In September of 1996, I was in the my children's doctors office screaming that something was going on with my daughter. She is our oldest and at 2 1/2, she could install her own computer games but she was not talking or wanting to potty train. She could say a few words but would get extremely frustrated when she was trying to get her wants and needs across to us. This usually lead to major melt downs. Sometimes this frustration led to early morning poopy art on the wall. After we got her diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, we as parents started researching the best way to help our daughter understand her autism. She was placed in Special Education at the age of three along with speech therapy. We began to follow through what she was doing at school at home. There where many many days that she would be crying in frustration because we would not let her get away with just getting by because of her autism. We, as parents, look back now and wonder if we were too tough on Leigha. The answer to that question when asked out loud is NO. Leigha was placed in learning disability classes in the 1st grade, while she was doing home school program in the special education department. She was fulling integrated (through much yelling and demanding from me) in the middle of her 4th grade year. She has not slowed down since. She is currently a senior at Checotah High School in Checotah Oklahoma. She is ranked 5th in her class and is part of National Honor Society. She has been accepted to 6 colleges/universities with two of the colleges holding scholarships for her. I know some people have problems believing an autistic girl can accomplish such amazing academic feats but it is true. She gets no modification in her classroom work. The only modification she gets is the teacher has to hand her lecture notes before starting lectures and she is suppose to return them at the end of the hour. If she does not get all the notes down before the end of the hour the teacher keeps what she has written and she can take the notes home to finish up as homework. Leigha also works in the school library through the area voc-rehab services. Leigha is looking forward to going to college and being as independent as possible.