Wednesday, March 20, 2002

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

MILL CREEK -- For three years, Michael Inderkum never spoke.

As an infant, he cried. As a toddler, he grunted.

His mother, Sherry Inderkum, taught him sign language. But the single mom also filled the boy's ears and mind with words and sounds, repeatedly describing colors, shapes and animals and naming his arms and feet.

	Michael Inderkum practices spelling with teacher Margy Ordell. Michael has autism but has become one of the Mill Creek school's best spellers. Joshua Trujillo / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

One day, when Michael was 3, Sherry Inderkum's one-way conversation with her son echoed back with the child's first utterance: "Hi."

"Out of the blue, he started talking," Inderkum said. "I cried. It was beautiful."

Nine years later, 12-year-old Michael has curly brown hair, big brown eyes and a "brilliant" knack for words, says his teacher, Margy Ordell.

The Everett boy, diagnosed with autism, will be among 70 Western Washington area middle-school students to compete Sunday in the Regional Spelling Bee at Seattle University.

"Michael's overcome so many things," said Ordell, his seventh-grade special education teacher at Heatherwood Middle School in Mill Creek. "And he'll have to keep overcoming things even being on (the spelling bee) stage."

Michael is the school's representative in the spelling bee.

"He's made such good progress," Ordell said of her student, who has Asperger's Disorder, a form of autism characterized by impairments in social interactions but often associated with average to above-average intelligence.

"We don't like to label kids, but here's a special-ed kid ... who's gifted in verbal areas like reading and spelling, and computers," Ordell said. "There's a brilliance about him. That he's competing in a spelling bee is really incredible."

Yesterday in school, Michael's intelligence spoke for itself. He aced the "word of the day" -- "pinioned" -- and informed visitors that "glengarry" was "a Scottish hat."

He joined classmates doodling on the blackboard. What started as a simple sketch of a boat metamorphosed into a spectacular scene of "Pearl Harbor," with flaming planes, sinking ships, smoke and kamikazes.

Michael, whose disability compels him to touch and fidget constantly with objects -- twirling a CD, taking his shoes on and off ("We're still working on tying his shoes," his mother explains), picking up flags -- also has a gift for building things.

He put his K'NEX car, assembled with interlocking plastic puzzle pieces, into "demolition derby" mode, crashing it into a wall and seemingly analyzing the trajectory of the "dummy" as it flew out of the driver's seat.

For all his verbal skills, Michael was uninterested in interviews.

"I'm not that much into talking," he explained, then brightened as he sat behind a computer. Inserting a disc on astronomy, he scrolled through the program and announced, "There's going to be a lunar eclipse May 26." (Not a total eclipse, though.)

Michael's breakthroughs are due in large part to his mother's hard work and devotion, Ordell said. "Sherry is his champion. He is very loved. I don't know where he'd be without his mom."

Sherry Inderkum acknowledges that her life "revolves around Michael," but she is also on a mission beyond her own son.

For all her verbal coaching, she has avoided using two words -- "I can't" -- either to herself or her son.

"I have autism. My mother was embarrassed, she hid me," Inderkum said. "She told me I was mentally retarded, she told me 'you can't.' I'm teaching Michael just the opposite; I'm teaching him to rise above it."

And rise he has.

Yesterday in class, he wore two flashy medals -- a bronze and silver -- for his bowling prowess in last year's Special Olympics.

He joined the Heatherwood Middle School's wrestling team, and is an avid Seattle Mariners fan, his bedroom a shrine to Ichiro, with shelves of Ichiro dolls, books and pictures.

Inderkum has tried to work with support groups, urging parents of autistic children to "sit back and let their kids shine."

Even if Michael doesn't win and earn a trip to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., that is not the main point, his mother said.

"I'll be proud of him just for doing it," Sherry Inderkum said.

Or, as Michael put it, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

SPELLING BEE

The Regional Spelling Bee, sponsored by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. at Pigott Auditorium at Seattle University.

P-I reporter Debera Carlton Harrell can be reached at 206-448-8326 or deberaharrell@seattlepi.com

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