PURPOSE

Every Autistic child is born with a unique set of individual strengths and talents. For reasons that are currently the focus of extensive behavioral research, they face special challenges to communicate these unique gifts with their outside environment and develop protective behavioral mechanisms early in life or even before they are born. The endless variety of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been challenging scientists, psychologists, therapists and – most of all – parents over the past decades and is on the increase in the US. The Autism Academy for Education and Development intends to offer a progressive service for families with Autistic students by integrating the latest behavior technologies in their programs. Developing specific teaching techniques and activities for children with Autism help to strengthen their education. Genius Coaching can offer several important pieces to solve this behavior puzzle and empower Autistic students to flourish in a regular human environment.

RATIONALE

The Latin word educare is mysterious and means leading (someone) out of (something). The core of education in human history has always been to support children and adults. Due to education, children and adults are able to discover and unfold their innate strengths, to be lead out of the darkness of not knowing hidden DNA messages into the light of being consciously aware of them, building them every day and enjoying them as a solid foundation for a career and life. Children and adults are truly happy when they do every day what they do best.

Autistic children are born with the same set of unique brilliance; however, they face more challenges to make them accessible for themselves and their environment due to their social interaction challenges. Genius Coaching offers a proven behavior based program for students, teachers, and parents to access this vault of individual brightness as a root cause for healthy development and brain stimulation. This program will make a significant contribution to the Autism Academy for providing an environment to improve the life of each autistic student.

IDENTIFIED NEEDS

Based on the Autism Academy Mission Statement and several conversations with Laura Newcomb, the following opportunities for collaboration have been identified:

• To teach professional coaching tools to the program director and the teachers as behavior-based communication tools
• To provide brain-based exercises to enhance connection between specific brain areas
• To educate parents of ASD children to introduce specific exercises and behavior based interactions in their daily family communication
• To discover and leverage the natural brain plasticity of every ASD student
• To create and maintain a human environment at school and at home that balances the brain development of each child.
• To strongly encourage awareness of individual value in each child, teacher, and parent
• To align the most effective therapy programs at the Autism Academy with professional coaching for the most caring and effective interactions with ASD students

PROPOSED SOLUTION

Einstein’s famous quote “There is a true genius in everyone” applies to Autistic children as well. The power of unleashing this innate physical reality has a profound therapeutic impact on the human brain. Over the past decade, the Genius Coaching system has been applied to very smart and intelligent individuals of any age as well as to brain injury clients. It is based on recent research about brain plasticity and has been producing drastic improvements in healthy brain function on a physiological level. Our Genius Program provides profound insights for children to learn about themselves in a very pragmatic and entertaining way: they learn to embrace their uniqueness and start feeling that they belong to a family or peer group instead of trying very hard to fit in. Autistic students have the same profound human need to understand their uniqueness on a deeper level in order to be able to communicate with their parents and teachers. This approach holds profound answers for meaning and purpose in life.

The Genius Program includes students, parents, and teachers to support their unique role in the education process with behavior-based tools of professional coaching. These tools have been applied by more than 58,000 certified professional coaches worldwide and create behavior upgrades in boardrooms and business environments as a key element for higher performance. Now these powerful tools are available in classrooms as well; Genius Coaching combines them with specific exercises and physical processes to remove mental and emotional blocks from the brain and nervous system.