How do autistic people have very special skills?

[Saturlight]

Fascinated by these people who are mentally subnormal but have very special skills, mostly artisitic.

A programme broadcast in the early 1980s showed some of these people. One a blind man never taught the piano could play by ear.

Another a retarded boy who could do fantastic drawings of buildings.

Another a man who could not add 4 plus 9, but if you asked him what day the 14th October 1999 fell on, he'd immediately say a THURSDAY. He was never wrong, even with dates like 1787, or 1920, or ahead like 3422.

A professor in maths was asked to calculate the same "sums" and the autistic man always beat him to it. just as fast as the dates were read out.

Amazing. He's doing it in his head, but how?

[PaulR]

Well, firstly not all are subnormal (whatever that might mean). Autism comes in various grades from the very severe where the person has virtually no interaction with other people (even parents) to a mild version known as Asperger's Syndrome. They all fall under the umbrella term ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder).

Autism isn't automatically equated with learning difficulties, although many do have multiple problems. Autism is basically a failure to interact with the outside word to a geater or lesser degree. Whereas people who are not autistic find repetition boring and look for new things to do/learn autistic people find reassurance with the same old thing.

As regards the other points in your question - dunno!

[Saturlight]

In an adult I would expect "subnormal" to mean lacking in intellect sufficient to calculate simple sums. And Einstein was autistic, but I was talking about the obviously low IQ ones who wouldn't be expected to work a mathematic sum out, or paint, draw, or play music very well.

[2cvbloke]

I think it's the way their brains are wired up, basically as one "system" is not set up properly because of genetic defects, it instead wires up so that it processes different things (for example, the date/days one) a lot faster than it would if it was set up as what we would call normal...

Of course, I know very little about how the brain works, so this is just my opinion...

[Channel Hopper]

ones who wouldn't be expected to work a mathematic sum out, or paint, draw, or play music very well.

That's me

[mhku]

I think you'll find most people on the autism spectrum do not have "special skills" as you seem to infer. Those with "special skills" whilst being an interesting topic for TV programmes are the exception rather than the rule.

For more infomation have a look at the National Autistic Society website:

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=114

[Saturlight]

Damn it though, how does that man do it? I mean to calculate the days like that, it's puzzled me since I saw that him on QED in about 1982.

If you look on the menus on most Humax receivers, they have a calendar where you're able to go back through the decades, I think as far as 3000, and as far back as 1899.

Every day, every month...

You're right, though, a part of his brain is operating at a very advanced level, to the degree almost to that of a computer. I think when someone who is lacking in real-terms intelligence, but is also autistic, if they have a special interest - in the case of the calendar man, CALENDARS - then 80% of his functioning intellect concentrates immensely to find the solution. Without him knowing it, he's devised in his head a method of calculation, he, nor we, fully understand.

[Saturlight]

That's me

You're joking.

[dig deep]

Well all those wierd things that they can (or can´t do) is because the brain normaly have plenty of stuff to take care of but in some cases the brain doesn´t bother with social things so it has some extra power to do other things Mostly rather useless things but sometimes it can make an exeption and do some music or other kind of art that really could amaze U

It´s like blind ppl they usually get a very VERY good hearing and as they also learn braille they got very sensitive fingers - because the brain have some spare time, no need for no seeing stuff

We know our way to the moon but not the way from the spine to the hair

Maybe we better stay on Tellus and spend some money on our own life

[spiney]

A very interesting topic!

Traditionally, people who may be in some degree autistic - but also have "special skills" - have been called "idiot savants", a good descriptive term (if slightly insulting!).

http://www.idiotsavant.com/about.htm .

Particularly interesting is "lightning calculators", since the human brain is most certainly NOT wired for arithmetic, most of us can't do such quick calculations!

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publ...Arithmetic.cfm .

On which subject, Trachtenberg speed maths is quite interesting, as it allows normal people - with practise! - to do mental artithmetic very quickly. Maybe savants do something similar?

http://www.vedicmaths.org/Other%20Ma...achtenberg.asp (4 links, the bottom 2 links give principles and examples!).

(If you're serious about learning Trachtenberg, it's best to buy the book!).

[4dbennett]

I know a ten year old lad called nathan who is 'ASD' he does the day/date thing and is never wrong, he g ives the relevant day to whatever date you ask him it takes me ages to work out the answer, how does he do it ??? no one knows!

dave

[spiney]

http://www.terra.es/personal2/grimmer/ .

[Raasay]

You're right, though, a part of his brain is operating at a very advanced level, to the degree almost to that of a computer.

Almost that of a computer? Get someone to program a Cray to conduct brain surgery on one of your nominated patients, and we'll see if the results still stand, shall we?

Spineys links are interesting, or at least one of them; http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/IntegerArithmetic.cfm

"For example, in a pioneering empirical study, a mathematics graduate trained in the appropriate algorithms took 11.46 seconds to generate all the primes between integers 301 and 393 whereas a non-verbal autistic young man who had not previously confronted such a task took only 1.16 seconds (Hermelin and O'Connor 1990). Not only was the savant ten times faster, but he also made far fewer errors. Importantly, no practically realizable algorithm has yet been invented for rapidly identifying primes in excess of 8 figures as apparently performed by the autistic savant twins (Sacks 1985)."

What I have always found fascinating is some of these people's ability to reproduce a graphic example of something they saw earlier; photographic memory. Many people can master mathematical 'tricks' to remember/work out dates and times, but to draw the London skyline from memory in the way I saw someone do it (on Blue Peter?) years ago was incredible. That 'trick' cannot be learned.

Question: These people that can calculate the day of the week in a given year in the past, are they aware in advance of the calendar adjustments that have taken place?

[PaulR]

Question: These people that can calculate the day of the week in a given year in the past, are they aware in advance of the calendar adjustments that have taken place?

Something that I have wondered about as well. Also are they aware that there's no Year Zero?

[spiney]

Once you know the rule by which something can be done, it's still amazing, but no longer a mystery!

The distribution of prime numbers is well understood, and there are many ways of finding "likely" ones and testing them. Amazing abilities, yes, but no mystery.