So little is said about Amor, Nathan’s twin sister. Her diagnosis is Global Developmental Delay (GDD). The doctor’s umbrella term for “we don’t know exactly, so we’ll just call it GDD.” :-P. Amor is doing pretty well, she has always been my fighter. It takes her longer than her peers to achieve things, but she always manages to get there.

Amor has, what I call, more advanced “isms” (exclusive or, in her case, semi-exclusive, repetitive behavior) like asking you to tell the same story over and over again. It used to bother me. But now, after understanding son-rise, I understand much better.

Amor’s SPED therapist once told me she has trouble with her working memory. Working memory is what we need to be able to read a book from cover to cover and comprehend it.

When Amor asks to tell the same story again and again, it used to make my think, “Oh no! Here’s her working memory problem.”

But now, after son-rise, and understanding that “isms” are far more important than how they are usually judged, I know that Amor is only trying her best to cope. In fact we do the same.

I remember my amazing HS trigonometry teacher would memorize all the names of her hundreds of students on the first day of school. She would do it like this:
“What’s your name?”,
“Melissa(1)”, (register),
“(next) name?”,
“Alice(2)”, (register)
“Melissa(1), Alice(2),”
“(Next)?”
“Samantha(3)”
“Melissa(1), Alice(2), Samantha (3)”
…and so on, until she memorized all our names. Then she’d move to her next class and do the same.

When we are trying to recall lyrics or the title of a song, we sing, “la, la, la…” until we finally get to the chorus and sing. Then back to “la, la, la”, then sing the chorus again, until we finally find that title.

If you notice kid’s stories like “Three Little Pigs” or “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears,” they intentionally have repetition to help young kids with their working memory.

So, yes, my Amor has issues with her working memory but her asking to tell the same story over and over again, is not an indication of the problem. It is an indication that she is trying her best to overcome this problem. And by patiently answering her, over and over, if needed, we can actually help her overcome her problem with working memory.