1 July 2022

A friend who hadn’t seen Nathaniel for a long time came to visit. He had not known Nathaniel before he was injured, but spent a lot of time with him after .When Nathaniel saw him, he wept. The friend was so moved by the emotional response that he came the next day. When Nathaniel saw him the next day, he gave him a big big smile.

He understands the strategy of tic-tac-toe and now has the dexterity to really write the X in the right place using a marker on his white board. He was playing with some visitors. He played a few games with each. The first one then asked him who he wanted to play with. He looked back and forth between them and then he seemed to tease the first one because he turned his head in a distinctive way to choose the second. It wasn't mean, just teasing. He did play with the first one later.

Nathaniel is a social guy. We are teaching him some new gestures/hand signs so that he will be able to make his needs and desires known. This is in addition to the communication program on his iPad. It’s hard because he doesn’t always answer consistently, so we are not sure what he really wants or thinks. We are working on it, though.