Luka's story

Artists meet Autism was founded in 2008, at the occasion of the first "AuJa! Improv Festival ImprovMeetsAutism". It came out of the efforts of Christiane and Deniz Döhler, who are treating their son's autism with the Son-Rise Program®. Here is Luka's story in the words of his father:

"My name is Deniz Döhler. I have loved and lived improv theatre for over twelve years now. From the year 2000 my wife Christiane and me have succeeded in pursuing it full-time and have made a living from it. Improv theatre has given us more gifts than we would ever have thought possible (for that we are infinitely grateful!): Be it the friendship of other improv players, of groups, workshop leaders and the participants in our own courses or the chance to introduce and teach improv in preschools, schools and companies.

Yet I would have never imagined that the skills we acquired through improv theatre would help tremendously with one of the greatest tasks our lives had put up before us: bringing our son Luka Maximilian from his autistic world into ours. Maybe some of you know Luka, who is now three years old and at the age of 22 months was diagnosed with “suspected early-childhood autism”. Let me give you a short account of his story:

Until recently, Luka didn’t take anything in his mouth and couldn’t stand being touched on his face. Besides this, he rejected being fed with a spoon, so stopping breast-feeding proved extremely dif-ficult. Eventually, he refused eating altogether, and when he was about one year old, weighed less than 7 kg or 14 lbs.

He didn’t play with other children but had a stereotypical way of constantly spinning objects such as bowls. In the presence of children of his age he seemed lost. He wouldn’t move anymore or cried when things around him were getting a little noisy. At some point, he started pinching other children’s faces in his weekly playgroup for toddlers and no educational measure proved successful. Not surprisingly, we began to avoid contact with children his age.

At the age of 18 months, our son had no access to speech yet; he couldn’t understand anything and would not talk at all. He didn’t point at objects to get something, his eye contact failed and he had no sense of danger whatsoever. As Luka grew “stranger” our family life grew more difficult.

One month later when experts dropped the term autism for the first time, we started our search for helpful treatment. Eventually this led us to an autism treatment program that is still hardly known in Germany: the Son-Rise® program.

This program is very time-consuming and costly, since, depending on the individual child, it may involve training for 40 to 60 hours per week. As parents we would have been lost without the assistance of voluntary helpers. Hence it became our goal to find 5 to 8 inspired people who would work with Luka for 4 to 6 hours a week.

But where to find people who have the coolness to be watched through a mirror, who are spon-taneous and creative and play interactive games, who can accept impulses, make them stronger or transform them and, on top of all that, are capable of working in a team and receiving feedback???

Finally, the penny dropped: we just had to turn to improv theatre. After having overcome an initial shyness, I started by telling one workshop participant about the parallels between the pro-gram and improv and she immediately volunteered to come and play with our child. Two months later, it was ten improv players and we always explained the program in improv lingo. We kept looking for appropriate improv games and techniques that could help us reach our goal. And Luka’s development skyrocketed.

After a little more than twelve months of therapy according to the Son-Rise® method, with a lot of improv players volunteering as facilitators and one social worker, each of whom works with Luka in his play room for four to six hours a week, our son
· makes and keeps eye contact easily
· has learned to chew
· eats and drinks on his own, including everything that we eat
· brushes his teeth
· is starting to be toilet-trained
· his height and his weight are once again age-appropriate.
But the most beautiful things are that
· his speaking skills are now age-appropriate, too, according to the physician
· he actively makes contact with people, including children his age
· he accepts and even asks for physical contact
· his attention span is also age-appropriate

We have found an integrative preschool for Luka where an educator and an educational therapist will be working with us following the Son-Rise® method to enable Luka to learn, within a safe environment, how to interact with peers.
The physician and the social workers we are in contact with all agree that the program has been a huge success for Luka and that it needs to continue. Unfortunately, there is no financial support for the program within the system of German health insurance, since it has not been validated scientifically nor are there acknowledged Son-Rise® therapists in Germany. We therefore take regular trips to the US for further training and will have to invite acknowledged therapists over to Germany. Although we receive (independently of the program) financial support of 205 € a month and an annual contribution of 406 €, which we are very grateful for, the money cannot cover the costs of Luka’s therapeutic program for this year.

The costs of Luka’s Son-Rise® training in 2008 will amount to about 25,000 €.
This sum includes
· two one-week training courses at the institute in the US
· monthly feedback sessions and consulting by the institute via video feedback and
phone conferences
· inviting a certified Son-Rise® therapist over for seven days to work with us and give us
and our team, which by now consists of twelve people, feedback and supervision
· further therapeutic material, in accordance with Luka’s developmental stage
· the construction of a “Yes” room on the premises of Luka’s preschool.

We will continue to carry the costs of the program ourselves as much as we can – but because of the time-consuming demands of the treatment our income as free-lance actors and theatre youth facilitators has fallen below a living wage for a family of three.

Since we also want to be able to reach and inform other families with special children, we started fund-raising, by asking for support and then founding the NGO "Artists Meet Autism e.V.", holding events and trainings.

To get to know the program and Luka better, please visit our website www.fuer-Luka.de (which, so far, is only in German, but we are working hard on the English version). If you would like to visit us or pass through, you are welcome to. The program’s playing sessions take place daily from 9 to 12 AM and from 4 to 7 PM, a biweekly supervision and training session is on Thursdays from 7 to 9 PM. Also, if you would like to support us - financially or in any othe way - just contact us.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

Improvise your daily life relaxed and with joy
Best improv regards
Deniz and Christiane Döhler
Players at Improtheater Berlin: the WäM!,
Paternoster and Fatma-Express