Shilad Sen / CC
There’s a high school senior in Champaign, Illinois named Nathaniel Hites, who was born three months premature. He only weighed about two pounds.
Then in first grade, he got hit in the head with a rock, and needed a CAT scan. And doctors found out he was missing about 25% of his BRAIN.
They also found out he was autistic. But he was actually AHEAD of other kids in school at that point. He started reading when he was two, and he could do second-grade math in kindergarten.
It turns out it was because his brain is wired differently . . . he was really good at memorizing things he HEARD, but he couldn’t remember things he read. So he started falling behind in third grade.
But his mom started working with him before and after school, and he eventually started catching up again. And this past Friday, he graduated high school as the VALEDICTORIAN.
He said he thinks it’s funny that he has the best grades in his class, because he has the least amount of brain cells . . . literally.
And he’s heading to the University of Illinois later this year to study computer science.
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