My son Charlie was diagnosed with autism at 27 months, and we had about 2 years of
home therapy when his home therapist came to me and said, "He really needs to
be in a five day a week program." So we put him in a little program in another
school. It was two days a week for an hour and he hated it.
It was hard on him but we thought, "This is what we need to do. Let's just
stick with it." Someone had mentioned RCN so we came in for a visit.
Charlie loved it. He walked into the classroom, he started playing with the
toys. The kids were coming up and hugging me, the teachers were welcoming us, and
would stop the class to ask Charlie his name, and bring him into the group, and
every kid just looks so full of joy and so happy. And every teacher in every class
knew every kid's name. In the minute we walked in we just knew this is what we
wanted for Charlie. We pulled up in the parking lot and he had a complete
meltdown. To the point where, when I picked him up he threw himself down on
the ground and we both went tumbling. So I scooped him up because I knew we had
to do it, and we walked in the front door. The minute we walked in the front door
people just came up to us, and took Charlie and handed me a tissue, and helped me wipe
down, and helped me gather myself, and we walked Charlie into the classroom and he
was screaming. And Mackenzie grabbed him and just talked to him.
-So we traveled over to the book area and we found a seek and find alphabet book.
And Charlie held that and had that for the rest of the day.
-He's going to do it, he's to be fine. -I took pictures and I emailed them to his mom during the
program so that she had something to look at to know that he was okay. It was
a struggle in the beginning. Charlie did not want to go to school. He didn't want
to get dressed for school. There are times I brought him to school in his
pajamas. He didn't want to wear his coat to school, sometimes I brought him to
school without his coat. He didn''t want to put his shoes on, there are times we
brought him to school without his shoes. But the first year and a half, we did a lot of
work as a team. -We worked a lot on transitions for him. So Charlie had a
picture or visual schedule that was just for him that identified what was next
for him. He needed a very structured predictable routine so visuals were a
very good thing to begin with him. He had a transition tool so sometimes he would
take a letter or a book with him to therapy and that would be really helpful
for him. I talked to his mother Lori and I said "How about you bring in a snack
that he enjoys? One we know he enjoys. We brought that in and we put it on a
table next to the table he would typically be sitting at and he agreed.
And then it got to the point where we thought "Okay let's start the sharing
portion. Charlie can I have a goldfish?" So he would give it to a teacher.
Little by little towards the end of the year we had him picking a friend to come
sit with him at his table. Sometimes we'd find him sitting at the actual table
just random happenstance, he would just join the group. Then we started noticing
he would start coming to small group as long as he did it in his time.
You could just see that eventually when I dropped him off he was happy and it
would be so cute. I would be waiting in the hallway to drop him off at class and
all of his little friends would be in the doorway and they would be dancing
and singing and going "Charlie's here! Charlie's here!" And as a mother of a
child on the spectrum one of your biggest worries is, "Is my son going to
have friends?" The wonderful thing about this program is it doesn't just help the
children that have special needs, it helps, you know, the community kids learn how to
interact with everybody. -And one of the things that was vital for Charlie's
success was building a relationship with him and letting him know that no matter
what kind of a day we had we were going to greet him the same way and love him
the same way the next day. -I can't even explain the level of change that I saw
in this child. He was participating, he was sharing, he was learning cooperative
play skills. He would hug friends, he would hold friend's hands. It wasn't every
day but he was doing it. -Charlie is an amazing amazing kid. He just keeps me in
awe. His interest in things in life, and his ability to grasp those things that
most four and five-year-olds would never have any kind of concept about. He knows
and he understands. He has so much pride in what he's doing, you know, he
walks in the school and he's happy to be here,
but he's also proud of himself that he can accomplish this, that he's made it
through the day, that he's hanging out with his friends, and he sees what kids
do and he wants to do it. He wants to play and he wants to connect and it
doesn't come natural. You know, I know our journey is just starting and I know we have many
years ahead of us of opportunities for improvement, at the same time we have so
much hope.