Comments on: Autism from the inside

Autism from the inside

MadOwl — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 02:31:29 -0800

Taking the "idiot" out of "savant" For many of us, the word "savant" conjures up images of Dustin Hoffman's character in "Rainman", or,more recently, Mike Haddon's wonderful hero of "The curious incident of the dog in the night". Now let Daniel Tammet take you inside the autistic mind. (link via Boingboing)

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 04:04:13 -0800

Every time savants are mentioned, I think of the titular story from Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars, about Temple Grandin, whose artistic savantism is phenomenal, and who (like Tammet) is functional enough to have written a book about what it's like to be her. Off-topic: That's "...night-time". It's a quote from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

By: ruelle

ruelle — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 04:13:38 -0800

That's a great article. Thanks.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 04:35:42 -0800

Previous MeFi thread giving more detail on Temple Grandin's book, and various online articles such as her account of how she thinks.

By: louigi

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 04:54:05 -0800

Very interesting and personal article, MadOwl. Thanks.

By: corvine

corvine — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 05:07:48 -0800

Fascinating. Thanks. I've just emailed it to my mum, who teaches autistic/Asperger's kids.

By: lobstah

lobstah — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 05:59:19 -0800

Remarkable. Thanks for a great article.

By: ericb

ericb — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:42:09 -0800

Reminds me of the story of Stephen Wilthsire who is an accomplished architectural artist. "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." Check out his gallery of amazing drawings.

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:52:30 -0800

Very interesting. I was fascinated to hear how lucid Tammet was about his lack of empathy and his synesthetic relationship withnumbers. I am curious about the 1% of savants who are not autistic. Does anyone know of one?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:52:36 -0800

savant: n. A learned person; a scholar.

By: nthdegx

nthdegx — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:54:10 -0800

It was 1% of non-autistic people that are savants, gesamtkunstwerk, and should thus massively outnumber autistic savants.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:56:12 -0800

Without the word "Idiot" there, "savant" just means an intelegent, well educated, person. Nothing more.

By: spaceviking

spaceviking — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:20:15 -0800

I heartily recommend Elizabeth Moon's Book: "The speed of Dark" it is an excellent story told from the perspective of an autist.

By: painquale

painquale — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:03:06 -0800

This was a great article with all sorts of interesting tidbits. Kim Peek can read two pages simultaneously - one with each eye. That's excellent. I've never heard of a synaetheste composing a language before, but it makes sense. I'd be curious to see what Manti looks like. I especially liked Daniel's speculation that GK Cheston was autistic. Is there any possibility whatsoever that this could be true?

By: dr_dank

dr_dank — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:04:20 -0800

My fiance works with autistic children and constantly refutes the premise that all autistics have some kind of freakish talent for things ala Rainman. Most are unexceptional.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:14:13 -0800

Other interesting articles at the Savant Syndrome Home Page. Such coinings seem to be driving out of usage the original meaning of 'savant' ie minus the connotation of coexisting disability. A pity; it's a nice term.

By: raygirvan

raygirvan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:33:59 -0800

I especially liked Daniel's speculation that GK Chesterton was autistic. Is there any possibility whatsoever that this could be true? I don't think so. GK Chesterton, the Eccentric Prince of Paradox mentions some of his eccentricities, and A Brief GK Chesterton Biography relevant qualities that might fit, such as his astonishing memory. However, there are a lot of other reported traits - good sense of humour, warm friendships, engaging and outgoing personality, readiness to engage in conversation and debate - that don't remotely fit with autism.

By: redsparkler

redsparkler — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 13:23:27 -0800

In regards to the Chesterton scenario, it's always been my understanding that autism occurs on what we call a spectrum, and so it's quite possible to exhibit only some general spectrum attributes without necessarily running the whole gamut. Autism isn't easibly quantifiable all of the time as a "this, this, and this" sort of thing. In regards to Daniel Tammet... I've decided that he shall be my Valentine.

By: nTeleKy

nTeleKy — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:44:27 -0800

redsparkler - You're right, but the whole diagnosis of autism is under some debate right now. As more research has come in and psych*ists started making connections and distinctions between disparate illnesses the idea of an Autistic Spectrum has started to emerge and is generally accepted now. Depending on which traits you exhibit and which doctor you see you can get a whole range of different diagnoses, including my favorite: Pervasive Devlopmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified. Doctor: "Yes, well, there appears to be a pervasive developmental disorder of some sort, we'll just leave it at that and turn it into an acronym to make it seem official". Additionally many people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) also show symptoms of other disorders such as ADHD, OCD, various lexic disorders, and just about anything else. There's still quite a bit of debate into how these factors all play into each other and what the differences are between the diagnoses, though. I think the whole field is really interesting and there's a lot of research going on now, but I've got Asperger's, so I don't know how interesting it would be to anyone else. It's really amazing that Tammet does math based on visual imagery. It reminds me of Terence McKenna and the DMT elves that tried to teach him how to "communicate" visually...maybe there is something to it after all. I want to know how he encodes/decodes the numbers into the visual realm and how he processes the visuals together. It seems analogous to GPUs (computer chips dedicated to processing graphics) where the chip is manufactured for a specific purpose (visual processing) but at its core is simply processing numbers and can be adapted to any any number-related problems with varying amounts of efficiency.