Hi everyone,
I wanted to ask about autism and superpowers and what, if anything, you've been able to do with your child to encourage them and allow them to grow? Everything's so deficit based when it comes to diagnosis and occupational therapy and even at school, and I have a few concerns now about my little boy, who's five.
His knowledge is insane. He knows all the countries of the world by land mass, by population, in alphabetical order, forwards and backwards, same goes for the United States, regions throughout the Middle East, all the capitals of the world, etc, etc. He understands and can name all the systems of the body, and the organs, and what goes where (!). Planets are another laser-focus: he can name all the exo planets, even the ones with very long numbers, the galaxies, the stars... He knew his times tables at four and we've been told he may have hyperlexia as he's essentially made up his own sign language and was sight reading at a very young age. He wakes up every morning and spouts facts until he goes to sleep at night. Admittedly, he's missing out on conversation, which breaks my heart.
Now, this all seems incredibly boastful but I know I'm amongst friends here ;) But my point is, what do we DO with all of this, where does it go? Who's his audience going to be? It's cute now but what about when he's a teenager and it's not so cute? He has no volume control either so he's often overheard shouting about the departments of Bolivia or whatever and invariably I find myself excusing him and downplaying it to other parents, "Oh he's autistic, that's why, and he still wets his pants", which is not fair on him, I know. This stuff should be celebrated.
Basically, I feel a bit lost. I don't want him to become a performing monkey but at the same time I would love somebody from outside the family to just acknowledge it, do you know what I mean?
Thanks for reading. x
