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It not easy coming up with 26 posts in one
month on the topic of Autism that don’t make people want to jump off a bridge
or burn me in effigy. Several weeks ago the letter T seemed so
easy. Autism…Treatment Options. I figured a little pontification on this
treatment vs. that one and WHAM! I am off to my sure-to-be-crappy
post about the letter “U.”
But, in reality there is nothing I can say interesting about treatment
options which isn’t on Wikipedia or About.com or any reputable medical
website. Many of my posts reference the different things we are doing with the Little Man.
So, here I was yesterday struggling to come up with a concept for the
letter T. As I am batting ideas in my head last night at Mom-Mom’s house, I notice
the Little Man using magnetic letters to
spell words on the fridge. Right now, he
is perseverating on the song “A Whole New World.” In case you don't know what perseverating is, think obsessive compulsive times 10. He listened to the song like 100 times this weekend and converted a towel into a magic carpet to act out the video. The other day he actually wrote all of the
lyrics out in crayon. So, naturally, he is using the magnetic letters to spell out the title to the song.
Problem: The magnetic letters at Mom Mom’s house have survived
many grandchildren so what remains is not a complete set of letters, but a hodge-podge
of different sets of letters gathered over the years. Many letters are missing. We had the makings of a possible meltdown on
our hands. The Little Man’s drive to get
the words on the fridge (He is an Ideopraxist, you know) vs. the fact that many
letters were missing.
Now the interesting part. The title
“A Whole New World” has three W’s.
However, there was only one magnetic W in Mom Mom’s set.
You often hear that children with Autism are very rigid in their thinking. They like predictable patterns and they do not
like change or the unexpected. Those
things are all generally true. But, our
Little Man is also immensely creative and has unbelievable problem solving
abilities
(He is an Ideopraxist, you know).
We watched him as he used a letter “I” as a lower case “L”. He got to the second “W” and used an upside
down “M.”
Okay, now the truly amazing part.
He got to the third “W” with hardly any letters left. I was thinking maybe a “E” on its back – but there
were no E’s left. Plus, this is a Post about
the letter “T” right? He got two letter “Ts”
and made this:
Problem solved.
This kid never ceases to amaze me.
Aha! No wonder you are rockin' this challenge. I see now that you are getting plenty of help! (Two Ts to make a W. That's pretty brilliant.)
ReplyDeletenecessity is the mother of invention. I'm not sure an adult would think to do that - we would just look at the missing letters and give in. Amazing
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