Welcome to Charlie's Playroom!!!!!! We have designed this website to allow those who love Charlie to learn and watch Charlie as he works through The Son-Rise program on his journey out of Autism.
Charlie was officially diagnosed with Autism at three years of age, although we as his parents, knew before that that he had Autism and were getting him treatment before the official diagnosis came.
Over the years Charlie has done physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, biomedical treatments, hyperbaric oxygen treatment, hippotherapy, applied behavioral analysis, floortime, tomatis and cranial sacral therapy. He attended a special needs preschool and was in the Autism Support Classroom for Kindergarten and most of First Grade. He was always doing something and we saw little or no improvement in his development. In fact, we saw his anxiety increase which made him, and his family, stressed and miserable.
Frustrated by Charlie's current course of treatment I began to research alternatives. In November of 2010, I was referred to The Son-Rise Program at the Options Institute in Sheffield, MA. I decided to attend their Start-Up program for a week in December. It was at this week long training my outlook on Autism and my fear of Charlie's future was changed forever.
Son-Rise is a homebased program based on love and acceptance and had helped thousand of children recover from Autism, yes I said RECOVER. Children can recover from autism, this I had already knew, but this was a way that Charlie possibly able to do it! Son-Rise was exactly what Charlie needed!
I sat in every class that week learning how to implement this program and with each class I became more excited. They were describing Charlie to a tee and teaching me how to teach him. I couldn't wait to get home and start.
Upon returning home, I immediately got a playroom set up in our home and asked our home therapist to change over to Son-Rise. I trained her as to what to do and she happily did it. Almost immediatly, we saw improvements in is development but most importantly we saw his anxiety start to disappear and a happy child emerge. My son was HAPPY, if he made no other advancements his happiness was enough for me!
In March 2011, Charlie left school and stayed home full-time to do Son-Rise. He works an average of 6 hours a day in his playroom and we have seen immense improvements in his eye contact, attention span and language. This is only the beginning, we are committed to Son-Rise until it is complete and we believe it is possible for him, to one day, lose his Autism diagnosis.
On this site you will find information on Charlie and on The Son-Rise Program. Additionally, you will see pictures and videos of Charlie working in his playroom so you may follow in his journey and watch him grow into a wonderful young man!
This site is a work in progress so please forgive us for continued changes.