A genius explains

Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language. Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities are the key to unlock the secrets of autism. Interview by Richard Johnson


Daniel Tammet is talking. As he talks, he studies my shirt and counts the stitches. Ever since the age of three, when he suffered an epileptic fit, Tammet has been obsessed with counting. Now he is 26, and a mathematical genius who can figure out cube roots quicker than a calculator and recall pi to 22,514 decimal places. He also happens to be autistic, which is why he can't drive a car, wire a plug, or tell right from left. He lives with extraordinary ability and disability.

Tammet is calculating 377 multiplied by 795. Actually, he isn't "calculating": there is nothing conscious about what he is doing. He arrives at the answer instantly. Since his epileptic fit, he has been able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. The number two, for instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of thunder. "When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think."

Tammet is a "savant", an individual with an astonishing, extraordinary mental ability. An estimated 10% of the autistic population - and an estimated 1% of the non-autistic population - have savant abilities, but no one knows exactly why. A number of scientists now hope that Tammet might help us to understand better. Professor Allan Snyder, from the Centre for the Mind at the Australian National University in Canberra, explains why Tammet is of particular, and international, scientific interest. "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do," says Snyder. "It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the Rosetta Stone."

There are many theories about savants. Snyder, for instance, believes that we all possess the savant's extraordinary abilities - it is just a question of us learning how to access them. "Savants have usually had some kind of brain damage. Whether it's an onset of dementia later in life, a blow to the head or, in the case of Daniel, an epileptic fit. And it's that brain damage which creates the savant. I think that it's possible for a perfectly normal person to have access to these abilities, so working with Daniel could be very instructive."

Scans of the brains of autistic savants suggest that the right hemisphere might be compensating for damage in the left hemisphere. While many savants struggle with language and comprehension (skills associated primarily with the left hemisphere), they often have amazing skills in mathematics and memory (primarily right hemisphere skills). Typically, savants have a limited vocabulary, but there is nothing limited about Tammet's vocabulary.

Tammet is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe. (He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto.) The vocabulary of his language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships between different things. The word "ema", for instance, translates as "mother", and "ela" is what a mother creates: "life". "Päike" is "sun", and "päive" is what the sun creates: "day". Tammet hopes to launch Mänti in academic circles later this year, his own personal exploration of the power of words and their inter-relationship.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) at Cambridge University, is interested in what Mänti might teach us about savant ability. "I know of other savants who also speak a lot of languages," says Baron-Cohen. "But it's rare for them to be able to reflect on how they do it - let alone create a language of their own." The ARC team has started scanning Tammet's brain to find out if there are modules (for number, for example, or for colour, or for texture) that are connected in a way that is different from most of us. "It's too early to tell, but we hope it might throw some light on why we don't all have savant abilities."

Last year Tammet broke the European record for recalling pi, the mathematical constant, to the furthest decimal point. He found it easy, he says, because he didn't even have to "think". To him, pi isn't an abstract set of digits; it's a visual story, a film projected in front of his eyes. He learnt the number forwards and backwards and, last year, spent five hours recalling it in front of an adjudicator. He wanted to prove a point. "I memorised pi to 22,514 decimal places, and I am technically disabled. I just wanted to show people that disability needn't get in the way."

Tammet is softly spoken, and shy about making eye contact, which makes him seem younger than he is. He lives on the Kent coast, but never goes near the beach - there are too many pebbles to count. The thought of a mathematical problem with no solution makes him feel uncomfortable. Trips to the supermarket are always a chore. "There's too much mental stimulus. I have to look at every shape and texture. Every price, and every arrangement of fruit and vegetables. So instead of thinking,'What cheese do I want this week?', I'm just really uncomfortable."

Tammet has never been able to work 9 to 5. It would be too difficult to fit around his daily routine. For instance, he has to drink his cups of tea at exactly the same time every day. Things have to happen in the same order: he always brushes his teeth before he has his shower. "I have tried to be more flexible, but I always end up feeling more uncomfortable. Retaining a sense of control is really important. I like to do things in my own time, and in my own style, so an office with targets and bureaucracy just wouldn't work."

Instead, he has set up a business on his own, at home, writing email courses in language learning, numeracy and literacy for private clients. It has had the fringe benefit of keeping human interaction to a minimum. It also gives him time to work on the verb structures of Mänti.

Few people on the streets have recognised Tammet since his pi record attempt. But, when a documentary about his life is broadcast on Channel 5 later this year, all that will change. "The highlight of filming was to meet Kim Peek, the real-life character who inspired the film Rain Man. Before I watched Rain Man, I was frightened. As a nine-year-old schoolboy, you don't want people to point at the screen and say, 'That's you.' But I watched it, and felt a real connection. Getting to meet the real-life Rain Man was inspirational."

Peek was shy and introspective, but he sat and held Tammet's hand for hours. "We shared so much - our love of key dates from history, for instance. And our love of books. As a child, I regularly took over a room in the house and started my own lending library. I would separate out fiction and non-fiction, and then alphabetise them all. I even introduced a ticketing system. I love books so much. I've read more books than anyone else I know. So I was delighted when Kim wanted to meet in a library." Peek can read two pages simultaneously, one with each eye. He can also recall, in exact detail, the 7,600 books he has read. When he is at home in Utah, he spends afternoons at the Salt Lake City public library, memorising phone books and address directories."He is such a lovely man," says Tammet. "Kim says, 'You don't have to be handicapped to be different - everybody's different'. And he's right."

Like Peek, Tammet will read anything and everything, but his favourite book is a good dictionary, or the works of GK Chesterton. "With all those aphorisms," he says, "Chesterton was the Groucho Marx of his day." Tammet is also a Christian, and likes the fact that Chesterton addressed some complex religious ideas. "The other thing I like is that, judging by the descriptions of his home life, I reckon Chesterton was a savant. He couldn't dress himself, and would always forget where he was going. His poor wife."

Autistic savants have displayed a wide range of talents, from reciting all nine volumes of Grove's Dictionary Of Music to measuring exact distances with the naked eye. The blind American savant Leslie Lemke played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No1, after he heard it for the first time, and he never had so much as a piano lesson. And the British savant Stephen Wiltshire was able to draw a highly accurate map of the London skyline from memory after a single helicopter trip over the city. Even so, Tammet could still turn out to be the more significant.

He was born on January 31 1979. He smiles as he points out that 31, 19, 79 and 1979 are all prime numbers - it's a kind of sign. He was actually born with another surname, which he prefers to keep private, but decided to change it by deed poll. It didn't fit with the way he saw himself. "I first saw 'Tammet' online. It means oak tree in Estonian, and I liked that association. Besides, I've always had a love of Estonian. Such a vowel rich language."

As a baby, he banged his head against the wall and cried constantly. Nobody knew what was wrong. His mother was anxious, and would swing him to sleep in a blanket. She breastfed him for two years. The only thing the doctors could say was that perhaps he was understimulated. Then, one afternoon when he was playing with his brother in the living room, he had an epileptic fit.

"I was given medication - round blue tablets - to control my seizures, and told not to go out in direct sunlight. I had to visit the hospital every month for regular blood tests. I hated those tests, but I knew they were necessary. To make up for it, my father would always buy me a cup of squash to drink while we sat in the waiting room. It was a worrying time because my Dad's father had epilepsy, and actually died of it, in the end. They were thinking, 'This is the end of Daniel's life'."

Tammet's mother was a secretarial assistant, and his father a steelplate worker. "They both left school without qualifications, but they made us feel special - all nine of us. As the oldest of nine, I suppose it's fair to say I've always felt special." Even if his younger brothers and sisters could throw and catch better than him, swim better, kick a ball better, Daniel was always the oldest. "They loved me because I was their big brother and I could read them stories."

He remembers being given a Ladybird book called Counting when he was four. "When I looked at the numbers I 'saw' images. It felt like a place I could go where I really belonged. That was great. I went to this other country whenever I could. I would sit on the floor in my bedroom and just count. I didn't notice that time was passing. It was only when my Mum shouted up for dinner, or someone knocked at my door, that I would snap out of it."

One day his brother asked him a sum. "He asked me to multiply something in my head - like 'What is 82 x 82 x 82 x 82?' I just looked at the floor and closed my eyes. My back went very straight and I made my hands into fists. But after five or 10 seconds, the answer just flowed out of my mouth. He asked me several others, and I got every one right. My parents didn't seem surprised. And they never put pressure on me to perform for the neighbours. They knew I was different, but wanted me to have a normal life as far as possible."

Tammet could see the car park of his infant school from his bedroom window, which made him feel safe. "I loved assembly because we got to sing hymns. The notes formed a pattern in my head, just like the numbers did." The other children didn't know what to make of him, and would tease him. The minute the bell went for playtime he would rush off. "I went to the playground, but not to play. The place was surrounded by trees. While the other children were playing football, I would just stand and count the leaves."

As Tammet grew older, he developed an obsessive need to collect - everything from conkers to newspapers. "I remember seeing a ladybird for the first time," he says. "I loved it so much, I went round searching every hedge and every leaf for more. I collected hundreds, and took them to show the teacher. He was amazed, and asked me to get on with some assignment. While I was busy he instructed a classmate to take the tub outside and let the ladybirds go. I was so upset that I cried when I found out. He didn't understand my world."

Tammet may have been teased at school, but his teachers were always protective. "I think my parents must have had a word with them, so I was pretty much left alone." He found it hard to socialise with anyone outside the family, and, with the advent of adolesence, his shyness got worse.

After leaving school with three A-levels (History, French and German, all grade Bs), he decided he wanted to teach - only not the predictable, learn-by-rote type of teaching. For a start, he went to teach in Lithuania, and he worked as a volunteer. "Because I was there of my own free will, I was given a lot of leeway. The times of the classes weren't set in stone, and the structures were all of my own making. It was also the first time I was introduced as 'Daniel' rather than 'the guy who can do weird stuff in his head'. It was such a pleasant relief." Later, he returned home to live with his parents, and found work as a maths tutor.

He met the great love of his life, a software engineer called Neil, online. It began, as these things do, with emailed pictures, but ended up with a face-to-face meeting. "Because I can't drive, Neil offered to pick me up at my parents' house, and drive me back to his house in Kent. He was silent all the way back. I thought, 'Oh dear, this isn't going well'. Just before we got to his house, he stopped the car. He reached over and pulled out a bouquet of flowers. I only found out later that he was quiet because he likes to concentrate when he's driving."

Neil is shy, like Tammet. They live, happily, on a quiet cul-de-sac. The only aspect of Tammet's autism that causes them problems is his lack of empathy. "There's a saying in Judaism, if somebody has a relative who has hanged themselves, don't ask them where you should hang your coat. I need to remember that. Like the time I kept quizzing a friend of Neil's who had just lost her mother. I was asking her all these questions about faith and death. But that's down to my condition - no taboos."

When he isn't working, Tammet likes to hang out with his friends on the church quiz team. His knowledge of popular culture lets him down, but he's a shoo-in when it comes to the maths questions. "I do love numbers," he says. "It isn't only an intellectual or aloof thing that I do. I really feel that there is an emotional attachment, a caring for numbers. I think this is a human thing - in the same way that a poet humanises a river or a tree through metaphor, my world gives me a sense of numbers as personal. It sounds silly, but numbers are my friends."

Stephen Wiltshire The Human Camera;Autistic Savant

Stephen Wiltshire was born in London to West Indian parents on 24th April, 1974. His mother, Geneva Wiltshire had come from St Lucia and his father, Colvin, from Barbados. Colvin was killed in a motorcycle accident when Stephen was three years of age. His sister, Annette, is two years older than her brother. He lives with his mother in West London.

As a child, Stephen was mute and did not relate to other human beings. Aged three, he was diagnosed as autistic. He had no language, uncontrolled tantrums and lived entirely in his own world.

At the age of five, Stephen was sent to Queensmill School in London, a school for children with special needs, where it was noticed that the only pastime he enjoyed was drawing. It soon became apparent he communicated with the world through the language of drawing; first animals, then London buses, and finally buildings. These drawings show a masterful perspective, a whimsical line and reveal a natural innate artistry.

Aged eight, Stephen started drawing cityscapes after the effects of an earthquake (all imaginary) as a result of being shown photographs of earthquakes in a book at school. He also became obsessed with cars and illustrations of cars at this time (his knowledge of them is encyclopaedic) and he drew most of the major London landmarks.

The teachers at Queensmill School encouraged him to speak by temporarily taking away his art supplies so that he would be forced to ask for them. Stephen responded by making sounds and eventually uttered his first word - "paper." He learned to speak fully at the age of nine.

In 1987, the BBC QED programme, 'The Foolish Wise Ones', featured Stephen's astounding talent. The programme was devoted to three autistic savants: musical, mathematical and artistic. Stephen was introduced by Sir Hugh Casson (past president of the Royal Academy), who described him as "the best child artist in Britain". Stephen's work has since been the subject of numerous television programmes around the world, and the writer and psychologist, Oliver Sacks, has devoted an essay to Stephen in his book An Anthropologist On Mars (Picador 1995). Stephen is the only artistic autistic savant in the world whose work has been recorded and published since his childhood. His third book - Floating Cities (Michael Joseph, 1991) - was number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Meanwhile, Stephen's artworks were being exhibited frequently in venues all over the world. In 2001 he appeared in another BBC documentary, Fragments of Genius, for which he was filmed flying over London aboard a helicopter and subsequently completing a detailed and perfectly scaled aerial illustration of a four-square-mile area within three hours; his drawing included 12 historic landmarks and 200 other structures.

In October and November 2003, thousands flocked to the Orleans House gallery in Twickenham near London, England, to see the first major retrospective of Stephen's work. The exhibition covered the 20-year period, from 1983 to 2003, and comprised 150 examples of Stephen's drawings, paintings and prints.

In May 2005 following a short helicopter ride over Tokyo he drew a stunningly detailed panoramic view of the city on a 10-meter-long canvas. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid and London on giant canvasses.

In January 2006 it was announced that Stephen was being named by Queen Elizabeth II as a Member of the Order of the British Empire, in recognition of his services to the art world. (No specific mention of his disability was made in the citation) Later that year he opened his permanent gallery at the Royal Opera Arcade, London.



This is Stephen Wiltshire's website..http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/drawings.aspx

Autistic Artist Quickly Creates Perfect Replications of Panoramic Landscapes

Person of the Week: Stephen Wiltshire

By NICK WATT ABC NEWS


People tell artist Stephen Wiltshire that his work is brilliant. Today, he is drawing a panoramic view of Madrid in painstaking detail, penned entirely from memory after a 30-minute helicopter ride across the city.


Memorizing minute details is easy for him. Verbal communication is not. Wiltshire is autistic, and his first words came when he was 5 years old. "I said, I want paper," he recalled. "Please, can I have a paper, please, to draw?"

ABC News visited the London gallery where Wiltshire's cityscapes sell for thousands of dollars.

He drew St. Mark's Square, in Venice, and Los Angeles from memory. He also recreated four square miles of London — that's 200 buildings. The scale and perspective of his work is perfect.

"I think it's easy," he said. "My favorite is that New York subway passing ... from the New York skyline."

Wiltshire has only visited New York City three times, yet remembers it vividly. The buildings, the cabs and the lights on Broadway.

"New York is my favorite city," Wiltshire said.

At age 12, he was featured in a BBC documentary "Fragments of Genius," in which he drew an ornate London train station from memory. Fame followed, as did trips overseas, adulation and disbelief.

ABC News gave Wiltshire a relatively easy task: 10 minutes at Piccadilly Circus. Then, he was asked to draw it from memory. It took him just a little over an hour.

"There we have it," he said. "It's done now."

The result? Practically perfect.

Derek Paravicini - A Talent and Love for Music

Derek, now in his early twenties, was born premature, at 25 weeks, and weighing just over half a kilogram. As a result of the oxygen therapy required to save his life, Derek lost his sight, and his development was affected too. It later became apparent that he had severe learning difficulties. However, he soon acquired a fascination for music and sound, and, by the age of four, had taught himself to play a large number of pieces on the piano, of some melodic and harmonic complexity (such as 'Smoke Gets in your Eyes'). Almost inevitably, with no visual models to guide him, his technique was chaotic, and he his elbows would frequently be pressed into service, as he strove to reach intervals beyond the span of his tiny hands!

At this time, his enormous potential was recognised by Adam Ockelford, then music teacher at Linden Lodge School for the Blind in London. In due course, weekly and then daily lessons were arranged, in an extensive programme of tuition that was to last for several years. Painstakingly (though physical demonstration and imitation) Derek acquired the foundations of technique that were necessary for him to move forward. His natural affinity for jazz, pop and light music soon became evident; together with his improvisatory talents, ability to play in any key, and flair for performing in public!

Derek's first major concert was at the Barbican Halls in London, when he was just 9 (in 1989). He played jazz with the Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra. Numerous national and regional television appearances followed, in the UK and overseas. His increasing maturity both as a person and performer enabled him to give concerts in venues across England and in Europe; among them, Ronnie Scott's renowned jazz club in London.

Today, Derek is a student at Redhill College in Surrey, England, run by the Royal National Institute of the Blind. He attends courses at 'SoundScape' — a unique performing arts centre for young adults with learning difficulties and exceptional musical abilities or needs. His talent, love of music, and — above all — the ability to communicate through sound means he will continue to thrill audiences for years to come in the UK and abroad. Doctor Ockelford can be reached at Adam.


Derek Paravicini now has his own Web site. The site gives more biographical information about Derek along with a summary of his recent concert appearances and media productions about him. Both a CD of his works and a book about him will be released later this year.

His Web site is www.derekparavicini.net

Autistic Children Show Outstanding Musical Skills

Specialist individual music lessons could hugely benefit children with autism, according to researchers Dr Pamela Heaton and Dr Francesca Happe at the University of London.


The study, which was funded by ESRC, suggests that many children with this disorder have outstanding abilities in tone recognition. "A lot of work has been done on musical savants with exceptional musical memory and rarely found absolute pitch ability" says Dr Pamela Heaton who led the research. "But our research shows that even children without these special talents and no musical training can have highly developed musical 'splinter skills'. If we could develop effective non-verbal music teaching methods, we might be able to understand more about the way these children learn and process other information." A series of music workshops in which children with autism will be taught to read musical notation are currently being planned.

The research compared the skills of six to 19 year old individuals with autism, and a control group with matching age, IQ and level of musical background, on a series of tasks into tone memory and discrimination. Using a touch-screen laptop computer, they were asked to identify musical notes by moving the image of a boy up and down a flight of stairs.

Although the children with autism had the communication difficulties associated with this disorder, a sub-group of them produced exceptional results. In one of the tests four children from the autism group achieved a score of 89 per cent compared to an average score of 30 per cent. "These findings were surprising, especially given that two of these children had intellectual impairment and none had experienced musical training. Autistic children can be highly analytical listeners and are able to access musical details more readily than typically developing children," says Pamela Heaton, who worked as a musician before gaining a doctorate in psychology".

Tito Writings

"One day I dream that we can grow in a matured society where nobody would be 'normal or abnormal' but just human beings, accepting any other human being- ready to grow together."


- Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay, in The Mind Tree, Arcade Publishing, 2003© National Autistic Society


Once in a great while, a special person emerges in the history of science and medicine whose unique set of characteristics sheds light on an entire disorder and sometimes even on the mysteries of the human brain. Tito is such a person. Although he has severe autism and is nearly nonverbal, his ability to communicate through his extraordinary writing is astonishing.

Tito communicates eloquently through his writing and he has gained national recognition for his poetry. He has published his book of memoirs and poems, and plans to pursue a career as a professional writer.


Early Writings


The Mind Tree


(from the Mind Tree, Arcade Publishing, 2003, National Autistic Society)


Maybe it is night
Maybe it is day
I can?t be sure
Because I?m not yet feeling the heat of the sun
I am the mind tree
When I had been gifted this mind of mine
I recall his voice very clearly
To you I have given this mind
And you shall be the only kind
No one ever will like you be
And I name you the mind tree
I can?t see or talk
Yet I can imagine
I can hope and I can expect
I am able to feel pain but I cannot cry
So I just be and wait for the pain to subside
I can do nothing but wait
My concerns and worries
Are trapped within me somewhere in my depths
Maybe in my roots
Maybe in my bark
When he comes next who gifted me my mind
I shall ask him for the gift of sight
I doubt his return and
Yet hope for it
Maybe he will
Maybe he will not


Poem 1 listen to this poem


(from "Tito's Story", a video documentary by the BBC, April 2000)


Men and women are puzzled by everything I do
Doctors use different terminologies to describe me
I just wonder
The thoughts are bigger than I can express
Every move that I make shows how trapped I feel
Under the continuous flow of happenings
The effect of a cause becomes the cause of another effect
And I wonder
I think about the times when I change the environment around me
With the help of my imagination
I can go places that do not exist
And they are like beautiful dreams.
But it is a world full of improbabilities
Racing toward uncertainty


Poem 4 listen to this poem

(from "Tito's Story", a video documentary by the BBC, April 2000)
When you are trying to think blue
And end up thinking black
You can be sure to be frustrated
Time and again it happens to me
And I get quite helpless
Otherwise why should I get up and spin myself
Spinning my body
Brings some sort of harmony to my thoughts
So that I can centrifuge away all of the black thoughts
I realise that the faster I spin
The faster I drive away the black
When I am sure that even the last speck of black
Has gone away from me
Then I spin back in the opposite direction
And pull the blue thoughts into myself
It depends on how much blue I want
If I want more blue I have to spin faster
Otherwise not so fast
It's just like being a fan
The trouble is when I stop spinning
My body scatters
And it's so difficult to collect it together again


Recent writings


The Door Hinge


I was playing with the door hinge since early noon today. I knew nothing could stop me from playing.
They had all given up trying. They had requested me at first and then they had tried to pull me out.
Nothing stopped me.
Not even the two pm strike of the clock.
Not even the rain.


It had started raining since noon. The window brought in all that cool air that had been waiting to come in, and all the damp smell of wet earth inside the room. I am sure the hinge on the door with which I was playing could smell it too.


It never tells me anything. But I somehow know that it can sense every thing I sense.
It sensed the orange colour spreading with the two pm strike of clock as it filled up the room.


Every time the clock strikes two, both of us get prepared.
We get prepared for the orange light to come to us from the clock. The orange light joins us in our secret game.


The door hinge senses the gradual spreading of the orange colour through the mirror till every thing in the room is coloured with orange.
The green frame of the mirror gets the orange colour before any thing else. After that, the white walls begin to turn orange. Only then can the window and everything outside the window get to colour themselves with orange. Every one needs to wait for our turns to be coloured with orange light.



The door hinge can understand everything.
But now the door hinge was sticky.
The door hinge becomes sort of sticky whenever it knows that it is raining. I doubt whether it really likes the rain. It is fond of the wind. I can just guess that.
I have seen it slamming with joy when there is wind.


I guess that the door hinge tried to gather the orange colour of the two pm afternoon although the damp air prevented the colour from diffusing it completely because the grey colour of the rain was too strong for the orange to spread evenly as it does every day.


I saw the colours trying to gain strength. Sometimes it seemed as though the grey would empower the orange.


The war grew in width and depth inside my room and outside the window. I felt my breaths inhaling and exhaling the colours and felt the battle within me.
I knew the door hinge was getting alarmed.
I heard it creek. It was trying to warn the clock about the colour battle.
I had banged the door hard for my part so that the out side grey of the rain could be warned. I wanted to shout. But I could only shout through the slam of the door.


The colours had understood the cause.
They stopped their little war.
I saw the rain drops getting coloured with orange.
The door hinge had stopped the creek.

Thristan "Tum-Tum" Mendoza - A Child Prodigy Marimbist With Autism from the Philippines

By Darold Treffert, MD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thristan Mendoza, or "Tum-Tum" as he is fondly called, is an internationally-recognized marimba virtuoso. He was diagnosed with autism at age 2 1/2. With inborn perfect pitch, he learned to play the marimba at age 5. Born in 1989 in Quezon City, Philippines, he is now a 6th grader in the regular curriculum at a traditional school, the O.B. Montessori Center. He also did excel in the Japanese Kumon method of mathematics but had to be withdrawn from Kumon to shift his concentration to other subjects as he was far ahead of his other classmates in his math abilities.

Tum-Tum has earned numerous national and international awards for his prodigious musical ability with the marimba. In 1997 the University of the Philippines, through its President's Committee on Culture and the Arts, presented him as a gifted child prodigy, the youngest ever featured so far and still the only special child. He is the only 2-time grand prize awardee of the McDonalds Philippines Makabata Award and in two different categories. In May of 2000 he received the Millennium Dreamer's Award given by the Walt Disney Company, McDonalds Corporation and the UNESCO in Orlando. Florida to honor children from 8-15 years of age from around the world who have made a positive impact in their respective communities by providing an inspiration to youth. In March, 2001 Very Special Arts presented Tum-Tum with the Rosemary Kennedy International Young Soloist Award and he was invited to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

One news account describes Tum-Tum as having "been born with a pair of sticks in his hands." Another commented "music paved the way for him to break free of his shell." The editor of Mother's Magazine, Ms. Gigi Padilla, described her thoughts thus: "When I first heard Tum Tum Mendoza play his marimba, time stood still. All my thoughts stopped and he just absorbed my attention completely. I marveled at how this child, whose parents were told not to expect anything from him, has now accomplished much more than any of us have."

Since he could already read and write, Tum-Tum was enrolled at the Philippine Montessori center at age 2 1/2. However because he was not mingling with the other children but would only play by himself, with no eye contact, and also showed significant hyperactivity, the school suggested a psychological assessment and a diagnosis of autism was made. His mother recalls: "The signs suddenly fell into place. He hated video lights and any form of the shade of red. He could not tolerate the sound of electric drills and food grinders. A loner, he needed a lot of prodding before he would play or interact with others. He did not like looking at the mirror, saying he was too shy to do so. He uttered certain words again and again." Also noted was a fascination with spinning objects such as electric fans and bicycle wheels.

The same year as he was diagnosed with autism, Tum Tum made his first musical appearance playing three different musical instruments — drums, cymbals and temple block — all at the same time. He later performed as a lead musician with the metalophone as his instrument during a World Youth Day celebration. He then took up the marimba and, after only four months, was a special guest artist of the Philippine Madrigal Singers in a concert on the main stage of the Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. By age 10 he was a veteran of 120 shows with intrumentalist/composers, percussion virtuosos and harpists from around the world.

At the O.B. Montessori Center in the Philippines, Tum Tum is a consistent honor student. Psychological testing shows a Verbal IQ in the average (100-110) range with performance IQ in the high average to Superior range (118-131). This discrepancy between verbal and performance scores shows best abilities on tasks that do not rely on verbal elaboration of concepts or percepts. Academic Achievement for highly structured tasks such as spelling and math range from the Junior to Senior High School level; reading skills are at about grade level. Language deficits in terms of language processing remain. Social skills are the main deficit. The most recent evaluation applies a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder.


Tum-Tum is looking forward to the release of his first CD/cassette album soon. Proceeds from the album will be donated to a special educational fund of the Autism Society of the Philippines for the benefit of indigent families who cannot afford educational intervention and other therapies for their special children. Using his remarkable musical talent, Tum-Tum, with the effort, support and encouragement of his dedicated, and grateful family, has done much to raise awareness about autism in the Philippines, and now internationally, donating countless hours to fund raising activities for the Autism Society of the Philippines and other organizations for the handicapped.

As with other prodigious savants, Tum-Tum's extraordinary ability has served as a conduit toward normalization for him through the unique, flexible and innovative educational approach used in conjunction with the other therapies provided him as well. There have been continuous gains in language and social skills. Meanwhile his special musical gifts have not diminished. They continue to grow and excel. There has been no trade off of special skills for gains in other areas of daily functioning. Instead, both have prospered.

Thristen Mendoza's remarkable progress raises important questions that other prodigious savants present as well. What is the best educational approach for these special persons? Should the artificial distinction be maintained, as it is in some programs, between the "gifted and talented" non-disabled children and the "disabled gifted", such as the savant? Is it possible, and what benefits accrue, to both specially gifted groups when they are combined, rather than separated, in the classroom setting? Tum Tum is a sparkling example of the benefits of "mainstreaming" him, as it were, in a group of other gifted and talented children without artificially separating the disabled from the non-disabled. His special musical talent cuts across and through any such 'disability' boundaries to the benefit not only of Tum Tum, but to the benefit of his classmates and the rest of us as well. Tum Tum's experience and growth challenges us to look closely at these vital educational questions for the savant without the typical stereotypes, classifications and categories that have been too arbitrary, too limiting and too confining. That reevaluation is underway in a number of centers and locales.

Meanwhile Tum Tum Mendoza shares his remarkable musical gift with the whole world, literally, around him. Additional information about Tum Tum is available through his parents, Belina and Victor Mendoza, who can be contacted at vlm143@i-manila.com.ph.

Living with Asperger's

For a 10-year-old, Jake Hayes is very clear about what he wants to be when he grows up.

"I want to be a paleontologist for a museum," said Jake, whose room does not hide his fascination.


Shelves are covered with prehistoric creatures, mystical dragons and Godzilla, which Jake explains is a mutated reptile. Where there aren't creatures, there are books.

But Jake's not going to work in anybody's museum — he'll work in his own.

That Jake knows he wants to work for himself is just a tiny hint of his disorder. There were others when he was growing up that, when strung together, began to spell out Asperger's syndrome.

"Even when he was a baby, he would sit alone and play contently by himself," Colleen LaBorde, said of her son who was diagnosed with Asperger's at age 5. "He didn't have any marked developmental delays; his gross motor was a little delayed, but there was nothing that would set us off."

Asperger's syndrome is one of the autism spectrum disorders. Children with Asperger's typically have normal or above-normal IQs but struggle with social aspects of language and nonverbal communication, according to diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

The disorder is also marked by intense preoccupation around one or more patterns of interest.

That was evident very early on with Jake.

"When he was about 3, he memorized his favorite dinosaur book almost verbatim. He'd have sentences memorized before he knew what the words meant," LaBorde said. "If you asked him a question about a dinosaur, he could tell you these amazing facts."

In preschool, other characteristics became more pronounced.

"The teacher was worried because he would ask for the dinosaur book and go sit in a corner by himself," LaBorde said.

In kindergarten, the behavior got worse. Her son was ritualistic, protective of his toys and obsessive about certain things.

"He won't wear anything with a hole in it, not even a sock. I was at the school every day because of his behavior. He wouldn't sit still, and he'd poke himself and other students."

Every possible reason for his behavior — cerebral palsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, among others — was offered up.

Nobody mentioned it might be autism until a Caddo school occupational therapist saw Jake.

"A therapist and my pediatrician thought the idea was absurd," LaBorde said. "I finally got a diagnosis from a pediatric neurologist."

She had to clear another hurdle when she began looking for resources.

"Nobody I went to knew enough about Asperger's to help. I was ready to leave the area to look for help when I found The Center for Therapy in Shreveport," said LaBorde. "That's made the biggest difference. It's really helped our family with so much more understanding (of the disorder.)"

Frustration has been turned into knowledge to help Jake work through the areas of life with which he has trouble. For example, he struggles with math, and his ability to focus can be a problem.

It's also difficult for Jake to understand what's appropriate behavior in social situations.

"You also have to be very literal when you talk to him," LaBorde said. "He doesn't understand sarcasm or little white lies."

She knows that with Jake's seemingly brilliant mind, he could have gone even longer without a diagnosis. That scares her, not only for her son, but for other families who might be seeking answers.

"If you catch it early, you can do a lot to help them improve their life," LaBorde said. "But there needs to be more trained professionals in the school system (who) can catch these children, because that's where it shows up."

Derek Paravicini The Musical Genius

Derek, now in his mid twenties, was born premature, at 25 weeks, and weighing just over half a kilogram. As a result of the oxygen therapy required to save his life, Derek lost his sight, and his development was affected too. It later became apparent that he had severe learning difficulties. However, he soon acquired a fascination for music and sound, and, by the age of four, had taught himself to play a large number of pieces on the piano, of some melodic and harmonic complexity (such as 'Smoke Gets in your Eyes'). Almost inevitably, with no visual models to guide him, his technique was chaotic, and even his elbows would frequently be pressed into service, as he strove to reach intervals beyond the span of his tiny hands!


At this time, his enormous potential was recognised by Adam Ockelford, then music teacher at Linden Lodge School for the Blind in London. In due course, weekly and then daily lessons were arranged, in an extensive programme of tuition that was to last for several years. Painstakingly (through physical demonstration and imitation) Derek acquired the foundations of technique that were necessary for him to move forward. His natural affinity for jazz, pop and light music soon became evident; together with his improvisatory talents, ability to play in any key, and flair for performing in public!


Derek's first major concert was at the Barbican Halls in London, when he was just 9 (in 1989). He played jazz with the Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra. Numerous national and regional television appearances followed, in the UK and overseas. His increasing maturity both as a person and performer enabled him to give concerts in venues across England and in Europe; among them, Ronnie Scott's renowned jazz club in London.


Today, Derek is a student at Redhill College in Surrey, England, run by the Royal National Institute of the Blind. He attends courses at 'SoundScape' - a unique performing arts centre for young adults with learning difficulties and exceptional musical abilities or needs. His talent, love of music, and - above all - the ability to communicate through sound means he will continue to thrill audiences for years to come in the UK and abroad.

Finding Your Inner Genius

Experiment Tries to Tap Brain's 'Savant' Qualities

Is this going to fry my brain?

That was one of the first questions I had for Dr. Allan Snyder when I visited his lab at the University of Sydney in Australia. I had gone there to participate in an experiment with mind-numbing potential. Literally.

Snyder peered over the circular lenses of his glasses and smiled. "In Australia we have very strong mental health guards before we're allowed to do this on anybody," he said. "And … I don't want to hurt you at all."

Tapping Into Genius-Like Abilities

In fact, I felt pretty safe knowing that Snyder himself and dozens of volunteers, including the famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, had gone through the same procedure — having magnetic pulses fired into targeted areas of their brains in an experiment designed to tap into the genius — like abilities that savants possess in art, music, and math.

The experiment actually inhibits some brain activity to afford — in its premise, at least — heightened access to the parts of our brains that collect raw information before the data is filtered into concepts.

"We have these severely brain-impaired people who are performing what seems ostensibly to be a miracle," Synder said, referring to the extraordinary powers displayed by savants who otherwise have difficulting coping with everyday life. "It must be something that's in us all, and we can't access. They can."

Amid the Gothic architecture of the University of Sydney in Australia, Snyder directs a place called The Centre for the Mind. Even in winter, the slightly-built American-born scientist begins each day with an Olympic-sized swim to get his own brain working, and he is a bit of an eccentric — some say a wizard.
But he has master's degrees from Harvard and M.I.T.; a Ph.D. from University College in London; is a winner of the prestigious Marconi International prize; and also has been named one of Australia's 10 most creative minds.

Before I underwent the experiment myself, I had some basic questions — especially, "How can a person heighten certain skills by by suppressing some brain activity instead of increasing it?" The simple answer to that is, our brains are always filtering information. Snyder wants to suppress that filtering process, so we can see things in a kind of raw state — as autistic savants do.

I've reported many stories where I witnessed the types of feats that Snyder is studying. In 1993, I met Kim Peek, a savant who was diagnosed as retarded, not autistic. Kim was one of the models for the savant that Dustin Hoffman played in the movie Rain Man. Despite an IQ measured at 69 and an inability to dress himself, he has read and remembered encyclopedic details and can execute astounding calculations in his head.

"Thursday," he replied instantly. "And this year it's Monday and you retire in 2010, likewise on a Monday."

Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant I met in 1991, became world famous for his books of architectural illustrations, even though he was walled off emotionally by his autism and had no conceptual appreciation of the buildings he could draw-accurately and beautifully — from memory.

"If I was born November 1, 1945, what day of the week was that?" a woman asked him in a group we were taping.

Savants' 'Hyper-Literal' Worldview

Here's the difference. We might appreciate a great architectural work as a masterpiece of human achievement, functioning, for example, as a center for art or commerce. To an autistic savant, Snyder says, the same building is essentially a collection of components and objects — raw data with no particular meaning.

"These are people who are hyper-literal," Snyder said. "They see the world, they see the shading, they see the details in this world that we bypass and we're never aware of. But of course, they pay often a heavy price for that. They don't have the concepts.

They don't have the meaning."

The question that Snyder studies is: can we unlock that same potential in our own brains without paying the price?

To conduct his experiments, he uses a technique called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS.

"I'm using artificial means, in this case magnetic pulses to create virtual lesions — artificial brain damage — in a way that I can switch it on and off and have you display savant skills," Snyder said.

The "artifical" damage isn't permanent. Snyder's technique has been safely applied medically to treat depression and schizophrenia by using the pulses to temporarily suppress activity in some areas of the brain.

Hindered by Our Own ‘Expertise’

My brain, typically, has developed prejudices of which I'm not aware, Snyder told me as we entered the small room where he conducts his experiments.

"You're blinded by your expertise. You know, you do something. It's routine. You have a way of thinking about something, and yet you've forgotten why. In a sense, we're very prejudiced."
To illustrate his point, Snyder directed me to read lines that came across the screen like flash cards.

I thought I was reading the lines perfectly. After all, that's part of my training as a broadcast reporter. But I was completely unaware of the detail that I was omitting.

In a number of the sentences, Snyder added additional words. For instance, there were two "the's" in the card that read: "When in Rome do as the the Romans do."

I never even registered the second "the," or the additional words that were planted on the other flash cards. My mind identified a familiar concept — in this case, a cliché — and filtered out what didn't fit.

That's one way in which our brains process information.

"Our awareness seems to be that of an executive," Snyder said. "We get the executive statement, the executive summary. We don't get the back room deliberations."

A savant like Kim Peek may not have understood the meaning of the cliché, but he probably would not have missed the extra words I overlooked because of the literal way in which he absorbs information. Psychiatrist Daniel Christensen of Salt Lake City showed me that one possible reason for the manner in which Kim retains detail is that Kim's brain is lacking an important tissue bridge called the corpus callosum, which links the right and left hemispheres of the brain. One of the functions of the corpus callosum is to filter raw information. Kim, it is estimated, retains 95 per cent of the raw information he reads in one sitting.

Improving Our Ability to Look at Raw Data

With his experiment, Snyder wanted to improve my ability to look at the raw data. When Snyder's assistant marked a target with a pen on my blue skullcap, it was used to aim the magnetic pulses at the left fronto-temporal lobe of my brain, where (among many other things) I form concepts.

Would I be able to identify raw details more clearly — or reproduce the photos he showed me with more accurate drawings — when it was over?

Synder says about 40 percent of his volunteer subjects show pronounced effects. "They say they're much more aware of the details around the room. One person said that he had never before wanted to write, but suddenly he now wants to write compositions. In other words he was able to see the world in a kind of descriptive way."

I didn't become a da Vinci, but I did produce typical and interesting results. When I drew a dog before the experiment, I used the same techniques I learned in elementary school — assembling patterns of circles and ovals to represent the body and its parts.

After the pulses, I drew a dog in free-form style, imposing a better sense of motion on the figure. I started by drawing tufts on its back and tail — not the outline patterns I had been taught — but I was unaware until I looked at the videotapes that I had changed my method.
When Snyder published the results of his long-term experiments (in the Journal of Integrative Neuroscience), he reported that that was how many of the participants had responded. Compared to the "before" drawings, the "after" drawings — following 10, and then 15 minutes of pulses — showed stylistic changes that sometimes were radically different.

"I think this is the best indicator of how people break away from their mindset," Snyder said.

Skeptics say this could simply be the result of practice or repetition — even with savants.

Snyder cites case studies where sudden brain damage has resulted in unusual change.

"There's another person we've worked with who got hit on the head with a baseball when he was 9 years old," Snyder said. "He became very quickly … a calendar calculator." (He was instantly able to associate days of the week with specific calendar dates). "How can this be due to practice?"

Snyder also cites a landmark study by Bruce Miller, now of the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Miller found that some patients began having extraordinary creative impulses even as some areas of their brains were deteriorating because of disease. The areas that showed damage in brain scans controlled language and behavior — where we label things. And as those areas were disabled, the creative side of the brain — including the frontal temporal lobes — gained more influence.

The condition is called frontotemporal dementia, and through Miller, I met one of its victims, Jack Friedman. As the damage to his brain progressed, Friedman changed from a conservative businessman to a free-spirited artist whose whimsical works sold for hundred of dollars each at California galleries. At the same time, his ability to function in everyday life declined drastically.
Freeing Artistic Talents?

Another journalist who participated in Snyder's experiment reported showing much more improvement than I did in his drawing skills. Describing his progress in drawing cats, New York Times reporter Lawrence Osborne wrote, "I could hardly recognize them as my own drawings?Somehow I had gone from an incompetent draftsman to a very impressive artist."

When asked what benefits may be possible from his studies, Snyder replied, "I don't want to be able to draw like a savant. But what I would like to do is see the world just for a moment the way it really is. I'd like to be able to switch off the mind sets, switch off the prejudices if you like … make new connections.

"Humans are very good at concepts. They're very bad at seeing the world in a new light. If I can switch off the part of your mind that has that mind set … and allow you to just momentarily to look at the world in a new light, then you might see a different way to connect the dots."

I was disappointed that I didn't even approach that type of creative enhancement, but the experiment did change the way I think about things. What you come away with is a lesson in perception — the idea that your brain can deceive you, or hide things from you, or make you see things as you expect to see them, not as they are.

Autistic Boy is a Human IPod

An autistic boy who is blind and can barely speak has earned the nickname the 'human iPod' because of his piano playing abilities.

Derek Paravicini began playing the piano when he was two and started performing at the age of four, demonstrating his extraordinary ability to hear, remember and play all the music he encounters.

"For Derek music isn't just a hobby, it's a lifeline - it's his way of communicating with the world, of interrelating with other people and above all of making them happy" - Adam Ockleford
His mentor is Adam Ockleford, who said: "Derek and I first met when he was little - he was about four and a half. He just broke away from his parents and pushed a little girl off the piano and played Don't Cry For Me Argentina."

Born three months premature and weighing just one and a half pounds. Derek grew up blind and severely autistic, but these disabilities have probably led to his musical gift.

"We think that because he can't see and doesn't understand a lot of what is going on, other parts of his brain have got used for making music - so he's got a sort of musical factory up there," Mr Ockleford said.

He continued: "For Derek music isn't just a hobby, it's a lifeline - it's his way of communicating with the world, of interrelating with other people and above all of making them happy. He likes to make people happy and he knows he can do that through his music."

Alonzo Clemons - Genius Among Us

Even as a child, Alonzo Clemons demonstrated the uncanny ability to mold clay into amazingly detailed animal figures he had never even seen. It was talent that only a genius could possess. But it was puzzling: Alonzo couldn't even feed himself or tie his shoes.

Doctors call people like Alonzo, savants. Savants can store information in their memories just as normal individuals do. But unlike most people, they can easily retrieve phenomenal amounts of information in a very narrow range. Savants can be exceptionally skilled in mechanics, mathematics, special relationships, or memorizing dates.

"He was always trying to sculpt things as a child. But I didn't realize what he was doing. Through it all he was just trying to sculpt." says Alonzo's mother, Evelyn Clemons.

Alonzo can see a fleeting image on a television screen of any animal, and in less than 20 minutes sculpt a perfect replica of that animal in three-dimensional accuracy. The wax animal is correct in each and every detail — every fiber and muscle.

"I recognized his talent since he was a crawlin' baby. But I was afraid he would never be accepted." Mrs. Clemons says.

But Alonzo, severely disabled as a small child, has been accepted for his artistic talent. His World Premier featured 30 of Alonzo's bronze sculptures, portraying the progression from a rough and primitive style to smooth and elegant fine art.

"In a relatively short period of time there has been phenomenal growth. It just doesn't happen that way," says Pam Driscol, owner of the Driscol Gallery in Aspen Colorado, who in large part is responsible for Alonzo's debut. Driscol has helped Alonzo manage his career since his Premier."

It's exceptional for an artist to make such a name for himself in just three short years after entering the art world. Normally it takes 10 to 12 years," Driscol says.

Perhaps his greatest work is a sculpture entitled "Three Frolicking Foals." The life-size sculpture took just three weeks for Alonzo to create.

"God takes, but God gives so much in return," says Mrs. Clemons of her son who lives in Boulder, Colorado. "It's been hard, but I'm so happy for him that he's been accepted for what he is — a great artist. And he's always happy to show what he can do. This pleases him very much."

Since his 1986 premiere exhibit. Alonzo continues to sculpt magnificently. His work is on display at the Driscol Galleries in Aspen, Colorado. Attached are some of his recent works.

Alonzo's moves toward independence are as impressive as his sculpture. Presently he lives in his own apartment in Boulder. He has a part time job in Boulder as well where you will see him always smiling as he carefully and cheerfully does his assigned housekeeping tasks. When not busied with those duties, he works out with weights and other equipment at the facility where he is employed. His mellow mood is continuous, and contagious. He fits into the community warmly as a truly valued member.

Alonzo continues to sculpt animals primarily, each done with the authenticity and grace that so characterize his work. His powerful hands mold the crystalline continuously. He can still complete a piece in 45 minutes to an hour or so. Recently Alonzo has been doing some drawing, and those drawings, like his sculptures, are impressive.

Alonzo is doing exceedingly well. His savant ability has been a conduit toward normalization. His vocabulary has expanded, he is more and more comfortable socially and now lives much more independently. It has been a marvelous transition.

The "Gifted Hands" of Alonzo Clemons

Alonzo Clemons now has a Web site. It is a collabortive effort between Gifted Hands, Inc., VSA Arts of Colorado and artsales.com. Gifted Hands, Inc. is now the official representative, and contact point, for information about Alonzo and his works.

Alonzo continues to live and work in Boulder, Colorado where he his a vital part of that community. He continues his part-time employment at the Y.M.C.A. and has shared his weight-lifting skills in the Special Olympics competition. His incredible sculpting ability continues and flourishes. His hope is to do some more life-size figures like the Three Frolicking Foals that is so lively and spirited. More information about this new dimension to Alonzo's life, and his increased visibility, can be seen at his Web site.

It was Alonzo's World Premier in Denver in 1986 that led to the establishment of a information and clearinghouse center for Savant Syndrome, through the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation, and then eventually to the establishment and maintainance of this site.

What is Aspergers Syndrome ?Based on one Aspie's own point of view

Note: This article was written when this web site was entitled "Aspie Advocacy." When I realized that I am more properly HFA (high-functioning autistic) than aspie, despite my many similarities to aspies, I decided that a bifurcated view of AS and autism did not make sense. Thus, I changed the name of the site, as well as the editorial "slant," to reflect the unified nature of the spectrum as a whole. That is why I recently changed the title in the link to this article. However, for the moment, I am leaving the article as it was written originally. Keep in mind that when I say "aspie" in this article, I refer to all people on the higher-functioning end of the spectrum, regardless of which diagnosis they may have.

Asperger's syndrome is a form of autism. Autism, in all of its forms, is what is called a pervasive developmental disorder. In essence, it is a slight difference in the construction of the brain, probably present since birth, that affects the way the child develops. It's not a mental condition... it is a neurological difference. Although the terms that describe it (syndrome, disorder, et cetera) have onerous connotations, it's more accurate to simply say that so affected individuals are different.

Most of the differences relate to the way that aspies (a term that people with Asperger's Syndrome use to describe themselves) communicate with others. They tend to have a rather straightforward style, and that has several implications. First, the roundabout way in which normal (neurologically typical, or NT) people communicate is replaced with a rather blunt, sometimes apparently tactless approach. Aspies say what they are thinking, and there is no such thing as beating around the bush. They don't "say things without saying them," or lace their words with innuendo or hidden meaning. There's no subtext... what is said is what is meant, and it is that simple. NTs often have a hard time figuring out what an aspie means, simply because he (the NT) is not accustomed to interpreting the words completely at face value. They often refuse to believe that there is no hidden meaning, or that the comments they interpret as rude or harsh are actually meant to be helpful. This can cause hard feelings and misunderstandings, and unfortunately the aspie is usually on the losing end of the exchange.

Aspies communicate and interpret language literally. That's not to say that they do not make use of metaphor or simile; in fact, many of them show rather advanced use of such concepts. However, the basic mode is to use words in a very unambiguous and precise way. Precision and clarity (and often verbosity) are the hallmarks of typical aspie speech and prose. Aspies typically use a formal manner in everyday communications, written or spoken. While odd to NTs, this is an outgrowth of the aspie preoccupation with precision and accuracy in the use of language.

As children, aspies lack the inborn "detective skills" to automatically determine and integrate the "unwritten rules" of personal conduct and body language (often including facial expressions). Parents do not have to actively teach their children to recognize these nonverbal cues, because the children have a built-in ability to learn them, and to incorporate them appropriately into their own code of conduct. Aspies never pick up on these things, so as adults, they still do not have the ability to recognize these nonverbal signals. Of course, this can cause confusion when NTs and aspies communicate. The NT may send signals that he is not interested in a particular topic, or that he has tired of talking to the other person completely. The aspie will miss these signals, and the NT typically grows more and more angry as his signals, from his perspective (and at an unconscious level), are ignored.

The aspie, whether a child or an adult, is not usually interested in the social hierarchy of the group. Popularity, "coolness," jealousy, image, office politics... all of these are things that do not concern aspies. Unfortunately, this often means that they end up at the bottom of the hierarchy. In school, aspie kids are often picked on by all of the other kids, who seek to improve their own prestige by abusing others. That need to improve one's image, even if by making others look bad, is not something that aspies can really comprehend. They just do what they want to do, without any worry about whether something is "cool" or not.

Many of the medical texts suggest that people with AS prefer to be alone. That's not really accurate, though. While most aspies will need to have some "alone" time each day, they don't usually want to remain solitary all of the time. Most aspies do want to be social and to interact with others, but they often have long histories of disastrous results with regard to interpersonal communications, for the reasons described above. It is not so hard to see why many aspies shy away from others.

Aspies tend to be well above average in intelligence, and language skills far in excess of the norm for the age group are common. Aspie children often read and write several grade levels higher than their like-aged peers. Aspies of all ages often have unusually expansive working vocabularies, and it is often said that aspie kids talk like adults.

One of the most interesting aspects of the aspie personality is the "perseveration," or the special interest. Aspies tend to be rather deeply engrossed in one specific topic, and that one area of interest dominates the mind and free time. This is not to say that they cannot think of anything else, but they show a sense of zeal and enthusiasm for the special interest that most NTs will never experience. The topics of interest can be quite common, like computers or car repair, or they can be rather bizarre. Anything from dinosaurs to fleas to mimeograph machines can be the focus. The person will typically seek to gather and absorb as much information on the special interest as he can find... from libraries, the internet, experts in the field, and through direct experience where possible. Sometimes the special interest persists for years; in other cases, it may only last for a few weeks, at which time a new interest will take over.

Aspies tend to be very responsive to stimulus. Loud noises, bright lights, powerful odors, or unexpected touch can overload an aspie's mind. Loud noises of short duration produce an effect in the mind that resembles that of scratching a chalkboard. Certain persistent noises, especially loud or "busy" ones (like multiple voices), can be very tiring and stressful. Visually busy or bright environments can have a similar effect. Aspies tend to prefer quiet environments with subdued lighting. Many of them carry earplugs and sunglasses to help them deal with unexpected sensory overloads.

The aspie mind by nature abhors inaccuracy and imprecision, and dishonesty and deception do not come naturally. Aspies are by nature loyal, accepting of difference, and have a talent for being able to accurately assess themselves and others. Their unique position outside of the norm allows them to see things as few can.

By nature, people with AS are innovators; their inability to recognize the unwritten rules means that they live in a world largely without preset limits... so ideas and concepts that may never have existed without such a perspective are born. People like Ludwig von Beethoven, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates were (or are) probably aspies. Arrogant, eccentric, strange, intelligent, perceptive, genius. They're all words that have been used to describe the people above, as well as many or most known aspies.

Medical texts tend to describe AS in terms of impairment, disability, and the problems it causes. They're all written from the perspective that normal is good and unusual is bad; that all deviations from the usual are signs of dysfunction and must eventually be cured. They fail to see the beauty of AS, and of being different. Many aspies, including the author of this article, like their AS... it is more than just a condition in a medical book. It's a part of who they are, and what thy are. As this article's author says, "I would not be 'me' if the AS were not there. I really do see it as a thing of beauty."

Beyond the Wall:Stephen Shore

Personal Experiences with Autism and Asperger Syndrome

By Stephen M. Shore

Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2001, 174 pages. $19.95

There is certainly no shortage of books about autism, and there is also a rapidly growing collection of titles about Asperger Syndrome. When a child receives a diagnosis in the Autism Spectrum, parents search for the key to unlock the puzzle of this mysterious and baffling condition, and it's hard to know where to start reading. Occasionally there is a special contribution such as Beyond the Wall: Personal Experiences with Autism and Asperger Syndrome by Stephen Shore. As an individual who grew up with autism, Shore has an exceptional input to give.

Of course, every parent whose child lives within the autistic spectrum would yearn for their son or daughter to turn out like Stephen Shore or Temple Grandin. I myself am no exception to this rule. For that reason, as the father of a 22 year-old son with classic autism, this was a hard book for me to pick up. If I had not met Stephen at conferences and been awe-struck by his honesty and courage, I may have never opened the book. Although it was painful to revisit my dream for what was not to be, it was well worth the price. In Beyond the Wall, Stephen Shore emerges as a role model for children and adults and as an interpreter of the experience for parents and professionals. This little volume is a beacon of hope and a model of acceptance, and I recommend it with enthusiasm.

Diagnosed with “atypical development with strong autistic tendencies” and nonverbal until four years old, Stephen Shore was once recommended for residential placement. Because his parents believed in him, they rejected that idea, which was fortunate for their family and the world. Stephen is now completing his doctoral degree at Boston University in special education. He has a focus on helping people on the autism spectrum to develop their capacities to the fullest extent possible-whatever that may be. By walking us through his life story with insight and simplicity, Stephen guides the reader to an awareness of the different way of being which he shares with people on the spectrum. His ability to articulate his experiences clearly and with humor make the book seem like a friendly visit with the author.

The author begins by describing a typical day in his life including his strong sensitivities that are the residue of his earlier autism. The sound of a bluejay which may be pleasant to most in the early morning feels like the beak is scraping his eardrum. Shaving feels like a power sander on his chin, so Stephen maintains a beard. He rides his bicycle almost everywhere he goes not just for exercise and relaxation, but also for stimulation and to avoid smelly public transportation-and to meet people with a similar interest. Then based upon his mother's recollections and supplemented by family photos throughout, the author reports on his early life as a quiet and gentle infant who shocked his family by rolling over at eight days. By ten months, he was walking and often turning in circles with a finger in his ear.

As a toddler, Stephen would not kiss his father because of the aversive smell of coffee on his breath and the unbearable scratchiness of his moustache. By the age of four, he entered a therapeutic nursery school which had a strong psychoanalytic bent and only four other children in his class. There his speech resumed but with echolalia. His diagnosis was upgraded to “neurotic,” and he was able to go to a nursery school in a Jewish Community Center, but he struggled to relate to other children. This difficulty continues into public school kindergarten a year late where the author describes the wonder of learning and the terror of being teased. Many readers will find direction here in helping their children cope with bullying.

There is so much of value in Stephen's story, such as how he learned to develop friendships through common activities and the role that music has played in his life. By high school, there was more wonder than terror at school. Dating was an intriguing puzzle for the author, but by his college years, it was another dilemma he was able to solve. In the book we are treated to a brief contribution by his wife, Yi Liu, whom the author met as a fellow graduate student in music. The world of work was no less perplexing, and again the author takes us into his confidence and reveals his struggles to find a niche that works for him.

As a way of concluding, the author summarizes with simplicity and clarity his understanding of the autism spectrum. This is done in way that makes the concepts intelligible to families regardless of the individual differences of their child. Perhaps more than anything, Stephen Shore brings us as readers to an acceptance and appreciation for people who are different. With the simplicity and directness of a child, the author shares his well earned knowledge and wisdom. Beyond the Wall is on my “short list” of books about autism; it deserves your attention.

Autistic basketball sensation's inspiring year

Jason McElwain, 18, discusses how one night transformed his life

TODAY

Updated: 2:26 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2007

A year to the day after he stunned everyone by coming off the bench to score 20 points in four minutes in a high-school basketball game, autistic teen-ager Jason McElwain says he hopes his story is still inspiring others to set goals and achieve their dreams.

"What more can you want?" the 18-year-old Rochester, N.Y.-area boy said in an interview on TODAY Thursday morning, as he recounted his year in the spotlight, which included a meeting with President Bush. "My life has changed from going to just an ordinary kid with autism to someone who is a hero."

Jason, then 17, was thrust into the spotlight when Greece Athena High School basketball coach Jim Johnson decided to send him onto the floor for a little play in the team's final regular season game against Spencerport on Feb. 16, 2006. Jason had never made the team but stayed on as team manager, and Coach Johnson thought a little playing time would be a fitting show of gratitude for his dedication.

Jason set the crowd into a frenzy when, after missing his first shot, he sank six three-pointers and a jump shot in the final four minutes. His achievement, captured on videotape, made him a national sensation.

Jason, known as "J-Mac" to friends in his upstate New York suburb, made appearances at the ESPY awards, the NCAA Final Four and the NBA finals. In addition to the president, he got to meet Oprah Winfrey, Peyton Manning and Jessica Simpson.

Letters still pour in from all over the world. People with autism write to thank Jason for serving as a beacon of hope for others.

"Can you look back at all and tell me what is has been like, Jason, to live in your shoes?" TODAY's Matt Lauer asked.

"It's been fun and amazing," said Jason.

Still playing basketball
In addition to his part-time job at a supermarket, Jason still plays in nightly pickup games at the "Y," but admits he has never been able to repeat the feat that got his name in newspapers and magazines from coast to coast.

"When you play with your buddies, do they kind of expect you to make every single shot?" Lauer asked.

"The expectations are really high, but not exactly," Jason said, laughing.

His parents, David and Debbie McElwain, who appeared on TODAY with Jason and his older brother Josh, said they still can't believe all of the attention Jason's performance has received.

"After that game when he scored 20 points, I thought, 'Gee, his name might be in the paper,' " David McElwain said.

Now there are even discussions about turning his life story into a book and movie. (Jason said that he thought Matthew McConaughey should portray him on film.)

'On a roll'
Debbie McElwain admitted that Jason sometimes can get "cocky" about his fame, but she and Josh bring him back down to Earth. She said she hopes Jason's story will encourage other families with autistic children to identify the symptoms early and get treatments designed to foster communication skills before it is too late.

"I never thought he would come this far," Debbie McElwain said of her son's disability, which was diagnosed when he was 2 1/2. "When your child is diagnosed with severe autism, you just want him to speak. Jason had most of the autistic symptoms of severe autism. It was just one hurdle after the next ... You just want him to say one word, because wants an autistic child says the first word, you are on a roll."

Jason's been on a roll ever since the big game, which his team won.

"I just hope more people are aware of autism, the disease autism," he said, "and that people know more about it and get the treatment they need with their children, early in life like my loving mother [did]."

Marked primarily by impaired social interaction and diminished communication skills, autism is a developmental disability believed to be caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report estimating that one in 150 children born in this country are autistic — much more prevalent than previously thought.

Jason McElwain: A very unlikely hero

When autistic student Jason McElwain, left, shot the winning basket for his high school team, he became a national icon, fêted by the President and courted by Hollywood. But as Rupert Cornwell reports, his story may also raise awareness about his heartbreaking and little-understood condition

It was the last home game, and Jim Johnson, basketball coach at the Greece-Athena high school, thought: why not? His team were cruising to victory and there were just four minutes left on the clock. So he put in the 17-year-old kid who had worked so hard all season at keeping statistics, running the clock, and handing out bottles of water and endless encouragement. The gesture was meant as a reward. Instead, coach Johnson created a sporting fairy tale for the ages.

The kid in question wasn't just any kid. At the age of two, Jason McElwain had been diagnosed as autistic. So well, however, had he coped with the adversity that he became a hero to his schoolmates. He also became a relatively decent shooter of a basketball. But 5ft 6in is on the small side for a game where height counts for so much. However many times he tried out, the boy everyone knew as "J-Mac" could never quite get into the team proper - until those four magic minutes one evening last month. But only a Hollywood script writer could have imagined the real-life fantasy that would then entrance America.

In Jason's words, "I just caught fire, I was hot as a pistol". True, he missed his first two simple shots. But then, on the school gym floor, in front of 900 intensely involved spectators, he entered "the zone", the almost paranormal state where everything a sports player attempts turns to gold. His third effort rattled the board and dropped through the hoop. And then another, and another and another. By the time it was all over, Greece-Athena had put its local rival Spencerport to the sword with a 79-43 victory.

Jason alone accounted for 20 of the points, six long-range three-point shots and a two-pointer from closer in. Even though the Spencerport players didn't hustle him too aggressively, it was still four minutes of undiluted magic. When it was over, grown men were weeping as his teammates carried him off the court on their shoulders.

But this was only the beginning. If Britain has a soft spot for gallant losers and epic no-hopers, America's special weakness is for the feel-good happy ending, for the outsider who takes life's odds stacked against him and then tosses them to the four winds. In horse-racing there was Seabiscuit, the little runt of a racehorse who in the 1930s took on and beat the mighty War Admiral, champion of the country's snobbish racing establishment - and in doing so became a symbol of national resilience in the Depression era.

Or take the never-say-die heroics of baseball's Kirk Gibson, the injured Los Angeles Dodger who limped to the plate and then smashed a home run that set his team on the way to the 1988 World Series. From a TV commentator, the feat elicited one of the great lines of sports broadcasting. "I don't believe what I've just seen."

And so it was with Jason McElwain, on a mid-February evening in Rochester in upstate New York - an example not only of an event witnessed at firsthand yet which still beggars belief - but also of how a frightening and imperfectly understood medical condition need not be a barrier to success.

His feat has set in motion an extraordinary, "only-in-America" saga. The local papers were first to get hold of the story, then came national coverage, the interviews on the network news, the videoed clips of J-Mac's scoring spree shown over and over again. And, as was inevitable in a land where the distinctions between real life and the silver screen have long since disappeared, Hollywood got in on the act as well.

Disney has expressed interest. So too has none other than Earvin "Magic" Johnson, legendary superstar of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team, now proprietor of a chain of urban cinemas, who called coach Johnson to discuss the movie rights to J-Mac's amazing story.

And so it has continued, right up to Tuesday when McElwain was summoned to a meeting at Rochester airport with the former baseball owner, incurable mountain biker and lifelong sports fan who is now the most important man in America. And such is J-Mac's fame and popularity that the person who had most to gain from the encounter was George W Bush.

As is well known, these are not the best of times for Mr Bush, beset by deepening crisis in Iraq, spurned even by members of his own party, and with an approval rating sinking close to Nixonian levels. This week the President was up in the Rochester area, trying to drum up support for a Medicare prescription drugs programme that has attracted only criticism since it was introduced in 2005. But before he got down to serious matters, he obeyed rule number one of the politician's survival manual. If you're not very popular yourself, start rubbing shoulders with people who are. Right now, that means J-Mac.

"I saw it on TV. Saw it on TV and I wept, just like a lot of other people did," he said in that weirdly syncopated style patented by presidents whose surname is Bush. "It's the story of a young man who found his touch on the basketball court, which in turn touched the heart of citizens all around the country."

It was also a cameo, too, of what Mr Bush sees as a uniquely American generosity of spirit that he never fails to extol - a story of "coach Johnson's willingness to give a person a chance, a story of Dave and Debbie's [the McElwain parents] deep love for their son." And as so often in America, the hucksterish and the noble march hand in hand. J-Mac's moment of glory is being celebrated in commemorative T-shirts, masks and mugs as well as a possible movie. Casual Friday, a Rochester-based clothing company, is donating 500 T-shirts. Each will be emblazoned with J-Mac's mantra - "Stay Focused", with a photo of the improbable basketball star being carried off the court in triumph.

But the message on the back of the T-shirt suggests that, just maybe, Jason's celebrity will last longer than 15 minutes, and that his accomplishment will help change attitudes about the neurological condition from which he has suffered all his life, for which no cure has yet been discovered. "J-Mac," it proclaims, "Six three-pointers for Athena ... One slam dunk for Autism."

Jason didn't talk till he was five - "and since then he probably hasn't stopped," says Dave McElwain. Some autistic children are withdrawn and utterly uncommunicative. Jason, who has a relatively mild form of autism, tends to the opposite extreme. "He's very social, he's a charmer," adds his father. At school, he has special-needs instruction, but attends regular classes as well.

In Jason's case, the illness shows itself in fearlessness, even recklessness, but he is also faithful to the obsessive focus and pursuit of a goal that is a hallmark of the autistic person. "He's never had any fear of doing anything," his father says, "or fear of what other people think."

Such imperviousness probably helped him put aside the mishap of missing his first two easy shots that now legendary evening, when other "ordinary" players might have lost heart.

The broader hope now is that Jason's compelling story will give yet more impetus to the search for a cure, and prod the federal government that Mr Bush runs to make more resources available to that purpose.

In cultural and social terms, autism may be more easily accepted than before. But severe cases can wreak havoc on entire families. One out of 166 children in the US is born autistic. The divorce rate for their parents can hit 90 per cent. If the emotional strains are devastating, the financial burdens can be no less ruinous. Home care and therapy for an autistic child can cost anything up to $90,000 (£55,000) a year - usually without insurance cover. If Jason McElwain's night of glory gives some people hope where there was none before, that will be its most precious legacy.

As for the young man himself, he professes to be unmoved by his celebrity, the film talk, the Presidential arm draped around his shoulder at Rochester airport, and the rest of the carry-on. His ambitions are unchanged: to get his high school diploma, go to community college, and then work at the local grocery store. Somehow though, you suspect, it will not be so simple

Bugra Cankir

Bugra Cankir

Bugra Cankir: A Musical Savant in Turkey

The savant web site continues to bring to attention savants from around the world. The parents of Bugra Cankir provided information about him recently. Bugra is now 13 years old. He lives in Hatay/Iskenderun in Turkey on the Mediterranan coast.

Bugra was diagnosed with autistic disorder at age 3. At that time he was detached and distant although he showed exceptional memory skills and interest in, and expertise, with PC games. Language and social skills remained problems, though. Through intensive therapy and education he made good gains overall however, although language has remained limited.

At age 3 ½ his parents gave him puzzle boards that had alphabet letters. By putting those letters together into words, he started to read in a few days. Soon he was reading (decoding) every word. Bugra completed pre-school in a Montessori program and then entered primary school. He is now in regular classrooms but he is almost always accompanied by his mother in those classes, however, so he can be fully involved in the curriculum and lessons.

Bugra was not really exposed any formal music training until about age 10. His parents thought that music might provide an added color and richness to his life so they engaged a private teacher to give lessons. According to his parents Bugra “progress was amazing, as if he were absorbing and the music teacher’s knowledge and experience like downloading files. He memorized many songs and played them on a keyboard by ear. Three or four months later the teacher told us ‘I have nothing more to teach him.” The teacher also felt Bugra had perfect pitch and recommended testing for that and that he should continue advanced lessons with another teacher.”

Testing by University of California Genetics of Absolute Pitch study group in 2004 did confirm the presence of absolute pitch. In a report to the parents that project reported that Bugra was one of the youngest participants in their project and he “has the highest level of absolute pitch. His score of the pure tone test at 31 exceeds the cut-off point of 24.5 points and his score on the piano tone test of 33 exceeds the cut-off point of 27.8.” Even more impressively, and rare, a repeat of that testing in 2006 showed Bugra to have done even better, recording a “perfect score” of 36/36 for both pure tone and piano tone.

In 2004 an advanced piano teacher, Mrs. Hilal Onal, began to work with Bugra six to ten hours per week. Bugra had his first recital one year later where he played J.S. Bach’s Minuet in D Major and M. Clementi’s Sonatina in C Minor. The teacher told the parents Bugra had completed two years work in one year’s time. In April, 2006 Bugra passed the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music Grade 1 examination “with distinction”. He passed the Grade 2 examination “with distinction” in January, 2007 and then passed the Grade 3 examination, also “with distinction”, in May, 2007

In July, 2006 Bugra was invited to participate and perform at the Autism: Art & Music conference hosted by the Autism Research Centre of the University of Cambridge in London, England which was held on September 17, 2006. Bugra appeared as one of twelve exceptional musicians with Autistic or Asperger’s Disorder who performed at that event, including Derek Paravicini. There were a number of artists who displayed their art works at that event as well, including Stephen Wiltshire, Gilles Trehin and Yeak Ping Lian who are also profiled on this site.

As is the case with so many savants, Bugra did develop calendar calculating abilities and has became quite expert at that skill. Given a date, he can provide the day of the week instantly and correctly. But his interest in piano is foremost, perhaps, his parents speculate, because “there is nothing unfamiliar anymore about calendars” yet the higher and higher level of achievements possible with the piano continue to challenge and motivate him to ever increasing musical ability. A video posted by his parents demonstrate Bugra’s ability and style.