CWA with Musical Savant Skills

These are CWA with exceptional musical talents....not documented by I believe the videos because I have past and present students with the same savant skills be it Math or Music.Most of the time they go together,the skills in Math and Music.

Enjoy and believe me there are more of these kids all around the world.

The Camera Man Stephen Wiltshire

In February 1987, the BBC aired a program on Savant Syndrome entitled "The Foolish Wise Ones." One segment featured a then twelve-year old autistic boy, Stephen Wiltshire, drawing from memory on camera a remarkably accurate sketch of St. Pancras station which he had visited for the first time only briefly several hours before. As the camera recorded, he quickly and assuredly drew the elaborate and complicated building exactly as he had seen it with the clock hands set at precisely 11:20, the hour he had viewed them.

There were hundreds of calls and letters to the BBC following that broadcast seeking a source to purchase originals of Stephen's astonishing work. That initial interest and then a sustained demand for the drawings led to the publication of an entire volume of his works entitled Drawings, (J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, London, 1987)

In the introduction to Drawings, Sir Hugh Casson, former president of the Royal Academy, says of Stephen: "Happily, every now and then, a rocket of young talent explodes and continues to shower us with its sparks. Stephen Wiltshire — who was born with severe speech difficulties — is one of those rockets." He then describes the artistic brilliance further: "His sense of perspective seems to be faultless… I've never seen in all my competition drawing such a talent, such a natural and extraordinary talent, that this child seems to have… (Stephen) is possibly the best child artist in Britain."

Stephen concentrates almost exclusively on architecture. He provides exact, literal renditions of any building, no matter how complex, and in fact he seems to prefer the especially intricate. He views buildings, in person or from a photograph, and retains an exquisitely precise and detailed image for later recall and drawing. Additionally, he can sense and draw a building, no matter how complex, with a three-dimensional perspective from a two-dimensional photo.

Like other savant artists, Stephen's work depicts exactly what he sees without embellishment, stylization, or interpretation. He makes no notes; impressions are indelibly and faithfully inscribed from a single exposure for later recall and he draws swiftly, beginning anywhere on the page. Thus, like Alonzo Clemons and Richard Wawro, his remarkable artistic ability is linked to an equally remarkable memory.

At age of ten Stephen drew what he called a "London Alphabet," a group of drawings from Albert Hall to the London Zoo with structures such as the House of Parliament and The Imperial War Museum in between. An exquisite sense of perspective is demonstrated in a drawing he titles "Looking down the lift shaft and stairs," and his drawing of Buckingham Palace is a spectacular example of Stephen's intricacy and accuracy.

Stephen is, by any standards, an extraordinary artist, but what about his handicap? Stephen started attending Queensmill, a school in London for children with special needs, at the age of five, as an extremely withdrawn and almost mute child. He existed in the world of his own so typically described in autistic youngsters. He was distant, preoccupied, had little or no eye contact and often roamed about classrooms aimlessly, sometimes staring for long times at pictures, then suddenly dashing from room to room. He would absorb himself for long periods of time with scribbling on scraps of paper.

In school he did learn to read and began to immerse himself for hours in books on architecture and travel. Simultaneously he developed some language, but it remained difficult and sparse. He was characterized by the headmistress of the special school as having a "gentle personality, humor and curious dignity." Overall he was described as eminently likable and far from detracting from his general development, his art seemingly aided it. While there was some fear that acquisition of language and other skills might, like Nadia, rob him of his genius, that has not been the case at all. Instead, like with Leslie and Alonzo, Stephen's special skills and overall social development have progressed simultaneously. The blossoming of his genius has coincided with the blossoming of his personality.

In the summer of 1993 an additional talent of Stephen's — music — was quite unexpectedly discovered. While Stephen had always liked to listen to music, and to sing, always in tune and often imitating other great singers, to his music teacher's surprise it was discovered Stephen had perfect pitch and considerable talent as a musical savant with some of the innate sense of the 'rules of music' characteristic of such savants. While simultaneous skills in several areas have been reported in some other savants, such multiple skills are really very rare in an already rare condition. Stephen shows much prowess in both music and art. Stephen's story, and a fuller description of his art and music abilities, can be found in his books and also described in Oliver Sack's 1995 book An Anthropologist on Mars.

Perhaps the most striking and astonishing display of Stephen's remarkable visual memory and drawing ability occurs in a segment on a 2001 BBC documentary entitled Fragments of Genius. In this segment Stephen is taken on a helicopter ride over the city of London. After a brief ride, he returns to the ground where, in three hours, he completes a stunningly detailed and remarkably accurate drawing of London from the air which spans four square miles with 12 major landmarks and 200 other buildings drawn to perfect perspective and scale. Words cannot describe the prodigious ability and visual memory that drawing documents; it needs to be seen to be appreciated. A Stephen Wiltshire Calendar 2003 features such a drawing called London Eye on the January-March 2003 page. This calendar is made available through a cooperative agreement between the Pendock Company of London, the magazine Architecture Today and The National Autistic Society and it can be accessed on the web with the title The Stephen Wiltshire Calendar 2003 as that heading appears on the search engine Google.

Daniel Tammet

Lucky numbers

CATHERINE DEVENEY

CONVERSATION, says Daniel Tammet, is like a dance: a dance for two people. You have to know the moves. We dance, he and I, in a simple room. A table. Chairs. Big windows. I tread carefully, listening only to the rhythm of the dance. But for Tammet there is competing music, a background cacophony that fills his head against the main track. Colours, sounds, light, textures. Right now he's noticing the way the light streams through the window and hits the door. He's noticing the smooth, polished wood of the table, the noisy hum of the air-conditioning. When I move he even hears the faint jangle of my jewellery. I take my bracelet off, lay it on the table in front of us with a clank, a sprawl of black and silvery grey beads that reflect the light.

Sometimes, when he feels almost assaulted by stimuli, Tammet holds something in the palm of his hand: a stone perhaps, a marble, a coin. It calms him. If very agitated, he walks in circles because the regularity of the movement soothes him. But perhaps I make him sound visibly odd, which would be wrong. You would walk by this gentle, slight, bespectacled figure in the street and not guess at his remarkable possibilities. But if you could open him up, if you could see inside his head and experience the world as he does, then you might be amazed. Tammet has Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. But he is also one of the world's few savants, a rare condition highlighted in the Dustin Hoffman film Rain Man, which makes him capable of remarkable mental feats. A television documentary film later dubbed Tammet 'Brainman'.

Tammet speaks ten languages; he can learn a new one in under a week. He can perform at lightning speed mathematical calculations involving the multiplication of three-digit figures in his head. And he can recite the number pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) to 22,000 places without getting a single digit wrong, a feat that takes five hours. Depending on how you look at it, Tammet represents either the untapped potential of the human mind, or merely a quirk of brain malfunction.

We are all of us to some extent trapped inside our own heads. Most of us can describe what it is like in there, in the way we can describe a familiar room. The nooks and crannies, the hidden corners, the colour of our mental walls. Some of us can even describe our own quirks and eccentricities and neuroses. But while people with autism often seem in a world of their own, ironically they have little sense of 'self' and usually cannot describe their world. Autism has become one of those words, like 'dyslexia', that is overused and misused, a kind of shorthand label to cover a whole range of conditions. "There are as many forms of autism as there are people with the condition," explains Tammet. But, in general, those with both high-functioning and low-functioning autism will have communication problems that, to a greater or lesser degree, make it difficult for them to cope with the normal etiquette of social interaction: eye contact, empathy, listening and responding. Their language may be repetitive, their voices monotone. Signs of affection are often limited. They may have narrow fixations, be drawn to repetitive activity and resist change. But at the same time, they are often more sensitive to sights, sounds and smells than the rest of us.

Autism affects six times as many males as females, and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, of the Autism Research Unit at Cambridge University, believes the discrepancy between the genders may be partly explained by exposure to the male hormone in the womb. "Prenatal testosterone levels, together with as yet unidentified genetic factors, may predispose boys to be more at risk from autism," he says.

Those with low-functioning autism may be affected by low IQ and learning difficulties that make communication difficult. But people with Asperger's will often have normal or above-average IQ. Over time, some, like Tammet, may be able to teach themselves skills they naturally lack. You wouldn't guess now, but as a child Tammet found eye contact almost impossible. "I used to look at the mouth when people talked because that was the part of their face that moved. It was a real effort for me to look someone in the eye because I found it almost a little painful, too intense or uncomfortable. I felt too much inside myself and it was too much of a release to look someone in the eye. You get such a lot of emotion in the eyes."

Shadow man. Emotions, he says, fall like mysterious shadows across him. He cannot always define them. He went to the cinema once and watched five trailers before the main feature, then burst into tears. "My brain couldn't filter them, couldn't cope with that much emotion. If I find something very moving, it won't be a gradual sensation of being moved to tears, I will just burst into tears suddenly."

The brain is the most exciting, most mysterious part of all of us. Tammet's is more mysterious still, even to himself. Savants and people with autism live in a remarkable world. Rarely can they describe it. But at the age of 27, Tammet has reached a stage where he can. It has not been without effort. He remembers as a child the first time that he went into a library and was confronted by thousands of books. All of them had a name on the spine. He spent ages searching the shelves, looking for the book with his name on it. "I thought," he says, "that I would find it and open it and understand who I am."

tammet was different long before he knew he was different. As a child his 'otherness' to his contemporaries was of no consequence. They simply did not exist in his very solitary universe. Even before he could read he loved the books that his parents read. It was not just the silence they prompted, it was the fact that there were numbers on every page. He would take as many books as possible to his room and simply surround himself with them, "kind of like a numerical comfort blanket".

He has synaesthesia, which means he sees numbers in colour and has an emotional response to them. "People with synaesthesia will say four is green or five is black, but what makes my experience of numbers so unusual is that it's much more complex than that. Nine is not just a colour, it's a shape, a size, an emotional content." His favourite number is four because it is shy, just like him. "Numbers were my friends. Before I could relate to other people, I could relate to numbers."

But by the age of eight or nine, some awareness of loneliness kicked in. "I wanted to find a friend desperately." He would sit on his bed in his room and stare at the ceiling, wondering how a person got a friend. He had no idea. Other children were put off by his strangeness, his unusual fixations - at one point it was ladybirds - and his inability to follow the steps of the intricate dance of conversation. And then another unusual boy came to the school. "He was from an immigrant family and very intelligent. He loved numbers and loved language, and we got on for that reason. He didn't care so much that I was different because he was different."

He accepts his condition may be genetic. His grandfather suffered from severe epilepsy, his father from severe depression. Medical science at the time had no answers for his grandfather's condition. He was put in a home and his wife was told to remarry and forget him - he might as well be dead. And very soon he was. "I think," says Tammet, "if my grandfather could have known me, he would have been proud of me."

When Tammet had an epileptic seizure at the age of four, his father's own experience made him quick to act. His speed saved the boy's life. Epilepsy is common among those with autism, but Tammet outgrew the condition and has suffered no seizures since. But it has left an interesting question mark. He has no pre-seizure memories, and therefore no way of knowing if he had any savant abilities at that age. Some scientists believe Tammet may be an 'acquired savant', rather than a born savant, and that his abilities are in some way connected to damage caused by the seizure.

Dr Darold Treffert, clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, author of Extraordinary People and consultant on Rain Man, believes acquired savant skills suggest there may be "a little Rain Man in all of us". He believes savant syndrome may be caused by damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, with dramatic right-hemisphere compensation. "While savant syndrome is a malfunction of the brain," he explains, "perhaps it is that malfunction that releases dormant capacity as a back-up system."

But there is no conclusive evidence about savant syndrome. The idea of dormant brain function in all of us may be "romantic optimism", according to Baron-Cohen, who adds that "there is no consensus" about left-hemisphere damage. His interest in Tammet lies in discovering if there is something in the combination of synaesthesia and Asperger's that has caused Tammet's savantism.

Some savant abilities are remarkable because of the person's general limitations. Treffert describes them as "islands of brilliance" that float in a general sea of disability. The person might have a gift for drawing or for music or for calculation that is remarkable given their other limitations. But prodigious savants, as they are sometimes called, have gifts that would be remarkable in any person. They are very rare. What makes Tammet rarer still is that even prodigious savant skills often exist alongside very low IQ and serious physical handicap such as blindness. Leslie Lemke, for example, is blind, mute and has cerebral palsy. Yet the American can play an entire piano concerto flawlessly after hearing it only once.

It was for an epilepsy charity that Tammet recited pi to 22,000 places. The numbers, he says, rolled in front of his eyes like a moving numerical landscape. I tell him that reading his account prompted a strange sensation in me. I actually felt frightened, almost nauseous. He nods. He understands that? Well, he was too wrapped up in the numbers to have any sense of this himself. But he was told afterwards how emotional people in the audience were. Some were almost crying. Some looked very intense, others were simply fascinated. One who was interviewed afterwards said it was almost like a spiritual experience, like watching someone recite holy scripture from memory.

Tammet is not displeased with the analogy. "I thought, wow. The number pi meant such a lot to me, but it amazed me that the process of reciting it, of making it public, had touched other people as well. Pi is a very private number. Most people only know it to a few places, if that. I was able to unearth to the public gaze 22,000 places, a flow of numbers people had never experienced before."

Perhaps what prompted my fear was some uneasy feeling that it reduced the human brain - and the human condition - to something mechanistic: an accident, a malfunction. We were simply electrical circuits, and if the wiring went wrong strange things would happen. It was a paradox: it was both mysterious and yet it somehow removed mystery. But Tammet says his brain is not a machine. "Numbers are my friends. There is real emotion there. Machines can't have friends."

Interestingly, there is a spiritual dimension to his brain. It prompts his one criticism of the best-selling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which is written from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's. The author, Mark Haddon, made a good job of describing anxiety, the need for repetition and the love of numbers, he says. But Tammet found the dismissal of religion as "illogical", a bit stereotypical.

His own belief in God began after reading the Christian writer GK Chesterton. (He can't help wondering if Chesterton was also a savant and autistic.) "For most people, religion is an emotional thing. For me, it is primarily intellectual, although there is emotion there as well. Life is a magical thing. The explanation of religion is crazy in a sense, but life is no less crazy. The mystery of it is just as weird and wonderful as religion's explanation of it. When scientists try to break everything down there's always a piece missing."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his reverence for numbers, the mystery of the Trinity draws him. One in three, three in one. But what sense does his brain, which makes concrete pictures even of numbers, have of an abstract God? "What is God made out of if he is not made of flesh and bones?" he muses. "He is, by his very nature, love and relationship. The process of loving somebody creates something that is separate from either person, the lover or the loved. Of course, if a man and woman get together they can produce a child, and in a sense that is the human trinity. That is how I conceive of God, as a relationship."

It is not to science but to love that Tammet attributes the biggest breakthrough in his Asperger's. He met his partner, Neil, in 2000. Before that, of course, his parents loved him. But parents have no choice. Neil had a choice. "I had no idea if I was a person who could be loved," Tammet admits. "I had no sense of myself."

Afterwards, he realised how emotionally flat his life had been. His mother, for example, had been the woman who gave him food and kissed him goodnight, but he had given little back in emotional response. But Neil made him see the world differently. "Falling in love really sharpened my emotions, drew them out of me, made me realise emotions weren't my enemies, not things I had to wrestle with, but things that could actually bring me great joy and happiness and peace. They could take away the feelings of anxiety, of not belonging, of being disconnected from the world."

Tammet works from home running an internet-based teaching business. Practically, he is very dependent on Neil, who has to shave him because his co-ordination skills are so poor. But is he emotionally more vulnerable than most? Could he cope with losing Neil? "It's the thing I fear more than anything else. Emotions like grief are so raw, and I am frightened of experiencing them because I don't know how I would cope. Neil understands me totally and has no problem with the way I am. If he was gone from my life I don't know how I would cope. It's a terrifying thought for me."

Tammet's favourite book is The Little Prince. He loves the idea in it that if you looked into a sea of a million people, it is the person you love that your eye would single out. This is how it is for him. "There are so many things going on in here, but if my partner walked in now he is all I would see."

finally there will be a book with Daniel Tammet's name on the spine. And it will explain who he is. In Born on a Blue Day, both his difficulties and his awakening consciousness of himself and others are charted. The miracle is that he wrote it himself.

To scientists, Tammet represents a rare opportunity. "Most savants, you can see what they do," says Treffert, "but they can't describe what they do. Some people look at Tammet and say, 'We can see his ability, but where is his disability?' But when you read his book you see that disability was evident earlier on. The good news is that some autistic features and behaviour can lessen."

Autism is such a sad condition for parents to deal with. Tammet likes giving hope. Just before he was born his mother had a kind of premonition that her son would be different. "Whatever happens, we'll love him, just love him," she told her husband, and then she began to cry.

Now Tammet is proud to be different. "If there is one thing my example can do for people, not just on the autistic spectrum, it is to show that being different is not necessarily a bad thing. Each person to me is unique and amazing," he says.

Life is messy. Tammet's story does not end totally happily. His father's depressive illness has deteriorated sharply and Tammet has been unable to speak to him for many months. "His illness has gone beyond the point where he is rational," he explains. His mother relied on her husband; they had nine children together. Now she, too, has depression. "I do everything I can to help her cope with losing my father, because I don't think he will ever come back." His empathy tells its own powerful story of how far he has come.

He has enough sense of self now to be comfortable being Daniel Tammet. He even sees why he might be loved. Love, he says, has no equation, and when you love someone that person is ultimately a reason for loving. "There is something in me that my partner can't see in anyone else. And it's the same for me." It's like when he recited pi, he explains. People asked why. And the only thing he could say was for pi's own sake: he found the number beautiful. A strange, quiet beauty, like Tammet's own.

Daniel Tammet "Brain Man"

Boy with the Incredible Brain

Daniel Tammet

A remarkable young man, exhibiting stunning mental abilities. Daniel Paul Tammet born 31 Jan 1979 claims to see colours and sparks, which he can somehow relate to words and numbers. Scientists consider him a gold mine to further investigation into the understanding of brain activity and potential.

Daniel claims that since the age of four, he has been able to do huge mathematical calculations in his head. So the makers of this documentary put him to the test, asking him to calculate 37 raised to the power of 4. He completed this in less than a minute, giving the correct answer of 1,874,161. While considering the question, it was observed that, he appeared to be drawing shapes on the table with his finger. When asked about this, he explained that he could see the numbers as shapes and colours in his mind. This breakdown or confusion of the senses is known as synethsesia.

Next he was asked to divide 13 by 97. This time the researchers had the answer to 32 decimal places, Daniel gave the answer and continued beyond 32. He claims he can do the calculations to 100 decimal places.

He appears to be doing the mathematical calculations without actually thinking about it, which seems preposterous, but if true, blows away scientific theory.

Daniel's talents do not stop at numbers. He is very gifted with words and speaks nine languages and claims to be able to learn a new one in just seven days. To put this to the test, the documentary team shipped Daniel off to Iceland for a week. His Icelandic tutor described their language as immensely complex and considered it an impossibility for anyone to learn in only one week. Daniel Tammet was to appear on an Icelandic talk show at the end of his week to discuss his experience in their native tongue. Although he appeared to struggle to begin with, in the last few days his tutor said "He was like a sponge, absorbing all words and grammar at a phenomenal rate". He made his television appearance with great success.

In March of 2004 Daniel had his own surprise, in Oxford, England, he would recite the number Pi to 22,500 decimal places, in public in front of a team of invigilators to verify his accuracy. After just over five hours he had completed this extraordinary memory feat.

His childhood holds a clue to his unbelievable brain. As a small child he suffered a number of severe seizures which were later diagnosed as epilepsy. Ever since this time he has been able to see the patterns in numbers. While this is rare, there are other cases where individuals have suffered injury to the brain only to emerge with a similar startling talent. Orlando Serrill was just 10 years old when he was hit, hard, on the side of the head by a baseball. Since when, he has been able to recall the day, date and weather of every day since the accident.

The scientific community refer to people with these extraordinary memory skills as savants of which there are only a handful in the world. The condition is often associated with autism. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen a Cambridge University neuroscientist describes autism as a mix of ability and disability. However, Daniel displays the ability with no obvious sign of disability. Daniel, as a baby, cried constantly up until the age of two. He could only be soothed by being rocked in a blanket forming a hammock. Soothing by repetitious movement is, according to Prof. Baron-Cohen, indicative of autism. By most measures, Daniel is autistic but he has managed to develop the social skills to blend in.

Daniel can describe what he is experiencing, making him very valuable to science.

Next in Daniel's travels is a trip to Salt Lake City to meet Kim Peek, probably the world's best known savant and the original Rain Man. Kim has a double photographic memory and can recall everything he has ever read. He speed reads by scanning opposing pages at the same time, one page with each eye.

We finish by visiting San Diego Center for Brain Studies where two very sceptical scientists, Shai Azoulai and Professor V.S. Ramachandran are going to put Daniel through his paces. As expected, his numeracy skills were flawless but the scientists are still not convinced. They don't believe he can relate coloured shapes to complex numbers so challenge him to make putty models of the shapes he sees for a given set of numbers. The following day, they ask the same to test the consistency of his shapes. Not surprisingly, Daniels excels and the scientists have to concede that they are amazed at what they have seen.

Kim Peek "The Real Rain Man"

Kim Peek


Kim Peek was the inspiration for screen writer Barry Morrow's 1988 Oscar-winning movie Rain Man. Mr. Morrow had earlier been involved in writing the story for the television movie Bill, about a mentally retarded person sensitively portrayed by Mickey Rooney. As a result of that interest, and ability, in 1984 Mr. Morrow was invited to attend a Communications Committee meeting of the Association for Retarded Citizens (ARC) in Arlington, Texas. Kim's father, Fran, was Chairman of that committee. Kim met Mr. Morrow there and, according to Fran's book The Real Rain Man, they spent several hours together. Kim astonished Mr. Morrow by correcting the ZIP codes on membership lists they perused, being familiar with almost every author and book in the library, quoting an unending amount of sports trivia, relating complex driving instructions to most anywhere and giving Mr. Morrow "my date of birth and day of the week I was born, the day of the week this year, and day of the week and year I would turn 65 so I could think about retiring." They also discussed events of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam. Mr. Morrow decided to write a script inspired by Kim Peek's abilities and it was that script — Rain Man — that eventually evolved into that splendid movie, making 'savant' a household term.

In the course of his preparation for playing the part of Raymond Babbitt Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman met with Kim Peek and his father in February, 1987. Fran Peek describes that "special day with Dustin" at length in his book about Kim and chronicles in some detail Kim's encyclopedic memory feats as shared with Mr. Hoffman including facts about British Monarchs, the Bible, baseball, horse racing, dates, times, places, composers, melodies, movies, geography, space program, authors and literature. Dustin Hoffman's parting remark to Kim, according to his father was: "I may be the star, but you are the heavens." When Dustin Hoffman accepted his Oscar in March, 1989 he opened his response with: "My special thanks to Kim Peek for making Rain Man a reality."

Along the way to its completion, the original script for the movie Rain Man underwent a number of modifications. While Kim Peek served as the initial inspiration for the story, Raymond Babbitt, as portrayed so admirably by Dustin Hoffman, is a composite savant with abilities drawn from a number of different real life individuals. The main character in that movie, Raymond Babbitt, was modified to be an autistic savant. The story thus is that of a person who is autistic but also has savant skills grafted on to that basic autistic disorder. It is important to remember, therefore, that not all autistic persons are savants, and not all savants are autistic. In preparation for his role, Dustin Hoffman spent time with several other autistic savants and their families, as well as with Kim.

Fran Peek describes his son this way: "Kim is not behaviorally autistic. He has a warm, loving personality. He truly cares for people and enjoys sharing his unique skills and knowledge capacity. Known as Kimputer' to many, his knowledge-library includes World and American History, People and Leaders, Geography (roads and highways in U.S. and Canada), Professional Sports (baseball, basketball, football, Kentucky Derby winners etc), the Space Program, Movies and movie themes, Actors and Actresses, the Bible, Mormon Church Doctrine and History, Calendar Calculations (including a person's day of birth, present year's birthday, and the year and the date the person will turn 65 years old so he or she can retire), Literature/Authors, Shakespeare, Telephone Area Codes, major Zip Codes, all TV stations and their markets. He can identify most classical music compositions and tell the date the music was written and the composer's birth date and place of birth and death Kim has read (and can recall) some 7600 books. He also keeps current on world, U.S. and most local events by reading newspapers, magazines and by listening to the media. He reads constantly He can also describe the highways that go to a person's small town, the county, area code and zip code, television stations available in the town, who the person's pay their telephone bill to, and describe any historical events that may have occurred in their area. His expertise includes at least 14 subject areas."

Kim Peek was born on November 11, 1951. He had an enlarged head, with an encephalocele, according to his doctors. An MRI shows, again according to his doctors, an absent corpus callosum — the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres; no anterior commissure and damage to the cerebellum. Only a thin layer of skull covers the area of the previous encephalocele.

With respect to early development, Kim's father indicates that at age 16-20 months Kim was able to memorize every book that was read to him. His parents moved Kim's finger along each sentence being read. Kim would memorize a book after a single reading and having read that particular book he would put it aside, upside down, so that no one would attempt to read it to him again. Even today, all reading materials are placed by Kim upside down or put backwards on a shelf.

At age three Kim asked his parents what the word "confidential" meant. He was kiddingly told to look it up in the dictionary and he did just that. He somehow knew how to use the alphabetical order to locate the word and then proceeded to read, phonetically, the word's definition (Since that time Kim has read, and can recall, some 7600 books). Kim did not walk until age four. At that time he was also obsessed with numbers and arithmetic, reading telephone directories and adding columns of telephone numbers. He enjoyed totaling the numbers on automobile license plates as well. Since 1969 Kim has worked at a day workshop for adults with disabilities. Without the aid of calculators or adding machines, he has prepared information from work sheets for payroll checks. He takes extended leaves from his work now so he and his father can spend all the time that they do together as emissaries for people with disabilities in community settings across the nation







In that way life has changed dramatically for Kim since the movie which he inspired became so popular and well accepted. Following that movie, Kim, according to his father, developed a new found confidence to meet people and to address audiences. Prior to the movie, his father reports, Kim seldom looked into the face of another person. However, due to the numerous requests for appearances, Kim now travels across the country with his father. They estimate they have interacted with over 900,000 persons in those audiences thus far. As a result of these interactions Kim has grown considerably socially and developed increasing self-esteem. In the feedback received, many have commented on Kim's positive influence on children and parents toward creating better awareness, recognition and respect for people who are 'different'. His father quotes Kim as saying: "Recognizing and respecting differences in others, and treating everyone like you want them to treat you, will help make our world a better place for everyone. Care... be your best. You don't have to be handicapped to be different. Everyone is different!"

There have been numerous television programs about Kim including 20/20, Good Morning America and others. Kim and his father continue to travel throughout the United States and Canada with the mission and purpose to inform persons about savant syndrome, and to share Kim's message of inspiration. Barry Morrow, describes it thus: "I don't think anybody could spend five minutes with Kim and not come away with a slightly altered view of themselves, the world, and our potential as human beings."

The book that tells this story is much more detail is The Real Rain Man by Fran Peek; Harkness Publishing Consultants, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1996.

What is Savant Autism

Autistic savant

Autism is a puzzling disorder characterised by developmental delays. A person with autism often has problems understanding the meaning and purpose of body language and the spoken and written word. They find social interaction difficult, confusing and scary.

'Autistic savant' means a person with autism who has a special skill. 'Savant' comes from the French word for 'knowing' and means 'a learned person'. A person with this condition was once known as an 'idiot savant', since 'idiot' was an acceptable word for mental retardation in the late 19th century, when the phenomenon was first medically investigated. Around 10 per cent of people with autism show special or even remarkable skills. For example, a person with autism, who may be intellectually disabled in most ways, could have an exceptional memory for numbers.

Savant skills are occasionally found in people with other types of intellectual disability and in the non-disabled population, so most researchers use the term 'savant syndrome' instead of autistic savant.

A range of savant abilities
Around 10 per cent of people with autism show special or even remarkable skills. The skills range includes:

• Splinter skills - the most common type. The person, like an obsessive hobbyist, commits certain things to memory, such as sports trivia.
• Talented skills - the person has a more highly developed and specialised skill. For example, they may be artistic and paint beautiful pictures, or have a memory that allows them to work out difficult mathematical calculations in their head.
• Prodigious skills - the rarest type. It is thought that there are only about 25 autistic savants in the world who show prodigious skills. These skills could include, for example, the ability to play an entire concerto on the piano after hearing it only once.

Specialised skill
In all cases of savant syndrome, the skill is specific, limited and most often reliant on memory. Generally, savant skills include:

• Music - the piano is the most popular instrument. For example, the skill may be the ability to play the piano without being taught.
• Art - such as the ability to draw, paint or sculpt to high standards. For example, Richard Wawro is an autistic savant who is also blind, but his crayon drawings command up to $10,000 each.
• Mathematics - for example, the ability to work out complicated sums in their head, or to calendar calculate (for example, work out what day it was on 1 June1732).
• Language - in rare cases, the person may be unusually gifted in languages.
• Other skills - such as knowing the time without seeing a clock, untaught mechanical skills, having an unfailing sense of direction or the ability to commit maps to memory.

The brain's right hemisphere
Autistic savant behaviour is so far unexplained. However, researchers think it might have something to do with the right hemisphere of the brain.

The brain is divided into two hemispheres, left and right, bridged by a thick band of nerve fibres called the corpus callosum. While left hemisphere skills are involved with symbolism and interpretation (such as understanding words and body language), the skills of the right hemisphere are much more concrete and direct (such as memory).

CT and MRI scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest that the right hemisphere is compensating for damage in the left hemisphere. It seems that the right hemisphere of an autistic savant focuses its attention on one of the five senses - for example, if it concentrates on hearing, then the autistic savant may have a special skill in music. Research is ongoing.

Their skills may be reinforced
It is thought that habitual memory centres of the brain take over from higher memory centres, which helps to explain why some autistic savants are like obsessive hobbyists who do the same thing over and over. Apart from habitual memory, other factors that may help an autistic savant to hone their special skill could include:

• The ability to focus and concentrate
• The desire to practise endlessly
• Positive reinforcement by family, friends and caregivers.

Every brain may have untapped savant skills

Recently discovered new savant skills in some of his patients who were undergoing a certain type of dementia. These patients had a type of dementia that affected the left temporal region of their brains (located over the left ear).

When the patients were given brain function tests, their results were similar to those of a young autistic savant. Researchers were able to provoke new savant skills in volunteers by using transcranial magnetic stimulation to temporarily 'disable' the frontal temporal lobe. (Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a type of treatment for depression.) During the test, five of the 17 volunteers showed new and remarkable skills like calendar calculation. These studies suggest that amazing savant abilities may be lying dormant in all of us.

Things to remember

• Autistic savant means a person with autism who has a special skill.
• Around 10 per cent of people with autism show special or even remarkable skills.
• Savant skills can be occasionally found in people with other types of intellectual disability and in the non-disabled population.