A year ago, Elaine Hall was without a plan. The former child acting coach no longer wanted to give the time-consuming film industry her all, instead wanting to remain available to her autistic son, Neal. Now she has found her calling in The Miracle Project, a 22-week theater and film arts program that she created for children with special needs.

SM: What inspired you to create The Miracle Project?
Hall: About 10 years ago, I adopted my son, Neal, from Russia and got out of the work force entirely to help him through his autism. One of the things that I discovered was that traditional behavioral therapy really didn’t work for him. But what did work for him was [my] joining his world and becoming part of his system. I found a doctor who believed in that approach and had some sessions with him, and then I started hiring my actor friends to join [Neal’s] world. And that’s what we did, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

SM: What does “joining Neal’s world” mean?
Hall: If he would spin around in circles, instead of a behavioral coach who would try to get him to sit, we would spin around in circles with him; and then turn it into “Ring Around the Rosey” and make a game of it. If he would stare at his hands, we would stare at our hands. He would stack cars, so we would stack cars. On a really transformational day, he was stacking cars with one of the coaches and he gave his car to the coach. It was a very monumental day of him joining our world. [Before,] Neal could only make eye contact for a second at a time—he was completely in his own world and completely isolated. But today, I’m happy to say he’s mainstreaming in a typical 5th grade class and has friends. He still has autism, but he is 100% present in this world.