President's Message
by Frank Wise

AACC-ASA meetings are held on the last Tuesday evening of each month at Ruth Parker Eason School in Millersville, Maryland. Meetings begin at 7:00 p.m.

The agenda includes introductions and general announcements, followed by time for open discussion. A refreshment break is followed by a presentation given by the guest speaker. Then time is allowed for a follow-up discussion and further opportunity for group support and socialization.

New members and new ideas are always welcome.  Come check us out!

WEB UPDATE

Thanks to the quick thinking and action of our webmaster, Barry Conner, we now have an even easier and more direct address for our chapter web site, aaccasa.org.  This address should help us in our efforts to be a resource
for the autism community.  Please check it out, and let us know if you have any comments or "link" suggestions.

NEWSLETTER UPDATE

Our newsletter publisher, Geri Weiss, has resigned due to other commitments.

We wish to thank Geri for her tireless hours of work helping to turn the newsletter into the well-formatted, professional- looking product you now see.  Best wishes to Geri in her other endeavors. 

The newsletter publishing duties have been accepted by chapter co-president Linda Carter-Ferrier. Thanks to Linda for her willingness to "wear another hat."  She has promised to continue the job of making THE VOICE a consistent source of interesting and locally pertinent material.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for last month's meeting, a great presentation on Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) by one of the state's foremost experts, Rose Kraft; and a local ABA perspective by fellow Anne
Arundel County parent Doris Smith. 

This month's speaker is Don Bailey, a Reading Resource Teacher from the Anne Arundel County Public School system, who is the parent of a child with autism spectrum disorder.  Don will present tips for teaching reading skills to children with autism.

We are very pleased to announce that our chapter is organizing a workshop for siblings (ages 7 - 13) of children with special needs. The first workshop sessions will be held this spring (March to June), and plans are to hold  the next session in fall. We are initially offering the workshop to families who are associated with our chapter; however, the long-term plans are to expand the registration to include families throughout the county.

In the workshop, the participants have an opportunity to meet other siblings in a relaxed, recreational setting, where they can discuss their common joys and concerns. They will also learn how others handle situations which are commonly experienced, and will learn about the
implications of their brothers' and/or sisters' special needs.  In addition, the parents will participate in a separate session, where they will learn more about common concerns of siblings.

For more information about Sibshops, or to register for an upcoming workshop session, please contact Liisa Neumann at (301) 858-9322.