I have theory-of-mind issues and sometimes wonder why everybody doesn’t understand my writing. I mean *I* understand it, so why doesn’t everybody else???

Anyway, I think the issue involves whether or not ten percent of autistics are autistic *because* they are geniuses. Then the problem comes down to deciding (or proving or finding evidence) that the fabulous perseveration is or isn’t a sign of general genius. There are good examples in history to draw from.

I think a good example to examine is Mozart. Mozart was a genius, but he was also slightly autistic in that he had an extremely juvenile personality. One has to wonder what he would be like if he was slightly *more* autistic. I think he would have been an autistic savant; even though he would still be a genius in everything else. He would just refuse to display interest in anything else, or perhaps *feel* interest in anything else.

Freud believed that libido, *feeling*, is like a protozoan sending out pseudopodia to test reality. If something disturbs the pseudopodia, they withdraw into the self–a pool of narcissism. That’s psychosis.

With autism, on the other hand, the pseudopod doesn’t withdraw from external reality, but simply redirects itself to concentrate on a single aspect of outer reality–ones own body.

So, an autistic savant is a total genius to begin with, but only displays genius in specific areas that give him pleasure. He rejects everything else as boring or threatening.

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/frequently_asked_questions

And with claims as high as 1 in 10 of those on the spectrum having enough “unevenness” to warrant the label (it’s not a diagnosis, it’s more like the “high functioning” label), though very few are of the extremely remarkable level of, for example, Stephen Wiltshire, it is hardly surprising that the link is made among the public.

To ASDmom:

I hope you aren’t the one who wrote that goofy Wikipedia article. I think I’ll go and edit that RIGHT NOW!

Actually, intelligence is intelligence. Unfortunately, the autistic savant only displays one particular aspect of his genius, so the dumb knucklehead researchers (so-called) can’t imagine anything subtle and covert about an autistic personality (as if self-concealment weren’t the essence of autism!!!). To them, the human brain is nothing more than a bunch of wires and circuitry existing independently of a body, devoid of hormones and innate drives. According to the reductionistic modern experts, autism is a *neurological issue.*

Just because a so-called savant refuses to open up to people he doesn’t know and doesn’t trust doesn’t mean he isn’t a genius. Like I keep on saying; Bettelheim made the most reasonable suggestion about autistic savants I have ever heard: All infantile trauma results in a predisposition to autism, and precociousness at birth is traumatic–to say the *least.*

Miraculously, this version, adapted by Dan Gordon and directed by Terry Johnson in a series of anonymous Pinteresque rooms, works superbly. Indeed, I was more moved and amused by the show than the film.

This has a lot to do with the communal atmosphere of the theatre. You can feel the whole house getting behind Adam Godley’s performance as the autistic hero who cannot bear to be touched, is overcome by twitching, yelping panic attacks whenever his routine is interrupted, yet somehow, sometimes, conveys a sudden grace and generosity of spirit.

It’s a sentimental picture of autism – hardly any sufferers from this cruelly isolating condition are blessed with the near miraculous talents of memory and numbers evinced by Raymond Babbitt.

But with his hoarse, almost mechanical voice, sticky-out ears, gangling limbs, and sudden, heart-stabbing glimpses of empathy, Godley manages to be deeply affecting without excessively milking the pathos.

Indeed, his performance seems to be drawn from somewhere deep inside his own character, whereas Hoffman’s, technically brilliantly though it was, basically added up to little more than a series of tics, tricks and stutters.

It won him the Oscar for best actor, though, and there will be little justice if Godley doesn’t also pick up gongs for his brilliantly timed acting, in which he constantly seems to be a split-second out of synch with everyone else on stage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek

I’m more inclined to think it will hurt autism awareness, because messages like the ones portrayed in movies and plays stay with you. I was always positively TERRIFIED of autism because as a child, I watched the movie “Son-Rise.” Because of that movie, I grew up with the idea that all autistic people sat in corners, spinning things and flapping, totally lost in their own world. That one little exposure at the tender age of 6 years old was all it took. To this day, I still have people ask me if my son has savant abilities when I tell them he’s autistic. Either that or they regale me with some story of some autistic savant that their neighbor’s cousin’s sister’s dog groomer knows, and how wonderful it all is. I can just see this play reinforcing that old stereotype.