Years ago, I read Temple Grandin’s autobiography “Thinking in Pictures” in hopes of not only learning more about this brilliant woman with Autism, but also hoping to get some clues about how Micah’s mind worked. I was a bit discouraged as I compared her capabilities and accomplishments with what appeared as Micah’s lack of communication and basic skills such as reading and attending to what was happening around him. How wrong I was.
Spelling to Communicate (S2C) has not only helped Micah to demonstrate his amazing spelling and auditory recall skills, but also has shown that he not only can read, but only has to glance at a page to take in all the words, retain that information and answer questions that prove he not only knew the details, but even the alphabetical order of the details in the lesson.
I first clearly saw this ability of Micah’s when his S2C lesson topic was about adoption. When Beth, Micah’s Certified S2C Practitioner, started to read a lesson about adoption I thought, oh good, finally a topic I know about, given my 37 plus years working in the adoption field. Surely, I would know the answers to the questions that Beth would ask Micah at the end of the reading. But mid -reading, Beth paused and asked Micah to read along with her. She showed him the spot where she left off reading aloud where the lesson was listing the states that have fully open adoptions. Micah’s eyes flicked to the page she was reading once or twice, but otherwise he appeared to ignore Beth’s request to read along. I sat across the room racking my brain to remember which states have fully open adoption laws. New Hampshire was easy, but I definitely did not know the other 8 states with any degree of certainty. At the end of the lesson, after a few questions from the reading that we had heard Beth read, Beth asked Micah to list in alphabetical order the first two states named in the lesson he glanced at that have open adoption. Micah wrote out Alabama and Alaska. Then she asked him which state in New England has open adoption. Micah spelled out New Hampshire (finally an answer I got right)! To make a long story short, he knew all nine states that he had glanced at ever so briefly. This ability just blew me away, but helps to explain how he keeps so many facts in his brain..he must have pictures of everything he sees stored there.
Suffice to say, each day we inch towards a better understanding of how very aware he has been of everything around him, while appearing not to be taking anything in. This past weekend Beth asked Micah a question that was not in his lesson: a dozen dozens is called a what? * I had no clue and motioned to Melody across the room to see if the answer had been part of the lesson. Melody confirmed it was not. Do you know the answer? Micah did. He has far more in common with Temple Grandin than I could have ever dreamed of.
Jan Lessard Peightell, November 14, 2024
- A dozen dozens is called a gross, and yes, he knew it equals 144
