When people meet Billy for the first time, they're often amazed at his memory. I have to admit, it's pretty cool to the writer in me to hear my son recite Robert Frost poetry. It's very soothing to hear "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" in his sweet little voice ... the first 500 times. At 4 a.m., over the baby monitor ... eh, let's just say my appreciation of poetry wanes a bit.
Lately, he's been all about Charlie Brown all the time, repeating lines from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and the New Year's episode over and over and over ... complete with different voices for the different characters and all the songs, pitch perfect, every word in place. I didn't even realize that song at the beginning of "Charlie Brown Christmas" had words until he started singing them.
A few days ago, I kissed him on the cheek and told him, "I love you, Billy." He kissed me back, put his face very close to mine and said, "Happy New Year, Charles."
It's called "delayed echolalia," this endless repetition. And we're told that it's actually a good sign. It means he can talk, unlike some autistic kids who never develop verbal abilities. All children do it to some degree as they start talking; one mom recently told me that her first words were "We'll be right back after these messages." And as long as Billy starts to replace the repetitive talk with functional language -- and he's doing that already -- there's every belief that he can learn to communicate normally with time.
He repeats what he hears, and occasionally he gets it wrong. In the "12 Days of Christmas," the "eight ladies dancing" became "eight lazy dancers," and "five gold rings" became a plea to "buy gold, please!" -- maybe his own effort at economic stimulus. But I would say he gets it right 98 percent of the time. How many adults can recite all 12 days of Christmas?
There are plenty of times in life when such a perfect memory will be a real asset: spelling bees, the SATs, remembering his lines in a play, winning the final round of Jeopardy. I hope so, anyway, because that's kind of our retirement plan. He'll probably never forget his mother's birthday, to renew the tags on his car, or to turn his clocks back for Daylight Savings Time ... so he's already a few steps ahead of his dad.
In the meantime, we get to hear over and over again how when Leo Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace (the book Charlie Brown reads in 'Happy New Year')," his wife, Sonia, copied the book seven times by candlelight ... with a dip pen. And if you're afraid of responsibility, you have "hypengyophobia" and if you're afraid of cats, "ailurophasia," according to Lucy.
And on the bright side, in a few weeks, it'll be Valentine's Day and we can start over with "You're in Love, Charlie Brown."
Billy
Wednesday January 20 2010 04:33:23 pm
Beth Gribas
Thanks, Beth!
Thursday January 21 2010 08:16:20 am
Amanda Broadfoot
Total 2 comments