He was resourceful and capable, a top-down learner who did not fit the standard model of education but was very bright despite his label of learning disability. I sensed with the right approach his common sense could be harnessed to take him a long way, but I knew those closest to him were apt to deny he had that quality.

I have written before about his ability to grasp and act on overview knowledge, responding well to advice and at his best when people treated him like an intelligent human being, with the complex sentences he understood and absorbed when his school were still trying to teach him the concept of language with picture cards. I never used those with him because the house was too chaotic to lay them out, but I also knew he didn’t need them and they were probably holding him back. No one seemed to grasp his abilities even though his teachers seemed perplexed by his ability to achieve his targets for the year in a few weeks.

In a special-needs school he should at least be able to get the individually-taylored curriculum which would have helped him best, but that depends on how much his teachers gave him the opportunity to interact with them in a constructive way. Had I continued to see him I might have suggested he asked them questions so they could understand his interests and needs, but I had no such opportunity. In short, I think I could have helped him but lost the chance when I lost touch with him, and that I will always regret.

Instead, I said goodbye to him five years ago thinking he was going for a few days and I never saw him again. I can only hope one day he might read this and seek me out, but whether it has occurred to anyone to introduce him to reading and help him learn how I cannot know. I feel sure he would see the value of reading if someone explained to him how useful it would be, but I cannot tell whether that has actually happened. Trying to teach him to read without giving him that understanding to motivate him would be less likely to succeed as he needs the overview before he takes an interest. Given the overview he was always quick to grasp implications. Given the starting point without the overview and he just wouldn’t engage. I think that’s why his abilities were so much underestimated – because he was bright enough not to waste his time unless he understood the reason.

Five years have passed and I can only hope those five years have been good to him, but I have no way of knowing whether that has been the case. I just hope he is doing well.