Are you autistic and gifted?

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My (probably Aspie) father taught me my numbers and letters before I started school at the age of (nearly) 5, and taught me to read a few simple words. Pre-school learning was pretty much unheard of in those days (mid-1950s) so it must have given me a great start. To make it attractive to me, he made it like a game, with flashcards.

In Kindergarten in 1966-1967, we pretty much played, too.

Though we did learn the days of the week, months of the year, and how to tell time. It was like Romper Room School on TV.

I remember weird things about Kindergarten.
We watched a lot of filmstrip movies with the 3,2,1 countdown at the start.
One of them showed Inuit people popping fish eyes into a tin bowl.
I still remember the sound.

I was afraid of all the songs we sang:

- She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain
- The Muffin Man
- The Mulberry Bush

etc.

I was pre-Sesame Street. Sounds like you might have been watching Sesame Street.

I wasn’t into most of the songs…..though I liked “The wheels on the bus go round round round.”

I hated “duck, duck, duck, goose.”

Watching Sesame Street at school?? No way.
These were National Geographic types of films.

I don't know why I was always scared of children's songs and nursery rhymes.

Because nursery rhymes were sometimes based on scary things.

The Grimm tales in their original form were pretty scary.

The countdowns were like this, but black and white and more shaky.

The Muffin Man was the worst one. ^

I remember them.

They still have these on some older films on YouTube.

Oddly, I have zero memory of the “Muffin Man.”

I never heard of Duck Duck Goose until I was about 17.
I didn't know it was around when you were little.

Yep….they certainly were. And musical chairs. Kids had fun with musical chairs. I didn’t.

I really didn’t like Kindergarten all that much. I threw quite a few tantrums in class. They couldn’t expel me; I was already in a “special class.”

I remember we had to recite our phone number and the teacher wrote them on a big chart paper.
There was some kind of incentive to do this, like we got a privilege or something.
I remember she wrote my phone number in pink marker.
I thought it made sense because the first number of my phone number was pink (synaesthesia).

I remember doing finger painting at an easel, wearing a smock.
The fingerpaint smelled soooo good.
I drew a stick person with all five fingers sticking out on their hands.
The teacher told me that's not normal because people don't hold their fingers open.

Nope. Never liked finger painting. Too messy.

Didn’t mind Play-Doh, though.

I liked First Grade a little better because I got to read books on my own. I still was a discipline problem, though. I did like to say the Pledge.

Then there was the famous episode where I didn't know the difference between silver and gold.
We made Christmas decorations and we had to queue so she could spray paint them.
I was first in line and she asked me if I wanted silver or gold.
I wanted silver but didn't know the word.
I was so afraid of picking the wrong word, or looking stupid by pointing.
I couldn't copy anyone because I was first.
I had a panic attack and told her I was sick so I could go to the bathroom.
Then I went to the back of the queue so I could copy others.

That in itself is gifted thinking lol.

I had to be first…..otherwise, I’d throw a fit.

I wasn’t very clever then.

First Grade:

I remember being sat on the floor and the teacher was explaining the difference between "to, too, and two".
She drew a bucket overflowing with water for "too". It was "too much" water.
I was distracted by watching the dust particles in the beam of sunlight from the window.
She got angry with me and thought I wasn't paying attention.
I was always distracted by details like dust particles.

I was in love with a girl named Angela.
And a girl named Penny.

I did a project about Dinosaurs and one about Rockets.

There was a wooden peg board with circle tags hanging on it.
We had to sort the tags into categories.
I remember loving "categories".

We had a pretend fishing pole with a magnet on it.
We had to pull phonemes out of a tin can and make words.