Flower, my DD didn't teach herself to read, either. She learned when we finally broke down/gave in and taught her some simple phonetic decoding methods at just over age 4.
The thing is, the
jump that she made at that point was so incredibly mind-boggling that it
really makes other adults think we're making it up. She literally went from Bob books to Harry Potter in a matter of months. And I don't mean struggling her way through sounding out Harry Potter-- I mean silent, sustained reading on the sly and with startling rapidity.
It's those quantum leaps that seem to have defined her developmentally from day one. So Ruf4. She can't-can't-can't-can't....then *bam* (no practice, no additional instruction, I mean) MASTERY/nearly perfect fluency. It's as if once she
sees how-- she just knows how to do something at a zen master level or something. Practice is completely irrelevant.
The way a lot of ND kids learn to ride a bicycle or tie their shoes, I think. Well, maybe not. Because I think there is usually a lot of coaching and demonstration there, and DD really doesn't tolerate much of that.
I've only had that experience a few times in my life. One was this odd thing where I suddenly just
knew how to French braid my own hair when I was about 11. Nobody had ever shown me, I'd never seen it done, and I was working entirely by feel... but I could just
see in my head how it had to work, YK?
I also think that this MB, like another that I'm a member of, tends to skew toward people that
most need the connection with other parents in similar straits. So yes, more "severely" affected kids. Greater LOG probably means more impact on families and on parenting. Parenting books exist for parenting OG kids. Once you have an HG+ kid, though, you really
do have a lot of questions about development that no experts seem to have answers for. "Is this normal" becomes... "Is this something worrying in the context of MY child?" and the answer isn't always clear.
Ergo-- here I am. Is it "normal" for a high school student to need reminding to brush her teeth? Well, no. But maybe yes, if that high schooler is also a hormonal 11 yo that is REALLY not a morning person.
I just wish his brain will slow down sometimes or he'll just keep quiet.
Why does THAT thought sound so familiar??
