Saturday, May 31, 2008

National Spelling Bee

We are seriously considering entering David into the National Spelling Bee. He has been reading since age 2 (no joke). I learned that he could read when he said "All the News that's fit to print". He was reading the front cover of the NY Times.

OFF THE CHARTS Intelligence is one of the "side affects" of being on the autism spectrum. Right now he can read ANY word (age 6).

I want to do more for him. But I don't know what. I am struggling right now to know what he needs, what he wants, when he needs to be challenged. I have to respect when he needs to drift into his world and embrace him when he returns to our world.

This is painful for me. I am a problem solver with a problem I can not solve.

2 comments:

Liza on Maui said...

You don't have to do more for him.. what's important is to be there for him (in my humble opinion)

Anonymous said...

I think I wrote this.

Our son started reading at age 2.5 and by age 3 was reading The Magic Treehouse series. Could read any word by age 5 or 6, too.

He has Non-verbal Learning Disorder, in the Autism Spectrum.

When I learned that he had this I was relieved to have some direction but resentful of the suggestion that some of his best qualities are just side-effects from a disorder??

Then I looked at our daughter and she's got an IQ of 148 with no disabilities and she's also nice and sensitive. And I want people to notice that and recognize that my son's traits are not just dismissible as side-effects.

This is just one struggle we have in raising him. It's getting very difficult.

We also have four children. :-)