Skybound Autism Therapies

[tryingtokeepintune]

HI,

Wondering if anyone has heard of them? They run 5-day intensive therapy courses and is based in West Wales.

Ah, I have a vague memory of this, yes.
I have learnt an awful lot on the last 3 years. Prob. didn't realise the significance of this back then.

Hi, I hope you don't mind me joining this discussion, really wanted to share my experience. My name is Alison, I have a son Jack age 7 diagnosed with autism. I have been running a Son-Rise programme with him for 2 years, which was good but I found that I reached a point with him where he wasn't progressing any further, especially with language, he had a few sounds that he used and the occasional clear word but was not able to ask for anything or express himself at all.
I heard that Risca Solomon was presenting a workshop on teaching communication to a non verbal child and booked my place. I sat through the workshop on the edge of my seat, Risca showed footage of children she had worked with and I knew I had to have her try to work with Jack. Risca agreed to do an assessment for us January this year. When we arrived at the appointment Jack was having one of his worst meltdowns, smacking his head in the floor, screaming, running to the door and taking his clothes off. It took Risca approximately 1 minute to win him over and he went on to do everything she asked of him.
I knew at this point that I really wanted an intensive week for Jack. Risca and Lindsey where fabulous, they went out of their way to schedule an intensive week for Jack so soon and we had our intensive last week.
Again when we arrived Jack was screaming, taking his clothes off, head butting, and at this point I wasn?t sure just how much Jack would gain from the week. By day 2 all my concerns vanished, he was co-operating fully; the progress he was making was absolutely astounding!
By the end of the week, Jack has learnt new speech sounds, signs for words he can't say, there is no head butting, no taking clothes off or screaming, he is actually really enjoying showing off all he can do, I am seeing his personality coming out a whole lot more, we are having lots of fun together.
Jack had lots of issues around appointments for dentists and has not had his hair cut for years. Risca worked on this with Jack and he has now had his hair cut (he actually passes me his hair to cut it for him) he has it brushed now too which I could never ever do! He has also had all of his teeth looked at properly with the dentist mirror for the first time in his life.
With the speech sounds Jack has learnt he is enjoying talking on the phone now, he hands me the phone to ring somebody so he can say "Hi" I have had all the family in tears when he phones up.
I can't tell you just how ecstatic I am that I met Risca and Lindsey.
We got full funding for the intensive week from the LEA as Jack is home educated but I can honestly say for the results we got I would have gladly paid twice as much out of my own pocket.
Last week was certainly a life changing experience and I can't recommend Skybound Autism Therapies highly enough.
Thank you so much
Alison & Jack xxx

Thanks for the info.

It is good to hear from people who know them or about them.

Alinjack, I was blown away by your story, and especially by the fact that you have found an LEA forward-thinking enough to pay for a week's life-changing and intensive ABA! Would you mind saying which one it is, or would you mind PMing me if would rather not reveal it publicly?

We have actually had a few LEAs fund the Intensive week courses. They tend to be where the family have already achieved ABA funding and the family then use some of the money for the Intensive course.

Pleasant

StarlightMcKenzie, I know exactly what you mean by unethical professionals, I have had experience of a number of them personally on our own home program. The intensive courses we are offering are relatively new, so not many families have experienced them yet.

I would be interested to know more about them. I would also welcome your contribution to the thread on the potential support group.

I have met you actually. I attended something that you organised to a professional standard and have no reason to suspect there is anything unethical in your practice.

I do however, have some quite serious concerns about some budding (and even some not so budding) organisations and so will always point out that the parent or potential customer should not go into receiving services blindly. It is these organisations that are making it hard for many parents to access decent ABA programmes or intervention throuth their LAs, as they are used as the excuse to refuse funding.

Yes Starlightmckenzie it is so important to check out the provider. There are some horror stories out there about some providers and it is really sad, especially when the LAs can then use that experience to refuse programs in future, very sad. What is the support group thread you talk about?
I've met you???? Now you've got me thinking!

This one

Miss Midlands, your website says nothing about your approach or what exactly you would get for your money. It appears that you only find out once you've spent it. How can we know that the services you offer are any good?

How can we know that they are effective?

ah, that answered my question about the first time poster with a rash of deleted advertisements comments then.

as you were.

Oooh, you've given me an idea to be a bit naughty...

glad you found it interesting

it's GAPS you read up on, isn't it? yes, very full on - SCD rather than "just" gf/cf iirc? I haven't gone that far - we went gf/cf (and associated stuff, like no sweetners/preservatives/msg/etc) when dd1 was 2.6. But it has taken (along with various supplements like probiotics, vitamins/minerals etc) until Autumn last year for dd1's stools to firm up, and be less rancid - and she was 6 then, so 3.5 years... maybe if we had gone the whole hog, and done the GAPS healign bit first, it woudl have been sooner? (the best description I can give for the change in dd1's bowels at that point is that they seemed to "heal up" - literally overnight, she went form producing rancid nasty smelling foul stools to "proper" stools - proper consistency, proper smell etc. full toilet training and faecal continence followed a couple of months later.

I have seen Natascha speak on the Gaps at the last biomedical conference in Bournemouth. I remember the Gaps diet seemed to make a lot of sense but it was very hard work to begin with, lots of chicken stock wasn't it? I liked her book! Made lots of sense. You going to this year's biomedical conference?

yes, GAPS. and the healing bit does seem to involve an alarming amount of home made stock. and home-knitted yoghurt and festered fermented veg given the exigencies of food prep, i'd like to be living nearer to a supermarket than we are at the mo, as well! it's an hour and a half round trip - a pita if you've forgotten something or are trying to work out whether what you've got left in the fridge is allowed or not... i am deeply un-woo by nature, but it does seem to make sense, so i can be best friends with the staff at the whole food store if necessary.

we're staying in canada - moving nearer to calgary. dh started his new job yesterday so i'm doing the solo stint until the end of term. can be more specific but only by pm

i'm building up the courage to try the enuresis alarm again though, so that's first. got to do it before we move as we're going into a town house from a detached - so i need to get the noisy night time bit out of the way if poss... keep thinking that training the bladder issues subconsciously at night might help during the day too, where being conscious doesn't seem to be helping much. need it to be a subconscious decision! dh is chuffed to ribbons that i get to do it and he gets to sleep miles away.