Jonathon Alderson
Presentation + Questions & Answers
For ADD-Holistic Discussion Group
http://www.HolisticMed.Com/add/
Autism Treatment: Multi-Treatments provide ultimate combination
Jonathan Alderson is the Founder and Director of the
Intensive Multi-Treatment Intervention
(www.IMTI.ca) program for families with
children on the autistic spectrum. Alderson offers a highly customized
solution and specializes in blending play therapy, structured learning,
sensory, and biomedical treatments in the integrated IMTI model. “The
issues underlying the challenges of children with autism are multifaceted –
so the treatment has to be multifaceted too”, Alderson explains about
his unique approach. With over 20 years of study and work in education
and autism treatment, a Masters in Education from Harvard University, a
BA in developmental and educational psychology, and 8 years of training
and work at the Son-Rise Program, including hundreds of hours of 1:1 therapy
with children, Alderson now designs and directs home-based treatment programs
for families in Toronto, Ontario. You can find more about his practice
at www.IMTI.ca.
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 11:25:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Gold
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
Subject: ADD Introducing next week's Visiting Expert
Hi!
I would like to introduce our next Visiting Expert, Jonathan Alderson, of
the Option Institute. I first read about the work of the Option Institute
earlier this year in a magazine published in the UK. I very much look
forward to learning more about their programs.
One concern I had is that programs and ideas which are not about diet,
herbs, and other physical manipulations are sometimes not taken as
seriously. I recently read an interview of the well-known and respected
physician, Dr. Dean Ornish. He was referring some of the same ideas that
are taught by the Option Institute when he said:
"Certainly, diet is important; I haven't changed my views
on that. But I don't know of anything in medicine, not drugs,
not diet, that has a greater impact on our health and
well-being...."
The Son-Rise Program is a program at the Option Institute for "helping
children and adults with special needs maximize their potential." They
work with persons with ADD, PDD, Autism, and others. Jonathan Alderson is
the Son-Rise Program Director. He oversees all aspects of Son-Rise
Program, responsible for budget planning, supervision and development of
all SRP Child Facilitator and Teacher Training, staff trainer and family
teacher, recruiting and interviewing new trainees, future planning and
development.
Best Wishes,
- Mark
mgold@holisticmed.com
Holistic Healing Web Page
http://www.HolisticMed.com/
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 1998 13:00:08 -0700
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
From: Amy
Subject: ADD WELCOME
WELCOME JOHATHAN ALDERSON!
I am a Special Needs Foster Parent ... currently:
- 9 yo male Navajo Autistic ADHD Seizures Agressive
- 4 yo female PDD/NOS just taking her first steps
- 3 yo femal Rett Syndrome
and 5 cats that let me stay here if I'm good! Additionally I do Respite
for DD kids in my 'spare time'. I've been in this field since the early
70s first being introduced in a State School. I'm an Early Intervention
advocate.
I'm wondering ... I've been following the Option Institute and would dearly
love to attend. However due to time restrains and costs involved I'm not
sure I'll ever get it worked out.
Have you or are you considering any 'road trip' seminars? Forgive me if
I'm ignorant and you alread do this. But it's so very difficult if not
impossible for many of us to REALLY get away.
I must say that my greatest successes I believe have been with diet
approaches. Each of our kids has wonderful stories.
Bless you for all you do. And welcome again!
Love,
Amy
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 16:42:57 -0400
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
From: Jonathan Alderson
Subject: Re: ADD WELCOME
Hello Amy! Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm so excited to be able to
share more about what we do at the Son-Rise Program with all of you. A big
WOW! goes to you for you love and courage in choosing to "foster" so many
very special children. We continue to hold such admiration for all of the
incredible parents that we meet daily...and it is for this reason that we
feel so strongly about the importance of supporting parents as much as we
help change the lives of children. One of our fundamental principles is
the the parent is the child's best resource!
With regard to your questions-- yes, at times we do go "on the road" with
our Start-Up Program which is a very powerful one-week seminar intorducing
all of the basic concepts of the Son-Rise program with instruction on how
to set-up a home-based program, video presentations, different experiential
exercises etc. We are doing this more and more, this year already we
presented in Amsterdam, and twice in London England. We haven't done this
as yet in North America. However, we do offer this program almost every 3-4
months at the Institute in Massachusettes. We'd love you to attend and to
meet you .
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 21:40:14 -0400
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
From: Jonathan Alderson
Subject: ADD The Son-Rise Program
Cheers!; I'm sorry this is late getting to all of you, but hopefully
still useful.; It is such an honor to be a guest on-line with you
and to be able to have this open forum of ideas in which to share more of
a program which for me has inspired professional and personal growth over
the past seven years.; My formal training, prior to the Option
Institute was in Developmental Psychology, however, it is my training and
experience with these very very special children at the Option Institute
that has led me to understand more than any text book could ever
do!; I know that if any of you choose to read the book SON-RISE :
THE MIRACLE CONTINUES, you will be touched by the heart-warming stories
and the profound impact that the concepts taught in the Son-Rise program
can make.; I invite you to do this as a first step and
introduction.; Below I have tried to outline a brief history and
synopsis of what we do.; I hope you enjoy!; And I look forward
to hearing from you.
The Son-Rise Program for families with special children serves parents
and professionals seeking a loving, humane and respectful method to help
special children maximize their potential. This unique program is based
on the work of Barry and Samahria Kaufman whorebirthed their son, Raun,
from the supposedly incurable illness of autism. Defying the odds, they
developed a program radically different than existing techniques. Based
on an attitude of love and non-judgment, they designed and implemented a
child-centered, home-based program for their son.
After their own success, the Kaufman's went on to establish The Option
Institute and Fellowship, a non-profit, charitable organization. Families
come to The Option Institute with children who face a host of
disabilities including: autism, ADD, PDD, ADHD, cerebral palsy, Rett
Syndrome, and Down Syndrome among others.
We teach from the perspective that every child is wonderful and precious,
regardless of their diagnosis or the way they are often viewed by
society. Families of children with special needs have heard "tragedy" and
"hopeless" often enough. We tell them that their child is a gift, and can
provide the entire family with an experience of growth. This perspective
is not restricted to autism or any other condition. And, because we
observe each child intensively and then design individualized programs
based on the child's cues, the diagnosis is actually not important. What
is important is the child. All children are different, regardless of the
labels we give them.
We base our program on some very simple, yet powerful concepts: The first
is that *loving* a child and expressing an accepting attitude
are more important in establishing a relationship with the child than any
specific to modify a child's behavior. The second is that the *Child is
the Teacher.*; By this we mean that; one basis of learning
is motivation.; A child will learn to the degree that they are
motivated for something.; Most of the children that we work with are
not motivated by the same things other children are such as peer
relations, social dynamics, interactions, or even toys.; Since our
aim is to establish interaction and an interest in learning with the
child, we begin by observing what the child does how do they spend their
time.; What can we learn about this particular child's motivation
that we can then use to build on?; In this way, we can still have an
agenda of what we want to teach a child, but we present the curriculum
through the child's motivation.; For example, if I want to teach
basic math.; And my son is interested in collecting baseball cards
and studies the statistics of the baseball players, I could imagine
various games, conversations, and projects involving baseball cards
through which my son and I could explore the nature of basic math
concepts.; This is of course almost evident it is so simple a
concept, yet so few of us; take the time to study the interests of
our children and then approach teaching through them.; Another
benefit to this concept is that by "joining" my child in their area of
interest I not only learn more about them and how they learn, but I build
more trust, acceptance, and love between us.;
While our continued input with a family is extremely useful; we begin by
empowering parents so that they feel confident enough to draw on their
sense of what is most effective for their childto resource their
observations and connection with their own child.; After a Son-Rise
program Training Course, parents not only have a wealth of knowledge and
techniques to use to help heal their child, but they have also gained a
new perspective that offers the opportunity for them to cope with and
embrace their situation rather than feel fearful or angry.; This
attitude shift alone brings the parents closer to the child and invites
the child to interact, communicate and participate more in their
surroundings.
Our way of working with special needs children is applicable to any
disability. What we are doing is motivating the children in a very
loving, passionate and enthusiastic way to actually change their brains,
their physical bodies, etc. When we work with children we are incredibly
compelling in our enthusiasm, and we completely accept whatever the child
might want to do, and we engagingly request them to do more.
Our way of working with special needs children is applicable to any
disability. One young boy came to us with a very physically disabling
condition called Anterior Horn Cell. He was unable to walk and spent his
days in a wheel chair.
He wasn't able to feed himself or assist with any of his own care. He was
deteriorating rapidly according to the doctor. He was quite capable of
conversation and was very intelligent. We tried to motivate him in all
sorts of ways to move his body, but he always came back with "Oh I can't
do that" - Oh no way I couldn't possibly do that!"
Then one of our staff members came up with a game - very specific that
this young boy loved. This boy was given the role of a very special
detective and he was on a mission to save the world. And what he had to
do was to pick up this pin and get it into the door, open the door and
that would disable the bomb and then he would save the world. The staff
member was so enthusiastic and so exciting that he was able to motivate
Abraham to pick up a pin, put it into the door and save the world. They
did this over and over as Abraham dropped the pin, the staff member
cheering "You almost did it!", come on Abraham, you can do it "Save the
World". By the end of the week Abraham was getting himself into and out
of his wheelchair in record time, brushing his teeth, and fixing all
sorts of things with screwdrivers etc. So you see the programs are
customized, but the key is our attitude and our ability to motivate the
children.
We offer several different styles of programs each with varying levels of
intensity and customization.; The program that we offer to families
learning about the Son-Rise Program for the first time is called the
Son-Rise Program Start-Up.; This is a dynamic, powerful and
inspiring program that offers parents and professionals a chance to learn
all of the fundamentals of the program including how to create the most
supportive and effective learning environment for their child, how to
choose a more loving and accepting attitude with their child and how to
be even more creative and energized with their child.; We also
present classes on easy and powerful techniques to help parents teach
their children more language, more eye contact, longer attention span,
self-help skills etc.
Once a family has attended our Start-Up Program, they can bring their
child for a customized Son-Rise Program Intensive.; We work with
only 2 families per week in our Intensives. During the week our trained
staff work 8 hours per day in a specially designed playroom with your
child while our teaching staff work with and instruct the parents.
After the week, many families return home to set up their own home-based
program. These parents then train volunteers who work in their Son-Rise
programs. We have seen parents create incredible programs involving up to
10 volunteers who all take part in creating the miracle of helping a
child come to his/her full potential. These volunteers and parents convey
to us over and over the joy they feel in working with a child with
special needs, and how it has changed their life in some way - how it has
helped them become more loving. less judgmental -(even of themselves) and
how that has spilled over into their lives in a very profound way. These
programs are not just helping the child but the adults involved are
deeply touched by the experience.
I know that your group is mostly based on nutrition and we do definitely
recommend that parents strongly consider testing for allergies,
especially eliminating dairy and most sugars from the child's diet.;
However, since we are not doctors nor dieticians , we are careful not to
tread in areas for which we are not fully trained, eventhough we have
tons of anecdotal evidence for diet as a source of healing for many of
these children.
There is so much more that I would love to share with you about our
program, but I know this isn't supposed to be too long just enough to
tickle your brains and to stimulate some discussion.; In your
questions to me, I would like to encourage all of us to use specifics and
examples where possible so that we don't engage too much in theoretical
philosophy type debate.; We work with hundreds of families each
year.; I myself spend almost 80% of my weekly work time on the floor
playing with these children or working with the families directly;
so for us, although we have theories and concepts to teach; we are
very grounded in applying all that we know and strive for daily.; I
hope that this information can be meaningful and useful to each of you in
some way Thank you for the opportunity to be a guest with you this week.
For more information and resources check out our site at
http://www.option.org/
With warm regards, Jonathan Alderson
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
Subject: Re: ADD The Son-Rise Program
From: janefaus@juno.com (Jane H Hersey)
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 14:03:00 EDT
I've long been impressed with the Kauffman's work and have written about
it in Pure Facts, the newsletter of the Feingold Association. But I
wanted to ask you not to be too intimidated by the concept of using
nutrition to help these children. The heart of the Feingold Program is
to eat FOOD not petroleum-based synthetic additives. It's just common
sense, and has no down side to it.
For the children with autistic symptoms or extreme allergies, they may
need to use rice milk and gluten-free baked goods, but even that is
simply a different version of plain old good food.
Anyone can follow such a plan with a little bit of help. That's what we
do.
Jane
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 11:05:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Gold
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
cc: mgold@holisticmed.com
Subject: ADD Son-Rise Program Questions
Jonathan,
Thank you for your detailed introductory post to the group! I have a few
questions:
- In general, how successful has the Son-Rise Program been in working
with children with ADD? I know that whatever treatment techniques
are used, no guarantees can be made. However, it would be helpful to
get a sense of the kinds of improvements have been seen? Does the
book, "Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues" contain ADD cases?
- Do you work with adults with ADD? I wonder if it is much more
difficult than helping children because most children
have can have a strong support group (e.g., parents), but with
adults, the support is not necessarily available.
- You mentioned that the Son-Rise program visits the UK. What would
it take to set up visits in other parts of the U.S.? Is it simply
a matter of getting enough families interested and finding a location
for the classes?
One thing that impresses me about the Son-Rise Program is the environment
of loving and acceptance that can be created (or increased) in the child's
life. With or without the health improvement, this seems to be an
important benefit.
List Note: Here is the Amazon.com web page for "Son-Rise: The Miracle
Continues" (web address broken into two lines):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0915811618/o/qid=905352071/
sr=2-1/002-2786172-1958604
Best Wishes,
- Mark
mgold@holisticmed.com
Holistic Healing Web Page
http://www.HolisticMed.com/
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 09:18:20 -0400
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
From: Jonathan Alderson
Subject: Re: ADD Son-Rise Program Questions
Dear Mark, below are some answers and information , each answer following
your original question.-- thank you for your questions!
At 11:05 AM 98-09-09 -0400, you wrote:
>Jonathan,
>
>Thank you for your detailed introductory post to the group! I have a few
>questions:
>
>1. In general, how successful has the Son-Rise Program been in working
> with children with ADD? I know that whatever treatment techniques
> are used, no guarantees can be made. However, it would be helpful to
> get a sense of the kinds of improvements have been seen?
since we work with each child in a specially designed palyroom -
constructed to eliminate distractions (this helps the child to focus of
course) , and to eliminate any circumstance in which the child might have
to be stopped or controlled. For example, if I don't want my child to
play with a sharp knife, then I won't put a sharp knife in the playroom.
In this way, I control the environment to my child's favor in that I am
able to let my child explore, learn and play in a "permissive" environment.
For children with ADD, since they are often ditracted, not focused and
into everything around them, their parents, teachers and supervisors will
often have to stop the child (eg. from running out in the road, or from
taking candy in a store, or to sit still in a desk) -- this constant
physical manipulation and exerting control, going against the child we
believe leads to less trust of the child toward adults, possibly avoidance
of touch (we see this when for example when an adult holds out thier hand
for the child and the child pulls away) . Since one of our main focuses is
to establish a very strong relationship based on trust and acceptance so
that we can then strongly request and encourange change in the child, we
feel that the best place to do this is in a playroom as opposed to outside
where I always have to say "no", stop and go against my child. This is
very effective with ADD children. We see much more attention span, greater
ability to focus, listening skills increase, and most importantly is eye
contact which we go for very strongly.
> Does the book, "Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues" contain ADD cases?
No, but it
does have 5 other amazing stories of children with similar challenges. We
do work with many many ADD, ADHD children.
>2. Do you work with adults with ADD?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
>I wonder if it is much more
> difficult than helping children because most children
> have can have a strong support group (e.g., parents), but with
> adults, the support is not necessarily available.
True, howerver,
since our program is focused on teaching parents/families or supporting
professionals to set up programs , we usually only worked with families as
a whole and not just individuals with ADD -- however, if an adult with ADD
was motivated enough to look at themselves, the way they operate and to
take time each day to do certain kinds of focused activity, then we could
help.
>3. You mentioned that the Son-Rise program visits the UK. What would
> it take to set up visits in other parts of the U.S.? Is it simply
> a matter of getting enough families interested and finding a location
> for the classes?
We have just set up a new dept. within our
Institute called our Son-Rise Program World Wide Services created to handle
all of our off property Programs. We anticipat4e creating Start-Up
programs throughout the U.S. in major cities over the next two years. We
will continue to send out flyers announcing these programs to those on our
mailing list. Yes, we usually require a minimum of 100 participants to run
an off site Program as well as a local "sponsor" who helps to find a venue
etc.
>One thing that impresses me about the Son-Rise Program is the environment
>of loving and acceptance that can be created (or increased) in the child's
>life. With or without the health improvement, this seems to be an
>important benefit.
Absolutely! We feel that this is perhaps the
single most important factor in the work that we do. Combined with a good
diet and awareness of allergies etc. the Son-Rise Program is very powerful.
As a note, most children are much more open to trying new (health )
foods or special diets when the foods are presented in a fun, loving way
without forcing or pushing the child...once again, the attitude is so
important in determining the eventual actions that we all take.
Sincerely
Jonathan
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 17:48:15 -0400
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
From: Jonathan Alderson
Subject: Re: ADD The Son-Rise Program
Jane, thank you for your kind support and for making this tangible by
writing about the Option Institute. Our timidity about speaking on
nutrition is less about our conviction in the importance of nutrition and
more about legal ramifications. Since our staff are not trained doctors or
nutritionists, we are careful not to make specific recommendations unless
these are solicited by the parents first. You'll be pleased to know that
we have seen many many families use the Feingold diet who have had great
success, especially when such diets are combined with a Son-Rise Program
(We believe the perfect combination.) Good luck with all of your work!
Jonathan
From: YCaryl@aol.com
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 11:23:35 EDT
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
Subject: Re: Re: ADD Son-Rise Program Questions
I can't think of any questions, but I do want to say how wonderful your
program sounds for the lucky children -- and adults -- who come to you.
Caryl in Mpls.
To: add-holistic@mLists.net
Subject: Re: ADD The Son-Rise Program
From: janefaus@juno.com (Jane H Hersey)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 10:26:15 EDT
Thanks so much for your note and your kind words!
Jane