So, today I was thinking about how much I love my student with Autism. Yes, I have an autistic student who plays the piano. He has perfect pitch. His dexterity is not that great and I often have to remind him to use two hands when he plays. He's not a savant like some of those you-tubers that are incredibly gifted, but he has a gift. When I sing to him he does the best. And also, he has a really beautiful voice. The first time I heard him speak....and quite a few times after that.....he was like a human dictaphone. He spoke in the same pitch, tone, in-fluctuation that I did. And because he still has a young voice, he is high pitched just like me. A soprano speaker. It was actually very, very weird to hear.
But still, very, very interesting is that he is responding more and more every day. At first he wouldn't stay in the room....he would run and laugh. Always laughing....now, fast forward and he not only sits, responds and can answer a question while looking me in the eye, he can also take turns with me at the piano. We also have some great jam sessions too. He plays the piano and I play the guitar. I always ask him to tune the guitar with me. His mom bought him a child's guitar...not good quality, but it can hold a tune now that I have convinced him to stop turning the knobs on the head. One day he turned them so far out of tune that I kind of gave up and let him "play" with the knobs. To my astonishment, when he handed it back to me, it was in tune...he had turned them all back to where they were supposed to be....wow! Amazing!
He astonishes me every single lesson. I was introducing Finale (a song writing program) to him. I only explained the procedure once and he wasn't even looking at the computer. I thought for sure he didn't hear a word I said...and he clicked, clicked, clicked right out of the program. But that wasn't a problem for him....he just got right into it and started using the program successfully. Again to my amazement. I believe my jaw dropped for a brief moment.
Wonderful. Amazing. Little Boy. I love teaching him. :)
Sometimes it seems they are the teachers. YAY! So happy you are doing A-Z, I'm excited for it as well. And yep, my "A" is the same as your "A", can have too many I say;)
ReplyDeleteSince I march to my beat, I'm going to A-Z in my own way. I'll just keep plugging along when the mood hits me and forget about the April part of it. Too much Pressure! lol!
ReplyDeleteOK Suzi, just read your blog on Autism--my grandson has autism, but is not gifted like your student. Hope you write from time to time. Writing this April first, you are on my list, one of the five blogs below mine.
ReplyDeleteL.O.W. ~ Thanks for reading. I read your blog as well. I'm so excited to hear from others who are interested in the arts as well as autism. I'm curious, if you would mind sharing your son's special interest. My student loves cars...he has about 100 printouts taped on the walls of our music area. Whenever we write songs...yup, it's about cars..unless I feed him words about something about another subject. Fascinating! I'll keep up with your A-Z...I hope I can keep up with mine :) Give your "A" a hug from me.
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