When Jonathan was around three or so, we bought him a low end Dell for the sole purpose of playing computer games such as Reader Rabbit, Math Blasters, Chess and music. It was easier than trying to fight three kids for computer time. I guess the computer replaced his guitar obsession. Faith was too young to really play on the "kids" computer, but she still wanted to try, because she is "Me Too." Joshua also played a lot of games on the computer. We purposely did not hook it up to the Internet. We didn't want to have to worry about what the kids might be up to...not that we thought a 10, 3 and 1 year old could get into trouble.
Scott set up different "log ons" for each of the kids. He let them pick out their own desktop themes, icons, screen savers, etc. For a couple of weeks I would walk by the computer and laugh at the different screen savers. Josh was into the scrolling messages for awhile. "Josh rules!" "Josh rocks!"...and others. I also noticed the background pictures were changing regularly. At the time the boys were into Batman.
I don't know what made me think of it one day, but I asked Scott about the daily changing of the computer screen savers and backgrounds. I assumed he was doing it. He said he hadn't been on the computer since he set it up for the kids. So I went looking for Josh and asked him about it. He said, "I don't know how to change anything on the computer."
Hum?
"Jonathan, are you changing the computer settings?" He was. I asked him to show me what he was doing, because I didn't know how to change my own background. At the time I counted that he had to make a series of 14 right and left clicks...he wasn't going about it the most efficient way, but he was able to do what he wanted. It was then I realized that he could watch someone and remember complicated patterns. He only watched Scott set up their accounts but it was enough to remember what to do.
And BTW, he was the one changing the messages on the scrolling screen...again, not because he could read or write, but because he could remember patterns...he remembered the pattern of typing Josh's name. He also figured out how to find words written down and copy them to the keyboard. Suddenly, I was glad we didn't have the computer hooked to the Internet even though the kids were only 10, 3, and 1 years old.
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Comments (4)
Never underestimate a kid with "special needs"...
For what it's worth, I can relate! Thank you for sharing this one!
@the_kcar - You would think after nine years I'd stop underestimating him.
@Corrinhowe - My kids are approaching ages 16 and 17 [the youngest has autism; the oldest, ADHD] - and both have taken turns at throwing a curve ball or two...even now...
I remember the youngest reprogramming the television remote to the two public television stations, Nickelodeon, and Animal Planet - exclusively. At the time, he was perhaps 3, still nonverbal [the oldest was verbal and would condense entire paragraphs into a single polysyllabic word, but that's a tale for another day...], and - by process of elimination, I figured out that youngest was the one who had done the task - and had set up numeric passkey-lock the second time around.
I told him, "Show me.", and explained that there was to be a feline feature on a news program - if we could watch it on our TV.
He poked the buttons - including repeating the exact same error I had performed when I had locked it previously. Figures.
Wow! That's amazing!