R-JENERATION: Student uses music skills to help children with autism

Some teens have a job. John Lloyd has three.

Most of those employed teens spend their work hours serving food or folding clothes. John Lloyd spends his playing instruments and teaching.

Lloyd is a senior at the Las Vegas Academy by day and an entrepreneurial musical therapist after 2 p.m.

Lloyd began working with children with autism in February 2011. After six months of training, he began doing different types of therapy, such as sports therapy and home therapy.

"The type of training I received is based on reinforcement: positive and negative," Lloyd said. "I read tons of books on how to work with these kids, but the bulk of the training came from working one on one with them. Training only started me off. I started to experiment with certain things that I've developed into my own techniques. The most important thing I took from training was you have to really get to know the kids."

About 10 months ago, the people Lloyd worked with in sports therapy rented a warehouse and founded Sport Social, a 4,000-square-foot warehouse equipped with games, a skate park and classrooms that focus on teaching kids with social disorders skills in a classroom setting and giving them an opportunity to use them in the real world. The warehouse sees 15 to 20 kids a day and is growing rapidly.

Sport Social gave Lloyd an extra room and with it the opportunity to create his own company for music lessons and therapy, in addition to working on the Sport Social warehouse team. Lloyd gives lessons in music, film work and movie-making.

Lloyd, who plays guitar for the Las Vegas Academy's top jazz band, never had any formal training in music therapy.

"I may not have had formal training in music therapy, but I've had professional music lessons for four years, and I know how to play piano, guitar, bass, drums and ukulele. In my lessons though, I focus on creativity. We write songs and sing. We don't read music. Instead I teach kids music through listening."

With about 12 students taking music lessons from him, Lloyd has learned to structure his techniques around a simple system of rewards and reinforcement.

"I have to do something different with every kid. I like to work with improvisation," he added. "I try to force creativeness from them. I don't consider anything work. Why would you want to do something that you call work? We come up with fun things to memorize and inventing words. You have to find what kids like and what makes them comfortable. That's why there is so much experimentation. Kids are not going to work well if they are uncomfortable."

Nicholas Whisler has been taking music lessons with Lloyd for several months. His mother, Adrienne Whisler, searched for two years to find someone who could help her son with movie-making and music.

"John is really able to connect because he's so kind, patient and really able to connect with all kinds of people," Whisler said. "I didn't really have a lot of expectations at first, but I've been absolutely blown away. For example, this Christmas, Nicholas came home and played 'Jingle Bell Rock.' He's never had any instruction before John. It brought tears to my eyes. His compassion, personality and persistence is what ultimately makes him a great teacher and friend to my son. You can pay a lot of money for people to teach motor planning, but John does it in a way that kids love. Because of John, my son chooses to make music and film a part of his day."

Lloyd puts in up to 30 hours a week at the Sport Social warehouse alone, in addition to home tutoring.

"He's a great worker and great with the kids," said Justin Bradfield, one of Lloyd's co-workers at Sport Social. "He gets them to learn quickly because he can adapt to the skills of each individual. Once he gets them going, they learn incredibly quickly. All the kids like John right off the bat."

Between helping at the warehouse, giving lessons and home therapy, Lloyd still makes time to express his love for music. His home recording studio is a great place for him to put down ideas. He has produced and mixed albums for several bands and artists. One of the EPs he mixed and edited sold more than 15,000 copies on the Internet. Lloyd plans to keep working at the warehouse and for his company after high school.

"The more I'm with these kids, the more I realize they aren't much different than everyone else," Lloyd said. "I love how comfortable they are with me and how comfortable I am with them. I see a lot of myself in them."