Chocolate

In addition to her special education class at Mary Lin Elementary, Liam had private lessons with Richard Kaplan. Most of us learn how to read by repeating the letters and memorizing them. Liam's brain was unable to learn in the same way. Richard employed a method by which you first identify a picture or a symbol with the word written under it. Then over time and practice the symbol is being removed and the readers learns how to identify the word and then the letters. Per Richard, he's working not with just kids with special needs but also with [professional, successful and highly skilled] adults with a range of issues (dyslexia, etc.)

Here's a short clip that was cut out from about a 45 minutes session. As you can see, Liam reads this sentence right after she arrives for the lesson. In other words, she did not practice this sentence that day before this shooting was taken. But not all days were that successful. Sometimes Richard and Liam had to work together on just 2-3 words for many many minutes. Still, it's quite amazing to see what kind of progress she made in a short time.

This video was shot in 2003, when Liam was 8 years old. Remember that until age 3 she went through several brain surgeries. Her development had a late start and was set even further back due to the damaged brain (caused by the pre-surgeries seizures). So effectively, she's 4-5 years old in this video, academically speaking. Until 2006 Liam continued to make progress. Then things started slowing down. But that is a story for another time. Now it's time to simply enjoy.