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Advice on my daughter

NAS71401

Hi

I hope Im not breaking any rules by posting this and hopefully someone may experience what we are experience with our daughter and offer some advice.

My daughter is 5 and totally non verbal. She was diagnosed whe she was 2. She was also diagnosed with global delay development. She is very placid child and isnt difficult to manage but she has a lot of the usual traits like flapping hand over her ears (we cant get ear defenders on her) and quite obsessive with certain things like trains airplanes etc.

Over the last year or so she has really started progressing in terms of her ability and doing new things. In fairness I think we have underestimated her a fair bit in terms of her comprehension and thus partially why Im posting this. If we were to describe her management methods it would all centre around visuals. She also has this ability to find her way around things without actually being shown. So an example she learned how to navigate ipads herself and can search youtube and her kindle tablet like an expert and we have never shown her. She is capable of using pecs and other commincation aids.

We noticed a few months ago that she started to identify words related to her motivators without images. To help explain what I mean she loves stars and the moon amongst other things and while scrolling through our iptv box looking for a movie the film title "a star is born" came up in a list of just random films no images just text and she went to the TV and pointed to it. Up to that moment she had no experience of words or reading she had just started school so they have done nothing with written words or that. Anyway experimented some more with this and was able to pick out all her motivators so we knew something strange was going on.

Because we realised she had ability to pick out words we decided to get some spelling toys. Ones were you have an image say of a cat and were you hide the word and she then picks out letters to spell the animal. Straight away she got the idea and started spelling correctly what the animal was. This all unprompted and no help from us. Ive got numerous videos of it. She has now progressed to spelling 9 letter words so when she see's one of her motivators she goes to her letter tray and picks out magnetic letters and spells out the word then seeks our recognition where we reward her with a clap and loads of well dones. She does it in a strange way also she knows the exact positions of where the letters should be position so where i would start to spell by getting the first letter and then work left to right in a logical sequence she could start in the middle and work it anyway it usually depends on what letter she finds first.

What she did tonight prompted me to reach out and look for advice because I maybe really underestimating a unique ability she has and I dont want to miss out on someone who may know more on what is happening. Anyhow myself and her mum where having tea in the dining room and when we came into the living roon our daughter pointed to her spelling board and she spelt "Aeroplane" and on her ipad she was watching videos of airplanes. She spelt it in what I always considered the american way. Ive been scratching my head all night asking how. They have only got onto it in school recently and they are still using 3 and 4 letter words no one has really ever thought her the alphabet but if I was to ask her to go and bring over any letter she knows every letter.

Has anyone ever come across this before? And is there any further assesment she can have from a specialist in relation to showing unique ability I like to think if that is what it is that it could be enhanced to make sure we can get the best for her as she gets older. Any feedback would be very helpful and apologies for such a long post.

TIA

Liam

Parents

  • Hello

    I have no first hand experience of anything exactly like this so speak from interest as opposed to knowledge. I was intrigued by your account, my initial thought is that she may have an exceptional visual memory so that she only has to see the word once in relationship to an image and she can 'make' the word again. This skill being nothing to do with what she is being taught at school. Maybe that is why she can make the word in any order off finding the letters as opposed to having to start at the beginning as you would expect when a child is learning to spell. I also wonder if this is why she spelled 'areoplane' because that is how she had seen it somewhere before. Many years ago I worked with adults who had profound educational needs. Many of them autistic too. One of the young men had an amazing memory for patterns of numbers, dates and days. If you told him your date of birth he could tell you what day it was. I am also mindful of the incredible cityscape artist Stephen Wiltshire who is autistic. He can draw cityscapes (in reverse) from memory and has had this ability since he was a young child. Now in is 40's he is a successful professional artist and has been awarded an MBE. A friend of mine worked with him when he was studying at the City and Guilds Art School in London. I am sorry if this response is not useful or helpful. I hope that it is not inappropriate to reply as I said before I am writing from interest as opposed to professional knowledge. I have no advice but some people on the spectrum do have incredible skills in very specific areas. Good luck. I hope that your daughter continues to thrive and find her way in the world. I believe that there is a place for everyone.

Reply

  • Hello

    I have no first hand experience of anything exactly like this so speak from interest as opposed to knowledge. I was intrigued by your account, my initial thought is that she may have an exceptional visual memory so that she only has to see the word once in relationship to an image and she can 'make' the word again. This skill being nothing to do with what she is being taught at school. Maybe that is why she can make the word in any order off finding the letters as opposed to having to start at the beginning as you would expect when a child is learning to spell. I also wonder if this is why she spelled 'areoplane' because that is how she had seen it somewhere before. Many years ago I worked with adults who had profound educational needs. Many of them autistic too. One of the young men had an amazing memory for patterns of numbers, dates and days. If you told him your date of birth he could tell you what day it was. I am also mindful of the incredible cityscape artist Stephen Wiltshire who is autistic. He can draw cityscapes (in reverse) from memory and has had this ability since he was a young child. Now in is 40's he is a successful professional artist and has been awarded an MBE. A friend of mine worked with him when he was studying at the City and Guilds Art School in London. I am sorry if this response is not useful or helpful. I hope that it is not inappropriate to reply as I said before I am writing from interest as opposed to professional knowledge. I have no advice but some people on the spectrum do have incredible skills in very specific areas. Good luck. I hope that your daughter continues to thrive and find her way in the world. I believe that there is a place for everyone.

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