AUTISTIC CHILDREN DISCOVER NEW `STAGE'.

Byline: Mark Kellam Valley News Writer

Parents go through a range of emotions, from denial to anger, when they find out their child has autism. They often don't know where to turn to get help.

One activity that's been shown to help young people with autism is creative play. The Center for Autism Resources and Education, headquartered in Granada Hills, offers a dramatic arts program where children can develop their communication and social skills.

Most autistic children have problems making friends at school and identifying social cues that most people take for granted. CARE's program, called Dramautism, uses theater games, costumes, wigs, puppets, musical instruments, karaoke and skits to engage autistic children and get them to interact with peers.

``Performing in front of a live audience is hard enough for normal people, but the kids in the Dramautism class had to first learn the basics of human communication, such as making eye contact, smiling at someone, reading faces and making friends,'' said Debbie Clark, founder of CARE. ``Then they had to learn to talk on stage as imaginary characters in front of strangers. Contrary to what you might read, we found that kids with autism love to pretend and that the active, expressive medium of theater allowed them to fix their communication deficits.''

Clark has two children with autism. When her first-born son, Daniel, was diagnosed with autism at age 5 in 1998, she went into denial. The family's pediatrician didn't know anything about autism, so Clark turned to the Internet to educate herself.

The next year, her second-born son, Adam, was also diagnosed with autism at age 2.

``I researched every possible treatment for my kids,'' Clark said. Treatments she considered included auditory integration training, a gluten-free/dairy-free diet, a nystatin treatment to destroy the ``bad'' bacteria in the intestines and Vitamin B and calcium supplements.

``A doctor in New York even offered to give the boys complete blood transfusions to get rid of the bad metals in their blood - for only $20,000 per boy,'' Clark said.

She chose more traditional autism treatments such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and behavioral analysis for her younger son.

Then, one day, she heard a disturbance in the garage. When she looked out the window, she saw her sons, dressed as dinosaurs, fighting each other with swords. ``The boys' growls were the sounds of miracles to me,'' Clark said. ``They were socially interacting with each other.''

She grabbed a sword and joined them. ``They were acting like typical kids - laughing, joking, talking to each other, listening to each other and responding appropriately,'' Clark said.

That experience gave her the idea for Dramautism. She created the program in October 2003 with Patricia Keating, a special education teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District who has a master's degree in theater arts.

Clark said her two sons have seen remarkable progress due, in part, to their experience with the dramatic arts. When her younger son was diagnosed with autism, Clark went to several experts. One child psychologist said Adam would never be able to be in a regular classroom. ``Today, he's in a regular third-grade classroom with an aide and has been in a regular classroom for four years,'' Clark said.

Her older son, a seventh-grader, is in a regular classroom without an aide.

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Photo:

Lulu Grey plays a pup in a production of ``101 Dalmatians,'' presented recently by the Center for Autism Resources and Education in Granada Hills.

Mark Kellam/Valley News