Nathan’s volunteer, Zirah, still thinks Nathan’s teaching her autism words when he’s speaking English this time 😉😍

Nathan: head 

Zirah: hen

Nathan head

Zirah: hen 

(They go on for 5 rounds then finally…)

Nathan: head 

Zirah: head

Nathan: (looks with approval and lesson ends)
Moments later…
Nathan: dandelion

Zirah: dambilion! (Confident she said it right!)

Nathan: dandelion 

Zirah: dambilion

(They keeping going for several rounds)

Nathan: (in a much louder voice, but still patiently teaching his volunteer) dandelion!

Zirah: damdelion!

(Nathan’s look on his face: that’s not quite right. But he is not complaining)

Nathan: I want to sleep.

Zirah: iwansheee?

Nathan: (louder and clearer) I want to sleep!

Zirah: Oh you want to sleep! Thank you for telling me (as she prepares a makeshift bed). See photo.

LOL. Did Teacher Nathan get tired of teaching this morning? 

In the Son-Rise playroom, Nathan is the teacher and his volunteers are his students. He teaches them to enter his world of autism first, before accepting their invitation to come out to our world of social interaction! 

Nathan lies down for few minutes while Zirah reads a book for him. He stays attentive as Zirah reads. Just as Zirah demonstrated her attentiveness (as best she could 😇) while he was teaching, Nathan chooses to be attentive while Zirah reads! See second photo.

Did I tell you that Nathan had zero attention span before we found Son-Rise?

I’m so proud of Zirah who’s such a awesome student! 😍