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 CambridgeUniversity 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 DiegoCenter 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 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.
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.
