The Autistry Studios Mission

Helping ASD youth become independent adults.

At Autistry Studios we help teens and adults with Autism, Asperger's and other learning differences become successfully independent by leveraging their interests and talents while creating a community.

March 2025
S M T W T F S
« Aug    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Autistry Community

Posted By on September 5, 2011

When Dan and I started Autistry Studios we wanted to create a place for our son, a place where he would thrive after we were gone. With the help of our students, their families, our staff and the community, Autistry is becoming more than we could ever have imagined.

Devon Plasters DanielAt Autistry we love to build things – models, swords, movies, books, armor, dragons…just about anything! But underneath the projects what we are building is community. We are learning how to help each other reach our goals and how to ask for help when our own goals seem out of reach.

We hold the other end of a board while our classmate saws. We wrap a friend in plastic to help him make a mold for his armor. We give encouragement, praise and critical feedback. And we laugh together, eat together and play together.

Picture 005

Autistry Studios is becoming more than a program for learning skills. It is becoming a community of individuals who understand and accept each other.

Sharing favoritesLast week a young boy told us he likes Autistry because here he gets “real help from real people.” We are proud of our staff members. Each one is kind, educated, experienced and quirky! Autistry attracts people with wild ideas and boundless energy – both staff and students. Though we are very different there is a like-mindedness that holds us together.

Ryan on the guitar
Our vision is to see this community grow wider and deeper – more members, more programs, more opportunities for growth. We want to insure that our students not only acquire vocational skills but create personal bonds that will span a lifetime. Those bonds will be their safety net, giving them strength and support as they grow older.

Autistry Fundraiser – Spin ‘N Sizzle – Sunday Oct 16

Posted By on September 2, 2011

We’re doing it again! The 3rd annual Spin ‘N Sizzle happens on Sunday, October 16th from 10am to 3pm. Great exercise. Great food. Great people. Hosted by Michael and Christine Lopez of Body Image Personal Fitness Center.

Everyone has a blast at the Autistry Spinathon. Here is a link to some photos of last year’s fun! This year our goal is “A Butt on Every Bike!”

Hope to see you there!

To buy seats online go to our Pay for Spin and Sizzle Page

Autistry Newsletter – August 16, 2011

Posted By on August 16, 2011

It's a bird, it's a plane ....Wow – did that summer go by quickly! Schools are starting back up and Autistry is beginning our 4th year. We just posted the 2011 Fall Workshop Schedule. We are very excited about the new Theater Workshop led by our Clinical Director, Liz McDonough. Liz has years of theater experience and is a registered drama therapist. Students in the Theater Workshop will develop characters and scenes and experience different forms of theatrical expression. There will be a performance for friends and family at the end of the semester. All the Autistry students will be lending a hand to build Liz a stage!

numbskull and skullWe are also happy to announce that Courtenay Bell will join us for more workshop fun this year. Courtenay will be working with Dan in the Thursday and Friday Build Workshops and with Liz in the new Theater Workshop. She is also planning a Paint with Courtenay Day for sometime in the fall. In addition to her MA in Special Education and her Autism Certification Courtenay has a BFA in Painting from San Francisco Art Institute. She also skates with the Bay Area Derby Girls!

Sara Gardner returns to Autistry as an MFT Intern. Sara is working toward her Counseling Psychology Masters degree at Dominican University. She is an avid gamer and equestrian. Sara will lead two new groups at Autistry: The Gamers Group and the Sibling Support Group. The Gamers Group is closed but there is still space in the Sibling Group. Email Janet for more information: janet@autistry.com.

We also welcome a new face to Autistry: Anna Dow. Anna has been working with us in the Tuesday Build Workshop and will now join us on Saturdays with the Train Group. Anna is in the MFT program at Sonoma State. She graduated from Lesley University with a degree in Ecological Leadership and Education. Anna is originally from Mobile, Alabama.

SwimmingThe Autistry Summer Camp (also known as Camp Bear Bait) was a success. All campers returned with no snake bites, no poison oak scratches and no injuries! This was the first Autistry getaway and we are ready to plan some other excursions. A big THANK YOU to the Magnotti/Porter family for hosting the event on their property. The place was amazing – complete with pond and woods. Photos of the camping trip can be found here.

We are looking forward to another great year at Autistry Studios!

-The Autistry Team

Autistry Newsletter – July 8, 2011

Posted By on July 8, 2011

AndrewTomorrow we are back from vacation! I hope you all enjoyed a little time off from your projects and are ready to get back to work. The 2011 Summer Session Schedule is now posted and can be found here. Most of the workshops are continuing with little change. Note that the Saturday Build Workshop now starts at 11am and ends at 3pm. The Film Workshop will start again in the Fall.

Courtenay applying make up to TheresaThe addition this summer is the new class taught by Dan and Liz – Build/Drama Workshop. This is a 6-week workshop starting Sunday July 10th and running through August 14th. The workshop will include some acting improvisation and character building as well as theater prop construction. We are excited about this new approach and Liz will be developing new theater workshops for the fall.

Playhouse on the Golden GateThe Autistry Storybook Playhouse was delivered to Grattan Elementary in San Francisco. The Playhouse was built by Autistry students and purchased at the fundraising event in March by Becky Foust. Becky donated the Playhouse to Pamela Wolfberg’s Autism Institute of Peer Socialization and Play. Pamela has been working with Grattan Elementary to create an ‘Autism Friendly” play space. The Storybook Playhouse will be an awesome addition to the new playground.

Watch for news of Eunice the Unicorn by Owen Bragg.

Copies of this first book project by Autistry Studios and SLM Creative will be available for purchase from the Autistry website very soon. Suzi Musgrove and Owen did a fabulous job on this. Owen’s new book, Ketinga goes to print next week. A few more of these projects and we will have created Autistry Publishing!

Picture 050 Kudos to Daniel M. who finished the first Autistry musical instrument project! Daniel worked very hard on his acoustic guitar – lots of sanding and many coats of shellac. This was a long process as it took lots of time for each layer of shellac to dry. But last week Daniel put the bridge on, inserted the tuners, attached the strings and tuned it up with an online program. Now for the music lessons…


Ken Pontac visited Autistry last week. Ken is a writer of graphic novels and film scripts. He is also the creator of Bump in the Night , an animated program for ABC TV. Ken will return to Autistry later this year to do a ‘show and tell’ of his work for our Autistry students. We’ll send out an announcement when we have more information.

Picture 006 Last week Nancy Dow Moody and Barry Benda of Lifehouse gave a presentation to our Autistry families about residential services available in Marin County. This is an issue that is very important to our families – where will our children live when they are ready to leave home? The presentation got us all thinking of creative solutions for our very creative kids.

The Autistry Parent Support Group will meet next on Thursday, July 14th at 7pm at Autistry Studios. This is a great place to discuss issues and to get feedback from others who have been there, are there now or will be there soon. The meetings are free for Autistry members (families currently enrolled in workshops) and $10 for others. Email Janet at janet@autistry.com if you plan to attend.

Article: What’s working? Autistry Enterprises for employment

Posted By on April 30, 2011

by Dan Swearingen and Janet Lawson, MFT

The core mission of Autistry Studios is supporting the transition of ASD youth to whatever level of adult independence each individual is capable of achieving. Our Core Workshops and our new Drama Workshops prepare students for adult life by exercising and growing executive skills while building confidence and mental resiliency. These skills combined support real time decision-making and the ability to act on decisions – the abilities needed to successfully work and create.

The Thursday gang Our existing Core Workshops include a range of activities that could be characterized as going from “play” to “playful work.” Last year, as Autistry grew to including a growing adult student body we felt a need for more direct employment training: An employment program which could be thought of as picking up from “playful work” and transitioning into “realistic work.”

Importance of Work

Alex and IanMeaningful work is how we establish our identity, maintain our independence, and construct a real relationship with our community. Without appropriate opportunities to work our students are denied independence, denied an adult identity, and denied a real place in our community.

Building the ability to work is fundamental to fulfilling our mission supporting transition for ASD youth.

Our programs have always been driven by the needs of the students with whom we work. Our students today need initial work experience in safe situations where they can explore and learn initial job skills, practice social skills, and cultivate their work ethic.

Initial experiments

Our first experience providing work was to have students work extra hours doing chores around our workshop areas. This was a gentle extension of their normal workshop schedule. This succeeded to some extent but highlighted requirements a more robust program would need to meet:

  • Increased structure – more work hours per week.
  • A mix of routine: repeated tasks in which deep competency can be built up as well as unique tasks exercising problem solving skills.
  • Measured amounts of social interaction appropriate to the employee’s social skills.
  • Work objectives that are real and meaningful to the employees.

Our new employment programs for Q3-Q4 2011

Based on the lessons we have learned and to the extent that funding permits, we will be rolling out several internal direct employment businesses to which Autistry students would be eligible to apply starting summer of 2011.

In the past these internal businesses would have been called sheltered work programs but the current trend is to call programs like these Social Enterprises. This is a wide ranging term for any program that applies capitalistic strategies to achieving philanthropic goals. In our usage we will be calling these new Autistry Studios employment projects Autistry Enterprises.

The goal of the Autistry Enterprises is to set up a cluster of internal businesses that feed business to each other as well as outside businesses and customers much as a Japanese keiretsu (network of companies) functions.

Autistry Publishing

A couple of our students are in the process of writing books which will be published by Autistry Studios. In addition to the direct processes of producing content, digital textblock, illustrations, and actually printing books we will be handling ISBN registration and setting up sales and delivery channels.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support) and Autistry Figures (figure from the books) – both described below.

 

Autistry Railroad

Foothill Station - FinallyThe Autistry RR will produce model structure kits in cut-and-fold, cast plaster, cast resin, and eventually laser-cut wood and plastic formats. This company will employ designers working on CAD systems, technical writers/illustrators making instruction material, workers producing and packaging kit materials while maintaining inventory, and workers handling and fulfilling orders.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry Publishing (printed materials, packaging) and Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support).

Autistry Figures

Picture 063Autistry Figures will produce customized figures in many formats. Some will be hand painted figures available commercially; others will be complete custom creations.

This Autistry enterprise will feed business into Autistry Publishing (printed materials, packaging) and Autistry IT (website, e-commerce, technical support).

Autistry IT

Adam booting his PC build projectAutistry IT will provide computer hardware and software support to Autistry Studios and Autistry Enterprises. It will produce and manage websites for all the Autistry activities including e-commerce capabilities.

Next Steps

We have the resources to start the Autistry Enterprises but they will need significant direct family support to grow to a point where they can provide paid employment.

[Updated 9/2/2013]

The Autistry Employment Program was launched as the Autistry Model Employment Program in June 2013.

Article: The Core Workshop Program

Posted By on April 27, 2011

By Janet Lawson, Liz McDonough, and Dan Swearingen

We are coming up on the 3rd anniversary of Autistry Studios (once known as The Barn Project). We are looking back at our journey in amazement and we are looking to our future with renewed passion. As Autistry Studios continues to grow, so does our vision. Autistry has truly become a center for learning and we are humbled by how much we are educated by our students with each workshop. We are using this knowledge to further develop our model and refine our approach. In this first of a series of mini-articles we would like to share some of these insights and what they mean for the future of Autistry.

Perhaps the biggest change in the Core Workshops over the last three years has been increasing the age range and verbal range of students in the program. Initially we focused only on high verbal high-school age students, convinced that lower verbal and older individuals would not benefit from our programs.

When we were approached by families with older children and some with children with lower verbal ability we decided to see if our program would work for them. We quickly experienced for ourselves the simple truth: regardless of one’s age the mind continues to learn. This revelation gave us so much hope – that learning does occur across the life-span. It doesn’t stop at 20. For any individual student this means long term goals can be ambitious, it is just a question of appropriate intermediate steps and time. This holds for the low verbal students as well. Over time they continue to learn, therefore over a long enough time span of appropriate challenges they too can reach impressive goals.

The second lesson we learned is that building a solid relationship with each student is essential. Each student needs to be seen and to feel heard. They need to experience themselves reflected back in a positive light. Many students come to Autistry having experienced negative social interaction at school or in recreational programs. They often do not understand why they have difficulty making friends or sustaining friendships. During the initial relationship building phase we take the time to get to know the student. In this process, we also share ourselves. It is not a one-sided interaction, but a lively and dynamic exchange. It takes time to understand someone and even longer to learn to trust them. But when we achieve mutual respect and trust the learning can really begin. That is when, as one student put it, “They really get me.” This is the very foundation of our work.

Once we build the relationship, we find that students are more likely to reveal their personal challenges without defensiveness. Our workshops teach skills but our instructors also model problem-solving, exploration, making mistakes and bouncing back from them. Each new project represents a leap into the unknown and our role is to serve as the guide to this unfamiliar territory. It is our belief that each project fosters a developmental leap, which in turn points the way to the next challenge.

We have found that it is imperative to assess the developmental level of each student, because it helps us understand how they are seeing the world and what challenges they are attempting to navigate. Chronological age and developmental age are often quite different. As parents and as service providers we often forget that a basic issue of autism is developmental delay. And it is not a global delay because another fundamental issue of ASD is uneven development; different aspects of the individual mature at different rates. One may be academically advanced yet emotionally behind. One may be physically mature yet intellectually unsophisticated. We believe that in order for a student to advance we must embrace all their different strengths and weaknesses.

Autistry has become far more than a 4-hour workshop; it is a model to support ASD teens and adults in transition. Membership in our Core Workshop Program includes the following services:

  1. One on one student check-ins with licensed MFT during course of workshop
  2. Developmental Assessment – a written report of our observations of the students’ skill level and emotional maturity (presented at end of semester)
  3. One family meeting per semester to address transitional planning and clinical issues
  4. Monthly parent support group
  5. College homework support

We also offer additional counseling support to individuals, groups and families. We are available for 1:1 mentoring sessions, tutoring and consultation.

Our mission is to support teens and adults with ASD in making the transition from their current situation to secondary schooling and/or meaningful vocation. For some, this may be a shorter path, but for most of our students it is a bumpy road filled with twists and unexpected turns. And though we pride ourselves on helping our students improve executive functioning, the ability to have meaningful relationships and gain valuable vocational skills, we strive most of all to instill a sense of resiliency. It is this quality that will allow them to fall off the horse and get right back on it. It is resiliency that will keep them receptive to learning and open to taking risks despite the obstacles along the way. At Autistry, we hold the conviction that individuals, be they in their teens, 20’s, 30’s or 40’s can and will progress if they are simultaneously supported and challenged.

Our next installment will be Liz’s thoughts on a new Drama Theater Workshop program.

 

Autistry Studios Newsletter – April 25, 2011

Posted By on April 25, 2011

In the news: The Autistry film group won 2nd prize at the EdRev Short Film Competition last weekend for the trailer for their new film – The Deadly DiamondYou can view the trailer on YouTube. Filming on the The Deadly Diamond continued this weekend with the zombie shoot! Stay tuned for news of the premiere date.

We had a wonderful visit with Michael McManmon, the founder of the College Internship Program.  We gave him a tour of Autistry Studios and spent two hours discussing our programs, his programs, LD issues, ASD issues – and how we might work together.  It was great to talk with someone who gets it.  We are thinking of a Fall or Spring trip back east to their new Arts and Theater program. Here is a link to a posting about us at CIP. They did get Dan’s name wrong – it’s Dan Swearingen not Lawson!

Summer Plans: we will be continuing our scheduled workshops through the summer months.  We have openings in a few of the workshops so if you are interested in joining Autistry please contact us. We will open new workshops as our student body grows.

Our program has been going for nearly three years and we have learned a lot during this time. Over the next few weeks we will be sending out short articles about our experience – describing our program and laying out our vision for the future. We have big things planned!

Autistry Studios Newsletter – March 21, 2011

Posted By on March 21, 2011

This has been a very busy month at Autistry!  On March 1 we had our official ribbon cutting at 37 Duffy Place. It was a lovely celebration with friends, colleagues and the Autistry Board of Directors. With the help of Mayor Al Boro and Councilman Damon Connolly we cut the red ribbon and became part of the San Rafael business community.  We were thrilled to have Nagam Abdaljabbar and Raminder Somal of Wells Fargo Bank appear bearing a large donation – thank you!  We were also very pleased by the support of the ASD service community: the Marin Autism Collaborative, United Cerebral Palsey of the North Bay, Cypress School, Lifehouse, Opportunity for Independence, Dominican University, The Ryder Foundation and many others.

We continued the celebration with an Autistry fundraiser and dance party on Saturday, March 5th.  Over 150 joined us to celebrate and to share the creative achievements of our Autistry students. We had fabulous projects on display – dioramas, films, paintings, books!  With only days before the big event we were told that the Studio was not appropriate for the size of our guest list. Diane Doodha and the Marin Art and Garden Center came to our rescue donating the beautiful Livermore Room for the evening. And a huge thank you to the event committee: Michael Breard, Tin Fan, Linda Xiques, Si Si Semple, LynnEl Powell, Liz McDonough and Kitty Edwinson. In just four days they transformed an informal warehouse party into an elegant garden gala. It was an absolutely magical evening with families coming together to share stories and to simply enjoy being together. We all realized that we need to have more community events so we are thinking of a summer BBQ (hopefully with no last minute venue changes!).

The Storybook Playhouse was purchased by poet/author/mother Becky Foust who has donated it to one of Autistry’s biggest fans, Dr. Pamela Wolfberg.  Pamela,the founder of Integrated Play Groups and the Mosaic Program has been working with Gratton Elementary School in San Francisco to design a playground that is ASD friendly. The Playhouse will be a wonderful addition to their program.

Now that we have all recovered from our week of partying the Autistry workshops are back in full swing.  We now have over 30 students in 8 workshops.  We continue to interview new students and we will open more workshops soon.

Painting Day with Robert Evans

Posted By on February 16, 2011

On Sunday Feb 13th local artist Robert Evans spent the day at Autistry Studios. He worked with 10 Autistry artists and the paintings they created in just 5 hours are amazing. These paintings will be on sale at our fundraising event – Dancin’ at Duffy Place on Saturday, March 5th. Tickets for the event are available online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/153082.

Abe: Panda
Abe: Panda

Daniel: City of Music
Daniel: City of Music

Breton: Dragon in the Mist
Breton: Dragon in the Mist

Theresa: Tangled in the Kite String
Theresa: Tangled in the Kite String

Steven: Green Menace
Steven: Green Menace

Devon: Untitled
Devon: Untitled

David: Heroic Rock
David: Heroic Rock

Jonathan: QE II under Golden Gate
Jonathan: QE II Under the Golden Gate

Autistry Fundraiser – Dancin for Duffy Saturday March 5th

Posted By on January 21, 2011

Note relocation to
The Marin Art and Garden Center
30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd
Ross, CA

After all the heavy lifting, moving boxes, power tools, video equipment … not to mention building workbenches and work tables and painting we all need a bit of fun! So, join us as we kick up our heels at our first Autistry Studios fundraiser for Duffy Place. The warehouse is a great venue for a party – lots of room to dance. And, yes, that is a photo of the band!

There will be great auction items all created by Autistry students – garden fantasy structures, paintings, books – and much more.

Fabulous food from LaVier Fusion Cuisine!

Tickets are available online at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/153082. $50 for adults, $20 for teens.

Hope to see you all there!