Hayden's Son Rise Therapy Room

I have had a few questions about the type of therapy program we are doing and what the room looks like. So here is the answers :)

We are running a full time Son-Rise Therapy Program in our home for Hayden.  He is currently getting about 30 hours a week of therapy and my goal is to get it up to about 60 hours a week of therapy.

So what is the Son-Rise Program?  Well in my own words it is a loving and respectful play therapy that Hayden loves :)  I must say that we LOVE it too!!  I truly enjoy getting down on the ground with Hayden and just spending time with him with no distractions.  It is honestly a nice break from a very over stimulating world.  There are no electronics, no other people.  It is just Hayden and I doing what he enjoys.

The main focus in Hayden's Son-Rise program is improving and building on communication and eye contact.  We do this through joining him, motivation, excitement, energy, and enthusiasm.  Tonight in therapy room Hayden and I had a great session.  He usually has me draw the Thomas the Tank Engine characters on his dry erase board.  When we started doing this 5 weeks ago he would just say, "Harold" when he wanted me to draw him.  Tonight he said, "Draw Harold Helicopter Mommy."  I then said, "You want me to draw Harold the Helicopter."  Hayden replied, "YES."  Hayden never said the word "yes" until about a month ago.  It seemed that "yes" had no value to him.  He now uses it frequently and correctly.   Normally I just go ahead and draw the face, number, details, and get the correct colored marker myself.  Well not tonight, a light bulb went off!   I decided to ask Hayden to hand me the color marker that Harold is.  Much to my surprise he did and told me the color.  I then congratulated him and made a big, huge deal of it:)  I then went on to draw Harold the Helicopter. I decided to ask Hayden to draw his face.  He grabbed my hand and we drew it together.  We then went on to draw a few other characters.  He drew the face himself on several of them, gave me the right color of markers, and told me what numbers they were.  It was beautiful!!!  I think we spent 20 minutes on this activity.  Hayden stayed right with me and was fully engaged and chatted back and forth with me.  Through out the whole activity I praised him and told him how smart he was, thanked him for his eye contact, and told him how much I enjoyed spending time with him and drawing Thomas the Tank Engine Characters with him.  I need to work on my drawing skills, but you can see the faces that Hayden drew and he even drew a couple wheels on James.

Hayden transitioned from drawing on the dry erase board to drawing on himself.  I thought this was a good opportunity to join him.

At first Hayden was in his own world coloring himself.  He then noticed that I was coloring my hands.  He had the biggest grin on his face.  During this time I am telling Hayden how much I enjoy coloring myself with him (which I do....it is truly relaxing) and making funny noises while doing so.  Hayden then looks at me in eyes.  This is a green light!!!  I then expand on the idea of coloring myself.  A little background.....Hayden loves my flabby, nasty, jiggly belly (which it's his fault it is like this).  He likes to blow raspberries on it and jiggle it.  With out hesitation I lifted my shirt and started to draw a big circle on my belly and asked Hayden to draw the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  He was so EXCITED to do this that he could hardly contain himself.  We then made my belly jiggle and I would make the smily face talk.  He then lifted his shirt and said, "face my belly."  I drew a smily face on his belly.  Great fun I must say.  He was losing interest so I chased him around the room with my jiggly, smily face belly.  Oh, how we both laughed and laughed and laughed.

Here is what Hayden's Therapy Room looks like.  It use to be an old crapy, leaky sunroom.  Not anymore!!


This is a picture of the french doors that we had a one way view mirror put in.  On the inside it is a mirror. Hayden LOVES his mirrors!!

All of toys and games are put up high on a shelf on purpose.  This way he has to ask to get what he wants.....very motivating!!

The windows have a frosted glass film on them.  They let light in, but you can't see out.  This aids in providing a distraction free environment.

Here is the slide that we do creative things with.  Hayden likes to jump off the top or jump to me from the top.  I like it when we roll several marbles down it and they hit the metal door stop and make a pinging noise!!

This is what the french doors look like on the inside of the house.  I can see in, but he can't see me :)  Observation is great because we can provide feedback on therapy.