There’s a company called Trellis that provides in-home
instructors for people with Autism for a certain number of hours each week.
They help families meet specific goals such as potty training, speech therapy,
etc. Trellis has been a part of Eric’s life for many years and they’ve helped
him make major progress.
Eric is extremely fascinated by the computer, so his
instructors mainly set up activities and exercises for him to do on there. One
of the instructors showed him a website called Sporkle, which is a site that
offers games and trivia that you must complete in ten minutes or less.
Eric also has an interest in Disney movies, so his
instructor had him name all the Disney movies he could in less than ten
minutes. He named all of the very popular ones along with many others that most
people have probably never heard of. At
first, he appeared to be listing them sporadically, but then his instructor
noticed that he seemed to be ordering them in a certain way.
It turns out all the Disney movies Eric listed in the given
time frame were listed in order of their original release dates. How did he
know this information? Who knows, but it’s impressive if you ask me.
This brings to mind my nephew and his passion for all things Star Wars. He can recount the details within any era of the mythology's timeline that spans dozens of books and many galaxies.
ReplyDeleteThat's incredible! It sounds similar to my brother's fascination with foreign languages.
DeleteWhen Jack and I asked "How does he know this?", the supervisor for his in-home program said, "Because he's a brainiac!" Indeed!
ReplyDeleteTrellis LOVES Eric! Great writing Paula!!
ReplyDeleteEric would get so frustrated, because he knew all of the movies, and he wanted them in chronological order, but he couldn't type fast enough. So I started typing the movie titles for him. Sometimes I would have hard time understanding what he was saying, and he would just give me a look that meant "COME ON!" Then after a while of doing it that way, we would take turns. He would type a title and then it would be my turn. Eric would get so excited when we finished it together. He'd clap his hands, and ask for high-fives.
ReplyDeleteTo this day I can do the Disney Animated Feature Sporcle in under 10 minutes, and it's because Eric is such a good teacher.