- 7/28/2009 8:11:18 AMKademyanKademyan is the word you say as a replacement word for the name of the town that is just a few miles north of your town after your dad tells you the name of the town but you forgot because were not paying attention.
The actual name of the town is "Coleman" and it is just a few miles north of our town which is "Lena". The reason I tell this story is that it illustrates a key aspect to Michael's behavior and reasoning abilities.
Each morning, the kids and I get up early, eat breakfast, read the Bible, and talk about life. We've been doing this for many years - long before Michael entered our lives. This is "Daddy" time, "Learning" time, "Bonding" time - whatever you want to call it, it is a special part of the day where I get to share with the kids before I head off to work. This morning, we discussed the layout of our town. Michael drew a very quick and sloppy map of Lena that looked remarkably like a tic-tac-toe game. I asked him, "what is that?". "This is Lena. I saw you draw it once", he replied.
I'm fairly certain I never drew the layout of Lena like that. "Well could you draw it for me?", he asked. "Sure", I said. I drew out all of the main roads that intersect in "downtown" Lena. I drew in the highway and the local country roads. I drew in our road in relation to the other roads. Then I drew in some arrows on the ends of the roads and wrote in the name of the places where those roads headed. If you head north on Hwy 141 from Lena, the next town you encounter is Coleman. So that is what I wrote on his paper - "C O L E M A N".
Now - keep in mind - I just told him the name of the town and I spelled it out for him both verbally and written on his paper map.
Michael: How do you spell that?
Dad: How do you spell what?
Michael: "Kademyan".
Dad: What is "Kademyan"?
Michael: That one thing.
Dad: What are you talking about?
So Michael brings me his paper and points to the word "C O L E M A N".
Peggy has been homeschooling Michael and working on spelling and reading for some time now. He is making progress but is definitely behind where he should be. "Coleman" is a word he should be able to read, but perhaps not spell correctly. One of the main problems that this scenario illustrates is that Michael likes to take the easy way out when it comes to problem solving. Rather than attempt to use his reading skills and apply them to the word that I just wrote for him, or to identify any of the letters in the word, he would ask me for the answer.
So I begin to question him about the conversation we just had less than 30 seconds ago and I explain to him again the layout of the map. Within a minute or so, he turns around and begins to walk away. Apparently this was either information overload or something else was on his mind and he wanted to pursue thinking about that instead. Either way, I believe it is a further indicator of ADD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or as the Russian doctors put it "Minor Brain Dysfunction".
Dad: Where are you going? You asked me for help and brought me your paper and you're walking away.
Michael: I just thought... I just... Well I was... Nevermind. I was going to go look at that because... Well Ellie... It was...
Clearly his mind drifted off to something else. This type of behavior is "normal" when it comes to living with Michael. Learning is a very frustrating process for him.
After I called him back and reminded him that his mind had drifted away for a moment there, we went over the map again - this time Ellie was also watching. She compared the accuracy of the map she drew with the one I drew for Michael. Michael went back to the table and sat down and Ellie began asking more detailed questions about the map. I explained to her where the train tracks were, where our road was and various houses on it. Where the gas station was, the school, the bakery and all the other "major landmarks" of Lena. She was content with my answers and sat down.
Now realizing that Ellie possessed more information than he, Michael asked Ellie to fill in his map with any missing features that might be present on her map. This is another key Michaelism - get someone else to do the work for you. Again - learning is hard work and in his mind, the best bet is always to take the short cut. If you can't get out of doing something, get someone else to do it for you. This normally works great unless - you're swimming, taking a test, being punished for some reason, or are generally responsible for the outcome.
Michael has come a long way since he came to live with us. He also has so far to go.
