So here I am on break, home for a little R&R and to weelde some stories out of my mom to talk about my development in terms of language and dyslexia. What really brought this about was on Friday evening I went to my aunt and uncle's place where we had a soup night with their children and grandchildren. My cousin, his wife, and two children aged two and four. Looking at them and how they played and communicated it made me wonder about how I was different from them at that age. Was my learning difference was visible then? And so we begin.
My mother said that I always had a presence about me, sure of who I am and so forth. At a very young age eye contact was a very important thing for me. As early as five weeks old I was looking directly at people when they walked into a room and my mother says there was understanding. I'm inclined to believe her.
By June of '87, I was roughly 20 months old, and my vocabulary was over ten times that. I checked the statistics online. The average vocabulary for a two year old child is 200 words, and I had more then a little head start on that. However I was not putting them together as other children might. I could identify something as a 'truck' and know it was 'big' but i would never say it was a 'big truck'. The reason for this is unknown to me. Perhaps it just never occured to me that they could be put together that way. My sister on the other hand was using full sentences by the time she was my age even if her vocabulary was not the same as mine.
My mother said that there were only two words that I ever misspronounced with any regularity as a child. Those were music as 'meekos' and buffalo as 'bullafo'. I can only surmise that I learned these two words wrong and the pronunciation stuck with me until I could unlearn my mistake and speak them correctly. My vocabulary continued to grow at a pretty good rate though nothing truely of note occured until I was three years old.
At age three I attended a cooperative nursury school and publick park combenation. Asside from te usual running around and story time there was a large focus on art. I didn't stand out as a painter, that was for sure. My mother described me as a "most minimal of the minimalists." Given a large piece of paper I would make some tiny figure on part of it, declare myself done and run off to do something else. I'm sure it was quite discouraging for my mother.
This all changed once the medium changed from painting to clay. Working in three dimensions completely changed the activity for me in some way. My projects changed instantaniously from minimalist to incredable detail and focus. I worked on every aspect of the project going so far to even make a meat drying rack and little pieces of meat less then an inch in size to fit. My mother estimates that it was all done to the same scale.
I believe it was because I was so attuned to the dimension of things rather then appearance. Recreating something I had seen in three dimensions rather then trying to put it on paper with paint. My spacial awareness translated to three dimensional creativity rather then just two.
It's from this point that it really starts to come out how I am much more a cerebral individual rather then physical. I played with the other kids but it was never in competition. My mother calls it being a 'Paralell Player'. Playing alongside without trying to surpass them. I was large for my age and apperently strong as well though I never really thought about it like that and that became the trend for the rest of my life.
The next school I attended was when I was four years old called St. Columbus. There the focus was on socialization rather then teaching facts and so forth. Teaching children to relate and solve problems. To get along with one another. Truely an important skill to cultivate from a young age. There was nothing really of importance there to note on other then the focus of education.
I'll continue with my diagnosis and more schools in the next post.
My mother said that I always had a presence about me, sure of who I am and so forth. At a very young age eye contact was a very important thing for me. As early as five weeks old I was looking directly at people when they walked into a room and my mother says there was understanding. I'm inclined to believe her.
By June of '87, I was roughly 20 months old, and my vocabulary was over ten times that. I checked the statistics online. The average vocabulary for a two year old child is 200 words, and I had more then a little head start on that. However I was not putting them together as other children might. I could identify something as a 'truck' and know it was 'big' but i would never say it was a 'big truck'. The reason for this is unknown to me. Perhaps it just never occured to me that they could be put together that way. My sister on the other hand was using full sentences by the time she was my age even if her vocabulary was not the same as mine.
My mother said that there were only two words that I ever misspronounced with any regularity as a child. Those were music as 'meekos' and buffalo as 'bullafo'. I can only surmise that I learned these two words wrong and the pronunciation stuck with me until I could unlearn my mistake and speak them correctly. My vocabulary continued to grow at a pretty good rate though nothing truely of note occured until I was three years old.
At age three I attended a cooperative nursury school and publick park combenation. Asside from te usual running around and story time there was a large focus on art. I didn't stand out as a painter, that was for sure. My mother described me as a "most minimal of the minimalists." Given a large piece of paper I would make some tiny figure on part of it, declare myself done and run off to do something else. I'm sure it was quite discouraging for my mother.
This all changed once the medium changed from painting to clay. Working in three dimensions completely changed the activity for me in some way. My projects changed instantaniously from minimalist to incredable detail and focus. I worked on every aspect of the project going so far to even make a meat drying rack and little pieces of meat less then an inch in size to fit. My mother estimates that it was all done to the same scale.
I believe it was because I was so attuned to the dimension of things rather then appearance. Recreating something I had seen in three dimensions rather then trying to put it on paper with paint. My spacial awareness translated to three dimensional creativity rather then just two.
It's from this point that it really starts to come out how I am much more a cerebral individual rather then physical. I played with the other kids but it was never in competition. My mother calls it being a 'Paralell Player'. Playing alongside without trying to surpass them. I was large for my age and apperently strong as well though I never really thought about it like that and that became the trend for the rest of my life.
The next school I attended was when I was four years old called St. Columbus. There the focus was on socialization rather then teaching facts and so forth. Teaching children to relate and solve problems. To get along with one another. Truely an important skill to cultivate from a young age. There was nothing really of importance there to note on other then the focus of education.
I'll continue with my diagnosis and more schools in the next post.
posted by Alexander Sobotka | 7:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home