The Magic Moments: New school for autistic children has kids talking, interacting, many for first time

By Andres Farfan

At the new Autism Oasis For Kids school in High Springs, Narottam works an assignment while Jacob cheers in the background. Both boys are fighting forms of autism but are making big leaps at the school, where some kids who have barely spoken in years now talk regularly.

Posted: Thursday, September 30, 2010 4:52 pm | Updated: 5:54 pm, Thu Sep 30, 2010.

By Ronald Dupont Jr. North Florida Herald

HIGH SPRINGS -- As Joshua lays on a mat, Rob Trempe walks up, folds the mat over and lays partway on top.

Joshua is quiet as he seems to enjoy the weight on his body.
Rob then begins squeezing Joshua's arms and legs, as a massage therapist would, only faster. Joshua is still quiet.
Rob then picks up the child, gives him a strong hug and spins him.
And then the moment happens, the magic moment. Joshua talks. A child who has been mostly silent for years talks.
For Joshua, the key is lots of stimulation.
In the same room, another child, Alonzo, walks around in his own world, oblivious to people and objects around him. He does not talk.
Then Marie Trempe enters the room and starts singing to Alonzo. He remains silent. She sings again. Then again. And then the moment happens, the magic moment.
Alonzo sings back.
A child who has been nearly silent for years is singing.
For Alonzo, music can be the key.
In another part of the room, putting things in order is another child's world. Then there is the child who tends to talk when he's being physically spun or held in the air.
Each child has his own set of mental locks put there by autism.

And the daily job of Marie and Rob Trempe is to find which key fits, which key unlocks that child's world. And their methods are working.
The magic moments are increasing.
Marie gets teary-eyed when she talks of the one child who was nearly silent all of his young life. Then with help of what Marie and her husband have learned, the child one day turned to his mother and said, "I love you, Mommy."
The magic moments.
This is the world that the Trempes have created at their newly opened Autism Oasis for Kids, just a block from downtown High Springs in an unassuming yellow home. The non-profit school is the result of Marie and Rob not being happy with the treatments
available for their own son, who is suffering from autism. Health insurance wouldn't cover his treatment, state funding wasn't available and behavioral therapists would cost $40,000 to $60,000 a year, if not more. There had to be a better way, they thought.
So they began talking to other parents and they began educating themselves on the research, often traveling for classes and workshops. Their son and his mental health became their focus.

Today, their son, a 10-year-old boy who couldn't look people in the eye and would throw temper tantrums, now laughs out loud, talks to visitors and gets excited about dinosaurs and reading and fancy cars - like any other child would. For Rob and Marie, their own magic moments are a regular occurrence. Now they hope to bring those moments to other parents and other children, searching
for the key that unlocks each child's world.

The School's Methods
Marie said the key to working with an autistic child is learning what allows them to understand that child's world. She said that was one of the first lessons she learned working with her son, Narottam. "I say, ‘I'm interested in coming into your world," she said. "Then I saw how much he achieved goals in a week." In Narottam's case, he was fascinated with dinosaurs. He could name all the dinosaurs
and describe what they looked like. So Marie entered her son's world and began using dinosaurs to teach her son about
biology. Then she would ask where certain dinosaurs lived in the world, giving her son a geography lesson in the process. Soon, her son began to open up and began to learn. Then he asked to meet other kids. That was a big step forward. In fact, one of Narottam's classmates, Jacob, did something recently that is a classic example of how to change what could be a negative situation into a teaching moment.

Jacob was upset that he had lost his marker. But instead of asking for help or asking for a new marker, he simply sat in the middle of the room and cried. So Marie sat in front of him and cried, too. "I said to him, ‘I'm crying, too, but it's not getting me the marker.'"
Then she asked him how they may go about looking for the marker. Prodding, she got him to say that perhaps clues will lead them to the marker. And that's when Marie began teaching. First they went to a wall where pictures were hung previously that were created with markers. But the marker wasn't there. That's when she said that looking for the marker was like solving a mystery. That really
caught Jacob's attention. Marie then took out a simple mystery book, and they took turns reading pages from the book.

And then, with a little bit more mystery and intrigue, Jacob found the marker. He was ecstatic. He went from crying in the middle of the room to boasting that he had solved a mystery. But not all children are so advanced. Some need the most basic of help to learn how to speak and ask for what they want. At the Autism Oasis for Kids school, much of what the kids may want sits up high on
shelves, out of the reach of the students. If a child wants something and simply throws a tantrum, they get little attention.
"But as soon as they point, we run and get it right away," Marie said. "We make a big deal out of it." The same is true when Rob and Marie try to get a child to talk. Rob talks about trying to get both sides of a child's brain working in concert. Oftentimes that happens when a child is overly stimulated.

Rob demonstrated this as he was trying to get one the students to say "up" and "down." He began by playing with the child, spinning him around and holding him high in the air, similar to what a parent would do with a 2-year-old. In Rob's case, he kept eye contact with the student as the exercise continued. Then, in an exaggerated move, Rob leaned over and held the child nearly upside then, then said "Up!" before lifting him. Then, as the student was high in the air, Rob said, "Down!" Before long, Rob stopped talking and the student kicked in, saying "up" and "down" to continue the fun. Rob points out that this is a student who was virtually silent for years.

Motion, Sounds Everywhere
Just watching Rob and Marie is exhausting. They are a whirl of motion, regularly picking up 6, 7, and 8-year-olds, regularly crawling on the floor or jumping in the air, regularly singing out loud, and regularly holding kids' hands as they bounce on an in-house

trampoline. Each student gets eyeball-to-eyeball attention, all day long. "It's all about chemistry and connectivity," Rob said. "It's the connection between hemispheres." And when the connection is made, good results happen. "Instead of anger or screaming, they try to verbalize," Marie said. And when Marie, Rob or any other instructor see that happening, the child gets heavily praised, almost as if they have just won a prize.

The pace of activity can be exhausting. Marie jokes that she gets a break when she sleeps at night. Marie and her husband hope that their work, research and energy will translate into more children and their parents overcoming the autistic barrier. The school is non-profit, and there is a certain scholarship that autistic children can get to pay for what the Trempes are doing. But for the Trempes to realize their goals, they are going to need a larger building with a bigger yard. And that's why they are always looking for donations or even volunteers - anything that will help them teach others how to work with something that affects one out of every 100 children. They want others to have the magic moments, like the ones they have with their son. "This is a complete breakthrough," Marie said of her son. "Now he's a completely different child." Rob and Marie admit that their methods may seem a bit unorthodox to those familiar with a traditional classroom.

"Just because they're having fun doesn't mean they're not learning," Rob said. "They're actually learning faster." And when the children learn, their faces light up, sometimes just for a brief moment - that magic moment. Marie said she knows that moment well.
"These children deserve happiness."
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For more information about the school or how to volunteer or how to donate, visit the
school's Website at:
http://AutismOasisForKids.org
The school also can be reached at 386-418-0004.