For those who have been following me for a while, you may recall that our youngest son, Garrett, is autistic. He's thirteen now, and while he is still mostly non-verbal, he has demonstrated several traits that show us that he's got a lot going on in his mind.
First of all, he's shown an extraordinary ability to memorize things. He watches a video on YouTube, and not long afterward, he's reciting it word for word. That might not seem like a big deal, until you realize that the video is in Russian or Spanish, not English.
Second, take a look at this collage on our living room wall:
Yes, he's printing off coloring pages from Finding Nemo off of supercoloring.com. But look more closely: He's printing them and coloring them IN STORY ORDER. He's literally storyboarding the movie. Again, that might not seem to be a big deal, until you learn that he hasn't watched this movie since we moved here five and a half years ago. In fact, the last time I can remember him watching it was almost eight years ago when he was five.
Click on the link to see the pictures. I wondered why he would have me go through the whole list, scrolling up and then down until he would point at the one he wanted. It never occurred to me that he was actually doing the movie in order. My wife noticed it and pointed it out, which is when I took this picture.
Autism is something we really don't properly understand yet. But make no mistake, autistic children are not morons. They are highly intelligent; they just can't express themselves the way most people can. There's a powerful brain in there. If you have an autistic child, give them the chance to use that brain and show you what they can do. You may be shocked and surprised at what they come up with.
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