You’ve seen it in your Son-Rise Program Start-Up Manual!
You’ve glanced at it on our website! It lurks in the corner of the classroom
when you’ve been to programs at The Option Institute! Is it a bird?
Is it a plane? No….it’s The Son-Rise Program Developmental Model! And
guess what? It’s here to help you. It’s here to guide you. It’s both your
friend, and teacher. It will support you and guide your child on their social
journey into our world…a world of meaningful relationships with other people…a world
of friendships and peer groups…a world
of knowing how to communicate, how to socialize, how to initiate and how to
follow…a world of social success!
Read this model, study this model, love this model, make friends
with it, kiss it and hug it and know that without it, your Son-Rise Program is going to lack direction and clarity. Here is a
simple step by step guide on how to use the model with your child.
1.) Use it like a dictionary
Look at the overview of the five stages of social development (manual
pages 16 and 17). Each box will take you through different skills that you can
work on with your child. There are four areas to work on:
·
Eye contact and Non-verbal communication
·
Communication
·
Interactive Attention Span
·
Flexibility
The skills will range from stage one (basic social skills); right
through to stage five (advanced social skills). Look in each box of the model to
read each skill. It’s ok not to know what every skill means, if you use it like
a dictionary, you will be able to look up an example of each skill to educate
yourself. For example, if you are looking at stage one Eye contact and
Non-Verbal Communication (manual page 16), take the first box under “Function
of Eye Contact” Looks at others to
start /continue an interaction. What does that mean? Go
to page 18 in the manual and you will
find a comprehensive explanation of stage
one. Look up Looks at others to
start /continue an interaction (the first skill:) and you
will see a description of what that means (When you pause, your child makes eye
contact to get you to start/re-start an activity). Continue to use this
comprehensive explanation to familiarize yourself with each skill.
2.) Plotting my child
Creating a baseline for where your child is in their social
development is going to be your next step. If you don’t know your current
position, then you will not be able to get to where you want to go. You need
a starting point. Using the overview once again (manual pages 16 & 17) you
will want to go through each skill in each stage of each fundamental one by one
and assess whether they have mastered the skill (acquired) or are still
working on the skill (emerging). For your child to be acquired in a skill, they
need to be doing it approximately 80% of the time. They also need to be doing
it spontaneously as well as when you request from it them. For example, if we take
that same skill looks at others to
start / continue an interaction if they only do it when you
ask them to then it’s not acquired. You will need to check out if you were to
pause during the game, would they look to show you they want more? Would they
start an interaction with eye contact or would they instead use a word or a
non-verbal gesture?
3.) Setting Goals
Once you have practiced the art of understanding your
developmental model and then gone on to plotting where your child is in the
stages one through five on the overview (manual pages 16 & 17), you can now
begin to select program goals to focus on with your child. Do not pick more
than three or four goals at a time; this keeps things consistent and manageable
for your team and your child. Look at all the areas that he/she hasn’t yet
mastered (is emerging in) and circle the ones that would make the biggest
difference to his play. Try to imagine him/her with other children his/her age.
What would help him/her be more socially successful? For example, if he/she is
in stage one in eye contact and stage three in everything else, then eye
contact would be your primary goal. If he/she is in stage four for language but
stage 2 for flexibility then pick a flexibility goal.
4.) Use your common sense
You may see some gaps along the way where your child is not doing
a skill, say in stage one, but is really mostly in stage three. For example, he
may be speaking in sentences, having two loop conversations and asking and
answering questions (stage 3) and not physically moving others to get what he
wants (stage one). Use your common sense to think about that. If my child has
the ability to ask for what he wants, and easily uses language, he may not need
to physically move others to get what he wants. So in that case, I wouldn’t
necessarily pick that as my goal. If my child is 15 and interacting
appropriately with a peer (stage 4) and he is not interacting around shared
physical activities, such as tickles and squeezes (stage one) then I wouldn’t
necessarily pick that as a goal because most 15 year olds don’t typically play
tickles and squeezes.
5.) Have fun!
Enjoy using this tool with your team and your children. It doesn’t
have to be perfect! Don‘t get too serious! Don’t push the goals onto your
child! Invite your child to try these goals, show them that it’s fun to try and
always remember to only challenge them when they are motivated. This way, they
are far more likely to be successful with the goals you have picked. Once they
have mastered one of your goals, pick another one!
