Seven Keys to Unlock Autism

"Elaine Hall is the founder of The Miracle Project, a theatre and musical arts programme for kids with autism that is now being replicated nationally and beginning to be replicated internationally. Elaine has a twenty-two year old son with autism, he is a very capable kid but very severely challenged by his autism. His name is Neil. Elaine adopted Neil when he was about a year and a half old, from Siberia, because she couldn’t have children, and brought him to the United States. A couple of years after she brought Neil back her husband divorced her. She was a single mom raising a severely challenged son with autism. Prior to having Neil, Elaine worked as an acting and dancing coach for children in movies in Hollywood. She grew up on stage as a dancer and as an actor. Being a single mom who was economically challenged, she needed to put that career aside and focus on Neil. But when Neil was about eight, she decided to develop theatre and musical arts programmes for kids with autism. That was eventually documented in a movie that came out in 2008 called Autism: The Musical, an award-winning documentary on HBO. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The Seven Keys to Unlock Autism is Elaine’s effort to share with us how she approaches autism, both as a parent and a professional. It’s her effort to help us understand the experience of autism so we can best support people with autism. When people go through the training for The Miracle Project programme, she takes them through the ‘seven keys’ training, which has to do with understanding what our intention is when we’re with the person with autism and how we are going to connect with them. It’s about understanding and appreciating people with autism as opposed to pitying them or just trying to make them change: understanding their sensory issues, understanding the importance of following their interests. It’s a big theme in autism now in general: let’s understand what people with autism are really good at and what their interests are and use that to help them navigate through life and through academics. It’s a wonderful book coming from both the parental perspective and the professional perspective and Elaine navigates beautifully between those two."