Medical Aficionado

What do BitTorrent and Pokémon have in common? They were both created by individuals with autism spectrum disorder. An uncompassionate stereotype exists which pigeonholes autistic people as disabled, antisocial, and obsessed with exclusively trivial, impractical interests. But in reality, there is no typical form of autism. Every autistic person has different mental strengths, limitations, and desires for their own personal and professional development.

It’s believed that Autism’s close association with Savant syndrome, in part, helps keep this stereotype alive. Savants, another severely misunderstood group, are individuals with a developmental disorder which is usually, but not always, autism. But these individuals also possess rare abilities related to their condition in one or more fields. Thomas Fuller, an enslaved African, from the 18th century was able to “comprehend scarcely anything, theoretical or practical, more complex than counting” according to medical literature from 1789. Fuller was once tested with a question “How many seconds has a man lived at 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours old?” After 90 seconds, Fuller answered 2,210,500,800. One of the men in the room worked out the problem on paper and told Fuller that his was incorrect, too large. Fuller quickly informed the man that he must of forgotten to include leap years. After the leap years were added, Fuller was confirmed to be correct.

A century later the word “savant” was coined to describe individuals who display extraordinary mental abilities alongside a spectrum of developmental problems. Given the wide of array of possible mental abilities coupled with the vast array of possible development problems, you can see how both autism and savantism are weighted down by public speculation and misunderstanding. Thankfully, we are making a great many strides forward in both instruction and awareness thanks to educators like Daniel Tammet. In Daniel we can readily see an example of an autistic savant who is fully capable of intricate human emotions and of making meaningfully contributions to society.