It should read:
America could run on Dylon Donnell
(He has so much energy and goes all the time!)






Well, since it is now July and I haven't updated our page I thought I would do so now! Dylon finished this school year and we are all happy about that. He will not be going back to the same school next year because they are doing away with the pre-K program where he went. We will see where he ends up next year. We should be getting a letter in the mail mid-summer telling us his new school so we can prepare appropriately. Dylon has adjusted nicely to his summer vaction. He continues to make progress in his goals. The only one we are fighting a hard battle with is potty training...go figure! :> In his speech therapy we recently did Dylon's annual test/evaluation. They actually did two test. The first one they did was more in depth as far as receptive (understanding) and expressive (words he uses) language is concerned. It also assessed things like sentence structure, Concepts and following directions, recalling sentences, etc. They would do like 15-20 minutes of testing then they would have their normal session for the remainder of the time. In this test his scores were still below the normal range but they weren't horribly low. In the test they asked questions like "If the dog is his then the cat is ___?" They showed him a picture of a boy holding a dog and a girl holding a cat. Pronouns are something he doesn't know. They would give 3 to 4 step directions and he wouldn't do what was asked. His therapist and I think that on some of these he was just in his own world and just done with the testing. For example, they asked Dylon to point to the picture where the nest was empty. He pointed to the picture that was half full. They stopped testing shortly after that. They played a game where Dylon had to hunt for Easter eggs. I kid you not when I say he found his first egg, shook it, opened it, and said "It is empty". So we knew he had the concept but technically missed the question in testing. (This is just one example of why I do not like tests for children!) This is why she did the other test, which she had given him the previous year. Doing the second test also allowed for us to see if any progress was made in the year. The second tests results showed that Dylon was in the normal limits in receptive (understanding what we say) and he stayed the same in expressive (what he is verbally able to express to others). Just so you know, the normal scores in these tests are 85-115. The lowest a child can bottom out is a 50. Dylon's scores were as follows and this is on the second test. For the receptive test he scored a 90. For the expressive test he scored an 83. Last year his scores were as follows Receptive was 53 (almost bottomed out) and expressive was a 74. As you can see he has made great progress through this year. With autistic children, normally their expressive (words they use) is a higher score/ stronger than the receptive (what they understand). It is not a bad thing that Dylon's is reversed we just want to catch his expressive up with his receptive. We are officially through with his sleep study!



This is not part of the sleep study but I thought this picture was too funny not to share. He is actually in his laundry basket, which he threw all his clothes on the floor to get in it. He normally spins with it on top his head but I guess he was too tired here. He leveled out on 1 mg of melatonin which is helping him fall asleep so much faster and easier. It really is amazing how easy it is now. During some lab work for the study we found out that Dylon's iron level was a little low, nothing to worry about right now, but low iron levels can cause sleep disturbances like waking up in the middle of the night. We are trying to correct his iron level now by giving him an iron supplement for 6 weeks.



Dylon will not be on Melatonin forever, just until he hits a baseline and then we can start to ween him off the Melatonin. We are very happy we did this.


Michael is glad that school is over for the summer. He will still be busy this summer with the Opry and school but he won't have to worry about teaching. As for me, I am well. I am still taking online classes towards my degree (I still have a eternity to go so don't ask how long!?!?!?!). I will be taking a class this summer and then two when next semester starts. We do not have major vacation plans this summer. We went to a Yankees/Braves game one night and it was the only night the Yankees lost to the Braves.

We hope you have a wonderful and blessed day!