Oh shoot, another summer is over and it is back to school! Things are changing here at AES. We have 3 new staff members, more released content, a 33% discount off of the new Video Social Stories (Storymovies) by Carol Gray and Mark Shelley, and more to come!

New Staff: Last month we welcomed 2 veteran special education teachers to our staff for customer relations & instructional support. Terri & Jennifer are well equipped to help you get the most out of the DT Trainer. This month we welcome DJ Douglas to our staff. She is helping with order fulfillment and office support.

Dolch Words: Last month we released the Dolch word programs. If you have not downloaded them yet, you can get them from our web site at: www.dttrainer.com/addons.html (Addons). You will need DT Trainer version 2.1.1.0 or later to install the programs. If you have an older version, go to www.dttrainer.com/updates.html (updated link). We have more programs coming and we are working on an auto-update feature to make it simple for us release updates and for you to install the updates.

33% Discount on Video Social Stories from Carol Gray and Mark Shelley: We are offering a 33% discount off list price. The Standard Edition is just $59 and the Professional Edition is just $99. The current volume is: Social Concepts & Skills at School. For more information visit: www.dttrainer.com/storymovies.php (updated link) or see Carol & Mark's overview video at: www.dttrainer.com/smovvid.php updated link). This is an important new tool for our community and we are making it available for more schools and homes by offering such a large discount. But hey, that's our mission!

DT Trainer - Back-to-School Special - 10% discount: From August 24 - September 15, 2006 we are offering a back-to-school special of 10% off of our DT Trainer standard institutional bundles, home bundles, and our continuation bundles. This discount is not valid in combination with any other offer. For more information visit: www.dttrainer.com , or email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , or call us at: 803-233-0541.

AES is Growing: At AES we are growing to help more customers while developing more features, content, reinforcers, and other software. We will soon release more content and new features for the DT Trainer and we are hoping to release a new product: the Activity Trainer later this fall.

Customer Story: This month we have a nice story from a parent and teacher. The teacher (Jennifer) is now on our staff where she can help thousands of kids instead of one class at a time.

Vince's DT Trainer Success Story: Letters from the Parents and the Teacher

Dear DT Trainer,

As the parents of a 12-year-old autistic son, we have experienced many highs and lows in his educational settings. We knew our son could read from the age of 2, but could not find a way to "get it out of him". Psychological testing could not show Vince's abilities. Results were always inconclusive or mildly mentally retarded. We knew that the communication barrier that autism had dealt us was in the way of showing us what Vince could really do.

Then in 2003, we had a great teacher in Darlington County schools, Jennifer Waldrop, that tried your software with our child. As a mom and a teacher, I could not believe what Vince had accomplished with this software! We had no idea he knew antonyms, synonyms or could perform mathematical equations at that level. As we sat listening to the results, I had tears of joy running down my face. It was unbelievable!! Finally, we had some idea of what Vince knew!!

Currently, he loves computers, typing and researching on the Internet. Most of his research is about movies, but at least he is interested and we know that he is reading and can communicate what he knows so well through your software. Now as we are beginning a new school year in Chesterfield County Schools, South Carolina, with a new teacher, we look forward to seeing more of what Vince can do. Thank you for developing software that gave us the power of knowledge.

Sincerely,
Tony and Shauna Newell

Dear DT Trainer Team,

Learning can be a positive and fun experience for most of us. For children with autism and other learning difficulties, it is a stressful and long process. As a veteran special education teacher, I witnessed children who had struggled to learn their entire school career. When children fail at learning time and time again, it is very painful and exhausting for the families of these children.

This is why the DT Trainer is a great instructional tool. I witnessed it in my own special education classroom when a student named Vince came to me because he had been very unsuccessful in learning. Vince had serious behavioral problems when he was asked to do school work and activities. I used visual and behavioral strategies to help to improve his behavior, but I needed a different approach for him to work on academic skills. Vince works on the computer independently at home and he loves it. So, I knew this was a starting point for instruction. This is when I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the DT Trainer software. I immediately implemented it in my classroom for Vince and my other students.

Vince was not interested in reading anything except his movie/dvd cases and typing his favorite words on the computer. But his parents and I knew he could learn so much more. How could we prove that and motivate him to learn? I put him on the computer in my classroom using the DT Trainer and that is when the MAGIC began. He was willing to do academic tasks to learn needed skills because it was presented on his favorite learning tool - the computer. He began to work more often and for longer periods of time.

It was just amazing for me to watch this child transform from an unwilling, highly resistant student to one who was learning well. This process of learning continued to the end of the school year. At his annual IEP, I shared with the team the skills he had learned in my classroom. The most memorable moment was when I read the list of words that Vince had learned to read using DT Trainer. As I was reading the list, his mother began to cry. It was such an AHA moment for me! I realized at that moment she had heard for the first time that her son could really learn academic skills.

I began to cry, too, because I had been a part of an incredible process of changing a child's life. Learning and school had become a positive experience for Vince and his family. Vince has since moved on to other schools, but the one instructional tool that has been constant in his classrooms is the DT Trainer. I feel so fortunate to have played a part in his educational transformation with the help of the DT Trainer.

Joyfully,
Jennifer Waldrop