Splinter Skills and Geograbees

Ah, my 700th post! So far I'm average a little under ten readers per post as I take these interwebs by storm.

Primera's school is having geography bees in class this week. When Primera was two, she memorized all fifty states (mind you, well before she could read) purely by the shapes of the pieces. She did it very casually: we had bought her a puzzle that stayed at my parents' house, and my mother showed her the pieces maybe once or twice, spread a few weeks apart, and Primera had many of them memorized the next time we came over.

She's long since forgotten the states by shape, but her memory for some kinds of things continues to be remarkable. Last night she decided she'd learn the state capitals and succeeded after maybe two or three runthroughs, not because she's so incredibly motivated by the bee but because she wanted to see if she could do it.

This flair for bits of data worried me when she was very little: it was one of those clues that she might be on the spectrum somewhere, and I even remember asking her pediatrician whether the puzzle pieces seemed like a savant trick. As I think I've written before, it kept getting devalued: "It's just rote memory," I was told by a nasty Early Intervention person, though at this point she clearly understands what she's learning and what it means. And more importantly, I know my child thinks--she's not simply a particularly cute database--she's well capable of manipulating and creating and making new worlds for herself.