he covers his ears often and is sensitive to certain sounds...but we just can't afford $8000.  Even if Jackie backs out of it and we only do Ka'eo Jr, it's still $6400!  I mean, REALLY, do you know how much Son-Rise training and consultations that would equal??? 

Thanks but no thanks Dr. Dorinne Davis!!!       Movin' on :o)
0 Comments

"Is there any autism fathers?"

7/24/2011

0 Comments

 
I like a great FaceBook resource called Autism Mothers.  It really keeps me connected to the day to day struggles and triumphs other parents of children with autism have.  Recently, a mother asked, "Is there any autism fathers? My husband is having a difficult time adjusting to our sons recent diagnosis."  I felt compelled to respond, and my response turned into a short-story I'd like to share with you...

I am the father of a 3 year old angel with autism.  We have a 2 year old neuro-typical son as well.   I can tell you that when he was “diagnosed” at 1.5 yrs old, we were both devastated. My mind ran the gamut from why did it happen to us? how did this happen? are we to blame? will he ever lead a normal life? who will take care of him when we’re gone? Etc. etc. etc…

Eventually, I accepted that he has autism and that I would do everything in my power to help him recover. We tried ABA with Discrete Trial, Floortime, Biomedical, GFCFSF, and it seemed nothing was working.  If anything, I felt as though he was slipping further away emotionally from constantly being pushed to do what we wanted him to do, and hardly being allowed to be truly free to do what he wanted.

It wasn’t until we discovered the Son-Rise Program through a friend of a friend who was running a Son-Rise Program for his own son, that we finally found something that felt good right down to the bottom of our souls.  We tried using some of the techniques with him and he immediately responded in ways he had never before shown us.  We went to the Son-Rise Program Start-Up training (at separate times) and, for the past 8 months, have been running a Son-Rise Program in our home while we continue his biomedical & nutritional diet and supplementation.

Our son went from non-verbal to having more than 200 words.  He went from not wanting to interact with me or anyone else besides his mom to greeting me every day with big hugs and kisses.  As soon as I get home, he pulls me into his playroom to tickle him, jump with him, or to play with his toys.  I’m amazed at how far our son has come in just a few months!

Son-Rise has done so much for our family and for me personally.  It has shown me how to WANT the world for my son but not NEED anything from him.  It has shown me how to be completely PRESENT with him during our playtime.  It has shown me how to be absolutely loving and non-judgmental of his beautiful “isms”.  It has shown me how to allow my son to be MY TEACHER and connect with him in HIS WORLD so I can begin to show him the way to OUR WORLD.  It has shown me that by taking charge of my beliefs, I can CHOOSE  HAPPINESS anytime I desire, regardless of the STIMULUS the world life throws at me.

Most importantly, my son and his Son-Rise Program have shown me how to apply all of these things to my entire life.  In doing so I’ve become a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better Christian, and a better man.  Thank you Ka’eo, Jr. for showing me the true beauty of life and love!
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    Authors

    Jackie and Ka'eo Griffin Sr. are the authors of this blog.  We want to recourd our journey with our first born son, Ka'eo Jr, as we work together towards his recovery from autism.  Mahalo for reading.  Please share your thoughts with us!

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