Eccentric Geniuses
Articles:
Why Don't We Call Them Quirky?
The Geek Syndrome
What Asperger's Syndrome Has Done For Us
"Michelangelo might have had it. So, too, may Einstein, Socrates and Jane Austen. All are claimed to have had Asperger's syndrome... "
The way these kids are treated makes a huge difference. They are not very adaptable, in some ways. The parents need to adapt the environment to what works well for the kid. Which is not to say 'indulge' the child, exactly.
One of my favorite examples is that Nadia Commenci was breaking the furniture at home before she was 'discovered' and placed into a gymnastics program. For those of you who maybe don't know her that well, she was such a gifted gymnast that not only was she an Olympic Gold Medalist, but I believe she made the first Perfect 10.00 in gymnastics in the Olympics. They changed the scoring system because of it. So, she raised the bar on the entire sport. Before her and Olga Korbut, gymnastics was not a very exciting sport. It wasn't as, well, gymnastic as it is. They did a lot fewer stunts. It was more dance-like.
You cannot make a child like Nadia Commenci 'sit still and BEHAVE'. You have to wear her out if you want her to occasionally sit still! Tigger is like that in many ways, including his need to be physically worn out. You simply have to give him what he needs if you want him to 'accomplish' certain objectives. The environment and routine have to be tailored to him because he does not adapt much. And it isn't 'stubbornness'. Children (and adults) who have a very strong trait of some kind have a need to express it which they cannot simply will away.
If a child like that is not accepted for how they are and is, instead, viewed as "a discipline problem", this can truly create problems where there shouldn't be any or dramatically brings out any 'weaknesses' in a child in the worst possible way. Like Nadia Commenci, Tigger was unable to sit still when he was young. At one school, they wanted to put him on Ritalin because of his inability to "sit still and behave (pay attention)" in class. If Nadia Commenci had been drugged so that she would sit still in school as the solution to her "problem behavior", she would have never been known as one of the most gifted gymnasts of the 20th century. (In other words, she was an eccentric genius of the athletic variety.) When they wanted to drug Tigger with Ritalin, I told him the story of Nadia Commenci and enrolled him in gymnastics instead. If he is tired enough, he does sometimes sit still.
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Asperger's Syndrome: A Working Hypothesis
- Giftedness
- Personality Type
- Sensory Issues
- Compounding (Biomedical) Factors
- Eccentric Geniuses
- The Big Disconnect
- Socially Deaf
- Time Blind
- Rapid Brain Growth and Vitamin Deficiencies
- Different Minds
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