For a 22-year-old author to publish a book is a major accomplishment. It’s even more impressive when the writer is autistic.
In “Episodes: My Life As I See It,” Carmel Valley resident Blaze Ginsberg recounts his teen years with all the normal tribulations of adolescence, compounded by the communication and social interaction problems that accompany autism spectrum disorders. Unlike the traditional memoir, Blaze tells his story in a format similar to that of the Internet Movie Database and TV.com. He writes about life events as though they are TV episodes, complete with release date, cast list and soundtrack.
“I thought (this format) was such a clever and natural way to communicate his way of thinking,” said Debra Ginsberg, Blaze’s mother and author of six published books. “I learned a lot about Blaze reading it. There’s no other young adult book written by someone on the spectrum —- this is the first one.”
Blaze’s name is most recognizable to those who read his story in Debra’s 2002 memoir, “Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World.” The book recounts her first 13 years as a single mother to a child who defied simple diagnosis. She fought fiercely to get him the education he deserved, even home-schooling him at one point. At 19, Blaze finally received an autism diagnosis. He now attends community college and has a part-time job at a grocery store.
Blaze is proud of how his mother told his story in her book, but seeing his own memoir published is even better. “It’s a nice accomplishment,” he said. “But there’s also an ironic taste to it because it shows people who doubted me that I could do something.”
Blaze’s journey as a writer began early, with much encouragement from his mother.
“He’s been writing songs, poems and short stories ever since he began keyboarding,” she said. “I always thought he had an unusual turn of phrase. I pushed him in a lot of things, but never with writing, because it was something he really enjoyed.”
The writing of “Episodes” began in December 2003, when Blaze’s everyday routine changed slightly, something he strongly dislikes. While thinking about that, he suddenly saw his life in a different light.
“I thought that stuff in my life was like TV,” he said. “When I got home that day, I went crazy writing. My grandfather read what I wrote, then my Nana and then my mother. My mother really encouraged me to keep going.”
When Blaze reached 50 pages, Debra sent those pages to her friend Steven Malk, one of the premier children’s book agents in the country. Malk sold the book to Roaring Book Press, and it hit bookstore shelves Sept. 1.
Many of the issues Blaze writes about affect most teen boys, such as finding a girlfriend and passing his driving test (he recently passed the written test, something that’s not in the book). “You see more stuff in the book being solved than not,” he said. “That’s what the book is really about.”
The reviews so far have been positive. “Ginsberg gives readers a unique glimpse into an adolescent mind that is simply wired differently,” read an article in School Library Journal. “Blaze has a capacity to translate the often untranslatable differences of human beings. Blaze blazes his own his literary path with humor and pathos,” wrote actress and children’s author Jamie Lee Curtis.
Blaze admits he never thought of how “Episodes” would inspire other teens on the autism spectrum, but would be happy if it does. He’s excited about his first book signing Thursday evening at The Book Works in Del Mar.
“I love public speaking,” he said. “I like talking about myself and letting people know what’s happening behind the scenes with me.”
For Debra, Blaze’s accomplishment is like another chapter in her memoir, one that shows what she always knew to be true —- with the right encouragement and assistance, her son could be whatever he wanted to be.
“I think that Blaze is the most courageous person I know,” she said. “The kinds of obstacles and struggles he faces take an enormous amount of courage to do every day. And even in the most difficult of times, he got up, went to school and did it. That’s how he approaches everything in life. For me, that’s true inspiration.”
Blaze Ginsberg reads from and signs “Episodes: My Life As I See It”
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Autistic savant shares his genius
THE instant Derek Paravicini heard the sound of the music, he broke free from his parents' grasp and headed towards it. The little girl on the piano stool took a tumble as the then four-year-old boy, blind, autistic and severely learning impaired, pushed her out of the way and began playing in her place.
"It was utterly extraordinary," says Adam Ockleford. "He was hitting the notes with his hands, his feet, his nose, even his elbows. It was clear he had never had a lesson, yet he produced this wonderful version of Don't Cry For Me Argentina."
Mr Ockleford, a music psychologist and then head of music at Linden Lodge School for the blind and intellectually impaired, realised at once that the child frantically bashing keys was a prodigy. Today, at 27, Paravicini is acknowledged as one of only 23 autistic savants in the world. He is one of those rare people with severe learning difficulties, who is a genius in one particular area.
He can neither count to 10 nor tell left from right. He needs round-the-clock supervision: without carers he could not dress or feed himself.
But Paravicini has the extremely rare gift of universal, absolute pitch and remembers every piece of music he has ever heard — not only the melody, but what each instrument is playing, just as Mozart could. Paravicini's precision is greater than professional musicians', despite his inability to communicate clearly with language. After listening to a melody once, he can play it without error.
His international audience is immense — a few months ago he played to several thousand people in Las Vegas, and in the next few months will play in Hollywood and Connecticut. His first CD, Echoes Of The Sounds To Be, a jazz compilation, will go on sale on Amazon next month.
Paravicini lives at the Royal National Institute of the Blind College in Surrey, where he spends much of each day at the piano. But if his first love is music, his second is meeting people. He can conduct simple conversations but, in common with many who have autism, he reverts to echolalia, repeating what has just been said to him, when he cannot comprehend the comment.
Suddenly, he announces: "I'll play now."
Mr Ockleford guides him to the piano and Paravicini flexes his fingers. As they ripple across the keys, the haunting Mozart Sonata in A fills the room. Engrossed, Paravicini and his piano have become one. He slips effortlessly into Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble Bee. Just as swiftly, as he began, he stops.
That Derek survived at all is remarkable. Born prematurely at only 25 weeks, he "died" three times. Before long, his severe disabilities, caused by an overdose of oxygen, became apparent. "We noticed straight away that he couldn't distinguish between light and dark," says his mother, Mary Anne. "No one played any instruments at home; the only reason we gave him a plastic, toy organ, when he was around 18 months, was because we were desperately trying to find things to stimulate and engage his interest."
Mr Ockleford began teaching Paravicini when he was four. It took eight years to straighten out the boy's technique. His classical playing is superb, but he cannot resist improvising — an approach much better suited to jazz.
For Paravicini's parents and Mr Ockleford, now the director of education at the institute, it has always been difficult deciding how often to sanction his public appearances.
"It's true that he cannot, himself, give informed consent," Mr Ockleford says. "Ultimately we can only take decisions on his behalf and hope they are in his best interests. There is no doubt that he is, truly, one of the world's greatest savants."
"It was utterly extraordinary," says Adam Ockleford. "He was hitting the notes with his hands, his feet, his nose, even his elbows. It was clear he had never had a lesson, yet he produced this wonderful version of Don't Cry For Me Argentina."
Mr Ockleford, a music psychologist and then head of music at Linden Lodge School for the blind and intellectually impaired, realised at once that the child frantically bashing keys was a prodigy. Today, at 27, Paravicini is acknowledged as one of only 23 autistic savants in the world. He is one of those rare people with severe learning difficulties, who is a genius in one particular area.
He can neither count to 10 nor tell left from right. He needs round-the-clock supervision: without carers he could not dress or feed himself.
But Paravicini has the extremely rare gift of universal, absolute pitch and remembers every piece of music he has ever heard — not only the melody, but what each instrument is playing, just as Mozart could. Paravicini's precision is greater than professional musicians', despite his inability to communicate clearly with language. After listening to a melody once, he can play it without error.
His international audience is immense — a few months ago he played to several thousand people in Las Vegas, and in the next few months will play in Hollywood and Connecticut. His first CD, Echoes Of The Sounds To Be, a jazz compilation, will go on sale on Amazon next month.
Paravicini lives at the Royal National Institute of the Blind College in Surrey, where he spends much of each day at the piano. But if his first love is music, his second is meeting people. He can conduct simple conversations but, in common with many who have autism, he reverts to echolalia, repeating what has just been said to him, when he cannot comprehend the comment.
Suddenly, he announces: "I'll play now."
Mr Ockleford guides him to the piano and Paravicini flexes his fingers. As they ripple across the keys, the haunting Mozart Sonata in A fills the room. Engrossed, Paravicini and his piano have become one. He slips effortlessly into Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble Bee. Just as swiftly, as he began, he stops.
That Derek survived at all is remarkable. Born prematurely at only 25 weeks, he "died" three times. Before long, his severe disabilities, caused by an overdose of oxygen, became apparent. "We noticed straight away that he couldn't distinguish between light and dark," says his mother, Mary Anne. "No one played any instruments at home; the only reason we gave him a plastic, toy organ, when he was around 18 months, was because we were desperately trying to find things to stimulate and engage his interest."
Mr Ockleford began teaching Paravicini when he was four. It took eight years to straighten out the boy's technique. His classical playing is superb, but he cannot resist improvising — an approach much better suited to jazz.
For Paravicini's parents and Mr Ockleford, now the director of education at the institute, it has always been difficult deciding how often to sanction his public appearances.
"It's true that he cannot, himself, give informed consent," Mr Ockleford says. "Ultimately we can only take decisions on his behalf and hope they are in his best interests. There is no doubt that he is, truly, one of the world's greatest savants."
Sunday, February 22, 2009
AT HOME WITH: DANIEL TAMMET; Brainman, At Rest In His Oasis
BULLIED by other children and bewildered by ordinary life, Daniel Tammet spent his early years burrowed deep inside the world of numbers. They were his companions and his solace, living, breathing beings that enveloped him with their shapes and textures and colors.
He still loves them and needs them; he can still do extraordinary things with them, like perform complicated calculations instantly in his head, far beyond the capacity of an ordinary calculator. But Mr. Tammet, who at the age of 25 received a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, has made a difficult and self-conscious journey out from his own mind.
''I live in two countries, one of the mind and one of the body, one of numbers and one of people,'' he said recently. Slight and soft-spoken, dressed in a T-shirt and casual combat-style pants, he sat cross-legged in his living room and sipped a cup of tea, one of several he drinks at set times each day.
Not so long ago, even a conversation like this one would have been prohibitively difficult for Mr. Tammet, now 28. As he describes in his newly published memoir, ''Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant'' (Free Press), he has willed himself to learn what to do. Offer a visitor a drink; look her in the eye; don't stand in someone else's space. These are all conscious decisions.
Recently, some friends warned him that in his eagerness to make eye contact, he tended to stare too intently. ''It's like being on a tightrope,'' he said. ''If you try too hard, you'll come off. But you have to try.''
Mr. Tammet's house, a small cottage in a sleepy cul-de-sac in this quiet Kent town, is a refuge from the sensory assaults of the world outside -- the city, big supermarkets, crowds -- which tend to overwhelm and unnerve him.
''The house is like my oasis,'' he said. ''I structured it -- the colors of it, the way the furniture is laid out. The way it feels, and the way I work -- it's very much a matter of routine, and it makes me feel calm and comfortable.''
Mr. Tammet's book is an elegant account of how his condition has informed his life, a rare first-person insight into a mysterious and confounding disorder. He is unusual not just because of his lucid writing style and his ability to analyze his own thoughts and behavior, but also because he is one fewer than 100 ''prodigious savants'' -- autistic or otherwise mentally impaired people with spectacular, almost preternatural skills -- in the world, according to Dr. Darold Treffert, a researcher of savant syndrome.
He wears his gifts lightly, casually. When he gets nervous, he said, he sometimes reverts to a coping strategy he employed as a child: he multiplies two over and over again, each result emitting in his head bright silvery sparks until he is enveloped by fireworks of them. He demonstrated, reciting the numbers to himself, and in a moment had reached 1,048,576 -- 2 to the 20th power. He speaks 10 languages, including Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto, and has invented his own language, Mantï. In 2004, he raised money for an epilepsy charity by memorizing and publicly reciting the number pi to 22,514 digits -- a new European record. In addition to Asperger's, he has the rare gift of synesthesia, which allows him to see numbers as having shapes, colors and textures; he also assigns them personalities. His unusual mind has been studied repeatedly by researchers in Britain and the United States.
Mr. Tammet sees himself as an ambassador and advocate for people with autism.
''Autistic people do fall in love,'' he said. ''They do have joy; they do have sorrow; they do experience ups and downs like everyone else. We may not have the same ability to manage those emotions as others have, but they're there, and sometimes our experience of them is far more intense than the experience of other people.''
Mr. Tammet grew up in east London, one of nine children. He suffered a series of early epileptic fits that he believes brought on his synesthesia. Through his childhood troubles -- a lack of friends, the tendency to block out the world, an incessant counting of everything countable -- he was buoyed by a loving family whose size ensured, he said, that ''I could never close inside myself.''
He still loves them and needs them; he can still do extraordinary things with them, like perform complicated calculations instantly in his head, far beyond the capacity of an ordinary calculator. But Mr. Tammet, who at the age of 25 received a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, has made a difficult and self-conscious journey out from his own mind.
''I live in two countries, one of the mind and one of the body, one of numbers and one of people,'' he said recently. Slight and soft-spoken, dressed in a T-shirt and casual combat-style pants, he sat cross-legged in his living room and sipped a cup of tea, one of several he drinks at set times each day.
Not so long ago, even a conversation like this one would have been prohibitively difficult for Mr. Tammet, now 28. As he describes in his newly published memoir, ''Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant'' (Free Press), he has willed himself to learn what to do. Offer a visitor a drink; look her in the eye; don't stand in someone else's space. These are all conscious decisions.
Recently, some friends warned him that in his eagerness to make eye contact, he tended to stare too intently. ''It's like being on a tightrope,'' he said. ''If you try too hard, you'll come off. But you have to try.''
Mr. Tammet's house, a small cottage in a sleepy cul-de-sac in this quiet Kent town, is a refuge from the sensory assaults of the world outside -- the city, big supermarkets, crowds -- which tend to overwhelm and unnerve him.
''The house is like my oasis,'' he said. ''I structured it -- the colors of it, the way the furniture is laid out. The way it feels, and the way I work -- it's very much a matter of routine, and it makes me feel calm and comfortable.''
Mr. Tammet's book is an elegant account of how his condition has informed his life, a rare first-person insight into a mysterious and confounding disorder. He is unusual not just because of his lucid writing style and his ability to analyze his own thoughts and behavior, but also because he is one fewer than 100 ''prodigious savants'' -- autistic or otherwise mentally impaired people with spectacular, almost preternatural skills -- in the world, according to Dr. Darold Treffert, a researcher of savant syndrome.
He wears his gifts lightly, casually. When he gets nervous, he said, he sometimes reverts to a coping strategy he employed as a child: he multiplies two over and over again, each result emitting in his head bright silvery sparks until he is enveloped by fireworks of them. He demonstrated, reciting the numbers to himself, and in a moment had reached 1,048,576 -- 2 to the 20th power. He speaks 10 languages, including Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto, and has invented his own language, Mantï. In 2004, he raised money for an epilepsy charity by memorizing and publicly reciting the number pi to 22,514 digits -- a new European record. In addition to Asperger's, he has the rare gift of synesthesia, which allows him to see numbers as having shapes, colors and textures; he also assigns them personalities. His unusual mind has been studied repeatedly by researchers in Britain and the United States.
Mr. Tammet sees himself as an ambassador and advocate for people with autism.
''Autistic people do fall in love,'' he said. ''They do have joy; they do have sorrow; they do experience ups and downs like everyone else. We may not have the same ability to manage those emotions as others have, but they're there, and sometimes our experience of them is far more intense than the experience of other people.''
Mr. Tammet grew up in east London, one of nine children. He suffered a series of early epileptic fits that he believes brought on his synesthesia. Through his childhood troubles -- a lack of friends, the tendency to block out the world, an incessant counting of everything countable -- he was buoyed by a loving family whose size ensured, he said, that ''I could never close inside myself.''
A Savant Aided by the Sparks That He Sees Inside His Head
As a young child, Daniel Tammet had seizures. They turned him into a strange boy.
''I'm seeing things in my head like little sparks firing off,'' Mr. Tammet, a 26-year-old Englishman, says tonight on ''Brainman,'' on the Science Channel. ''And it's not until the very last moment that those sparks tell me what on earth they mean.''
Sounds spooky, right? And to be sure, if the sparks told Mr. Tammet that he had a message for the bats, or that his hair was lonely, he might have come across as just another delusional solipsist. But Mr. Tammet's sparks are mightier than the usual sparks: They give him not bat-words, but pi to the 22,500th place and the capacity to learn whole languages in a week. He's not only a savant but also a warm and communicative man; he has the ability, rare in savants, to describe how his esoteric knowledge visits him.
After reeling off the answers to warm-up questions -- say, what's 37 to the 4th power? -- Mr. Tammet fields inquiries about the way he pokes the table while he's coming up with answers (1,874,161, say).
''I'm seeing the numbers,'' he explains. ''But I'm not seeing them. It's strange. I'm seeing pictures, shapes and patterns. Almost like a square, like the texture of water. Drops -- ripples, almost. Like something reflective. It's something you can look through, almost metallic. Like bubbles. Then a bit like a flash.''
Good luck boosting your learning power by trying to replicate this process. The documentary does not explain Mr. Tammet's methods, which he maintains are simply more revelation than calculation. But something in the way that Mr. Tammet describes the beautiful, aching, hallucinatory process of arriving at his answers illuminates the excitement of all cogitation. The film takes an enthusiastic, fascinated approach to savantism that gives viewers what we want: the chance to enjoy the spectacle of great intelligence.
One of nine children, Mr. Tammet grew up counting numbers in hopscotch and studying leaves. Here he tells Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen -- an autism researcher and a cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen, television's Ali G -- bullies ''didn't know how to tease me'' because he had enough social skills to get by. So they left him to his studies, and eventually he started learning languages, memorizing things and delighting people with the huge calculations he could do in his head. Mr. Baron-Cohen concludes that his autistic symptoms are not interfering with his life.
Mr. Tammet meets Kim Peek, the American savant on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in ''Rain Man'' was based. They hit it off, with Mr. Peek telling Mr. Tammet, ''One day you'll be as great as I am.''
The documentary also subjects Mr. Tammet to a series of tests intended to amaze viewers and convince scientists that he's not, somehow, cheating. When, after only a week of language study, he appears on Icelandic television, chatting in the native tongue like a pro, the skeptics appear to be silenced. Part of what Mr. Tammet tells his interviewers is how beautiful Icelandic is. This does not appear to be mere courtesy. For Mr. Tammet, beauty is a significant component of thinking. In the most affecting scene in the documentary, he dreamily describes the aesthetic merits of numerals.
The number 1 he's drawn to for its brightness. ''Two is kind of like a movement, right to left, kind of like a drifting,'' he says. Five is a clap of thunder or the sound of a wave hitting a rock. Six ''is actually the number I find hardest to experience,'' he says. ''It's like a hole, or a chasm. Number 9 is the biggest number. It's very tall.'' He seems frightened for an instant. ''It can be intimidating.''
Later in the film, Mr. Tammet visits New York City, where he stands -- dutifully, for the cameras -- in Times Square. We've been told that Mr. Tammet, who is remarkably well adjusted, nonetheless dislikes flashing lights and noise.
He does seem to be facing some kind of sublimity, though it's apparently not the crowds or the Broadway street life that excites him. ''The number 9 is all around me,'' he says.
''I'm seeing things in my head like little sparks firing off,'' Mr. Tammet, a 26-year-old Englishman, says tonight on ''Brainman,'' on the Science Channel. ''And it's not until the very last moment that those sparks tell me what on earth they mean.''
Sounds spooky, right? And to be sure, if the sparks told Mr. Tammet that he had a message for the bats, or that his hair was lonely, he might have come across as just another delusional solipsist. But Mr. Tammet's sparks are mightier than the usual sparks: They give him not bat-words, but pi to the 22,500th place and the capacity to learn whole languages in a week. He's not only a savant but also a warm and communicative man; he has the ability, rare in savants, to describe how his esoteric knowledge visits him.
After reeling off the answers to warm-up questions -- say, what's 37 to the 4th power? -- Mr. Tammet fields inquiries about the way he pokes the table while he's coming up with answers (1,874,161, say).
''I'm seeing the numbers,'' he explains. ''But I'm not seeing them. It's strange. I'm seeing pictures, shapes and patterns. Almost like a square, like the texture of water. Drops -- ripples, almost. Like something reflective. It's something you can look through, almost metallic. Like bubbles. Then a bit like a flash.''
Good luck boosting your learning power by trying to replicate this process. The documentary does not explain Mr. Tammet's methods, which he maintains are simply more revelation than calculation. But something in the way that Mr. Tammet describes the beautiful, aching, hallucinatory process of arriving at his answers illuminates the excitement of all cogitation. The film takes an enthusiastic, fascinated approach to savantism that gives viewers what we want: the chance to enjoy the spectacle of great intelligence.
One of nine children, Mr. Tammet grew up counting numbers in hopscotch and studying leaves. Here he tells Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen -- an autism researcher and a cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen, television's Ali G -- bullies ''didn't know how to tease me'' because he had enough social skills to get by. So they left him to his studies, and eventually he started learning languages, memorizing things and delighting people with the huge calculations he could do in his head. Mr. Baron-Cohen concludes that his autistic symptoms are not interfering with his life.
Mr. Tammet meets Kim Peek, the American savant on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in ''Rain Man'' was based. They hit it off, with Mr. Peek telling Mr. Tammet, ''One day you'll be as great as I am.''
The documentary also subjects Mr. Tammet to a series of tests intended to amaze viewers and convince scientists that he's not, somehow, cheating. When, after only a week of language study, he appears on Icelandic television, chatting in the native tongue like a pro, the skeptics appear to be silenced. Part of what Mr. Tammet tells his interviewers is how beautiful Icelandic is. This does not appear to be mere courtesy. For Mr. Tammet, beauty is a significant component of thinking. In the most affecting scene in the documentary, he dreamily describes the aesthetic merits of numerals.
The number 1 he's drawn to for its brightness. ''Two is kind of like a movement, right to left, kind of like a drifting,'' he says. Five is a clap of thunder or the sound of a wave hitting a rock. Six ''is actually the number I find hardest to experience,'' he says. ''It's like a hole, or a chasm. Number 9 is the biggest number. It's very tall.'' He seems frightened for an instant. ''It can be intimidating.''
Later in the film, Mr. Tammet visits New York City, where he stands -- dutifully, for the cameras -- in Times Square. We've been told that Mr. Tammet, who is remarkably well adjusted, nonetheless dislikes flashing lights and noise.
He does seem to be facing some kind of sublimity, though it's apparently not the crowds or the Broadway street life that excites him. ''The number 9 is all around me,'' he says.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Inside the mind of an autistic genius
Daniel Tammet likes to call himself a high-functioning autistic savant. That means his brain is capable of learning a foreign language in a week and memorising vast chains of numbers perfectly
I would be lying if I said that I didn't expect Daniel Tammet to be at least a little odd. He has Asperger's, a form of autism, and is a savant with a talent for languages and numbers. This is a man who taught himself
Icelandic in a week and once recited the first 22,514 digits of pi - from memory. For those of us who knew pi was infinite but never really got beyond 3.14, it all seems, well, almost alien. He hates that idea. Daniel thinks savants get a bad press and it is true that the only really famous savant is Raymond Babbitt, the hopeless but engaging genius of the film Rain Man. Daniel has been called the British Rain Man but bridles at the comparison. As he has said, he has a partner, a job, friends. “How could I be considered a Rain Man?”
Daniel is 29 (a prime number and therefore, for him, good) and, the moment we meet, I can see he is no Rain Man. He may have grown up in the East End, one of nine children, lonely and odd. But, over the years, he has taught himself, with amazing pertinacity, to behave “normally” and now, I have to say, he's almost cracked it. “Savants have been seen as something supernatural or alien,” he says, almost as we shake hands (a learnt behaviour for him). “We have been marginalised and mysticised. But people like myself are very much human.”
He gives a little smile and, for someone like him (Aspergerians often do not show emotion), this is the equivalent of a church peal. His voice, as light as his handshake, seems continental or, I note, a bit Eurotrash. He doesn't blink an eye (he is looking straight at me, another learnt behaviour). How did that happen to an East Ender? Well, he says, he now lives in Avignon, where the French also think his accent has a continental twang.
Why Avignon? “I fell in love,” he says. He met his partner Jerome while promoting his bestselling autobiography Born on a Blue Day a few years ago. Before its publication Daniel lived a quiet life, a rigid existence aimed at calming his many anxieties. “I was very happy but it was a small happiness,” he says. With Jerome, though, his life has changed. His new book, Embracing the Wide Sky, is, as its subtitle says, a tour of the horizons of the human mind. It is about liberating our brains and he agrees that this also reflects his new life.
I ask first about numbers, which, for many people, including me, make them feel stupid, not free. Daniel imbues all numbers with meaning and he loves primes. “But all numbers are beautiful,” he says. “All have a kind of beauty.”
Well, I say, what about 338. That is the address of his publisher, where we are meeting. That's not prime.
“It's not. It's twice 13 squared.”
Is it? My brain races and comes up with...nothing.
“You can really only understand numbers in the context of other numbers. Numbers belong to clusters of meaning. What I do with numbers, when I am visualising them, allows me to put them into a context. People do the same with language. This is one of the similarities between how savants and non-savants work.”
Hmm, I say, thinking, I have no idea what you are talking about.
“For me 338 is only understandable when in terms of 13. You take 13, which is prime, and you multiply it by itself, which is a square, and that makes 169 and when you double it you get 338. I knew that immediately. I am able to visualise these associations: 13 would be a wavy number, 169 would be like a waterfall. Take that waviness and multiplying it into a waterfall; double a number would be to curl it around in my mind so 338 is like a waterfall that curls and loops in your mind.”
Well, I say, trying to imagine a curly looping waterfall, can we all learn to do this? He nods. He says that nonsavants do the same with language. When we hear the word “giraffe”, we immediately link it with words like neck, tall, animal. “It's exactly the same with me with 338. The only difference, then, really is that you are able to visualise words but not numbers and I am able to do both.”
I like the “only” in that sentence but, still, it is fascinating. But then that's Daniel. He is slight, soft spoken, unemotional. If I were to visualise him it would be as a piece of tin glinting in the sunlight: his ideas are sharp but you can almost see his brain bending at times. But then, he's had to be flexible. Otherwise he'd be living in his own world, not ours.
Daniel Tammet was born on January 31, 1979. He knows it's a Wednesday because he sees it as blue and all Wednesdays are. He calls his childhood “difficult”, a major understatement. As an infant he cried incessantly, as a young child he hardly spoke. At 4 he had an epileptic fit. He was the first of nine children. One of Daniel's brothers also has Asperger's, a high-functioning type of autism, but is not a savant as well. His father was a factory worker who battled with schizophrenia for much of his adult life.
Asperger's wasn't diagnosed until Daniel was 25 and so, at school, he got by as best he could. His talents for maths and languages did not compensate for his inability to socialise. His world was complex, bedevilled by small things: even brushing his teeth was problematical as he couldn't bear the scratchy noise and could only do so in short bursts and with parental help.
Plus he was gay. He says that from the age of 11, he knew he was attracted more to boys than girls but, perilously shy, he did not act on it. His first real relationship did not occur until after he'd left school and spent a year teaching English in Lithuania. He met Neil, his first love, on the internet.
Since adolescence, Daniel had set his mind to be normal. This was a leap of faith and, for him, acutely uncomfortable. It helped to have a large family but, at school, he also watched children in the playground “like David Attenborough, trying to look at a world that I didn't belong in yet”. It is this that sets him apart. There are about 50 other savants like him in the world, but Daniel, rarely, can tell us about it. This is what he started to do. He did a documentary. He met scientists. He did his pi feat (it only took a few weeks, he visualises such incredible number chains as landscapes). Famously, he learnt Icelandic in a week (he knows 12 languages and speaks English, French, German, Icelandic and Esperanto fluently). So how did he do it? “I immersed myself. I was given a tutor. I had lots of books. I wouldn't recommend it for most people. It was for a documentary.”
I make a small joke about Iceland's current predicament. He looks at me blankly. Humour is not natural Aspergian territory. Nor is embarrassment. At one point, when he tells me how pleased he is that a book reviewer has said he writes like Hemingway, I say that most people would be too embarrassed to say that. “I don't have any embarrassment. This is a trait, perhaps, of Asperger's.”
There is a quantum leap between the Daniel of his autobiography, published in 2006, and this book of ideas and insights. Then Daniel had been living in a Kent cul-de-sac, his life quiet and ordered. He ate exactly 45g of porridge every morning (weighed on an electronic scale) and counted the number of items of clothing he wore. When stressed, he closed his eyes and began to count (multiplying by two was especially calming). At the end of the first book, he writes about how much he enjoys cutting recipes in half.
“That feels a bit like a past life,” he says. And it is. He looks back on the pi feat as part of a “performing seal” phase. His life is much less prescribed, his coping skills improved (but, again, he has worked at it). He forces himself to endure being uncomfortable: even his interview with me would have been difficult. He gives falling in love with Jerome, a photographer he met in Paris on a publicity shoot, the credit. Buoyed by the response to his autobiography, he has embraced writing. It's an intellectually questing life, beyond recipes.
Our conversation keeps coming back to numbers. He says that maths is taught badly, rigidly. We are obsessed with achieving the “right” answer. We should estimate more, trust our instincts. Apparently we are born with an instinct for counting. If you tell pre-school children that John has 15 sweets and is given 17 more and that Susan has 51 sweets, three out of four will give the right answer when asked who has the most. Daniel believes his abilities are an outgrowth of such natural instincts.
As Daniel talks about numbers, they emerge like Mr Men characters: 4 (his favourite number) is shy like him as a child; 6 is cold and small. This process of giving numbers personalities is similar to the revolutionary teaching methods of Stella Baruk who, in France, is known as the “maths fairy”. It sounds more fun than all those sums.
Daniel insists that we all start with “great minds”. But does he really think so? Aren't some people just thick? “I totally disagree. I think everyone has amazing abilities. It is just a case of context. If you think about gossip. If you think about recognising faces. People on the autistic spectrum find that very difficult. We have been led down the wrong path that the mind is more and more like a computer. But it is completely opposite. Savants, rather than exemplifying the computer likeness of the mind, do the opposite. I love numbers. I love language. I dance with numbers rather than crunch them. Similarly with language. When I think of language I think of beautiful architectures of meaning. A computer can't do that.”
He is restless and ambitious. He likes the idea of turning 30. “Twenty-nine is prime. Thirty-one is prime. I like being between primes.” He is writing a book on faith (he is a Christian) and then he wants to write a novel. He knows that he is gifted but that is not enough: it is his desire to be ranked among the great minds. “But that's for me to demonstrate. I've made a good start but I'm very young and I've got many things to do.”
He stops, his eyes fixed on me. “I know that people can take the wrong impression. I don't mean to say how amazing I am but I've always been stung by the idea that I am a performing seal and I'm only interesting in terms of my ability to learn things quickly. I think people underestimate savants, but they underestimate themselves as well. If I can do amazing things, it's because I'm human. It's because, as Shakespeare said, we're all the stuff of dreams.”
I would be lying if I said that I didn't expect Daniel Tammet to be at least a little odd. He has Asperger's, a form of autism, and is a savant with a talent for languages and numbers. This is a man who taught himself
Icelandic in a week and once recited the first 22,514 digits of pi - from memory. For those of us who knew pi was infinite but never really got beyond 3.14, it all seems, well, almost alien. He hates that idea. Daniel thinks savants get a bad press and it is true that the only really famous savant is Raymond Babbitt, the hopeless but engaging genius of the film Rain Man. Daniel has been called the British Rain Man but bridles at the comparison. As he has said, he has a partner, a job, friends. “How could I be considered a Rain Man?”
Daniel is 29 (a prime number and therefore, for him, good) and, the moment we meet, I can see he is no Rain Man. He may have grown up in the East End, one of nine children, lonely and odd. But, over the years, he has taught himself, with amazing pertinacity, to behave “normally” and now, I have to say, he's almost cracked it. “Savants have been seen as something supernatural or alien,” he says, almost as we shake hands (a learnt behaviour for him). “We have been marginalised and mysticised. But people like myself are very much human.”
He gives a little smile and, for someone like him (Aspergerians often do not show emotion), this is the equivalent of a church peal. His voice, as light as his handshake, seems continental or, I note, a bit Eurotrash. He doesn't blink an eye (he is looking straight at me, another learnt behaviour). How did that happen to an East Ender? Well, he says, he now lives in Avignon, where the French also think his accent has a continental twang.
Why Avignon? “I fell in love,” he says. He met his partner Jerome while promoting his bestselling autobiography Born on a Blue Day a few years ago. Before its publication Daniel lived a quiet life, a rigid existence aimed at calming his many anxieties. “I was very happy but it was a small happiness,” he says. With Jerome, though, his life has changed. His new book, Embracing the Wide Sky, is, as its subtitle says, a tour of the horizons of the human mind. It is about liberating our brains and he agrees that this also reflects his new life.
I ask first about numbers, which, for many people, including me, make them feel stupid, not free. Daniel imbues all numbers with meaning and he loves primes. “But all numbers are beautiful,” he says. “All have a kind of beauty.”
Well, I say, what about 338. That is the address of his publisher, where we are meeting. That's not prime.
“It's not. It's twice 13 squared.”
Is it? My brain races and comes up with...nothing.
“You can really only understand numbers in the context of other numbers. Numbers belong to clusters of meaning. What I do with numbers, when I am visualising them, allows me to put them into a context. People do the same with language. This is one of the similarities between how savants and non-savants work.”
Hmm, I say, thinking, I have no idea what you are talking about.
“For me 338 is only understandable when in terms of 13. You take 13, which is prime, and you multiply it by itself, which is a square, and that makes 169 and when you double it you get 338. I knew that immediately. I am able to visualise these associations: 13 would be a wavy number, 169 would be like a waterfall. Take that waviness and multiplying it into a waterfall; double a number would be to curl it around in my mind so 338 is like a waterfall that curls and loops in your mind.”
Well, I say, trying to imagine a curly looping waterfall, can we all learn to do this? He nods. He says that nonsavants do the same with language. When we hear the word “giraffe”, we immediately link it with words like neck, tall, animal. “It's exactly the same with me with 338. The only difference, then, really is that you are able to visualise words but not numbers and I am able to do both.”
I like the “only” in that sentence but, still, it is fascinating. But then that's Daniel. He is slight, soft spoken, unemotional. If I were to visualise him it would be as a piece of tin glinting in the sunlight: his ideas are sharp but you can almost see his brain bending at times. But then, he's had to be flexible. Otherwise he'd be living in his own world, not ours.
Daniel Tammet was born on January 31, 1979. He knows it's a Wednesday because he sees it as blue and all Wednesdays are. He calls his childhood “difficult”, a major understatement. As an infant he cried incessantly, as a young child he hardly spoke. At 4 he had an epileptic fit. He was the first of nine children. One of Daniel's brothers also has Asperger's, a high-functioning type of autism, but is not a savant as well. His father was a factory worker who battled with schizophrenia for much of his adult life.
Asperger's wasn't diagnosed until Daniel was 25 and so, at school, he got by as best he could. His talents for maths and languages did not compensate for his inability to socialise. His world was complex, bedevilled by small things: even brushing his teeth was problematical as he couldn't bear the scratchy noise and could only do so in short bursts and with parental help.
Plus he was gay. He says that from the age of 11, he knew he was attracted more to boys than girls but, perilously shy, he did not act on it. His first real relationship did not occur until after he'd left school and spent a year teaching English in Lithuania. He met Neil, his first love, on the internet.
Since adolescence, Daniel had set his mind to be normal. This was a leap of faith and, for him, acutely uncomfortable. It helped to have a large family but, at school, he also watched children in the playground “like David Attenborough, trying to look at a world that I didn't belong in yet”. It is this that sets him apart. There are about 50 other savants like him in the world, but Daniel, rarely, can tell us about it. This is what he started to do. He did a documentary. He met scientists. He did his pi feat (it only took a few weeks, he visualises such incredible number chains as landscapes). Famously, he learnt Icelandic in a week (he knows 12 languages and speaks English, French, German, Icelandic and Esperanto fluently). So how did he do it? “I immersed myself. I was given a tutor. I had lots of books. I wouldn't recommend it for most people. It was for a documentary.”
I make a small joke about Iceland's current predicament. He looks at me blankly. Humour is not natural Aspergian territory. Nor is embarrassment. At one point, when he tells me how pleased he is that a book reviewer has said he writes like Hemingway, I say that most people would be too embarrassed to say that. “I don't have any embarrassment. This is a trait, perhaps, of Asperger's.”
There is a quantum leap between the Daniel of his autobiography, published in 2006, and this book of ideas and insights. Then Daniel had been living in a Kent cul-de-sac, his life quiet and ordered. He ate exactly 45g of porridge every morning (weighed on an electronic scale) and counted the number of items of clothing he wore. When stressed, he closed his eyes and began to count (multiplying by two was especially calming). At the end of the first book, he writes about how much he enjoys cutting recipes in half.
“That feels a bit like a past life,” he says. And it is. He looks back on the pi feat as part of a “performing seal” phase. His life is much less prescribed, his coping skills improved (but, again, he has worked at it). He forces himself to endure being uncomfortable: even his interview with me would have been difficult. He gives falling in love with Jerome, a photographer he met in Paris on a publicity shoot, the credit. Buoyed by the response to his autobiography, he has embraced writing. It's an intellectually questing life, beyond recipes.
Our conversation keeps coming back to numbers. He says that maths is taught badly, rigidly. We are obsessed with achieving the “right” answer. We should estimate more, trust our instincts. Apparently we are born with an instinct for counting. If you tell pre-school children that John has 15 sweets and is given 17 more and that Susan has 51 sweets, three out of four will give the right answer when asked who has the most. Daniel believes his abilities are an outgrowth of such natural instincts.
As Daniel talks about numbers, they emerge like Mr Men characters: 4 (his favourite number) is shy like him as a child; 6 is cold and small. This process of giving numbers personalities is similar to the revolutionary teaching methods of Stella Baruk who, in France, is known as the “maths fairy”. It sounds more fun than all those sums.
Daniel insists that we all start with “great minds”. But does he really think so? Aren't some people just thick? “I totally disagree. I think everyone has amazing abilities. It is just a case of context. If you think about gossip. If you think about recognising faces. People on the autistic spectrum find that very difficult. We have been led down the wrong path that the mind is more and more like a computer. But it is completely opposite. Savants, rather than exemplifying the computer likeness of the mind, do the opposite. I love numbers. I love language. I dance with numbers rather than crunch them. Similarly with language. When I think of language I think of beautiful architectures of meaning. A computer can't do that.”
He is restless and ambitious. He likes the idea of turning 30. “Twenty-nine is prime. Thirty-one is prime. I like being between primes.” He is writing a book on faith (he is a Christian) and then he wants to write a novel. He knows that he is gifted but that is not enough: it is his desire to be ranked among the great minds. “But that's for me to demonstrate. I've made a good start but I'm very young and I've got many things to do.”
He stops, his eyes fixed on me. “I know that people can take the wrong impression. I don't mean to say how amazing I am but I've always been stung by the idea that I am a performing seal and I'm only interesting in terms of my ability to learn things quickly. I think people underestimate savants, but they underestimate themselves as well. If I can do amazing things, it's because I'm human. It's because, as Shakespeare said, we're all the stuff of dreams.”
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
If we screen out autism we run the risk of losing genius, too
As the number of disorders identifiable by prenatal testing grows, the debate about how to handle them is intensifying
Magnus Linklater
Robin was sitting in the classroom, giving me an exact account of the Russian Revolution. It was his specialist subject and he knew every date, every manoeuvre, the names of the Bolshevik leaders, and where they were when the Winter Palace was stormed. Robin was 16.
“So, what do you think of Lenin?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “I don't think anything of Lenin,” he said. Robin was autistic.
He had an extraordinary grasp of facts, meticulously arranged in his mind. He had no concept of analysis or interpretation. The idea of forming an opinion was alien to him. With that incapacity came social isolation, an inability to form friendships or any lasting relationship. He was stranded, with his brilliant but disabled mind. Bringing him up had been a constant strain for his parents.
Quite how he would fare in the wider world was not yet clear.
Robin, and thousands like him, are at the centre of an ethical debate with far-reaching consequences. Within a few years it may become possible for expectant mothers to have prenatal tests to determine if their child is likely to be autistic.
These may be genetic, to see whether the characteristics of autism have been inherited, or tests of amniotic fluid in the womb to detect high levels of testosterone that have been found to be associated with the condition - mainly in boys.
As the parents of the first British baby screened to be free of a breast cancer gene celebrate the birth of a healthy daughter, this must seem yet another miraculous step in the advance of science. For any family that has experienced the anguish of living with an autistic child, the prospect of being able to determine if another is about to be born would be invaluable. It would offer that most precious commodity - a choice.
Just as with Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis or spina bifida, a mother-to-be could decide whether she can cope with the strain of bringing up a disabled child. With an autistic child, it may mean a lifetime of rejection - living with someone unlikely ever to fit into the family, who responds with blank incomprehension to affection, whose behaviour may be erratic and disturbing, whose condition is permanent. Autism, and its associated condition, Asperger's syndrome, can range from virtual incapacity at one end of the spectrum to the merely strange at the other. To bring up one autistic child is a challenge to the sanity of an entire family. To bring up two might destroy it.
The evidence of Down's syndrome suggests that very high numbers of mothers-to-be opt for an abortion if pre-natal tests show that their child has the condition. In America it is as a high as 90 per cent. In Britain, it is not so high and may be reversing - as knowledge grows, perhaps more mothers elect to keep their babies. There is, however, a critical difference between Down's and autism, highlighted by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge. He points out that autistic males often turn out to be skilled at mathematics and engineering - some reaching near-genius level. Almost all the mathematical giants of the past have been male. He says that Newton and Einstein were almost certainly autistic, finding relationships difficult. Artists, too, have suffered from autism or Asperger's - including the blind pianist Derek Paravicini, the artist Peter Howson and, reportedly, the film director Steven Spielberg. So if we found a test for autism, and gave parents the opportunity of aborting the foetus, we might eliminate not just an unwanted and difficult child but a potential genius.
Here lies the dilemma. Should medical science offer the opportunity to eliminate a child who may turn out to be, not only a valuable member of society, but an important contributor to its future? And here lies a further twist in the moral maze. If that were the decision, what would be the justification for deciding that only the most intelligent members of society should be protected, while the less able were judged expendable. Does not that come close to Nazi-style eugenics, the one aspect of genetic engineering we have all determined will never again be contemplated?
Professor Baron-Cohen says that we must debate these matters now, before even the possibility of a test becomes a reality. I have no doubt he is right. But I am far from clear which side we should be on.
Every human instinct must surely be against some form of national screening that would offer the opportunity to breed out the wild, the eccentric, the sometimes weird, crazed individualists who break free of routine constraints and offer the diversity on which we thrive. Can we afford to lose a future Einstein?
There is a deeper strain to the debate. Who is to judge where lies the dividing line between madness and norm? As Kamran Nazeer so brilliantly described in Prospect magazine last year, it is possible to convert the apparent drawbacks of autism into an ideal - to learn the art of conversation, for instance, and to become as adept at it as a “normal” member of society.
As the father of a bipolar son, whose understanding of his own condition and whose empathy with his fellow human beings far surpasses my own, I claim no superiority of intelligence when it comes to deciding who is rational and who not. So I shrink instinctively from any notion that we should be given the opportunity of discarding a future human being simply because he or she may be an inconvenience.
If that means holding back science or our knowledge of genetics, even at the expense of suffering families, I think it a price worth paying. To interfere with the natural diversity of the human race runs the risk of impeding natural selection itself. And that, in Darwin's bicentenary, would be a backward step.
Magnus Linklater
Robin was sitting in the classroom, giving me an exact account of the Russian Revolution. It was his specialist subject and he knew every date, every manoeuvre, the names of the Bolshevik leaders, and where they were when the Winter Palace was stormed. Robin was 16.
“So, what do you think of Lenin?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “I don't think anything of Lenin,” he said. Robin was autistic.
He had an extraordinary grasp of facts, meticulously arranged in his mind. He had no concept of analysis or interpretation. The idea of forming an opinion was alien to him. With that incapacity came social isolation, an inability to form friendships or any lasting relationship. He was stranded, with his brilliant but disabled mind. Bringing him up had been a constant strain for his parents.
Quite how he would fare in the wider world was not yet clear.
Robin, and thousands like him, are at the centre of an ethical debate with far-reaching consequences. Within a few years it may become possible for expectant mothers to have prenatal tests to determine if their child is likely to be autistic.
These may be genetic, to see whether the characteristics of autism have been inherited, or tests of amniotic fluid in the womb to detect high levels of testosterone that have been found to be associated with the condition - mainly in boys.
As the parents of the first British baby screened to be free of a breast cancer gene celebrate the birth of a healthy daughter, this must seem yet another miraculous step in the advance of science. For any family that has experienced the anguish of living with an autistic child, the prospect of being able to determine if another is about to be born would be invaluable. It would offer that most precious commodity - a choice.
Just as with Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis or spina bifida, a mother-to-be could decide whether she can cope with the strain of bringing up a disabled child. With an autistic child, it may mean a lifetime of rejection - living with someone unlikely ever to fit into the family, who responds with blank incomprehension to affection, whose behaviour may be erratic and disturbing, whose condition is permanent. Autism, and its associated condition, Asperger's syndrome, can range from virtual incapacity at one end of the spectrum to the merely strange at the other. To bring up one autistic child is a challenge to the sanity of an entire family. To bring up two might destroy it.
The evidence of Down's syndrome suggests that very high numbers of mothers-to-be opt for an abortion if pre-natal tests show that their child has the condition. In America it is as a high as 90 per cent. In Britain, it is not so high and may be reversing - as knowledge grows, perhaps more mothers elect to keep their babies. There is, however, a critical difference between Down's and autism, highlighted by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge. He points out that autistic males often turn out to be skilled at mathematics and engineering - some reaching near-genius level. Almost all the mathematical giants of the past have been male. He says that Newton and Einstein were almost certainly autistic, finding relationships difficult. Artists, too, have suffered from autism or Asperger's - including the blind pianist Derek Paravicini, the artist Peter Howson and, reportedly, the film director Steven Spielberg. So if we found a test for autism, and gave parents the opportunity of aborting the foetus, we might eliminate not just an unwanted and difficult child but a potential genius.
Here lies the dilemma. Should medical science offer the opportunity to eliminate a child who may turn out to be, not only a valuable member of society, but an important contributor to its future? And here lies a further twist in the moral maze. If that were the decision, what would be the justification for deciding that only the most intelligent members of society should be protected, while the less able were judged expendable. Does not that come close to Nazi-style eugenics, the one aspect of genetic engineering we have all determined will never again be contemplated?
Professor Baron-Cohen says that we must debate these matters now, before even the possibility of a test becomes a reality. I have no doubt he is right. But I am far from clear which side we should be on.
Every human instinct must surely be against some form of national screening that would offer the opportunity to breed out the wild, the eccentric, the sometimes weird, crazed individualists who break free of routine constraints and offer the diversity on which we thrive. Can we afford to lose a future Einstein?
There is a deeper strain to the debate. Who is to judge where lies the dividing line between madness and norm? As Kamran Nazeer so brilliantly described in Prospect magazine last year, it is possible to convert the apparent drawbacks of autism into an ideal - to learn the art of conversation, for instance, and to become as adept at it as a “normal” member of society.
As the father of a bipolar son, whose understanding of his own condition and whose empathy with his fellow human beings far surpasses my own, I claim no superiority of intelligence when it comes to deciding who is rational and who not. So I shrink instinctively from any notion that we should be given the opportunity of discarding a future human being simply because he or she may be an inconvenience.
If that means holding back science or our knowledge of genetics, even at the expense of suffering families, I think it a price worth paying. To interfere with the natural diversity of the human race runs the risk of impeding natural selection itself. And that, in Darwin's bicentenary, would be a backward step.
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