Stand Out

September--Parker rides the school bus from school at the end of the day to the Navy base Youth Center.  There are all kinds of activities:  basketball court, movie room, homework room, video game area, etc. and lots of programs and clubs to participate in.  Each month the staff chooses one 6-12 grade student who was a "stand out" the last month.  Parker was nominated and chosen for the month of August.  The reason why he was chosen was because it was observed that Parker interacts with an autistic student who can sometimes get easily frustrated when not understanding things.  For example, this particular student did not understand the sign-up procedures, length of time, equipment check-out, and rules of the game for a particular video game on a particular day.  Throughout that afternoon, Parker patiently described the procedures and rules and outlined how much longer until it was either their turn to play or the time was up and repeated this when it was an option to go through the whole cycle again.