Each week our Executive Director, Laurel Falvo, writes an article about social understanding and/or autism which is distributed free-of-charge via email to everyone who has subscribed to The SUN News.

• Click here to subscribe to The SUN News
• Click here to read past issues of The SUN News on Laurel's blog

(Sun painting by Nathan Hoekman, Laurel Falvo's son)

About The SUN News  

Did you know that light travels from the Sun to Earth in eight and a half minutes? Did you know that the Sun’s volume is bigger than 1 million Earths? Some sources say that the Sun is an "ordinary" star. That's true in the sense that there are many others similar to it. Yet we all know that we couldn’t live without that one star that we call our Sun!

In naming our Gray Center SUN (Social Understanding Network), we are also aware of the comparisons that can be drawn to those galactic statistics previously mentioned. Our tens of millions of web visitors have logged on from more than 50 different countries, including: United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, China, Germany, Japan, Sweden, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Israel, Philippines, India, Thailand, Spain, Taiwan, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Brazil, Republic of Korea, Italy, Malaysia, Russian Federation, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Iceland, Greece, Austria, Turkey, Mexico, Jordan, Malta, Indonesia, Romania, Slovenia, Finland, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Qatar, and Argentina. Each day our staff receives phone calls and e-mails from people all over the world!

At the touch of a button, our weekly SUN News articles are sent immediately to thousands of parents, grandparents, siblings, individuals with ASD, teachers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, therapists, friends, neighbors, and more. Each of you is doing your part to promote social understanding in your own corner of the world. (Sign up to receive SUN News, or follow the articles as they appear weekly on our blog--see above for both options).

Some may say that The Gray Center is an “ordinary” organization. Yet we have your support, and we think you’re extraordinary! With your help, since our inception in 1998, The Gray Center has continued to grow, change, and flourish. We have been able to produce new resources, grow our web site, develop new programs, and continue to provide information and support to people around the world.

We hope you’ll let us know how we can best meet your needs. Feel free to e-mail us or call anytime, and we’ll do our best to communicate with you in a timely manner.

And we hope you’ll consider making a donation to The Gray Center to enable us to continue to provide excellent services to people around the world. Together, we will continue to be a brightly shining SUN!

Comments from SUN News subscribers:

• I have not subscribed to the news letter all that long, but now that I do, I literally cannot wait to check my e mail when I know it is coming! It is such a valuable resource to working with small children with ASD! I try to learn and implement something from almost every news letter I receive. Whether it is a new idea, or an AHA moment that lets me know I am doing the right thing for a certain child. It validates what I am doing and feeling, it makes me laugh and smile and yes at times even cry! It helps validate that I truly do belong working with ASD children. Thank you so much for always providing great ideas!!!!
• Excellent Resource. I enjoy the newsletters and find them very informative. I wish we had a Gray Center here in Arizona!!
• We are in the UK and struggle with accessing appropriate medical and educational services for our 9 year old son, with ASD. The weekly newsletter means that despite our struggles with outside organisations we remember our son and his importance in our family and in his own life. Without it, we might be in danger of forgetting who actually matters.
• As a clinician, The Gray Center is an excellent resource to direct families to following diagnosis. I also use it to obtain information and resources to use with the families. I appreciate Laurel Falvo's postive perspective and way of looking at things.
  Keep up the great work!
• Thank you for taking the time to send out the newsletters. Lots of very good topics
• I look forward to reading the Gray Center's e-mails when they appear in my mail box. I enjoy applying the tips I have learned when interacting with the children with autism at my job in the resource classroom. You have taught me patience and respect for those who struggle with the day-to-day challenges of autism. For that, I thank you!
• I like the weekly email blasts that provide a perspective some times that you don't hear from other literature out there.
• I am a preschool special ed teacher who tries to help evryone with everything. I enjoy the insights shared in the SUN newsletter. I received permission to adapt one of the newsletters for a parent handout , and I appreciated Larel Falvo's willingness to share.
• As an educator you provide a great service/resource to my ECSE parents and peers. Laurel's news letters are super for my parent ed group.
• In one of the weekly articles last year, Laurel wrote about "appropriate behavior" and how that language puts the judgment of the behavior in the observer. That really stuck with me and now I use the term "effective behavior" to describe target behaviors for students. That is the one article I share on a regular basis
• I love the weekly article from Laurel Falvo. I teach students on the autism spectrum and the articles are very helpful. I often share them with general ed teachers who have my students.
• As a teacher with a newphew who is severly autistic, I enjoy using this website and the SunNews to help spread the word of social awareness. I believe our work has indeed taken hold on society. When my newphew was diagnosed 18 years ago, not too many people were aware of autism was and what type of challenges he faced.
• I love the emails! They keep me informed, give me ideas and reminders of ways to work with and respond to my son. Thank you!
• As a provider for individuals with autism or Asperger's syndrome, the Laurel Falvo's weekly e-mails provide me with continuous positive support for what can sometimes feel like a an impossible job. I truly enjoy the real life examples presented in her newsletters, as I am usually able to connect her anectdotes to experiences I have had with individuals I have or am currently working with. Keep it up!
• I have been a follower of Carol Gray since my son was diagnosed nearly 12 years ago. She is a dynamic speaker who has influenced individuals with autism around the world. I also enjoy the e-mails that I read from Ms. Falvo. There have been many occasions when I have had tears in my eyes while reading the e-mail because it means so much to me when I know that there is someone out there who really "gets it." I benefit from each and every e-mail that I receive. Thank you for all that you do!!
• The Gray Center has provided a tremendous amount of information for me as a parent of a son with autism and as a special educator that works with children with special needs. I have been receiving the SUN news for the past 2 years and I've utilized the articles in many ways. I have shared many of the newsletters with parents that I work with as well as provided important insight to the instructional assistants I train on a daily basis. That information has helped bring so many subjects to light for the assistants and general education teachers. Each article provides a clearer picture of what it is like to have autism and what we all can do to assist students to interact with our "neurotypical" world. Thank you Gray Center for providing fabulous resources, informative workshops and great weekly articles that put the world of ASD into a very manageable perspective.

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