The person inside. That's who Greg Snaer said he sees when he plays music with some of the clients at the Training, Education & Research Institute in Oceanside, where adults and children with autism and other developmental and learning disabilities come for a variety of programs.

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"It's really kind of tough at first," said Snaer, who has worked for the institute for nine years. "It's like, who is that living in there? And then they start to emerge."

Snaer said that although many of the clients at the institute cannot speak, they still are individuals with distinct personalities that show through once others make an effort to look for them.

"Really, the adjustment is ours," he said.

The nonprofit agency provides limited computer and cooking classes, exercise and music classes, and in some cases even takes clients to local businesses where they work stocking or sorting items. Since its inception in 1980, the institute also has provided a place to live for dozens of clients.

The first six residents were men who had been living in the Fairview State Hospital in Orange County. When they arrived in their new Oceanside home on Via Rio Avenue, they sometimes were aggressive with one another and with staff members. They gobbled their food and guarded it with their forearms, a survival habit they'd picked up in Orange County.

Twenty-six years later, the same six roommates share kitchen duties and set the table for one another. One enjoys watching another play with his toy car collection. They sit side by side on a couch watching television most evenings, active but not restless, relaxed but not lethargic.

Ten years ago they moved from Oceanside into a larger, four-bedroom, single-story Fallbrook home, but they are still known by the staff as The Guys From Via Rio.

There's Chris Creek, 46, curious, sociable and silent except for an easy, happy laugh inspired by the smallest accomplishments. Then there's James Blazejowski, 48, known as Blaze by the staff, who sometimes gets a little underfoot because he is so eager to help with the laundry and other chores.

Rich Hanson, 52, and Richard Johnston, 46, are both tall and dark-haired, and seldom smile. Chuck Wilson, 53, repeats phrases constantly, which sometimes gets on the nerves of one of his roommates. Calvin Woempner, 47, is tall, square-jawed and ritualistic, compulsively arranging things in his room to be just the way he likes them. He lives for chocolate and ice cream.

Each man is handsome in his own way, and while none is going to engage in small talk, the staff has learned their special ways of communicating.

"You know when the guys are happy," said Cindy Tenny, an institute employee who has known them for 20 years and who used to live with them.

Only two of the men ever see family members.

A need for a change

The institute was founded 26 years ago by Cheryl Kilmer, now its chief executive officer, who began working with autistic people after seeing the conditions of an institution as a teenage intern.

"They're pretty bad, to put it simply," she said. "Many of the staff weren't really dedicated to providing good care to the residents who lived there."

Kilmer saw the conditions first-hand as a 17-year-old premed student from the University of Michigan. With plans to earn a doctorate in psychology, she was assigned to work with a 5-year-old girl at an institution there.

"She was a frail little girl," she said. "Nonverbal, quadriplegic. She had a bald spot on the back of her head where her head had been rubbing against the back of the chair. I don't believe anyone should ever have to live in those kinds of conditions. I ended up never turning away from it."

In the early 1970s, Michigan began "depopulating" its mental hospitals in a movement to have patients live in as normal settings as possible. Kilmer ran a group home for some former patients.

"I ran the home two years, then traveled the country for a couple of months," she said. "When we drove into San Diego, I knew this was going to be home."

Kilmer moved to the county in 1976 and learned the business side of the industry by working with a small nonprofit agency where she established residential programs. Soon she formed her own agency, and with her reputation in the field already established, she was awarded one of 13 state grants to run a pilot program of residential homes for the developmentally disabled.

"My goal was, the programs would be recognized as model, because I really wanted to have an impact for quality programs," she said.

The program was recognized and continued to grow, adding such innovations as equestrian therapy and an agricultural project. About 600 clients are served each year by the institute, which is in a capital campaign to expand its buildings. About 180 people participate in programs through the Oceanside center, and 300 people receive at-home respite care.

Including Via Rio, the institute operates nine homes for 54 adults, with a newly opened 10th home for adolescent boys.

Staying active

Activities are designed with mainstreaming in mind, meaning they give clients a sense of fitting with society, a therapeutic alternative to the isolation and snowballing anxieties associated with institutionalization.

At the Oceanside center where the six roommates spend their days, activities in the fitness room include exercises on fall prevention as well as standard strength-building workouts.

"A lot of guys aren't senior citizens yet, but they're living longer, like everybody else," recreation facilities coordinator Cindy Saldana said about the need to help adult clients keep fit.

"They love coming here," she said about the rec room, where clients play dodge ball and run relay races.

Saldana held a soap-bubble wand up to Woempner, who took a deep breath and blew bubbles at her. While it may look like play, Saldana said, Woempner could not blow very well when she introduced him to the exercise, which is designed to help clients learn to do continual breathing.

In the next room, Creek, Hanson and Johnston are part of a circle of clients in Snaer's music class. Nobody can really play an instrument, but they each take turns strumming a guitar and beating drums. Sometimes local musicians play for them, and Snaer said the institute is always looking for volunteer performers who want an audience.

"It's a mainstream activity, and there's a sensory aspect," Snaer said about the sounds, sights and touches involved in the program. The exercises also are a social and a fun experience for them, he said.

At home with the guys

At the end of the day, the six roommates reunite outside the center and ride in a purple van back to Fallbrook. At home, they take turn helping with chores and relaxing on the couch. A couple of men watch television while Johnston flips through a magazine.

In the laundry room, Hanson helped Tenny unload a washer and bring in the clothes. A brown wooden rod in the room is marked with the initials of each man to keep the hanging clothes in order.

"OK, Richie Rich, bring them over here," Tenny said, using one of several nicknames she has given the men over the years.

Blazejowski walked in to see whether he could help, but Tenny already had her hands full with one helper, so she gently redirected him back toward the house.

Meanwhile, Woempner had taken out wet clothes and put them in a hamper instead of a dryer.

"No, that's wrong," she said. "Pay attention. They go in there."

With six autistic men in a house with two or three female staff members, the house could be chaotic. Instead, it is orderly and peaceful, although Tenny said she has plenty of war stories to tell about the early days in the house, and even a few scares to remember them by.

But flare-ups are less common these days, bedrooms look like those in model homes, and order runs the house. Two shelves are lined with three-ring binders on rules, emergency procedures, medical records and other important information about each of the guys.

Michelle Darby has been the live-in house manager for the past two years, although Tenny still works afternoons with the men and stays one night on weekends.

In a good place now

In the kitchen, Tenny was a little nervous as Woempner walked through, because he has urges to feel hot things.

"Keep moving, keep moving," she directed as he passed through for the third time.

Wilson, a little overweight, walked briskly at the treadmill near the dining room.

"Who broke that?" he said to himself, muttering one of the phrases he has taken to repeating. "Get the broom. Brush your teeth."

At the sink, Creek helped Cindy Berry, another institute staff member at the house, wash potatoes. As they finish, Creek applauded happily and laughed ñ-- "HEE hee hee hee hee hee!" --ñ his characteristic institute calling card.

"These guys are in such a good place," Tenny said, looking at the roommates. "They know their lives."

A picture on the wall showed the six roommates from 26 years ago. Another from 20 years ago showed them with Tenny and her husband. Other photos showed them celebrating birthdays, dressed up for Halloween, in the stands at a sporting event and out at other social events.

In another time, the men might have been locked away from society's view, not stocking shelves at the local drug store. They might have been medicated into a stupor, not helping with chores. They might have been strapped to their beds instead of playing with toy cars at the kitchen table.

And the happy, echoing laugh of Chris Creek would not be heard as often.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

TERI QUICK FACTS

- Training, Education and Research Institute opened in 1980 as one of 13 California agencies awarded grant money for a pilot project offering residential care for those with developmental and learning disabilities.

- In San Diego County, TERI operates nine adult homes and one house for adolescent boys. In all, 60 people who at one time might have been institutionalized are living in the houses.

- The Adult Day Training Program serves 200 adults who need assistance in learning basic life skills, vocational skills, and behavior management. The program has services for those who are deaf, blind, and mentally retarded.

- TERI serves 300 people in respite care throughout the county daily. Respite care offers help to families with a developmentally disabled child or adult living at home.

- TERI is at 251 Airport Road, Oceanside, CA 92054. Call (760) 721-1706 or visit www.teriinc.org.