Because of this, they made engineered a variety of vacuum cleaner s that are bagless, ideal for cars, efficient at getting rid of allergy stimuli and pet hairs, cordless, light and straightforward to make use of.
Some of the more well loved Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner s are the MX887X bagless, Ultra HandVac and also the M110009 Reaction Soft Touch. They also have an unique designer series which is developed by Karim Rashid, a well-known designer, that specializes in elegant and sculptural forms.

The corporation behind Dirt Devil emphasises in fun and comfort during cleaning due to this this is reflected in their colourful choice of vacuums which allow it to distinguish itself away from other organisations in the same industry.

Dirt Devil started off as a tool from TTI Floor Care North America(formerly called Royal vacuum cleaners) who grew in popularity. The Dirt Devil name turned well loved and the creators started producing a Dirt Devil line which spanned a assorted selection of vacuum cleaner s like the handheld vacuum which has wordwide sales of over 20 million since its release.

TTI Floor Care North America is among the oldest household appliance businesses on the planet and they try to make use of their huge experience of trial and error to make goods that their customers seek.

Dirt Devil is now among the premier manufacturers in the household cleaning sector together with Hoover and Dyson. Their rapid growth and continued product expansion has been fuelled by increased revenue of have achieved unprecedented heights of$ 408 million in year 2000 coming from just$ 5 million in 1981 using a 98% brand awareness.

The company is now a well loved brand name throughout the world and together with stores throughout the country; they also have an online site which offers details on their assortment of cleaning items and also sells their machines and other cleaning equipment, parts and accessories.

If you want to get rid of the heat of scorching sunlight in summer time or want to avoid the prying eyes of your curious neighbors, then covering your windows with Roman shades can be one of the best thoughts. It looks far better than any other common plastic shades. It also can help you to decorate your house with a unique style. Covering your window with roman shade is one of the simplest ways of shedding.

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What is Roman Shade

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Roman Shade is a piece of fabric with soft overlapping folds that is attached to the top most part of window. Roman shades are available in different styles and textures. It not only blocks the harmful sunrays that can hurt the color of your furniture. It also ensures you a high level privacy. Some roman shades do not block the sunlight, it only filter the sunrays. So the interior get required sunlight and the people in the house can protect themselves against the harmful rays. People who have to work sitting in front of the computer for hours can get benefited from this shade.

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Maintenance of Roman Shade

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If you cover up your windows with roman shades it can be save your energy and time. You will get rid out of the regular cleaning of your windows as the windows attract less dust because of the coverings. Roman windows can keep your glass window spot less for a long period. There is a special vacuum cleaner available in the market that can be used specifically to clean these shades. The seller also can provide some kind pf cleaner that are best suited for the cleaning of roman shades. Hand held steaming machines can also remove the stains from these shades.

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Benefits of covering windows with Roman Shades

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There are several advantages that the user of roman shades can avail of. It may be one of the most expensive shades. But you will also get some cheap roman shades if go to a shop or search through internet.

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Roman shades give a cooling effect to the interior thus sometime you can also keep your air-conditioning off in the warm weather. So your electricity bill can be reduced.

Installing roman shades can be a very excellent thought if you want to give your interior a redefined and sophisticated look.

The roman shades can block unwanted cold air in winter.

These shades help you to keep yourself away from the outside noise and pollution.

Whether you have a bagless HEPA pass through? filter, a pre-filter, or disposable bags, they all ought to be changed at some stage.? With the typical life of a vacuum cleaner, you can count on spending the same on either collection system for filters, but if you cherish your time, you can expect to spend reasonably more on a bagless system.

To continue your bagless vacuum cleaner working at top levels, you’ll have to pour out the dirt pot when it is filled and run frequent maintenance on the filter.? The type of filter the vacuum uses will determine just how much service will be required,although most use a pleated HEPA filter.

Cleaning:

Even though the claim of better airflow performance with bagless vacuums is right in a sense, over the life of the vacuum you’ll get the same, or maybe even better performance from a bagged vacuum cleaner system. ?

With bagged vacuum cleaner s, the performance will start at 100% with every fresh bag then small by small fall as the bag beginss to pile up.? Exactly how rapidly the performance drops depends on how sound the bag is constructed.? With the standard vacuum and the average bag, you may change the bag every 3 – 4 weeks with 90% of performance the initial week, 70% in weeks 2 and 3, then 50% of less in the fourth week.

The concise cycle will insure that you get a 100% peak clean-up every 3 or 4 weeks from the vacuum cleaner .? The filtered cyclonic machines have filters that are intended to last 6 months, 12 months, and even up to 18 months before they need to be replaced.

Pets: ?

If you have dogs or cats, whether you notice it or not, nearly all household animals shed their fur on a frequent basis all the way through their lives.? Pet owners frequently question as well, which vacuum is the best to strip off pet fur.

For pretty much the same reasons that hair sticks? to the flooring, it will also stick to your bagless vacuum’s pleated filter magazine.? The fur will drive down the performance of airflow, and is also a pain in the neck to clean off the filter. ?

Over time, the fiber that makes up the filter can keep odor from pets, even if you clean the filter well.? If your filter requires replacing only once a year, you could end up with a vacuum that spits odors that will stink up your home pretty terrible. ?

Bagged up:

Those vacuums that use bags will often provide for orderly disposal of a full bag.? There are some brands such as BOSCH that really engineer bag disposal into the system.? With BOSCH canister vacuums, the replacement of bags is a single dust free step.? The recent mega filt bags have a built in closure system that upon removal, will slide shut and catch the dirt and waste within the bag, making disposal instant and effortless.

Yet, there are countless people out there who prefer bagless vacuum cleaner s.? Bagless vacuums will resume at a leisurely pace to obtain market share, and consumers will continue to get them.? For many people, a bagless vacuum can be the right choice. ?

Bags are the technology of yesteryear, while bagless is the technology of the future.? There are various reasons as to why you ought to go bagless.? For the vacuums of the future, cylinder and bagless is the key.

Types Of Vacuums:

vacuum cleaner s come in variety of shapes, sizes, styles and features. There is the small; rechargeable handheld which is best suited for cleaning up specific spots that may be hard to reach with other types of cleaners. Uprights and canisters are other types that are used for around the home or small office. The upright is lighter and more maneuverable but lacks the ability to handle tougher jobs, while the canister vacuum is perfect for harder jobs around the home but is more restricted in it’s movement. If you live in a home with two or more floors the upright may be the way to go; just make sure you have obtain additional stair cleaning attachments. Another type of vacuum gaining popularity is the broom type which is fantastic for apartment and condo dwellers that have smaller areas to keep clean.

Buying A vacuum cleaner :

Keep in mind the phrase “You get what you pay for” when making a vacuum buy. Making the right buying choice should be made according to your specific needs, but don’t scrimp on quality just to save a few bucks. All vacuums are not made equal.

Some things to consider:

Type – Your choice in the type of vacuum cleaner to buy depends on the surfaces you’ll be cleaning, so be sure you keep this consideration in mind before buying.

Comfort – You wouldn’t buy a car that was hard to drive, so why is a vacuum any different? Handling is an vital feature in buying a vacuum cleaner . Check how well it handles, its weight, size and comfort of use.

Noise – This is where the higher price models really have it over the cheaper brands. If you are sensitive to noise, then you might want to consider buying a higher priced model with insulated materials around the motors.

Filtration – Check the efficiency of its filter, especially if you are prone to allergies. Research the HEPA rating of different models online before you go shopping. Vacuum cleaners with highly rated filtration systems usually come at a premium, but are more effective in filtering out particles. If price is your main consideration then choose a vacuum with an efficient dust collector. Typically these collectors consist of a bag or plastic container.

If you’re not into replacing your vacuum every few years go with a metal framed unit. A longer cord is also a plus if your home has fewer electrical outlets or you simply don’t want to stop cleaning every few minutes to change outlets.

If you choose to spend the extra money for a higher quality unit then seriously consider purchasing an extended warranty as well. Even a Mercedes has to go to the mechanic from time to time.

There is a lot to consider when buying a vacuum cleaner . To reiterate, it largely depends on your intended use and how much you are willing to spend. Take your time and test a few models before you buy the one to suit your needs.

Back in the early 1800’s housewives or domestic staff would be responsible for the carpet cleaning, which was generally in the form of rugs. These rugs were placed on wooden flooring to try to reduce the amount of dust that would be flying around on the bare wooden floors. That dust of course being trapped within the rugs themselves requiring that the rugs would then have to have the dust removed from them. The general way that this was carried out was to take the rug and hang it on or over something and it would then be “beaten” with a stick or similar to whack the dust out of it.

This form of carpet cleaning of course was very tiring and not necessarily very effective but with no other alternatives this is where the thoughts would probably have started to come to the inventors. It is not of course known whether it was to reduce the work required by their wives or domestic staff, or just as a natural curiosity that they needed to pursue the concept.

A man named David Hess is thought to have been the first person to come up with a special stick designed specifically for the purpose of cleaning the rugs in the “whacking” way. The item he designed was similar to the tennis racket and was apparently named a rug-beater.

No doubt when this item was produced house wives thought it was a fantastic advantage but when you reckon about it all he really did was make a different shaped stick and give it a name. The amount of work required to really clean carpeting didn’t necessarily reduce to any fantastic degree.

David Hess apparently thought the same thing, and carried on in his quest to find a more suitable solution than the rug beater. Following his further attempts there was a unit that was used more as a carpet sweeper. This unit had a rotating brush and bellows system to provide suction during the process of sweeping the carpet and also two water filter systems for collecting the particles and dust swept up with the carpet cleaner. This unit no doubt being a preferred choice for those housewives and domestic staff but we are still a long way from anything close to what we have to day in our vacuum cleaner options.

After this design there was also a further design produced by a Melville Bissell. His unit was also a carpet sweeper with a similar concept but it gathered up the dirt and placed it in a pan behind the head of the sweeper unit. You can imagine that a lot of dust and particles in this basic unit missed the dust pan behind the unit and finished up back on the carpet or wooden flooring immediately after use. Still better than the stick option though I am sure.

Then in 1899 Mr John Thurman invented a motorized vacuum cleaner. Not long after a London designer, Mr Hubert Booth invented an electric vacuum cleaner. There were some issues with the initial unit designed by Mr Booths relative to size. It is said that this unit was required to be on a trailer outside the house itself and a long hose would be used to run into the house to do the vacuuming.

Over the years with advances in technology and materials available for use various designs have come forth and they continue to do so. Eventually a design was made that allowed the unit to be a portable vacuum and it is said that the person responsible for this was a Mr James Spangler in 1908. He sold the patent for this vacuum to Mr William Hoover, the person whose name has remained in the carpet cleaning or vacuuming world ever since.

Now we have far more advanced versions of these basic items and the various options such as upright vacuum cleaner s or canister vacuum cleaner s. Without these first people to get us started where would we be today? Today you will find vacuum cleaners in homes all over the world and we have these fantastic inventors to thank for their imagination and perseverance in providing us with the insight to reach the more modern alternatives we have on offer today.

I soon found there was very small software available to teach children with Autism.?? This document outlines the information on Autism I have bought over the years and the computer software I used to aid?my son’s?recovery.

It is vital to know that without any Autism therapy or intervention, a child with Autism or PDD will absorb far less information and knowledge from the environment than a typical child.? A typical child will start to talk at?1.5 to 2 years with nearly no help from his parents or siblings. He will then buy around 6 new words a day and will have a vocabulary of an incredible 10,000 words before the age of seven. A child with Autism may become verbal much later and have poor language and social skills if he is not given speech and behavior therapy.? At least initially, a child with Autism must be given a strong knowledge base i.e. he must be taught speech, language and age-appropriate behavior.

To print this document on Autism, click above on “File”, then “Print” and then “OK”. Bookmark and visit this site again for more tips. I usually add more material on Autism?software and other resources every week or two.

Starting work with your child

If you even suspect your child has Autism or ASD, you must start work with him immediately. Do not waste vital time waiting for a formal Autism diagnosis. I met one mother who waited six months for a formal?Autism diagnosis before beginning any treatment. ?Imagine how much she could have taught her child in that time. You will find out for yourself that most doctors know very small about Autism and will simply recommend?speech therapy,?special education or an early intervention center. The worst thing some doctors will do to a parent is to take away hope. You will buy more information on Autism?from other parents of children with Autism than you would from any general practitioner. As you work with your child and see the results, you will soon find other parents of newly-diagnosed children with Autism?coming to you for advice.? Start working with your child now, even if it means just trying to communicate with him through play.? This time will never ever be wasted. ?Even if tests show that your child does not have an Autistic disorder, you’ve lost nothing. Trying to teach a?child with Autism at the table could be hard at first, as the child may resist learning and lots of positive reinforcement and encouragement is vital. There are many structured teaching methods for children with Autism such as ABA, TEACCH, PECS?and Greenspan to name a few. ?Many parents adopt their own, often very successful strategies for teaching their children at home.

Denial
Many parents will simply not believe their child has an Autistic disorder?and will not even seek a diagnosis. Too often, they ignore the?clear signs of Autism in their child?and somehow hope he?will improve on his own.??They often wait until it is too late to start work with their child.? Some of the excuses I’ve heard are: “He looks fine – it’s just the terrible twos”, “My son started talking at five”, “Einstein had Autism and he started talking at nine”, “He’ll just grow out of it” (and the list goes on…).

Autism diagnosis
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Although an early Autism or ASD diagnosis for this potentially devastating disorder is critical,?children with Autism rarely receive a diagnosis before the age of 3 or 4 years. There are no outward physical differences between?Autistic kids?and?typical children – in fact most children with Autism are very excellent-looking.? The only differences are behavioral.? Autistic kids will exhibit at least some of the following:
Poor speech and language skills
Inappropriate play eg. child may continuously spin the wheels of a toy car rather than push it
May line up toys or other objects
Distress interacting with others
Poor eye contact
Walking on toes
Hand flapping
Tendency to have narrowly focused and odd interests
Not asking for things in the same way as other children
Failure to show objects to others
Failure to orient to one’s name being called
Failure to engage in reciprocal play where there is a back-and-forth between two people
Failure to copy others’ motor movements
May not use pointing to direct another person’s attention
May resist social touch such as hugging

Autism spectrum
A child with Autism can be anywhere in the broad Autism ’spectrum’.? At the upper end, the child could appear nearly normal and have few autistic traits. He may perhaps be the silent child in the classroom with few or no friends and a couple of quirky habits. He may not even be diagnosed?having Autism until much later in life.? At the lower end of the Autism spectrum, the child would be termed low-functioning, have poor speech and language and would require much more intensive Autism therapy. No matter where a child is in the Autism spectrum, he can and must be helped.

PDD NOS and Autism
Pervasive Developmental Disorder or PDD is really a bit of a misnomer.? Many doctors who would not like to commit to giving a diagnosis of Autism will tell the parents that their child has PDD or PDD NOS?when in fact the child is in the Autism or ASD spectrum.

Types of Autism
Some children are born with Autism while others develop the condition usually in their second year.? The latter is?known as late-onset Autism.??The child?starts life normally and gradually develops?the symptoms of Autism, losing speech and gradually showing more and more of the symptoms if Autism.? If diagnosed and treated early with?one-on-one therapy,?Autistic children will show remarkable improvement, often to the point of being termed “recovered”.? This is where the child with Autism is indistinguishable from his peers.

Asperger’s disorder and Autism
Asperger’s disorder, also called Asperger’s syndrome is a type of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD or PDD NOS) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. Asperger’s disorder is similar to high-functioning Autism in how it affects a child’s mannerisms and socialization traits. A distinction between Asperger’s?syndrome and Autism is that young children with Asperger’s often have normal language development, although the rhythm, pitch, and emphasis are irregular. Unlike Autism, Asperger’s disorder does not delay other aspects of development; a child usually has age-appropriate self-reliance and an interest in the world around him or her. But, like Autism, children with Asperger’s?syndrome have abnormal social interactions, facial expressions, and gestures. Asperger’s disorder affects males 9 times more than females. Its cause is unknown. More research is needed to confirm whether Asperger’s disorder is a condition that is genetically related to Autism.

Autism Therapy and Speech therapy
A common mistake is to assume that speech therapy is the solution to Autism. Speech therapy certainly has it’s place in prompting and refining a child’s speech and vocalization but it takes many hours a week of intensive one-on-one work to teach the child with Autism compliance, new concepts, language and age-appropriate behavior.? A child with Autism will probably see a speech therapist for 1 or 2 hours a week. ?It takes a lot more work to get a child with Autism ready for school and to ensure he succeeds at school once he gets there.? Once your child is in school, it would be wise to continue the speech therapy sessions.? Some schools have a speech therapist that works with the children at the school itself.? More on Autism and schools later.

Language is the key
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The frustration of a child with Autism was once described as that of being in a maze where the walls are made of glass, trying to communicate with someone on the outside and only being able to bang on the walls. There is no doubt that much frustration and temper tantrums can be reduced and even avoided when communication and language is encouraged and developed. A typical child works out very early that it is in his own interest to buy language whilst a child with Autism may not. He needs to be taught that language will get him results. On this point, if your child questions for something, give it to him immediately or at least respond to his request immediately. Ignoring him will certainly not encourage his speech.

When do I start to treat a child with Autism?
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If a?child has?Autism, the clock has already started to tick even before any formal diagnosis. The most gains will be made when the child is in his very early years. Although children as young as 18 months are on Autism therapy,?most are diagnosed?after 2 years of age and start treatment even later. Whatever you do, don’t leave it until it’s too late.? Quite simply, the sooner you start teaching a child with Autism the better.

Autism treatment
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Of all the therapies around for Autism,?ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) has attracted the most attention. The system pioneered by Dr. Ivar? Lovaas at UCLA in the sixties is a teaching program that works on systematically removing the “traits” of Autism until the child does not satisfy the criteria for the condition. The system is very intensive but proven to be extremely successful in nearly all cases of Autism. The Applied Behavior Analysis teaching system basically breaks down any task into subtasks and places a very high emphasis on rewarding the child for working well. There is no physical punishment at all in the system. Autism therapy starts off in a very rigid structured form but gradually takes the shape of a typical school environment. Those who know small or nothing about ABA may say it is too rigid and turns the child into a ‘robot’ by rote learning. This would appear so at the start but as the child learns to learn, he progresses to a point where he can join his typical peers in their learning style. Most parents who persevere with the program for two to three years can successfully mainstream their children. The results speak for themselves. The child usually starts school, attending regular classes with an aide. The aide is gradually ‘faded’ and the child blends in with the class. More on aides and fading later.??An brilliant piece of software is the “Discrete Trial Trainer” that uses the Applied Behavior Analysis?principles to rapidly boost a child’s language. We have this product in our range of software.

How many hours?
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A question often questioned is how many hours of behavioral therapy does a child with Autism need?? There are many cases where a child with Autism needs up to 40 hours a week but of course, it depends on the level of severity of the child. A program usually starts with around 15 to 20 hours a week and can work towards 30 or more hours a week. Once a child with Autism is in school, the hours of work at home will fall back. ?Quality is of course, more vital than quantity and energetic, dedicated therapists are vital to your child’s progress.

Working with your child
I would strongly suggest the parents?start working with the child at least initially rather than leaving him to a therapist. Your child will trust you and know you are trying to help him. You need to have boundless energy, be animated and genuinely like teaching your child. This is not simple and experts estimate you could do this for no more than 10 to 12 hours a week. If both parents take turns, the task is, of course a lot simpler. Later, you could introduce a therapist or two to help out as you will not be able to maintain a high level of energy for too long.? An advantage of doing the initial work yourself is that you will then know a excellent therapist when you see one and be able to weed out those that are of small value to your child.

Choosing a therapist
Choosing a excellent therapist for a child with Autism is not simple if you haven’t worked with a child yourself. Many experienced parents will really be able to train their new?therapists. Therapists can be anyone with enough energy, enthusiasm, patience and genuine like for children. Those below the age of 18 are often too young and immature (some will really be frightened!). Mothers with children often don’t have the time and energy and often don’t like to be told how to deal with children as they feel they are the experts. One applicant told me how she regularly smacked her own children when they misbehaved. There is no room for such people in your home. A excellent tip is to make a small list of the ones you feel may be suitable and tell them there will be a training period of a couple of weeks during which there will be no payment. Many of them will drop out as?working with a child with Autism?is very demanding and not suited to everyone.
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Special Schools
Whilst there are many brilliant special education schools around, sadly, many are under-funded, understaffed and ill-equipped to teach children with Autism. There is usually not enough one-on-one support for the child and worst of all, the child can pick up inappropriate behaviors from the other?Autistic children.? I find all this heart-breaking as there is so much a child with Autism can learn in the critical early years.

Mainstream Schools
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Your goal should be to get your child into a mainstream school. Three years of intensive one-on-one work at home will go a long, long way towards successfully mainstreaming a child. Once a child with Autism is successfully mainstreamed you have won half the battle.? I say this because it would be wise to continue working with him at home as well.? You may need to educate the principal and staff on Autism and a excellent thought is for you or your therapist or consultant (if you have one) to do a small presentation.? I would strongly advise liaising with your child’s teachers?to address any difficulties at school. You could use this feedback to work with him at home thus preventing him from falling behind. Obtaining in advance his school books and material they are going to cover at school is a excellent thought as you could work with these at home, reading them to him at night etc. so it is not all new to him at school. It is advisable to keep his home therapists as his school aides as they will know him a lot better than any school-provided aide. You need to discuss this with the school principal before he enters school. Once he enters school, you may need to start with small hours eg. 2-3 hours a day and gradually build up to a full day.

Uneven skills
A child with Autism often has uneven skills eg. he may have very strong areas such as memorizing pictures or words and reading at an early age and weak areas such as making social contact with his peers. You need to firstly identify the strong areas. It goes without saying that you should use these strengths to the fullest advantage. For example if the child has strong reading skills, explore this to the maximum. Many of?children with Autism have very strong visual skills. Use pictures to stimulate and refine their language.? If your child learns to read or write before he gets to school, it will be one less thing to worry about and he will have more time to learn other skills that he is lacking.

“My child can’t talk at all!? Where do I start?”
A frantic mother of a child with Autism once phoned me with this question.? Teaching speech to a child with Autism is done on a step-by-step basis. A child cannot run before he can walk. Before attempting actual speech, you can first teach a child to match identical pictures, then non-identical pictures i.e. matching a red car with a different-colored one. The next step is receptive language where the child is questioned for the picture of eg. a cat, horse, house etc. (see next section). If your child can achieve receptive language or has already reached this stage, this is promising as he can at least know what you are saying and this will ultimately lead to him expressing himself verbally. Do not be complacent though, as his vocabulary may be limited. You must do what you can to make sure his vocabulary is expanded as widely as possible.

Receptive language
This is where the child understands what other people are saying. It is a major step in the progress of a child with Autism. It is but not enough for the child to know just a handful of words such as food, milk, bike etc. ?A typical child of seven can know and use at least 10,000 words.? A child with Autism needs to have his?receptive language boosted as early and as quickly as possible.

Receptive language software?????????
The Discrete Trial Trainer?is a software package that allows you to use your computer to teach your child any number of marks and sounds. What happens is the screen displays from 2 to 5 images and the child is questioned over the speakers eg. “Touch Eating”. If the child correctly clicks on the right image using the mouse or touch-screen, he is rewarded with a small animation. When one mark is mastered, the program moves on to the next mark, occasionally bringing in mastered marks to see if the child has remembered them. This CD has been extremely successful.? You can?set the level of difficulty and you get a visual report of his progress. With this package?you can use it to teach categories as letters, words, shapes, numbers, colors, objects, body parts,?actions/verbs.?

Teaching with pictures
“A picture is worth a thousand words” and using pictures is an brilliant way to teach speech, language and communication. Children with Autism are highly visual and can be taught nearly anything using images. Temple Grandin, the well-known autistic author of many books on Autism once said that she thinks in pictures. You need thousands of excellent photographic pictures to help with ‘generalization’ i.e. if a child with Autism has just one picture of a white dog and is taught this is a dog, he may not easily recognize a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler as a dog when he sees it. Using new and varied material also keeps a child from getting bored and frustrated.? Minimize the number of stick images or drawings used. ?Actual color photographic material is?best as the images are more life-like and much simpler for the child to relate to. You can never have too many pictures in your collection. Get them from anywhere you can – magazines, ancient books, the web, printed catalogs, even junk mail!

Printing from a CD-ROM
The falling prices of computers and color printers has made a trend away from buying expensive printed flashcards towards software such as our TeachingPix2?CD-ROM?that contains many thousands of color photographic teaching images that can be printed from a home PC to a color printer at a tiny fraction of the cost. You can pay up to a dollar for each printed flashcard, whilst printing from our CD-ROM works out to around 1 cent per picture. Another advantage of using a CD-ROM with a huge range of pictures is that you can select and print what you need at any time. You do not need to print all the pictures straight away. The images on the TeachingPix2?can have their marks switched on or off. You can print the images in sizes varying from 1 per page (largest) to 8 per page (smallest). This CD-ROM with over 10,000 printable?teaching images is?our most well loved product and is widely used to teach children?around the world.??The images can be used in any teaching system such as ABA and PECS including?working with Matching,?Receptive language and?Expressive language.

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Printers
Modern color printers are not only a lot cheaper than they were just a few years ago, they can also print?photographic-quality prints onto ordinary (photocopy) paper and don’t require special expensive paper. If you are printing thousands of pictures to use as flashcards, you may not want to print them on special paper. You need to be able to print photo-quality pictures to regular photocopy paper. ?If you already have a printer that needs special paper and you want to print thousands of pictures, it could be worth looking at getting a new printer. The new inkjet printers produce high quality text and images in black and white or color. Many of today’s inkjet or bubblejet printers can print photographic images and laser-like text that come close enough to the quality of more expensive laser printers. I personally use a Canon inkjet although there are many other excellent-quality, yet low-priced models around.

Printing in draft mode
Try printing in draft mode. If the quality is nearly as excellent as in best mode, it may be worth your while printing in this mode as the prints will not only be quicker but also cheaper as they will consume less ink.

Laminating your pictures
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Laminating your pictures will give them a much longer life.? If you are going to laminate a lot of pictures, a excellent thought is to firstly buy a excellent laminator. If you are going to insert more than one picture per laminating pouch, insert your trimmed pictures into the laminating pouch with a space between each picture for trimming around later. After running the pouch through the laminator, cut between the cards. Don’t forget to round off the sharp corners that could easily injure someone.? The laminating pouches we recommend are 120 microns or (sturdier) 150 microns in thickness.? A excellent thought is to insert 4 trimmed pictures per letter-sized (or A4) laminating pouch.? Pouches can be bought in packs of a hundred.

Using your own pictures
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It is always an brilliant thought to include your own pictures taken of the child’s environment, family members, familiar locations, occasions, school, classroom, school friends etc. to teach you child.? Using a conventional camera (with film) is OK but taking many hundreds of pictures is not only expensive but you cannot easily resize the pictures, add marks to the pictures or include them easily into other electronic documents you may wish to make.? The advent of the digital camera allows you to take an unlimited number of pictures that you can download onto your computer.? Once the pictures are downloaded, the camera is reset and you can take the next batch.? A fantastic feature of the?TeachingPix2 CD-ROM is that you can also view, resize and print your own?digital camera images to use as flashcards.

Organizing your cards
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It is vital to organize your cards or you will waste vital time looking for them when you need them.? My suggestion for the size of flashcards to be used for teaching purposes?is to keep a standard of 4 per letter-sized (or A4) page – much larger and you’ll find it hard to file away the pictures.? A excellent thought is to get a set of (preferably long) card cabinets to file the cards in their different categories eg. animals, actions, food, vehicles, plants etc.? The cabinets we recommend are around? 16in (42cm) long and can each hold at least 200 laminated flashcards.? Take a laminated picture card with you for size when looking for cabinets.? A excellent place to find cabinets is a used office furniture and equipment store.? I use one cabinet drawer per category.??You can cut cards with name tabs so they stand out above the cards to subdivide the categories eg. for animals – cat, dog, chicken etc.

Rotating your material
Once a noun, verb or concept has been mastered by your child, you must rotate your material?i.e. don’t use the same picture over and over again as this can be very frustrating for a child with Autism (another excellent reason to keep a huge collection of images).? A excellent thought to ensure your images are rotated is to “select from front and return to back” i.e. if you have 8 pictures of a cat, then choose the one from the front of the set and when you’re done with it, return it to the back of the set.? This way your pictures will be used evenly.

Using sound
Many children with?Autism have difficulties processing sound or distinguishing noise from normal conversation.? Hence,?they often appear deaf although they have normal hearing.? Typical children are able to “filter” out background noise from useful auditory information.? Children with Autism very often attempt to block out this bombardment of sound and retreat into their own world.? In many cases they will hold their ears.? In some cases, they will rock to and fro in an attempt to block out the sensory overload.? It is vital to teach these children?to identify sounds.? This goes a long way in being able to sort out noise from useful auditory information such as a teacher’s instructions, a parent’s voice, traffic, a barking dog etc.? Some sounds you can teach your child to identify are:
Airplane,?Ambulance, Baby crying,?Bagpipes, Bath tap, Bee, Bell,?Bicycle bell, Blowing nose,?Brushing teeth, Cannonfire, Cat, Chick, Chicken,?Children playing, Chopping, Church bell, Clapping, Clock ticking,?Coughing, Cow, Cricket, Crow,?Crying baby, Crying child, Cymbals, Dentist drill, Dog, Dolphin, Puppy,?Drill, Drum, Duck, Rubber Ducky, Biting apple,?Elephant trumpet, Fan, Fire, Fire alarm, Fire truck, Fireworks, Flushing toilet, Flute, Food blender,?Frog, Goat,?Goose, Gunshots, Guitar,?Hair dryer, Hammering nail, Harp,??Helicopter, Horse neighing, Horse galloping,?Jet, Keyboard of PC,?Kissing, Kitten, Knocking on door,?Laughing, Lightning, Lion,?Monkey,?Motorcycle, Mouse, Mowing lawn,??Ocean, Opening coke bottle, Owl, Parrot,?Peacock, Piano, Pig,?Pinball machine, Police car,?Pouring,?Power drill, Railway crossing, Rooster crowing,?Sawing wood, Scissors,?Seagull, Sea lion, Sheep,?Shower,?Sneezing,?Snooker table, Stirring tea in cup, Tambourine, Tap dancing, Running, Tearing paper, Telephone,?Tractor,?Train, Truck, Trumpet,?Turkey, vacuum cleaner , Yawning?? One way is to use a cassette player and flashcards to get the child to identify and/or match the sound to the pictures.? A much simpler option is the “SpeakingPix” software.

The “SpeakingPix” CD-ROM (screen-shot pictured above) comes with over 2,200 images each with a voice that plays when you click on it.? You can record over each voice or sound as often as you wish.??Included are all?of the?150 sounds listed above each with an image under the category “Sounds” that you can teach your child to identify.? This product is a valuable speech therapy tool.? You can?easily include your own?images and voices or sounds?and play back the sounds by clicking on the pictures.? You can print what you see on the screen as flashcards.? It’s?a fun way to learn and identify sounds and voices.?

Sensory issues
Autism is a sensory condition affecting one or more of the child’s senses:
Touch: A child with Autism could be very sensitive to touch and may resist close contact, hugging etc. even from even his parents.
Sound: Certain?sounds could be unbearable to an autistic child.? He may even hold his ears when hearing some voices or sounds. Some children with extreme sound sensitivity will respond better if the teacher talks to them in a low whisper.
Taste: Certain food textures could be unpalatable to a child with Autism.? Some?children will only eat a select few foods.
Sight:?One autistic adult stated that he could not stand to look at the color yellow.
Smell: Some children may show a strong preference for certain, often unusual odors.
You should bear this in mind when setting up your child’s learning environment and be prepared to make any adjustments.

Learning environment
A child with?Autism should start work in a silent environment without any distractions.? But, the real world is not so sterile.? A classroom of kids can be very noisy.? You should thus slowly introduce “noise” into your child’s?teaching environment.? One way is to start with the doors and windows closed and over a period of time, gradually open the doors and windows.? You could also introduce very soft music, turning the sound up very gradually over the weeks.? If you find your child cannot concentrate, reduce the noise levels and start again gradually.

Working at the table
Working and concentrating at the table for a child with Autism will not be simple especially at the start.? Keep the sessions very small to start with.? It is always tempting to keep going when the child is doing well.? But this will?backfire if you keep the child working at a drill for too long.? You will know this when the child does not want to start the next drill as he?will show a lot of protest behavior.? Always go up gradually.? Never reward a child who is working?well with more work.? If you feel he has done particularly well at a drill, let him go for a small break to do whatever he wants.? He will soon make the connection between excellent work and rewards.? There may be times when you let him go for a break just for coming?to the table with no protest at all.

Finishing on a positive note
When you start a set of drills with your child, you must always end on a positive note.? If you end a drill when the child has a tantrum, this will simply tell him he can end his work with a?tantrum.?? A tantrum could mean?that the drill is too long, too hard or even?frustratingly simple or dull.? There may be times when the child will simply not end a drill.? If this happens, get him to do something a lot simpler to end off eg. “Clap your hands” (he claps) “OK, excellent boy, off you go”.? This principle applies to all aspects of the child’s daily routine and activities.? For example, if he?tantrums to brush his teeth and you allow him to leave the bathroom whilst he is yelling, he soon learns that the best way to get out of brushing his teeth is to throw a tantrum.? The only way is to?ignore the tantrum (can be very hard) and continue with the task at hand or at least until the tantrum has subsided.? Letting him go then, will teach him he gets rewarded for excellent behavior or finishing the task.

Getting organized
You must set aside a room to do your work and store your equipment such as toys, books, pictures, cards, videos?etc.? You will soon build up a huge volume of? items that must be available when you need them.? A excellent shelving system to hold your books, videotapes and lots of excellent-sized stackable drawers for your cards, pictures and toys is a excellent thought.? If you child has outgrown his toys, place them away in the garage.? Some toys that have lost their reinforcing value could be brought back at a later stage.? For a child with Autism, appropriate play with?toys is always a plus.? Don’t hold back on getting him new toys.? Joining a toy library is a excellent thought to save money.? Another thought is networking with other parents and exchanging toys with them.

Sight-reading
Reading is of course a vital skill without which a child cannot get very far in school or society.? A common mistake is to teach reading using just words without pictures or any other media.? The child could? learn to sight-read by memorizing the sequence of letters but may not know much of what he is reading.? A much better approach is to start by using pictures with the text underneath.? The child will then associate the words with the pictures.? Do not teach your child to read words he would?not know the meaning of.? The TeachingPix2 CD-ROM mentioned above is a ready source of images that can be printed with or without the marks to teach sight-reading.

Phonics
Most?educators do not use the?child’s visual strengths to complement this method of reading.? Using images makes the task a lot more fascinating and of course, relevant. ? Once again,?do not teach your child to read words he would?not know the meaning of.? You must document what your child can read.? Once you are confident he knows the meaning of a word, annotate this word as “mastered”.???

Reading Software
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We market a CD-ROM called CompuThera that offers a seven-step gradual discrete approach for teaching reading. It has been designed for children having distress learning by observation alone. It is aimed at visual learners and children whom traditional classic educational methods cannot motivate. Children with Autism fit this category; that is why CompuThera will benefit them most.
Targeting both receptive and expressive cognitive skills, the CompuThera treatment plot builds on mastered items to progress through the program using simple drills, eventually leading to reading simple sentences.
The ability to read often triggers in autistic children the conceptual leap leading in breakthrough in communication.? The CD-ROM comes with full instructions and a “Seven-step to reading for Visual learners and children with Autism ” Therapists Manual.

Use the TV as a teaching tool
My son learned his alphabet from Sesame Street.? He likes watching movies.? I use this to an advantage by allowing him to watch DVDs with the subtitles turned on.? Without a doubt, this has contributed to his reading skills. ? Spelling
When testing your child’s spelling, don’t simply say eg. “Spell cat”.? Try and get him to work out the word you want by saying eg. “What animal goes miaow and drinks milk”.? When he says “Cat”, you say “Fantastic, spell cat”.? This will help him build the connections in the mind that all developing children need.? Be imaginative and use different clues each time.

Knowing when to go on
Once your child has mastered an exercise (be it understanding of a word, concept, spelling, reading or whatever) you must go on or he will get bored and frustrated and this could manifest itself in terrible behavior.? A excellent rule of thumb is?if the child gets the exercise right 8 times out of 10, consider it mastered.? Go on to the next piece of material but do the mastered exercise twice a week for two weeks, then once a week for a month, then once a fortnight for two months and then once a month for four months.? The exercise is then truly mastered.? Of course you could be running?several different programs on any given day.?? Working with your child will teach you to challenge your child but not to the point where the demands are too high.? A excellent consultant to monitor your teaching schedule is well worth considering.??

What does a?consultant do?
At the start, a consultant will establish a baseline i.e. establish where the child is at developmentally and accordingly draw up a teaching program to be followed on a daily basis.? Ideally you should see your consultant once a week.? On a weekly basis, a excellent consultant will work intensively with your child for around two hours while you watch very carefully – you will need to do?the same work over the following week.? After working with the child, the consultant will speak to the parents and?choose on the work to be done in the following week.? With our son, we kept a live spreadsheet document of the work we did over the week.? When the consultant came in, she could look at the printout and see at a glance how he fared over the week.? At the end of the meeting, she would amend the sheet to include any new programs.??A?consultant will let you know what programs to start, continue with and drop.

Recording method
With several different drills in your child’s schedule, you must have some sort of recording system.?Keeping a record of a child’s drills and progress is very vital.? If this is not done, you run the risk of not remembering what the child has learned.? You?will frustrate the child by using materials repetitively and worst of all you could drop material from a drill before it has been mastered.? A simple but very effective way is to record the child’s progress on a spreadsheet such as Excel.? Keeping a track of pictures, words etc. that are Mastered, Current and Next, gives you an simple way of rotating your material so the child doesn’t get bored with mastered items, keeps him focused on current material and allows you time to work on obtaining new items and thoughts that can be added to the list.? The entire schedule can be held on a single file with each program on a different worksheet within the file.

Most frequently used words
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The complete Webster’s dictionary has over 460,000 words.? But, around 75% of all words used in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of just 220 words!? These words are: a, about, after, again, all, always, am, an, and, any, are, around, as, question, at, ate, away, be, because, been, before, best, better, huge, black, blue, both, bring, brown, but, buy, by, call, came, can, carry, clean, cold, come, could, cut, did, do, does,?done, down, draw, drink, eat, eight, every, fall, far, quick, find, first, five, glide, for, found, four, from, full, amusing, gave, get, give, go, goes, going, excellent, got, green, grow, had, has, have, he, help, her, here, him, his, hold, hot, how, hurt, I, if, in, into, is, it, its, jump, just, keep, kind, know, laugh, let, light, like, small, live, long, look, made, make, many, may, me, much, must, my, myself, never, new, no, not, now, of, off, ancient, on, once, one, only, open, or, our, out, over, own, pick, play, please, pretty, pull, place, ran, read, red, ride, right, round, run, said, saw, say, see, seven, shall, she, show, sing, sit, six, sleep, small, so, some, soon, start, stop, take, tell, ten, thank, that, the, their, them, then, there, these, they, reckon, this, those, three, to, today, together, too, try, two, under, up, upon, us, use, very, walk, want, warm, was, wash, we, well, went, were, what, when, where, which, white, who, why, will, wish, with, work, would, write, yellow, yes, you, your.
Keep these words handy and teach them to your child as soon as possible.? Have pictures place up on your wall or notice board with the marks below them.? When your child starts reading, this list should be kept handy.? Some concepts such as “reckon” and “wish” will come after simpler items such as “jump” and “drink” but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day!? An brilliant source of words is from the Ladybird book series called “Key Words Reading Scheme” which is a set of small children’s storybooks organized very cleverly to include the 1,200 most-used words in the English language.? These well-illustrated books gradually build the child’s language.?

Hitting a brick wall
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Some educators?will tell you that you will ultimately hit a brick wall i.e. you won’t be able to go past a certain point when teaching an autistic child.? Do not believe this.? We were told our child would not be able to read beyond the standard 200 words.? By 6 years he could read and know over 1,000 words and spell over 400 with?his vocabulary?increasing with each day.? When you come to a brick wall, don’t break you head against it.? Find a way around it!? Also, don’t believe everything the doctors tell you.? You will find out for yourself what strengths and weaknesses your child has as you work with him.

Using the computer as a teaching tool
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Children with Autism are?usually very strong visual learners and can benefit enormously from a home computer.?? But, there is a lot of over-priced and over-rated software out there with very small reinforcement and limited educational value.?? The best software allows you to edit information and enter new teaching material and reinforcement.?? Reinforcement is vital (and severely lacking in most learning software packages) to hold the child’s interest and involvement.??The software must also be simple to use – simple enough for a parent to operate and edit and of course if the child is to run the software, it should be simple for him to do so.? Our son has nearly 150 CD-ROMs in his software collection.? I am always on the lookout for new software to interest him.

Dietary Intervention

At least 50% of children with?Autism respond to dietary intervention.? The main culprits are?casein (found in dairy products) and gluten (found in wheat, barley, rye and oats).? Many research scientists?indicate?that incompletely digested gluten and/or casein enters the bloodstream and plays havoc with the child’s system, affecting brain function and learning processes.? Many parents observe that casein and gluten foods make their children vague, sluggish and spacey.? Others say these foods trigger episodes of extreme aggression or self-harm.

Vitamin E
Recent?studies?are showing that Vitamin E reduces oxidative stress and may be able to protect against chemical hurt that may cause Autism.? Brilliant natural sources of vitamin E are raw sunflower seeds, almonds, olives, papaya, turnips and spinach.

Drugs

There is as yet no drug that cures the core symptoms of Autism but some can ease the behavioral problems.? Antidepressants such as Prozac may reduce repetitive behaviors.? Stimulants such as Ritalin may lessen hyperactivity.? Anti-psychotic drugs?can decrease aggression and hyperactivity.? Beware of side-effects though.? Recent studies have shown kids on Ritalin could?suffer side-effects from hair loss to heart attacks.???Risperdal is used to treat irritability associated with autistic disorder, including temper tantrums, deliberate self-injury and aggression in children and adolescents, ages 5 to 16. The approval is the first for the use of a drug to treat behaviors associated with Autism in children. Risperdal, first approved by the FDA in 1993, has been used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults.? The anti-psychotic drug is not a cure for Autism, nor does it treat the condition itself, but it may provide relief for some children.

No substitute
Regardless of whether you use diet intervention, enzymes, drugs or other medication, none of these is a substitute for?early teaching intervention i.e. you must keep teaching your child, using this window of opportunity to his best advantage.? No other intervention alone has yet proven as successful.

Physical Exercise

All children benefit from physical exercise.? Children with?Autism have shown remarkable improvement?with vigorous exercise especially with concentration and alertness.? Daily Life Therapy developed by the late Dr. Kiyo Kitahara of Tokyo, Japan puts a strong emphasis on systematic education through group dynamics, the intermingling of academics and technology, art, music and vigorous physical education.? The Boston Higashi School applies the Daily Life Therapy.? It is now well-known in the US for its high success rate in helping children with Autism.? It is right that a healthy mind will exist in a healthy body.?? You will have to improvise when teaching your child to play and exercise.? As an example, if you feel your child is not ready for badminton, try getting him to play hitting a balloon instead of a shuttlecock.? This is an brilliant exercise to help with a child’s coordination and can be a precursor to badminton or tennis.

Auditory information
It was once believed that children with Autism could not receive and/or process auditory information.??This was because many of the children appeared deaf.? It was proven only relatively recently that?the reverse is really the case.? Typical children can filter out background noise and selectively listen to?speech and relevant sound.? Children with Autism cannot easily filter out background noise.? Hence someone talking to them may as well be the sound of a car driving past.? Understandably, the huge amount of auditory stimulus can easily overload a child with Autism.? In some cases, the child with attempt to block out the stimulus by holding his ears or by rocking?to and fro.? The best way to cool down a child?with Autism is to lower the noise and other stimulus levels right down.? Bright flashing colors could also be distressing to him.? As mentioned before, Autism is a sensory malfunction and all five senses could cause problems in a child with the condition.

Sleep

Getting enough sleep is very vital to a child with Autism as the stimulus load on him through the day will be much greater than on a typical child.

Stims
Stimulatory behavior or ’stims’ are when the child will do something repetitively such as flapping his hands or running to and fro.? A stim is usually a coping mechanism for the child when he is under stress or when he needs to unwind eg. when he comes home from school.? A small stimming should be tolerated by the parents. Getting him interested in something else is the ideal way of avoiding this behavior.

Echolalia
This is when the child will repeat (often?repetitively) what he hears without necessarily understanding what he is saying.??Although this is?not the best behavior, the child can at least vocalize?words and can be taught speech and language.? You could use this to the fullest advantage by getting your child to express a variety of words that will come into use in his following years.? Better still, show him a picture of what you are saying before saying it.

Verbal stim
The child may babble?repetitively about a number of things such as his favourite TV show or movie.? Many experts will say to stop all babbling in your child.? I would not agree entirely with this for the simple reason that even typical children babble?as a precursor to speech usually at around 1.5 years of age.? Children with Autism will start speech later and will start at that stage by babbling.? All you need to do is establish with him when this is?OK (eg. when he is at home) and when it is not i.e. in public.
He needs to be taught?awareness of others’ reactions to his verbal stim. You need to work on him?doing this quietly or nonverbally.? You can really expand on what he?is stimming about through conversation, drawing and role-playing in an attempt to?convert this stim into a learning process.

Adrenalin rush

All children need a break from work.? Consider this excerpt from the Woman’s Weekly:? “Small, intense bursts of excitement can really make you more resilient and able to cope better with prolonged stress and tension. Have a day off work and organize to spend it doing something you’ve always wanted to do – but make it a challenge that makes you just a small bit nervous, something that expands your boundaries!? Book a flight in a hot-air balloon, go on a roller-coaster ride or a parachute jump, or plot a day at the races with friends. Learn how to rally-drive, or go on an ocean trip where you can see whales and dolphins.? Taking time out to do something new, exciting and a small bit scary can set off the biological fight-or-flight response, flooding the body with stress hormones. But once the ride or jump is over, the hormonal changes are rapidly reversed and anxiety is replaced by elation. Research from the University of Nebraska confirms this thought, showing that the ‘rush’ you get from intermittent physiological arousal resulting in a small-term stress response can be as effective in beating stress as repeated exercise.”?? The same would apply for all children, so let them have their adrenalin rush and avoid prolonged work at home or at school.

Take a break

Like all of us, your child will need a complete break from work every few months.? Some parents have even reported a?sudden surge in speech when they have taken their child out of town or away on holiday.? When you resume work with him, you may need to start slowly and build on that over a week or two.

Toilet training
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I often get mothers calling up and asking about toilet training. Toilet training in typical children starts at around?2 to 3 years.? When you?feel you child is ready, you need to remove his nappy and allow him to feel the discomfort of the mess in his pants for a while before changing him.? You need to start with training him to pass urine.? To?start?serious training,?you need to set aside a weekend.? You need a buzzer or beeping timer, a portable toilet that?he can easily sit on and lots of reinforcers eg. bits of sweets, chocolate or some other?rewards.? Do this exercise in the living room or area that he plays in.? Give him lots of fluids to drink – juice, water, lemonade etc.? Set the timer to go off every 15 minutes and each time it goes off, sit him on the toilet for around a minute.? Do not pressure him to do anything.? If he passes even a small urine, reward him immediately so he associates the reward with?doing the job.? Allow him access to the?portable toilet until he is ready to use the regular toilet.

Encourage independence
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A child with Autism must be encouraged to do things for himself.? A system called reverse chaining can be useful here whereby a task can be broken up into steps.? A simple example is pulling up his pants.? Start by pulling up his pants up for him until they’re nearly on? and get him to do the rest.?? Do this for a number of days until?gets the hang of it.? Then try to get him to start between the knees and hips.? Before you know it, he will do it from the ankles up.? Although this is time-consuming and many parents would simply dress the child themselves, the extra effort involved in reverse chaining will encourage the child to be independent and have more self-esteem.? When his language improves, get him to order something he wants at a place such as McDonalds whilst you watch from a distance.??Choose a silent time initially when he doesn’t have to queue up as this itself is a feat on it’s own.? Another?vital area where a child with Autism must be taught early is safety in his environment.

Safety awareness and Autism
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Safety should be encouraged from a very early age.? Crossing the road is hard for any young child and you would need to hold the child’s hand whenever near traffic.? But, instilling the basic concept of traffic awareness can start very early.? What I did with my own son was to hold his hand and question him to tell me when it was safe to cross, asking simply “Is it safe?”? I got the thought when I saw him keen to cross the road to his favourite video library.? He soon worked out he had to look both ways for traffic before answering “yes” or “no”.? Within a?week, he understood the concept completely.? Teaching generalization is often a problem for children with Autism. To teach a child with Autism to generalize the principle of not running across the street, it must be taught in many different locations. If he is taught in only one location, the child will reckon that the rule only applies to one specific place.
Never miss an opportunity to teach your child. One parent reported that she had huge success with her child when he was outside playing on the trampoline or swing.? She would get him to recite nursery rhymes and songs here with considerably more success than when they were indoors at the table.
Studies have shown that swings are the number one cause of injuries to children in the playground.? Very young children with Autism are especially in danger as they will be more unaware of the danger.? After a couple of close calls, I got the thought of hanging a boxing bag in one of the doorways of our home.? The children were allowed to hit, punch and push the bag that was hung a few inches from the ground.? In no time at all, they became aware that they had to stay out of the way of a heavy swinging mass.

Getting your child to interact with the computer
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A home computer is a valuable teaching tool for your child.? Most children with Autism are naturally attracted to the sights and sounds of a computer.? Children as young as 12 months and even younger are able to sit on their parents’ laps and interact with a home computer.? Very few children under the age of three will be able to operate a mouse.? DON’T waste valuable time waiting for this to happen.? A child will be able to use a touch-screen long before he can use a mouse.? Touch-screens allow a child to navigate around a program by touching the screen directly instead of co-relating the movements of the hand to the mouse cursor (a hard feat for some adults!).

Touch-screens

There are two types of touch-screens:
a) where the monitor’s screen is touch-sensitive (expensive) and
b) the add-on touch-screen, pictured below, which you can place over your existing monitor (cheaper alternative).? The add-on will come with some software and an adapter to connect to your mouse input.? Get the one that allows the use of your mouse as well so your child can use the mouse when he is ready.? Leave the mouse at the side of the keyboard.? Your child will eventually start using the mouse and you can then discard the touch-screen add-on.?

Other children
A child with Autism must be encouraged to?play and associate with typical children?of his age or even slightly older.? Given the choice, encourage him to interact with more vocal, animated?children rather than shy, silent kids so?his speech will be stimulated.? Children often respond better to feedback from their peers than from their parents or therapists.? Watch them play together.? Those that involve him in play will be of most benefit to him.? Play dates with other children is an brilliant thought.? Children with Autism often don’t like going to unfamiliar places and seeing unfamiliar faces.? Brothers and sisters are always a huge advantage.? Imitation and turn-taking are the cornerstones of communication.? From an early age, you must expose them to as many different environments and people as you possibly can.

Talk to your child

If you remember just one thing from this document, please remember this – The best and simplest advice for anyone who has a child with?Autism is to keep talking to your child, telling him what you’re doing, what is happening and what is going to happen.? Children with Autism like routine and you can use this to the best advantage.? Use terms simple enough so the child understands and of course speak at a speed the child can absorb.? Avoid long strings of verbal instructions. People with Autism have problems with remembering the sequence. If the child can read, write the instructions down on a piece of paper.? An agenda or chart of daily events and events within the day preferably in the form of images that can be place up on a notice board is an brilliant thought.? If the child can read, a written list can often help.? If he can’t read yet, you must use images.

What not to teach your child
A typical child could easily pick up two or even more languages before the age of six.? But, I would never suggest you try teaching a child with Autism more than one language.?? Also, although other subjects such as maths, science etc. are vital, keep a strong focus on your child’s speech and language.? There’s not much use forcing the issue with other subjects if your child’s language skills can’t keep up.
The second thing is religious studies.? Concepts such as God, Hell, Devil, Heaven and the like can be very confusing and even scary concepts to a child with Autism.? I personally would leave this to a much later stage in the child’s development.? There are many more things you could be teaching your child in the mean time.

Singing
Encourage your child to join the school choir or take up singing lessons.? Kids with Autism often speak in monotone.? Singing will help develop the range in your child’s voice.

Maths

Setting up maths situations to real life is far more stimulating than just written sums on paper so be imaginative and use real objects, money, prices at the supermarket etc.

Always insist on a response
Once your child starts to respond to you in any way, be it verbal, with a picture, symbol or other, you must always, always, always?insist on a response to anything you question?him.? It is a lot simpler to do the opposite but if you do so, he will soon learn he is able to get away with no response and his communication will suffer.

Stress management
At some stage you may need to do some stress management work with your child.? These exercises need to be done when the child is cool, working towards using these techniques?when he is stressed.

Building Social Skills
A child with Autism?needs to?be taught how to behave appropriately in public and to build social skills.? We market these?software titles which teach excellent behavior in different settings:

My Community CD? teaches children and young people appropriate social behaviors, interactions, expectations and safety precautions with various peers and adults within their community. This CD incorporates video of real people interacting in different community settings such as a restaurant, doctor’s office, friend’s house, grocery store, and neighborhood and allows the user to predict what should be appropriately said or done next. This multi-level program targets individuals with a cognitive age of 5-15 years. This program is?both Macintosh (OSX and above) and IBM PC compatible.
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School Rules Volume?1 teaches acceptable behaviors during structured activities related to the classroom, group work, and physical education along with unstructured times of hallway interaction and lockers. This volume also targets the sensitive issues of PE locker room and personal hygiene. Target Cognitive Ages 8-18.

School Rules Volume 2? teaches social interpretation skills during unstructured times where social rules are most challenging. This CD uses scenarios such as getting lunch, waiting in line, eating, talking to friends, or “just hanging out” to demonstrate social awareness. In addition, this volume also addresses time management, organizational skills and the use of schedules at school. Target Cognitive Ages 8-18. These programs are?both Macintosh (OSX and above) and IBM PC compatible.

Preschool Playtime Volume 1??& 2??teach the young child basic peer interactions and play skills such as taking turns, sharing, requesting, cooperating and shifting activities through real-life social situations like a day at the park, in preschool or going to a play date.?

This program includes 5 complexity levels and numerous videos to target a broad range of abilities. All levels include a fun and motivating social game of Duck, Duck Goose, Ring Around the Rosie, and Hide and Seek which is incorporated as the user plays the computer program. This program targets individuals with a cognitive age of 3-7 years and includes an simple-to-use lesson plot to customize the video sequences shown for each student.

Listen to your child
Once your child becomes verbal you must document what he knows and understands.? Listen to your child and document any new words you reckon he knows or should know.? I started with just a handful of words on an Excel spreadsheet.? Keeping this document for my child was extremely valuable as I made sure he knew and understood the words.? The list grew to?over a thousand words in less than 12 months.? I also introduced new frequently-used words into the list and used pictures to ensure he knew what they meant.? By not keeping a live document, you risk your child loosing words and ultimately having a very limited vocabulary.

Watch your child

If you are one of those fortunate parents who has a ’scribbler’ for a child, i.e. a child that likes to scribble text and images, then a) make sure he has lots of blank paper and writing materials at hand. b) Look at what he is scribbling.? Chances are any text he scribbles is text he has seen before and possibly understands.? You must check these words are in his word bank.? If they are not, enter them in.? It is of course vital to watch how you child interacts with others and how they interact with him.? If there is very small interaction, it may be time to find new friends for him.? Friends that make the effort to involve him in play are worth their weight in gold.? I sometimes indulged in a small bribery with my son’s friends eg. play this game and we’ll go to McDonald’s later.? It’s right your child needs reinforcement but his friends may need a litt

There are a wide variety of vacuum cleaner s available today. You have several choices to make when purchasing a vacuum cleaner. Canister vacuums are two parts, the first contraption is the motor and holding tank while the second is the actual vacuum. Although a vacuum cleaner comparison may seem tedious, it will pay down in the long run.

The Sebo K2 Midnight Blue canister vacuum is one of the highest rated canister vacuums. It’s got a strong 10.6 amps motor, three layer washable filtration system, variable speeds, and can hold up to a gallon of waste. The Sebo is a light-weight vacuum that minimizes cords by use of their proprietary telescopic wand. Be certain to check this model out when conducting your vacuum cleaner comparison.

The Miele Capricorn canister vacuum is much larger than the Sebo but can hold more materials. It offers a 1200 watt motor with an S-Class sealed filtration system that is HEPA licensed. The machine is controlled from fingertip buttons and a LCD panel. The vacuum holds 4.76 quarts and incorporates many brushes.

Our vacuum cleaner comparison found that advantages of using the Capricorn include silent operation, auto shut off feature, and choice of power brush size, dust bag change indicator, and top quality materials. This canister model offers several accessories for.

Don’t miss the Electrolux Twin Clean ; it is one of the higher end bagless vacuum cleaners on the market. The machine features a twelve amp motor, twin HEPA filtering, fingertip controls, multiple brushes and tools, as well as a 1.2 quart canister. During our vacuum cleaner comparison the machine featured brilliant particulate filtering, self cleaning filters, adjustable telescopic wand, foot pedal, massive rubber wheels, and a 360 degree swivel hose. Due to the tiny holding tank, the vacuum does need to be emptied quite frequently.

The Electrolux Harmony is a canister vacuum cleaner that is an entry level model. While not feature comprehensive, the Harmony will keep your floor clean. The Harmony offers a 1100 watt motor and washer-friendly HEPA filter. This vacuum cleaner comparison chars lets you see that the Electrolux is the quietest and only weighs 12 pounds. It also has soft wheels and is simple to operate.

There are plenty of more vacuums on the market, with a small research and patience you can conduct your own vacuum cleaner evaluation. Bear in mind that just because a machine is dearer doesn’t make it better. Consumer Reports regularly provide for a solid kick off point when starting your vacuum cleaner comparison.

Its bags are an essential component to the most common types of vacuums and are utilized in both upright and in canister ones. Obviously, vacuum bags are not used in the bagless ones. A bagless one instead uses a dust collection bin which can simply be dumped out, cleaned and then replaced for further use.

The problem with the bagless ones is that when the dustbin is opened for cleaning, some of the collected dust becomes airborne. This is of particular concern to people who have asthma, allergies, or are sensitive to dust.

vacuum cleaner bags allow the operator of its cleaner to change the bag, thereby disposing of the collected dirt, without having to come into direct physical contact with the debris. Many people greatly prefer this over the bagless vacuums and would never even consider using a vacuum that does not use bags.

The main purpose of vacuum bags is to safely collect and retain the dust, dirt, pet hair and other particles that has been captured during the process of vacuuming. Once the bags are filled to capacity, then they are to be changed.

If the bags are not changed frequently enough, then this can cause problems with efficiency, since the suction action of it will be reduced. This is one reason why others prefer not to use vacuums that have bags. Most of the bagless vacuums have collection reservoirs that are clear so that the operator knows exactly when it is time to empty the container.

Because bags cannot be seen into, they must be judged by feel as far as knowing if they are reaching their capacity. Some people try to extend the usefulness of the bags by not changing them as frequently as they should.

Unfortunately, this only serves to small-change the person because it will not have the suction power needed when the bag is overly full. In fact, some of the dust and dirt can even start to be exhausted back into the room when its bag is too full.

In order to get the most vacuuming power and best efficiency out of your machine, it is vital to have a ready supply of the proper vacuum bags on hand. This will allow you to change the bag before it gets too full and before there are any problems with dirt being released back into the environment of the home. Skimping on buying them ends up costing much more in terms of lack of efficiency and possible maintenance problems with the machine, if it is often run with bags that are too full.

When shopping for the best one for your home and your specific needs, it is a excellent thought to consider the vacuum cleaner bags that are required for the unit you are thinking about buying. Check to see how expensive the vacuum bags are for that model and also the capacity and recommended guidelines for replacing them. Also, it is a excellent thought to see how readily available the bags are at your favorite retailer, so that you know you can conveniently buy replacements without extra shopping trips or special ordering.

We are going to tell you about three of the best bagless vacuums that have a lot of excellent reviews. We all know that most of the cleaners come with different types of attachments. You need to reckon about the type of cleaning you will be doing with your cleaner. When you know what type of cleaning you will be doing, it will help you to select the vacuum that has the attachments you need. There are a variety of attachments that will help you with cleaning stairs, corners and baseboards. There are even attachments that help you clean ceiling fans.

These bagless vacuum cleaner s will be coming in a number of different designs, so we know that it can be hard to choose one. You will not only find those upright vacuums, but you will be able to find the canister ones. It does not matter which one you choose, as both of them do a fantastic job at cleaning. It depends on what you like the most. If you are thinking about the weight, then you should look into the canister cyclonic as most of the models are light and simple to pick up.

First, before you select your cleaner, do you know what the first thing you need to do is? You need to look into your budget. Please take note that some of those vacuums are on the expensive side; sometimes, you will find ones that are thousands of dollars. But, you do not need to go out and spend a thousand dollars on a cleaner, especially if it is for your personal use. Generally, those bagless vacuums cost less than those traditional ones.

Now, would you like to know about three of the best bagless cleaners we have found? The first one is Bissell Powerforce, which is not expensive at all. This is an upright vaccum and only cost around a hundred dollars. But, you will be able to find some fantastic deals on the Internet. This cleaner makes everything simple. It is even to clean. All you have to do is take that dust collecting container off, empty it out, then hook it back up.

The second one is called the Fantom Fury. This is a cyclonic one. The best feature about this vacuum is the fact that it has a HEPA filter. This means no dust stands a chance of escaping and blowing back into your home. It also has some attachments that are handy.

The third vacuum we want to tell you about is Eureka Whilwind. This is an upright cleaner that has a HEPA filer. It produces some powerful suctions and it known for cleaning up the toughest mess. Surprisingly one silent vacuum. So silent that it won’t disturb a baby sleeping in your home.

Now that you know how to select a bagless vacuum cleaner , don’t you reckon it is time to get one? You really will save a lot of money and we guarantee you will like them better than the regular ones.

PROGRESSION LITERATURE: THE LITERATURE OF DENOUEMENT:

INTRODUCING A NEW LITERARY GENRE

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??? What one hears, reads, says, sees, tastes, feels , remembers, and experiences affects our understanding.? It is ?truth? as we perceive it.? Remembering, in particular, evokes attitudes and emotions linked to ?right? knowledge of past events. Such experiences affect how we experience and interpret the present ? especially if a past event is somehow linked to a present or impending event.? For example, if one had been bitten by a white dog in the past, seeing the same white dog again can bring forth an automatic reaction, such as dread or aversion, even if the dog now appears friendly to others, who may then not know your apprehensive reaction.? Your perception of reality is different, though you and the others are both presented with the identical stimulus and information at the present moment.

?????? In fact, much of what we might believe to be a ?fresh? experience is likely to be based on many past experiences that may or may not be directly related.? A gorgeous woman, never before seen by a particular male, may attract, have no effect on him, or repel, depending on past experience/ inexperience.? First impressions are often based on past experience, learned prejudice, or instinct: ?a classic study in Scientific American showed pictures of the same male face, but with different amounts of hair, to respondents. ??Hairiness ranged from really bald to long beard and long hair, complete with mustache.? Respondents were questioned to place the faces they saw in order, according to attractiveness.? The shaved face, without mustaches and with neatly trimmed hair, was chosen as the most attractive.? Total hairiness and total baldness were lowest on the list.? In addition, the presence of a mustache reduced confidence.? The faces presented were identical in every other respect. Progression from stage to stage of hairiness versus baldness was judged as a factor of attractiveness, but the test subjects didn?t see the face progress in cumulative stages (progression).

??? Progression in literature ?(cumulative stages of revelation of facts) is what makes reading enjoyable: we aren?t certain of the outcome, and what we reckon is right can develop in different directions, depending on the information given.? In fact, different readers guarantee different reactions.? A fine novel captures the attention and interest of most readers.?

??? Real world experiences are not, generally, as complete as a crafted novel.? Modern writers, of course, reflect the chaos of our emerging modern world in what, for convenience, I term chaotic literature, white noise literature, with more or less deconstruction or minimalist influences.? The result is discomfort for most readers, who must deal with the same stressors in real life.? Time, for example, is small, and many of the most well loved works, such as Stephen King?s works, are keenly read because an entirely different world is spread out to relish and delight in, but macabre.? Fantasy and science fiction works have their loyal followings, too.? In all writing, ?truth? is vital — a guideline in the fog, a face in the mirror, or a beacon in the night.? But ?Truth? is perceived through a mist of the prejudices we gather in life experiences over time.? Truth? has impact: among other possible repercussions and reactions to its revelation, emotions and thinking can be stimulated or depressed. At any time, what is perceived in the real world as ?truth? can suddenly change.

?? Ian F. A. Bell describes Tony Tanner?s approach to this phenomenon in his introduction to Tanner?s The American Mystery:

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?Tanner conceives of the dematerialization of language in American literature, the go beyond the structure of binary opposites, as a continuous process of self-invention. This go involves literary strategies of transformation: the construction of ontological identity, character, and modes of representation.? As Tanner observers?if life was in ?flux? or constant ?metamorphosis,? then writing should be the same.? As Emerson says, ?In the beginning of America, was not only the word but the contradiction of the word.??

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Bell goes on to describe Tanner?s analysis of Hawthorne?s language in The Blithedale Romance:

??The Blithedale Romance does not question what constitutes the real, much less the Real, as reality is only ?known by the conviction that you have not got it.?? As an American Romantic, but, Hawthorne may be suggesting that to know that reality is not real could be the beginning of a Real experience.? Tanner tracks the binaries between fact and fiction, forgery and real money as a means of determining the ?right? copy; whether ?forging? the uncreated conscience of one?s race or forging money, ?both ?forgers? work by putting falsities/fictions into circulation.?

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And finally, in his study of Melville?s The Confidence Man, Bell notes what Tanner says about ?reversibility? and ?interchangeability?:

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?Melville?s novel about trust and confidence in the new world of America, shows how ?reversibility? can be re-cast as ?interchangeability.?? This term, which Tanner borrows from Thomas Mann, registers ?the multiplicity and sheer ontological dubiety of the self? in a world where identity, as determined by the constructivist nature of language, is constantly being reinterpreted.?

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???? Whether it is Newspeak, Orwellian style, or Spin City, whether it is a news report or a personal experience, above all, we trust personal experience, and then the Voice of Authority.? Anyone with intelligence, plus sufficient interest in the case, can eventually recognize the spins and spirals in the Official Version of the Kennedy assassination. Calling people who discard the Official Version ?conspiracy theorists,? while calling supporters of the Official Version ?assassination analysts? exemplifies the polarization that can occur in searching for the ?truth.??

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Christopher Sharrett reviews Art Simon?s book, Perilous Knowledge (concerning truth and imagery in the JFK Assassination debate) with some acerbic insights:

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?the endless debate?came to constitute an “epistemological crisis,” as each official and nonofficial investigation refuted a previous truth claim, and interpretation formed a huge Moebius Strip that traps the body politic and renders truth itself indeterminant but continues to provoke discussion.?

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Sharrett notes a lack of moral center in these twisting and turnings of the truth:

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?Simon invokes Michel Foucault’s remark that “Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, stares.” This simultaneously compelling, obtuse, and arid remark is emblematic of much postmodern discourse… Foucault’s linkage of the stare to power is not the sum and substance of Simon’s method, but it does much to turn this work into a studious, eloquent, but labored exercise lacking a real political and moral center.?

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Even Official Versions can be abandoned when necessary: enough time has now passed that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which provided an excuse to bomb Hanoi, is no longer presented as the ?actual truth.?? Evidence suggests the incident never occurred, but it?s too late for Hanoi, and for many Americans who haven?t seen the new evidence, American ships were fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin.? ?Truth? for those who have come upon or noticed the new evidence differs from those who did not, and both groups will claim they have ?the truth.?? Progression of knowledge from the former stance to the latter was incomplete.? Incomplete transmittal of ?the truth? occurs constantly, making divisions and conflicts.? In real life ?truth? is nearly a commodity.

???? Literature can be replenished and reach new heights if the principles of progression and perceived ?truth? are properly developed by the innovative writer.? In the examples presented in the small sample collection of small-small tales provided in this paper, the potential range for progression literature (the genre could also be called the literature of denouement) can be stunning ? mind-blowing?and i9t can happen in ?real life? as well.? Films such as Tarantino?s Pulp Fiction exhibit progression/denouement qualities. A killer known to be dead is shown very much alive after his death, with incredible impact.? To the patrons in a restaurant, terrorized by robbers, they?ll never know that one of their ?saviors? later died, or that the two men had come into the restaurant to eat after cleaning out a car full of gore and pieces of brain.? Williams? A Streetcar Named Desire brought the same approach from stage to film: we slowly realize that the ?truth? will never be fully known to Stella, whose passions are manipulated by Stanley, her brutal husband.

???? Much can be done to fully develop the new genre. The small-small tale collection shown here presents controversial religious experiences and interpretations, as felt or reported by persons under widely different conditions.? Time can change ?reality? and ?truth? for the reader or for those in the tales, as more information is obtained.,? The information might be fake, but, leading to fake conclusions, which may or may not alter others? perception of what is ?right,? or new information might reveal a ?new? or unsuspected truth, or confirm a suspicion.? Anything is possible, for ?truth? is what is perceived by each individual, or accepted due to the voice of authority.? Those impacted by the ?truth? can make or live in entirely different universes, depending on the individual, to say nothing of the vicarious experiences felt by the reader or viewer (via literature, film, video games, etc.).

??? In addition, the writer-as-truth-teller can present the ?truth? more vividly and with greater emotional impact, employing the arts as well as the sciences, setting the ?truth? in proper proportion to right and incorrect, with the potential to sculpt a moral perspective that a simple, arid recounting of events cannot, thus revealing a social aspect and interpretation to ?truth? that delivers a personal weight to the individual.? Engels, commenting on the impact of Balzac?s Com?die humaine, observed how Balzac delivered ?a most wonderfully realistic history of French society … from which, even in economic details (for instance the re-arrangement of real and personal property after the Revolution) I have learned more than from all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together.?

???? A simple progression example is to reveal how two people meet after years of absence.? They assess the differences now present, compared to the past. These may be psychological as well as physical.? What if one person s simply pretending, and isn?t as he seems, or perhaps isn?t the person from the past at all, but is merely masquerading as such? ?Would/will/can the other person ever find out?? Perhaps, perhaps not.? Denouement to the reader can be exhilarating, shocking, disappointing, etc., to say nothing of the reactions that can be made by the writer as the tale progresses.? Truth becomes an object of itself, with its own life, its own history, made within and outside the progression, and may not be ?right? after all.? Yet the ?truth? may be more vital than ?reality? for political, practical, or social reasons. ??Truth? ends up being what we finally believe.? If our information remains slight, or even if supporting facts accumulate, the ?truth? remains unchanged unless conflicting information enters that is accepted by the recipient.? And what about experiencing only conflicting, untrue information at the very onset?? We are all familiar with the effects of advertising and propaganda. Hence, ?truth? is a hostage of fortune.

???? Progression could highlight how people change through time ? perhaps a sinner really can become a saint! ??Yet another kind of progression involves revelation, where a character is developed before the reader via actions, events, and so on, but then unravels or morphs due to what we next learn.? There is always the chance that what we reckon we know is not real.? Dialogue ? actual conversations ? might reveal ?the truth? ? and can be persuasive ? if ?the truth? is being fully revealed.? What if it isn?t?? I use the example of? a person thought to be a scammer turning out to be a saint, but seen by the world in the news, upon learning of his suicide (which isn?t presented here) as a man with a checkered reputation who took ?the coward?s way out.?? Read the small-small tales yourself, then choose how cruelly you could make the news tale reflect the ?truth? as the Official Version would have it.? There are two ?saints? in the small-small tale collection: progression literature tells us much more than meets the eye.

???? In the literature of progression, just as in real life, ?truth? is indeed in the eye of the beholder, so I hope I will be forgiven for appropriating the clich? for the small-small tale collection. ?In the examples of progression that I choose to present, brevity is used ? but I stress that the objective is not to be gimmicky or to play tricks on the reader, nor necessarily to be brief, for the skilful writer now has a tool of power.? I suggest a respectful treatment of the original perspectives in the foundation tales of progression literature, as they can relate marvelously, in talented hands, to the perspective which emerges or is revealed or appreciated later.

Nevertheless, my thesis material included several foundation tales in the genre which anchored my thoughts for progression literature in the domain of small tales Reckon of the ramifications of knowing a ?truth? ? unless the dog now treats you in a friendly manner. Where, then, is your ?truth? to others???

???? The literature of progression invokes past events, but might now address a different part of a different tale altogether, and ?you? may be in a different situation: for others, your tale of a biting dog may seem utterly senseless, if this dog is known to be friendly to all. And so on. .

Why? Thus untruth, or mistaken perceptions, or misinterpretations, can happen before or after the offering of the ??truth,? and we may be unable to discern which version/experience is ?right? even though one tale, in this case, involves misperceptions and conclusions based on misconceptions and experiences which were ?untrue? but seemed ?right.? Denouement cannot bring forth the ?truth? because of the sheer volume of conflicting declarations stating the ?truth.?

??? There is the element of the voyeur or the rascal involved in writing the non-fiction novel, related to our concerns, where historical characters are fleshed out fictionally to enhance or comply with a stereotype originally made to advance an Official Version that is controversial. Particularly disturbing is when the stereotype is advanced to ?truth? by the new fictionalized treatment. If the writer is really unfamiliar with the historical person, of necessity then relying on what remains of the ?truth? in the Official Version ?[or other extant] records, the ?new truth? can become the final and lasting impression.? For example, Don DeLillo?s Libra presents a cold-blooded view of Oswald?s treatment of his wife, based on her reports.? The brutal glimpses DeLillo gives us of Oswald?s treatment of his wife are seared into the memory: what Oswald told me about his fights with his wife has no place in the version of the ?truth? DeLillo made. ?

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??? Nevertheless, denouement literature, in progression format, can wrest — even from a DeLillo opus — a new and relevant perspective.? David Foster Wallace summarizes the challenges to the writer of fantastic literature in today?s quick-moving world, where entertainment is cheap, easily accessed, and well-designed:

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?(There is)a contempt for the reader, an thought that literature’s current marginalization is the reader’s fault. The project that’s worth trying is to [make]?the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it’s also pleasurable to read? Part of it has to do with living in an era when there’s so much entertainment available?and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren’t. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It’s unbelievably hard and confusing and scary, but it’s clean. There’s so much mass commercial entertainment that’s so excellent and so slick, this is something that I don’t reckon any other generation has confronted. That’s what it’s like to be a writer now.?

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????? Progression literature can be exciting and relevant. It can do many things: turn the reader?s perspective upside down, enhance understanding of human nature, restore truth to history — depending on the author?s intentions and abilities.? ?The literature of denouement?, or, ?progression literature,? in more skilled hands than mine might well provide a revitalization to modern literature, with new depth and excitement in its inimitable approach to crafting.

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Judyth Vary Baker?? Stockholm, Sweden (degrees in anthropology (BS), Creative Writing (MA), and? English literature and linguistics (ABD)? genre developed at UF and U of LA @ Lafayette 1986-1999

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References

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Tanner, Tony. The American Mystery: American Literature from Emerson to DeLillo. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000,242pp., ISBN: 0521783747? ?15.95 (Pbk)

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Sharrett, Christopher. Review of: Perilous Knowledge: The JFK Assassination in Art and Film, by Art Simon.

Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press, 1996. 257 pp., illus.

Reviewed by Christopher Sharrett

Vol. 22, Cineaste, 01-01-1996, pp 59.

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Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick. On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. Moscow 1976; p 91. (trans. Andy Blunden)

Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland; Or The Transformation: An American Tale. Gutenberg?s etext version 2008.?

David Foster Wallace.? Quote from an interview about his best-seller, Infinite Jest, by Laura Miller, for Table Talk, Internet forum.

?=================an example of Progression Literature in fiction:

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THE EVANGELIST (tale #1)

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???? The Holy City…a battered fortress of gray and brown and white stone blocks, where two thousand years ago Roman soldiers marched the Jews into the Temple’s center, and slaughtered them…where a thousand years ago the Crusaders had come, with their banners and emblazoned crosses, announcing “Convert or die!” to Muslims, and dying themselves, overcome by those who cried “Death to the infidels!” And where Jesus, in incredible patience, hung from the cross, when a single thought could have saved Him from agonies indescribable… but He was Like Itself, and conquered all of these things.

?????? So thought Jeremiah Mosley — pale of face, ascetic of form, trembling in his own exquisite agonies because he was ? after fantastic financial sacrifices ? really present in Christ’s own city — and Christ might come again at any time, like lightning from the sky, it would be so sudden — Christ would separate the sheep from the goats and save the believers, and was he, Jeremiah, ready for that?? He had come to Jerusalem to seek a saint’s advice, to seek, too, a sure sign that he had really been called to become an evangelist –to spread the Word, the Excellent News– wherever he might be sent by God, the Living God, not some fairytale character, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had come to him in a dream, and touched him on the shoulder, and told him, “I like you.”

????? He had spent a large part of his savings to get this fine room overlooking so much of the splendid, if war-ravaged city.? The porters had been civil, even if they had snickered when they saw his battered suitcases and the way he kept his head down and prayed just under his breath.? To them, the young man with black, curly hair was just another fanatic on a pilgrimage.? When they brought the bread and wine to his room as he requested, they were surprised at the size of the tip he gave them. They didn?t know it constituted nearly all he had left in the world.

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?? “I’m in Your hands,” Jeremiah whispered, pouring out the dark wine into two crystal goblets.? One for Jesus, one for him.? He broke the unleavened brown bread into two halves and placed the broken loaf in the center of the small table with its two glasses of wine on either side.? The white tablecloth was pure linen.? With a burst of emotion, Jeremiah threw himself on the floor and whispered, fiercely, “Come, come, Lord Jesus!? Only take a sip of the wine, that I may know You hear me, and that You accept me!”

??? Then he waited.? The sun descended, sending trembling, ghostly shadows across the room. Blue mist filled the valley below, and red-orange clouds lit up the sky as the sun inched down, down… and still, he waited.? Sweat beaded on his forehead.? –Please!—I must know this is what You want!— It was such a small sign he sought, just as the fleece that Gideon threw down, asking only for a bit of dew on it, with none on the ground all around.? A sip of wine, when he wasn?t looking?. Was it tempting God? …it is a humble request… only take a sip of the wine, brilliant Lord! — Please!—

??? On the windowsill, as the sun set, a white dove flew down, sat for a moment looking into the room with its sad supplicant, and then, with a small dip of its beak, and a low coo, it pulled a feather from its breast and dropped it on the windowsill.? On the ivory white shaft was a single drop of dark blood.? The wind whispered away the feather with the evening wind.? The dove dipped its beak in a courtship gesture, then flew off with a whirr of its soft, white wings.?

??? Jeremiah was never quite sure that he saw it.

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?? He was wearing a two thousand dollar linen suit, hand-made for him by one of the world’s best custom tailors ? he had specified only pure white linen — and the glittering diamonds on his hand proved that he was prospering mightily with the people.? Outside his dressing room, as Jeremiah finished grooming his hair precisely as it should be combed, he could hear the choir across the street finishing the hymns he had selected to rouse the people from their torpor into hope and praise to God.? His black hair had thinned and was not so curly as it once had been, but implants had corrected the receding hairline: he looked maybe ten years younger than he really was, and with any luck, he’d outlive all his critics, by God!

???? “Pastor Mosley!” came his publicist’s voice, “it’s time!”

???? “Just a minute, Rachel!” he answered.

???? Rachel was so efficient.? He needed that.? He was such a slacker, such a romantic. He nearly place on his Rolex, then chose against it: too showy.? With a spray of Parisian cologne to each wrist, and a quick look in the mirror to make certain his necktie was in perfect order, Jeremiah paused to look more closely at the reflection there: ?—Would you buy a used car from this man? — he questioned within himself.? His critics said they knew better.

??? They said he was bent? that he stole from the people, filled his coffers with their dollars and threw away their prayer requests.? That healings didn’t take place.? That the Holy Spirit wasn’t a holy spirit, just a sly show calculated to separate the gullible from their money.

???? He didn?t know how else to get people to listen, except putting on a show to get their attention.? If it was so incorrect, why were there were twenty thousand people out there, waiting for him to come out, and help them transform their lives (as if he could do any such thing!).? It was God who had done this. As always, he felt himself shaking, because he was really, deep down, ultimately a shy man who would have preferred a silent life in a monastery.? Instead, the show must go on. And on.

?? ???–Please, God!– he whispered to the image in the mirror.? — Please!–? It was his only prayer, just a choked exclamation of half-strangled hope, that some of the people out there would be healed, would have their lives changed because of God?s Hand moving among them.? Ah, the Hand of God!? –Jesus!?he managed to say, before his throat closed up with terror.? To face all those people again!? He had seen so many in wheelchairs come, then leave, disappointed.

??? He threw himself down against the mirror, onto his knees, and raised his arms high in the air, letting them finally rest against the mirror.? ?God, God, God!? he breathed aloud, and then, with a half-strangled voice, he added, aloud, -?Please, God, have mercy on the poor people!? Take my life, if you want it, but help your sheep!?

??? He calmed himself, got up off his knees, brushed away the talcum powder that clung to the knees where they had touched some of the fallen white dust that perfumed his undergarments… he wiped his forehead with a pure linen handkerchief? took a deep breath?.

?????? —–Pastor Mosley!– came Rachel’s nearly mad voice on the other side of the door.

??? ???He opened the door, was half-blinded by a bank of photographers and their flashing lights.

?? ????What are they doing here?? ?he demanded, pushing past the photographers, and directing his rage to his publicist, the woman with black-rimmed glasses who held a walkie-talkie to her ear.

???? ??They say you?re being sued by some guy who claims you didn?t heal his eyes after all,? she answered.

????? ?He?s a maniac!?? Jeremiah snapped.? ?I don?t heal, Jesus does.?? He place on a courageous face and started striding down the hall.? He was God?s Man, he could not allow these people to see any dread.? He smiled and kept on walking, his publicist and two underpastors at his side..

????? ?But there?s some excellent news, too, Pastor! Someone’s been healed, and they’re calling it a miracle! Yes, Pastor!–? Someone’s been healed!—?? he could hear the excitement in her voice, and in the crowd.? He hoped it was right.

????? Deep within, he wondered if a psychological event occurred that had convinced someone they had been healed, or was it a set-up, by someone once again trying to prove the ‘healings’ were all fake?? Maybe this time it was for real.? It did happen, sometimes, despite what his enemies said.? He never knew exactly when anything miraculous occurred, or what to expect from the crowds, for it was just the power of their faith in action.? He remembered what the Bible said, that Jesus visited his own city, Nazareth, but could do no mighty miracles there because the people had no faith.? —A prophet is despised in his own country—

????? A lot of ?miracles? were just psychological, but even that was something. Better than hopelessness, helplessness. Somebody had to care. And occasionally, there were unexplained, mysterious changes hat doctors couldn?t clarify.? He wanted to have had seen some sign from God during his prayers today, but as usual, he ran on empty.? The signs were so rare. Just enough to keep him from drowning in terror. ?Was he doing the right thing?? If not, Jesus could take his life, that was okay.

???? –Seek– Christ had said, –and ye shall find.–

?? ??Except for me, he thought. ?I do not doubt that You will drink wine with me someday, but it?s been fifteen years now—

???? Now he was walking calmly between rows of photographers, reporters, and people begging him to heal them. As if he could heal anyone! ?Praise Jesus!? he told the people. ?It is Jesus, who will heal you!?? — O You secret, hidden, unattainable, silent Lord…!–

????? A drifting sense of peace came over him then.? He got into the elevator and the door closed.? Blessed silence? and most of the photographers and reporters were now cut off.? Now to cross the street…? With the pastors on his right and two security guards on his left, Jeremiah crossed the gauntlet of the street with its masses of shouting people. He entered a huge auditorium, composed himself a minute, hiding behind a huge screen, while choirs sang and a huge organ played?.the audience had been worked up for about an hour, singing with the choir and watching huge screens that showed miracles and events at other crusades.

?????? –Please, God!– he prayed, once again the same ancient prayer, seeking, seeking…stopping in the midst of it — done with crossed arms– to notice that somehow, in the rush, he had lost a solid gold cuff-link.? ?Damn!? he said, removing the solitary golden cufflink.? ?Lost another one!?

He thrust the cufflink into his coat pocket.

???? It was peaceful in the evangelist’s hotel room. A sleepy guard sat on the huge bed, making sure nobody who came into the room would steal any of the pastor’s things for a souvenir.? As he half-dozed, two maids entered the room, with dust-cloths and a vacuum cleaner, to freshen it up.? On the mirror, where the well-known evangelist’s hands had pressed momentarily against the glass, the white talcum powder had, fascinatingly enough, made a pair of white doves.? One maid started wiping them away, when, too late, the other, with wide eyes, stopped her.? They both knelt and started to pray, crying, but Jeremiah never saw any of that, nor did the sleepy guard.

===============Tale #2=======

APPEARANCES? (Tale #2)

??? by Judyth Vary Baker

????? There she was, lying on the rumpled bed, the evening light fading. She could see her legs stretched out toward the window with its plum-striped curtains and the green, swaying trees beyond.? There was an ochre glow in the sky, as the sun set, with crimson-edged clouds bathing the darkness. Her legs looked spindly, too thin, but then, she was a model, with the skinny frame desired by clothiers and designers. She wanted to eat, but dared not: outside, where she saw the birds flying in black punctuation points against the red-rimmed clouds, she thought how they could eat as they wished, without a thought as to appearances: they were all soft, downy, fuzzy, fluffy. Stout, perhaps, according to clothiers and designers.

?? ???There were small sparkles of raindrops on the windowpanes, for with the final light came a quick showering down of rain, against the deepening deep blue of the sky.? The yellow and gold of the last sun?s rays faded away to a soft tangerine glow, outlining the tall buildings and skyscrapers that rose on the horizon.? She wiggled her toes, stretched them wide, thought to herself, I have prehensile toes!? She could pick up anything with them ? a talent for which none would pay her a penny.? She saw how her knee-bones stuck out more than they should, her thighs started behind the knee-bones, too thin, too thin. But there was no help for it.? She knew that they would place makeup on to hide the dark circles of starvation that made her large, brown, glowing eyes look even more mysterious, and that she?d walk down the red carpet on the arm of Max Taylor, Movie Star, smiling and waving to the adoring crowds, her photo snapped, her gown declared simply ravishing, her hair declared adequate for the occasion.? Max was homosexual and she liked being with him, being ordinarily too exhausted for sex: they made a excellent pair.

???? Well, she had fourteen hours before she had to get ready for tomorrow?s appearance at the Oscars.? Fourteen hours, phone calls turned away, and Room Service bringing up, in another hour, her dinner, composed of a cup of clear broth, a chicken wing, and a leaf of lettuce, with vitamin capsules. She wanted to bathe after that, but wondered if she had the strength. Staying in bed, for she felt so cold, was best: her nails wouldn?t get chipped that way.? Why turn on the telly?? Why not watch the raindrops gather, as the wind blew them sideways on the glass, watch how they merged and became fatter, then dribbled down the clear pane, falling to oblivion??

???? She looked again at the alarm clock: forty-five minutes to dinner.? There was a slight prickling along the bedcovers that crossed her flat belly, and she looked to see what caused it, but nothing was there. The white hotel sheets, the white hotel blanket, the white hotel mattress with its plum-colored stripes, were as in all hotels everywhere: a formal luxury, her common fate in hotel after hotel. ?Sheared carpet and sleek lamps and slick wood with glass: the brochures of the hotel, the beckoning pamphlets listing cafes and cabarets and caffe au lait. One hotel was as another: either filled with antiques stiff with gaudy gilt and lace and carved balustrades and flowers, or modern-sterile, Isn?t it Excellent Norwegian Wood?

???? What was life about? She wondered. I?ll strut my stuff a hundred more times, then what?? I wish I could believe in God.

???? Incredibly, she felt the electric touch upon her belly again, and again looked down, past her hunger-shrunken naked breasts to the blanket and sheets twisted over her middle in the shape of a white cross, the plum-red stripes making a huge ?X? as if blocking her empty belly off from the rest of her body.? As she breathed, the ?X? went up and down, up and down?and as the night sky darkened to deep purple, she thought she saw the ?X? waver, and go sideways.? As it did so, the prickling sensation returned.? This time, she drew the sheet and blanket up to her chin, covering herself.? I?m cold all the time, she thought to herself.? How excellent the hot broth will feel!? She looked at the clock again: in fifteen minutes, they?d bring dinner.? She remembered, as a child, saying Grace over a meal of bacon, eggs, toast and jam, with hot cocoa on the side, and how her sister and brother grabbed for the last pieces of toast, but she was content to let them go for it, she had more than enough to eat.? Donny was dead, now, and so were Mom and Dad, in the car wreck that so suddenly took their lives. As for Donna, her sister, she hadn?t seen her for several years: Donna was heavy, having had children? ashamed of her stretch marks and her after thighs.

?? .? I reckon I will say Grace over the broth and chicken wing and the lettuce, she thought to herself. Jesus!? I wish You?d appear!? But those things don?t really happen, do they?? It was always mere legend.?

???? Then it happened.

???? The broth had gone cold.? The lettuce lay untouched. ?They had forgotten the chicken wing, but no matter.? She was washed over with heat and warmth, lavished with it?.she lay stretched out, her arms flung wide, her eyes moist with tears. She rolled from the bed, drawing the sheet and blanket with her, and the quilt that had twisted to make the ?X? as well.? On her knees, she whispered, Thank you!? Thank you! Thank you!

?

?

??? ?But such things are hallucinations,? he told her, as he warily watched her eating a normal-sized meal. ?What about your contract?? he questioned, nervously. ?If you change sizes, you?ll be fired from Victoria?s Secret, and the rest will follow.? And what will Henri say, if you stop going out with him?? He?s always getting you excellent film deals.?

???? ?I?m rich,? she said. ?I don?t need Victoria?s Secret anymore. And I don?t need Henri, either.??

???? ?Well, I?m not rich!? he told her, heatedly. ?And you have a contract with me to be responsible. You?ve had a god-damned hallucination.? As your agent, I insist that you see a psychiatrist.?

???? ?You don?t have that right,? she told him.

???? ?Of course I do. I?ll sue you if you don?t go. Then see how rich you?ll be.?

?

???? There she was, lying on the rumpled bed, the evening light fading. She could see her legs stretched out toward the window with its plum-striped curtains and the green, swaying trees beyond.? There was an ochre glow in the sky, as the sun set, with crimson-edged clouds battering the darkness. Her legs looked spindly, too thin, but then, she was a model, with the skinny frame desired by clothiers and designers. She wanted to eat, but dared not: outside, where she saw the birds flying in black punctuation points against the red-rimmed clouds, she thought how they could eat as they wished, without a thought as to appearances.

???? Henri would be by tonight, to sleep with her again. He was a powerful Senator.? They met all over the world: her ?photo shoots? were all lucrative deals. Some of them were real photo shoots? After all, she was so much thinner than his wife, Bernice, who was trying to get pregnant.? Models on the make were much more fun to be with, and the contracts and magazine covers he got for her made the hotels and the meals and the dreams keep coming.

===============Tale #3=====

REVISION? (Tale #3)

?

By Judyth Vary Baker

?

???? ?Henri Ballantyne was very near-sighted, and middle-aged, but he still carried a handsome shock of blonde hair, and had the body of an athlete. The fact that his wife had just died made him one of America?s most eligible bachelors, though he was still avoiding dating.? Henri?s career as U S Senator was reaching its pinnacle: he was a powerful man who now found himself stalked by paparazzi, aching for a photo of him with some movie star.? At Bernice?s funeral, Henri had let himself go a small, drinking too much and saying some unwise things about his wife?s untimely and sudden death.? ?Of course, those people are fools,? Henri told Charles. ?All that blather about rising again, about the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. What I wanted was her, damn it all. Now I have to go find another respectable woman.?

??? ?Why didn?t you keep your opinion about that ?blather? to yourself??? Charles questioned, wishing it had been his wife, instead of Henri?s, who had kicked the bucket. Charles had silvery hair now, and a paunch, but his wife looked even worse. Charles looked down at his terrible left foot, that leg two inches too small that made the thick, heavy shoe so necessary, then glanced with scarcely-concealed envy at his younger client, a former Olympic star whose biceps were still firm.? Charles was barely interested in Henri?s latest problem, but it was his job to keep Henri well loved. Right now, his job was in jeopardy. Henri surreptitiously lit another cigarette, which Charles ardently hoped the waiter wouldn?t see.

???? ?Perhaps we should go onto the terrace,? Charles suggested, picking up his wine glass. ?There?s a cool spot out there under the umbrellas.?

??? ?It?s all the same to me,? Henri told him.? They went outside to the restaurant?s rocky terrace, sheltered under rows of bright red umbrellas with ?Coca Cola? emblazoned in white, curling letters. Charles was glad to be back in Budapest: he looked forward to the mineral baths, the excellent, cheap wine, and the pretty women who would sleep with him willingly, despite his terrible left foot.? That clump-clump of his shoe followed him everywhere, and most women glanced down at the thick sole of the shoe, hearing the heavy sound of it, and instinctively avoided intimacy with him.? It wasn?t honest. ?Charles was also accursed with a gloomy cast of the eyes, a sad down-turning of the mouth, and with a voice so raspy he couldn?t succeed, as he had dreamed, in politics. He was forced to function as a mere advisor, well-paid to guide candidates into high offices, and keep them there, by making certain they said the right things and did the right things.. At present, he was worried about Henri, whose chances for re-election had been very excellent, until today.?

?? Henri was part of a Senate committee on a fact-finding mission touring the European Union, with a stopover for fun in Budapest, where he had just dined with the Minister of Culture, stating his opinion that religion was a sham, and that Jesus was probably a closet homosexual.? Damn!? Charles sighed to himself. Henri had made his opinion known to the new Minister of Culture ? a devout Catholic — not to the ancient one, who had been an atheist.

????? ?This tale isn?t going to ride well with your constituency in Maryland, Henri.?

?? ?????I know, I know! So what the hell should I do now??

?????? ?Maybe show up at church. And make sure people know about it.?

?

?

???? ?If you can?t fix this, I?m quitting politics,? Henri told him, peeling off a few thousand into Charles? hands. ?This should cover costs for your quick small trip over here. Do what you can to cover this up. Okay??

??? ?I?m not Mr. Fix-It,? Charles complained. ?I suggest you stay away from religion altogether after this.? I?m sorry I ever mentioned the word ?church? ? but how was I to know you?d end up attending a healing session in some Praise-Jesus-Hallelujah cult??

???? ?It has twenty thousand members,? Henri said lamely. ?And I have to admit, I was entranced.?

???? ?Hypnotized, not entranced,? Charles corrected. ?I should have set up the right church for you.?

???? ?Yes, you should have,? Henri said. ?So now, get me the hell out of this mess!?

???? Henri, whose poor vision was the result of a botched operation to reduce his near-sighted condition, couldn?t wear contact lenses anymore and didn?t dare risk a repeat of the operation until methods became more advanced.? Maybe any day, he thought to himself. Meanwhile, he was stuck wearing glasses, and despised it even more than getting ancient and out of shape. He?d really been caught up in that Jesus-Hallelujah-Praise-God jamboree, and, mesmerized, walked in a daze to the altar, knelt there, and said he believed.? A man stood over him as in a cloud, his vision really became dark, as if an angel hovered somewhere, blotting out all the hot lights overhead, and then the evangelist questioned if he could ?lay hands? on him.?

???? ?Do you believe you can be healed??

???? The fellow looked a small tired and was in a rush, as there were dozens more who also sought the ?hands-on? experience.

???? ?Healed of what??

???? ?Whatever your need is, of course. God will heal you now, if you believe!?

????? What was that shiver of hope that flowed over him, as those hands were laid upon his head? ???

????? He felt an exquisite sense of peace overflow him.? The evangelist?s hands seemed full of electricity.? It was uncanny.? From Henri?s lips burst out his secret desire.:

????? ?I want my eyes to be healed!?

???? ?Then ? be healed, eyes!? In Jesus? name!?

?

??? What a fool he?d been!? ?Such an utter fool!? For nothing had happened. Not a thing. He?d had some blurry spots in front of his eyes, like a thousand small dark dots, just as he came down the aisle to the front, and yes, those small dots disappeared, but that was all. He was still as near-sighted as ever.

???? They?re all fakes! he thought to himself. He didn?t see a single person healed at that altar, except maybe one small ancient lady who said she was healed of cancer. Oh, sure! He?d ?believe? when he saw the doctor?s report!? He got the ancient lady?s name and address. He?d fix that so-called ?healer? if she died of cancer.

————————————————————————————————————–

?

???? ?Okay,? Henri told Charles, ?it is right that the small black spots went away. And the woman with cancer got better. But then she died of a stroke.?

?

???? ?But you get those dots in front of your eyes when you drink, Henri,? his manager told him. ?It comes and goes. Reckon of the consequences!? They snapped your picture there, with that crazy preacher?s hands on top of your head. Excellent God! It?s front page news in every damned tabloid in the country!?

???? I know,? Henri said gloomily. ?But what can I do??

???? ?At least, you didn?t get ?healed? of something and feel like you had to proclaim it to the world,? Charles said. ?That would have really wrecked everything.?

????? ?I sure got psychologically drawn in,? Henri admitted. ?They have that service set up like a fine art. And of course, I didn?t get healed. I feel like closing down their operation. They?re raking in money like crazy, you know.?

?????? ?I suggest you do nothing of the kind,? Charles told him. ?At least, don?t directly be his source of distress. Just promise me that next time, you?ll stay away from anything to do with churches.? For the rest of your life — or it?s bye-bye, career.?

????? ?Of course I will!?

????? ?Instead, start going to hospitals. Go visit some sick kids with cancer. Kiss some lepers. Do something nice, but stay away from the goddamn churches. Maybe they?ll forget.?

????? ?I hope so,? Henri said. ?I sure hope so.?

?

?

??? It wasn?t the paparazzi who were responsible, as Princess Diana had been hounded, but the auto accident was photographed by the paparazzi.? The stunned senator was photographed, too, mourning the fact that the accident wouldn?t have happened if she hadn?t taken so much valium

And here she had been pregnant!

?

Then the fellow had a nervous breakdown. ??The tabloids reported that he killed himself with sleeping pills in the very house where he?d been born. His suicide note was small and pitiful.

????? Jesus hadn?t been there to rescue the guy: the evangelist had been on his own in the Valley of Death.? Now Henri was in the hospital.? He?d fallen on some ice and was currently getting his back pulled straight — in traction. He was doubly irritated because he was experiencing double vision from his concussion.

???? The ophthalmologist came in, with his apparatus, to check his eyes, and Henri heard him shake his head, as he made small clucking sounds like a mother hen worried about a chick.

?????? ?You?ve had some real problems with these eyes, haven?t you??

?????? ?A guy like you botched an operation on my corneas,? Henri told him. ?Wrecked my chances to get away from glasses.?

?????? ?But the other condition, I mean,? the doctor said. ?Just when did you have that operation on your retinas??? He was peering deep into his right eye with that blasted irritating bright light.

????? ?What operation? What are you talking about??

????? ?Your right retina was obviously torn loose, and was reattached by lasers. The left eye had some work done on its retina, too.?

?????? ?I never had anything done to my retinas!?? Henri thought how the evangelist had laid hands on him, and a kind of bitter horror started to build up inside.

?????? ?Well, it?s been some time, I suppose. Perhaps you?ve forgotten, though I can?t imagine you would. ?If it hadn?t been for this obvious emergency operation, you?d be blind in your right eye.?

??????? The ophthalmologist looked again into the left eye.

?????? ?Yes, same thing, just not as terrible? he said. ?Your left retina has also been re-attached.? Surely you remember seeing a flood of what we call ?floaties? in your eyes? A feeling of a shadow falling down over your eyes, as if a curtain was closing down your vision??

?????? O, my God!

?????? Suddenly, Henri undersood. ?The darkness of his vision, as he knelt down, shielding the harsh overhead light from his eyes as he knelt— and the hundreds of small dark spots that swirled in his eyes, as the trembling hands of the evangelist gently touched his head, and Henri had questioned to be healed.

????? ?Oh, God!? he whispered, as he lay stretched out on the hospital bed.? ?Oh, God!?

====================Tale #4====

REPARATION? (Tale #4)

? ???Jeremiah was ready to die. He had long been prepared for the event. His only regret had been that he?d not had enough right faith to heal everyone upon whom he?d laid his hands ? for which he had prepared with much prayer and fasting. He?d never really seen a vision, though others around him reported white doves always landing on windowsills wherever he went ? hotel after hotel.

??? That was weird, indeed ? but he had never seen a single white dove himself. Still, he had tried to follow Christ?s example, believing he could lay hands on people and heal them if they had enough faith, just as the Bible had promised, in Christ?s name.? He?d seen a number of miracles ? nobody could deny it!– but there were so few among the thousands he?d hoped to see walk again, be pleased again, have hope again. It was distressing, for he also could not deny that there had been hundreds of stunning failures. Psychosomatics. Self hypnosis, maybe. His tireless nemesis, Henri B., had even planted ?cured people? in his congregation to proclaim they had been healed.? Jeremiah?s best-selling book, unfortunately, included a few tales from fake ?healed? people who had infiltrated the church, paid by Henri B.? They had lied.? They had been included in the book— along with a dozen genuine cases ? ?(he assumed they were genuine!) ? all to glorify God?s name and His holy powers of healing through Christ?s shed blood. Instead, outrage and mockery. Accusations of fraud.? Prostitutes had even come forth claiming he?d slept with them. Lies, lies, lies!

????? Henri B., the Senator, revealed that he was sick of scammers acting in God?s name, so he?d paid actors to pretend they?d been healed. The evangelist had not been told by his ?God? which people had really been healed. He was utterly clueless. His ?God? had let him down.

?? ??All of this had come about because the evangelist had laid hands on the Senator?s head and declared that his eyes had been healed. He had done so on inspiration.? He had been impressed ? even certain — that the Senator?s eyes were been about to go blind ? yet at the last moment, they had been saved, either by being healed, or because Henri himself had gone to an eye doctor and got operated on.? Whichever way you looked at it, Henri B?s eyes had been saved.?

???? But Henri didn?t see it that way.? The doctor ? alone?was the healer. Jeremiah had questioned him to go to the doctor to have his eyes checked, to make certain they had been healed, and the doctor had insisted on operating.? Since then, Henri B?s persecution had been relentless.? Thoughts of suicide had crossed Jeremiah?s thoughts again and again.? Now, the waiting was over. No more fasting and prayers in the lonely nights. No more tears, lying prone on his face, begging for people to be healed, begging for conversions to his hero, Jesus.? He could even consider this final, terrible event as martyrdom. Dying for Jesus

He finally chose to write that the devil was forcing him to die, it was not his choice at all.

???? Jeremiah was so shaky that he only had the strength now to place a small cross under the words ?I forgive all my enemies and place all my faith in God?s mercy.? The word ?mercy? had a long, smeared trail of ink after it because he could no longer see what he was writing, could no longer feel the pen in his numb hand.? Pain was eating his belly alive.? He dropped the pen, as a convulsion from the drugs he?d taken filled his body. He knew he would soon be dead.? ?Father, forgive my enemies,? he tried to say, but with so small breath left, other words came out?.

—————————————————————————————————————-

???

???? Henri had went to a monastery in Sweden.? It was built in the fifteenth century of hand-cut stones. It was cold and had always been cold.? It was dark and had always been dark.? Bernadette ? Bernice?s sister — had suggested the monastery as a suitable place for private penance, a new life. The Catholics would let him find some peace in his soul, perhaps, in a primitive way that his take-charge mind could know.? In his jealousy, he?d murdered his wife.? Then he?d driven the evangelist into bankruptcy, and to his death.

???? Too late, he?d learned that the eye doctor hadn?t operated on his eyes. Too late, he realized that the evangelist had indeed ? by some unknown power — healed his eyes.? And for doing so, Henri had ruined him!? Had thrust his church into financial ruin!? A million dollar check fixed that, and his declaration that he had been healed wiped out much of the onus caused by the fake ?healings? mentioned in the book that had disgraced the evangelist so soundly. But none of this could bring back the man of God who, in his suicide note, had written, ?I forgive all my enemies??

?? As Henri whipped himself (he slashed his body with twenty lashes every evening, except on Sundays), he gritted his teeth and let the fierce pain sink into his flesh.

???? ?God forgive me, I didn?t know what I was doing!? he prayed, each night when he finished, cleaning the blood from his back and off the stone walls. Then he laid down on the hard, flat bed, letting the cold creep over him. The cold sank into the mass of festering wounds on his back.? With his diabetic condition, he knew he wouldn?t last too very much longer — maybe a year or so. ?As for the Brothers and Monks, they thought him a wondrous saint-in-the-making, and with their silent stares of admiration, they allowed him privacy in his holy efforts to make reparation for his sins, and for the sins of the whole world.

???? ?Brother? Henri prayed constantly, begging forgiveness particularly from the man he?d ruined, mindful of the power of that Silent God who had healed his eyes.? How many more blows from the length of electrical cord he wore around his waist (when he wasn?t using it) could his body take? When he had no more strength, he would quit eating. Finally, his pain would be over. Forever.

========Tale #5=====

DIVISION? (tale #4)

?

?? By Judyth Vary Baker

?

???? Henri Ballantyne was very near-sighted, and middle-aged, but he still carried a handsome shock of blonde hair, and had the body of an athlete. He was one of America?s most eligible bachelors, a powerful man who found himself stalked by paparazzi, aching for a photo of him with some movie star.? Charles, his political manager, was told to find him a suitable lady to date.? Henri still missed his dead wife: ?What I wanted was Bernice, damn it. Now that she?s dead,? he told Charles, ?you have to go find me another respectable woman.?

Charles had a huge Rolodex and a vast reservoir of email addresses, but the combination of Movie Star and Respectable Potential Wife eluded all attempts. Then, a break: Bernice?s sister ? Bernadette?called.

?

???

??? ????She very well knew that Henri was cheating on her. It was a shame that they couldn?t have children.? Too many times, he?d demanded to know if she had finally become pregnant, only to be told that once again, everything had failed.? When the problem was finally diagnosed as Henri?s fault, not Bernice?s, she celebrated by getting drunk.? The relief!? The blessed relief! Henri, seeking to make himself feel and look better, got an eye operation that same week, but something went awry, and both his corneas were hurt, forcing him to stay in thick glasses. Henri tried to sue the doctor, but papers he?d signed before the operation, and the doctor?s excellent reputation, resulted in a settlement out of court. Bernice had done what she could to help: she tried to get inside information: she became friendly, before the lawsuit ensued, with the eye doctor, and even had a small minor surgery, which the excellent doctor gave her free of charge, knowing how upset Henri had been.

??????? Then came a meeting after regular office hours, when Bernice, noticing that the doctor had the same tastes as she for excellent music, invited him to accompany her to a Bach concert. It came about nearly by accident: she had spotted Henri with a Pretty Young Thing on his arm, and with jealous ire, she called Dr. Richardson.

?????? They met outside the Concert Hall: he looked very fine with his bright blue contact lenses and his thick, blonde hair, much reminding her of Henri?s own tawny mane.? By evening?s end, she was calling her escort ?Paul.? By the end of the month, they were meeting regularly for concerts and more.?

————————————————————————————————————–

??? I should feel guilty, she told herself, as she combed through her own dark, glossy curls. But I don?t! ?She was still a stunningly gorgeous woman.? She carefully examined her still-glamorous figure in the hall mirror, wishing her stomach was as flat as his secretary?s?but who can compete, at thirty-eight, with women fifteen years younger?? She felt a bit under the weather lately ? was it age creeping up on her already? — and this made it seem all the more vital for her to spread her wings and bring an adoring man into her arms.

Henri is discrete in his indiscretions, she told herself.? And so am I! It?s excellent that we didn?t have children to complicate matters.? She chose the right purse for the evening, checked her hairstyle from the back, then took the elevator down to the foyer. Paul had sent a nice New York limo to pick her up ? yet unaccountably, as she entered the limo, her thoughts turned again to Henri, who was treating her so much nicer, now that he knew it was his fault, not hers, that there were no babies.

?And he always brings me such nice gifts, now…for it is he, she chose, who is feeling guilty! ?He?ll soon be going to Europe, and I?ll be left behind, but we?re only acting as Royals have done for centuries.? Generous to one another in public, and we still even sleep together! ?She would not dare compare the two men in bed, for Henri had known her such a long time now, and Paul?s fascination with her might fade. ??She should be grateful for excellent sex with two excellent men, in a comfortable life.

?

?

His spies told him that Bernice was pregnant, and that she had been seeing the very eye doctor who had ruined his chances to look handsome again!? No ? more than seeing the eye doctor!? More than that!? The divorced doctor had two children of his own and was obviously the source of Bernice?s sudden pregnancy.? How dare she!? And next year was election year! Did she reckon she could hide what she had conceived, when he had photographs, and even a videotape?? Right, she was being very careful ? she of course did not wish to harm Henri?s reputation ? but what in hell possessed her to allow herself to get pregnant? ?Damn it all! ?

??? ?Women want babies,? Charles told him. ?She knew it was hopeless with you, so??

????? He had to pause until Henri?s teeth stopped gnashing.

???? ?I have to be very blunt with you, Henri,? Charles told him. ?Your small trip overseas, your lack of sorrow when she died, has been noticed. Her family has received a telephone call ??

????? ??No doubt from him!?

??? ???It seems they?ve received information that?s disconcerting to them. Something about your hiring a private detective, who now wants a payoff to remain silent. Or else, he?ll speak to Bernice?s family. They, too, have reputations to consider.?

???? ?It?s not against the law, what I did,? Henri said gloomily. He tried to pretend that he wasn?t as deeply concerned as he was at the fresh bit of terrible news.? The first terrible bit was that Bernice?s sister was going to exhume the body, to have an autopsy done.

????? ?I thought Catholics didn?t do things like that,? he complained.

????? ?Apparently, sometimes they do,? Charles said. ?I suggest you get yourself a excellent lawyer.?

?

???

??I can?t start to express to you how much I despise you,? Henri said to Dr. Richardson, who sat uncomfortably with him in the lawyer?s office. ?I found her diary, you know.?

?????? Paul Richardson said nothing.? The smoldering hatred in Henri?s eyes was enough to keep him silent.? He didn?t want Henri to jump up and choke him or something. They were waiting, with a wary-eyed male paralegal, for word on the DNA test on the dead fetus within Bernice?s womb.? Henri had demanded the test.

???? ?Another thing,? Henri said. ?This all started when she volunteered to spy on you, for your information.? Prior to my bringing a lawsuit against you.?

???? ?She told me all about that,? Paul said, mildly. ?And she apologized.?

???? ?She never was excellent at such things,? Henri admitted. ?That?s why I was so shocked. That she got away with all of this with you.?

????? ?You weren?t around much to notice.?

? ??????I was around enough!? Henri snapped. He dropped his face into his hands, then, as if he were about to weep.? Paul was surprised at this sudden shift of emotion. He hazarded a comment.

?????? ?I reckon we both have missed her.?

?????? ?If only I had never had that operation!?

?????? ?Well, I?m sorry it was botched up.?

??????