We have a wonderful gifted son named IZZ, who have taught us a lot about life. He was diagnosed with mild autism when he was 2 years old. He has hyperlexia which is often, but not always, part of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is considered a “splinter skill,” a unique skill that doesn’t have much practical application (adapted from WebMD https://www.webmd.com/children/what-is-hyperlexia).

In trying to give the best education and environment for him like any other parents, we did meet with ups and downs. Some happy but a lot at first was sad and challenging and doors are usually closed, and people always think that either we are pushy kiasu parents or tiger parents that wants an academic excellence too early in life.

At the age of 5 years old in 2018 he was accepted into a center for gifted children in Malaysia https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/03/345569/6000-gifted-children-benefit-permatapintar-national-gifted-centre

As the center is catered more for older children, he joined just for a  few months and we started to homeschool him afterwards which failed and eventually sent him to another school that failed too. During those time, we looked at other ways of parents homeschooling their child and we learned bits and pieces on teaching from other teachers, educators and most importantly parents. We started to homeschool again in mid 2019 and full blast in 2020 and have then since homeschooled our son and it seems to be the best method currently. However, we are still trying to find methods and modules to teach him while trying to get groups of friends for him to get back into society and be more independent. The below link is in Malaysian language and at the end of the article, there is a bit of summary of what we have done from when he was a baby to 6 years of age. https://www.keluarga.my/dulu-anak-autisme-kini-genius-matematik-ketahui-cara-ibu-bapa-hebat-ini-1/