The Extraordinary Abilities of my son with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder
This morning, I was reminded of the extraordinary abilities of my son. He was determined to show off to me his math skills, and he manually, by hand, calculated the square roots of the numbers 1-17. I checked the accuracy of his calculations using the internet, and he was accurate in every one of them to .0001. The photo included in this post is 1 of 12 pages of his labor.
What impressed me most was his focus, his concentration, and his tenacity
- unique gifts for a boy his age. I was reminded of a recent article I read online about 16 year old Greta Thunberg, who described her Asperger's as "a superpower". Despite being ridiculed by certain politicians and media outlets, she won Time Magazine's Person of the Year Award, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/greta-thunberg-is-facing-attacks-over-her-aspergers-but-heres-why-companies-want-to-hire-people-on-the-autism-spectrum-2019-09-25.
I think how lucky we are to have children who possess such unique traits, knowing that they may work through previously unsolved math problems, perhaps identifying the drivers in the genetic coding of cancer, or even solving the Riemann Hypothesis, accomplishments once thought impossible.
This........this is the power of neurodiversity.....