| A-u-t-i-s-t-i-c
spells champ
By Monica Mendoza There were only two children left in the school spelling bee when the word "symbol" came up. Amy Kalman, 12, was caught off guard - not by the word, but by her opponent. It was her brother. She choked. He won. "Look, I'm like a great speller," said Cory, Amy's blue-eyed brother. "I studied all the words." Cory Kalman, 14, is autistic. This month he became the best speller at Paseo Hills K-8 school in Deer Valley, making him the first child with a disability to compete in today's district spelling bee. "I was sitting at the edge of my seat listening to him spell, thinking, 'Oh my gosh, Cory is going to win this spelling bee,' " said Diane Venrick, Paseo Hills principal.
That Cory stood on stage with other children and took his turn at the microphone amazes his mother. The boy didn't speak until he was nearly 5. "He would stand on the coffee table, hands gibbering away," said Cory's mom, Jodi Kalman. At first, doctors told Kalman that her son was deaf. But it didn't make sense. He was spelling words like jeopardy and taxidermy by the time he was 3 - words he learned by watching TV game shows. He typed messages to his family using a jerry-rigged Atari keyboard and monitor. But he didn't speak. He wouldn't make eye contact and he flapped his arms. "If I only knew what goes on in his little head, I could help," Kalman would say. Doctors were reluctant to diagnose the toddler with autism. Later they would say he had a high-functioning form of autism called Asperger Syndrome. Autism, a neurological disorder affecting 1 in 500 children, impairs the ability to communicate, think logically and interact socially, said Lorna Jean King, founder of the Children's Center for Neurodevelopmental Studies in Glendale. There are 1,476 children in Arizona's public schools with autism, in varying degrees. "These children can all make progress," King said. "Since we don't know how to prevent or cure it, we've got to take care of kids here . . . and teach them to know when to get help for themselves." Kalman stopped wondering about how and why her boy has autism. It could have been a million reasons, she said. Instead, she focuses on how to help him. "In the future, I see him being able to probably live alone with some help," she said. "He never gives up."
Neither did his family. When Cory was 3, his family was not satisfied with his silence. As Cory sat fixated on music videos and game shows, his uncle, Tom Oliver, cupped the boy's chin, turned his head toward him, made eye contact and said hello. "I know you're in there," he would say. Cory's cousin Megan Oliver, who was 8 years old then, checked out library books on sign language then taught herself and Cory to sign. When Cory was nearly 5, he came down to breakfast and said: "Good morning, Mama." Kalman fell to the floor and wept. "It's a very frustrating disease," Tom Oliver said. "It's much more difficult to be the parent." Now Kalman knows Cory is hyperlexic, with an uncanny ability to decipher and remember words. He memorizes the television schedules in TV Guide and the Phoenix Suns' schedule. And no one in his family can beat him at movie and music trivia. But his family is hesitant to describe Cory as a savant, a la the 1988 movie Rain Man. Experts estimate about 10 percent of autistic children are savants, compared with 1 percent of non-autistic children. "I think of Cory as an intelligent kid with a challenge to overcome," Tom Oliver said. In school, Cory attends regular eighth-grade classes with a full-time aide. He does all the work other eighth-graders do with no modifications. Sometimes small things will trip him up. If the class watches a video, Cory will replay it over and over in his mind and have trouble moving to the next assignment. But he loves school. He attends year-round through an extended program the district offers for kids with special needs. He wants to own a film production company and work with big-name directors. For now, he focuses on spelling. If Cory advances, he could become the first child with a disability to compete at the state spelling bee. "It takes a sharp mind to recall the thousands of words they have studied," said Bobbie O'Boyle, executive director of the Arizona Educational Foundation, which sponsors the state bee. This week, Amy has helped her brother prepare, calling out words - blasphemous, melodrama, reminiscence - while Cory used Scrabble game pieces to practice. "I'll do my best," Cory said two nights before the bee. "Win or lose."
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