Elaine Park Our house is frequently really loud, as my seventh grade son, Drew*, races his long fingers at break-neck speed and top volume, up and down the piano, pounding out the Imperial March from Star Wars or some original composition of his own. His fingers are fast and strong, dexterous and coordinated. They are equally skilled at piecing together intricate creations out of his world-class Lego collection. But because of a neurological quirk, this same child can’t tie his own shoes and has difficulty writing with a pencil or pen. He has a lot to say and wants to share it, but the frustration of handwriting often reduces him to despair, and is a frequent problem when it comes to completing language arts assignments. Like many parents of a child on the autism spectrum, I hope this can be resolved by his learning to type. Once Drew has…
Tag: Elaine Park
Elaine Park My son can’t spell. At all. I like to joke about it, because in my culture (Anglo-Canadian) making wry, self deprecating comments is how you get through things while keeping your dignity intact. For example, my favorite line is “My son spells phonetically. I’m just not sure what language it is. Maybe, Latvian? Estonian?” But it’s true. The child cannot spell. He attends a pretty good public school and participates in a program designed to include children with Asperger’s syndrome into the general education stream. He’s in seventh grade, and after six years of me whining at six years of IEP meetings that the child cannot spell, the child cannot spell. Solutions are presented and possibly applied. While the people who work in the program are great when it comes to dealing with behavior and social skills, they are not so impressive at follow through on things like…