Yesterday, we opened the autism conference at the Omni Center in Rivne.  I didn’t count but there were over 60 participants in attendance — psychologists, teachers, therapists, parents.  Before the conference, Lubov greeted us with chi (tea) and cookies — the Ukrainian folks are so gracious.  The conference was opened with a greeting from the Medical Director of the Center as well as the Deputy Head of the Education Department of the City of Rivne.  I remember that this conference always starts out fairly formal. I gave an overview of the week, using my wonderful grand children as our guides through the topics of the week — sensory, behavior, and communication.  Kelly then provided an overview of autism as well as a detailed description of proactive strategies such as structuring the room and using visual supports.  When she showed a detail of a classroom and asked what was wrong, folks did a nice job of pointing out the problem areas.  They seemed to really like seeing the photographs of actual visual supports.  Kelly had lots of pictures of the supports used in her classroom.  After a full Ukrainian lunch (can I nap now), Galina gave an overvview of the Early Literacy Skills Builder curriculum, using the puppet “Mo.”  It was fun to see Mo giving participants a “high five” for a good answer.  Galina has spent many hours translating the materials and folks seemed pleased to be getting that translated.  All in all, it was a very smooth start to the conference.  I was excited about the rest of the week.  Dianne