Passwords

Liam decorated Dad's cast with Pi

We're constantly looking for a key - a password - that will unlock Liam's potential and help him succeed.  What is the combination that will allow him to take in and return ideas in a way that keeps him happy and functional in the world?  Every day is split between practice with what we have and searching for new tools.  How wonderful it is when Liam reminds us of the tools he already has.

I'm not sure what reminded Liam of BrainPop (a program owned by LAUSD and used in school).  Maybe it was memorizing his new, 13 picture, ST Math password.  We were sitting on the couch with is iPad, doing a new level of ST Math when he said, "I'm going to go learn science on Brainpop now."  "OK, we can be done with math," I said - curious about just where he would go with this.

He trotted off to his room, pulled up BrainPop on his computer, went to the science tab and chose a topic from the life-science section - one which needed a password.  I didn't know his school passwords and wasn't sure we could access the lesson, then I thought to ask Liam if he knew his login and he didn't miss a beat.  He entered his username and password and got to work.

He chose the lesson on fish, which made sense, since we'd been talking about them lately.  I didn't stop him when he jumped around in the lesson (missing sections to get to something he found more engaging).  I was more interested in seeing how he wanted to use the program.  If he liked the lessons, I could guide him later.  After skimming the animated video, He chose the "draw about it" activity for review and then asked about parts of a fish (info he missed while skipping through).  It gave me a chance to communicate and share a mini art project.

So, at least sometimes, the way to find Liam's "password", is to simply ask him for it.

He also rememberd that we'll be returning to the school this week to take an after-school art program.  He's hungry to learn and he has definite ideas about what he likes.  We have the passwords for these:

Time to open him up and see what's in there.