To Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth by Hugh Cameron

Author:Hugh Cameron [Cameron, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781796060829
Publisher: Xlibris US
Published: 2019-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Helga

She hated school. She did not want to leave her house. She never had. She never wanted to play with the other children and had to be dragged, kicking and screaming to kindergarten, where she stayed in a corner. She was only happy being on her own. Her parents did not know what to do with her. Television would amuse her, but only some shows, which were not those normal children watched. She liked puzzles, all types, and especially some video games, which she learned to play at an early age.

At school, the other children did not like her. If they spoke to her, she would avert her eyes and say nothing. Even teasing her produced very little response. At recess, she simply stood in a corner. When they began to teach math, for the first time, she showed interest. All she had to do was look at the math book, and it was clear she understood. The teacher was amused and gave her more advanced books. She grasped them immediately, almost without being told.

She told her fellow teachers about this strange child. One of them was interested and gave her some books on more advanced math and physics. She appeared to understand but was almost afraid to talk to the new teacher and preferred to write her answers. She shrank away from all new people. Her original teacher felt sorry for her but felt powerless to help. She spoke to her parents and found that the child preferred to spend time alone in her room. Her parents thought she was mentally defective, which the teacher knew was not the case.

One of the teachers saw an advertisement in one of their newsletters. Some American foundation was offering scholarships to children who were very good at math. She showed it to the other, who phoned the number given and explained the situation. A psychologist came to see the child. When he explained that they might be able to help her, the parents readily agreed to testing, which he did in her own home. He found that her nonverbal IQ was almost immeasurable, being somewhere up near 200, but she was very shy and almost certainly had a form of Asperger’s syndrome, which he explained to the parents was probably a form of autism. He thought it might be too severe to let her function in any reasonable way in society.

When Teresa, who de facto ran the Munro Foundation, heard the story from her assistants, she felt very sorry for the child. She wondered if it would be possible to reeducate or socialize her. None of the psychologists she spoke to were very hopeful, but they pointed out that there might be some improvement as she got older. Teresa decided to try an experiment, which might not work, but if nothing was tried, then a brilliant mind would be lost to the world.

She reasoned that if the girl was exposed to one person only, she would not be so afraid and might respond to her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.