Hello

Nathaniel is still waiting for his 'We're Back; a Dinosaurs Story' movie to come in the mail. He's gotten really good online this summer. He goes to Google, then to Google images (on his own). He finds pictures of his favorite movies, copies down the name, then goes to youtube and types it in. He watches clips of different movies, then decides on which one he wants. He writes it down in his notebook, brings it to me, and I look online at netflix to see if we can rent it, and if not I look at half.com. Going by when it should arrive, I write down the date he should get it below the name of the movie in his notebook. Then he gets the calendar out, marks the date, and checks each day to see how long he has to wait. This has worked great. He is learning time, dates, patience, working toward a goal, and we can use the coming movie as a motivator for good behavior. We won't take it away, that would defeat the purpose for him, but we can always allow him ways to earn it and looking forward to it helps him to make better choices day to day. If he's doing something he shouldn't, I can say "If you want your movie you need to stop." He'll get out his notebook and point to his movie, and I say, "Yes, you can have the movie, if you stop." And generally, it works well. If he did something on a Tuesday and I took his movie the next Friday, he wouldn't understand why, but if I use it in the here-and-now to prompt good choices, we both win. Anyhoo, it's 'We're Back' for now, and hopefully it'll be here any day now. By the way, if you still have a VCR, you can find all these great old cartoons at half.com in VHS, for less than a dollar. Hopefully we'll be able to use his love of technology at school. Each child with autism has their own needs and their own abilities that have to be worked with, so no one education plan works for all autistic children. And this is great prep for the new communication device we've been trying to get for Nathaniel. If the paperwork gets finished, he'll have an even more effective way to let us know what he needs and wants, which would be great.

Hillary is doing okay here at the end of the summer break, but bored. She's worried about the possible change in schools this coming school year, we both are, so that's a bit stressful. But she's started a new job. She cleans moms house once a week for pay, and she works really hard at it and does a great job. I've promised to get the new 'Breaking Dawn' book in the Twilight series for her, so she'll use her pay to get either a new manga or a new video game she's been wanting (found it at half.com for less than five bucks). She is in the Robinson Scholar program, was Knott County winner last year, so she had her yearly summer trip with them. This year it was to central Kentucky, and they studied watersheds. She had a great time with them, as always. Now, she's waiting to get her water test kit and will continue working on her project. She will be testing water in several areas of our local lake, writing up the results along with an article on water conservation for her school paper and our local county paper, and making a pamphlet to hand out at local stores, and organizing a community clean up on Lotts Creek. It's an ambitious project, but she's working hard on it. This program has been great for her, and knowing she has a full-ride scholarship to the University of Kentucky has opened up a whole world of opportunities for her. We were truly blessed with this scholarship program, and Hillary has worked hard her entire education, so she has earned it.