autism is a journey: Reading

Monday, January 28, 2008

Reading

Jack read No David!, David Gets In Trouble and David Goes to School tonight at bedtime. I love the inflection and expression he uses. He actually has a David voice...

BUT...

He's memorized these stories. Getting him to actually look at the print is next to impossible. Though I know that his ability to read will come; is excruciating for me to watch him pointing randomly, yet forcefully at the page...He's just not making the connection between print and the spoken word...

Alas, he loves books. He will read one day, I just know it...(I hope...)

1 comment:

tylerbritney said...: That's great Jax is taking such an interest in reading, even if it is all by memorizing the story and not the words. He will get there. He is a smart boy :); January 29, 2008 at 4:14 PM

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from "Metaphor-the puzzle piece symbol"

Ever had one of those "ah-ha" moments? I'm driving down the road today, pondering Jackson's recent successes--boyscout camp and football camp. It occurred to me that each experience gave me back a piece of Jackson. [I'm not doing a very good job explaining this...] When we learned about Jackson's diagnosis, so many dreams were snuffed out. We no longer thought about our son becoming an athlete, a scholar, or even a friend. We thought in much smaller terms:"how many words does he have?""did he learn a new sign""is he reaching out to us?""that's playing pretend, isn't it?"Our perspective as parents permanently changed. It's like we had this complete picture of our child and autism fractured it--into a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.Each day little by little, we get pieces of the puzzle back. It'll never be complete, never the same as we expected, but there will be parts that will come together.Like when he participated in the school music program, enjoyed boyscout camp, rode the roller coaster and attended football camp. Bit by bit, we get pieces of what we expected back.Of course, the flip side of this is all the joys we gain from Jackson that we never expected in spite of the autism, but that's another post my friends....