Those with savant syndrome have “quite remarkable, and sometimes spectacular, talents”—such as being able to recite prime number after prime number or to draw the city of Rome with photographic precision—while also having “serious mental or physical disability” (according to one website). Garrett Heaney in Wishtank describes an exchange two individuals who have been diagnosed with savant syndrome, Kim Peek (the model for Raymond in the movie Rain Man, though Raymond is referred to as “autistic” and as an “autistic savant”) and Daniel Tammet, the author of Born on a Blue Day). In particular, Heaney considers this exchange of words …read more

The National Institute of Mental Health calls off a study on chelation as a treatment for autistic children. Safety concerns are cited and it also needs to be noted that the reasons for using chelation to “treat” autistic children rest on an unproven hypothesis about autism causation, that autistic children have mercury and/or “heavy metals” in their body, from vaccines or something in vaccines or the environment.
Other news:

Move Over, Cupcake
The votes are in for brownies around here.
What It’s Like: Life with Charlie and a Poem (and the VICP)
“Simile” is the title of one of my favorite poems from Line …read more

Charlie and I caught the PATH train in Jersey City and got off at 23rd Street in Manhattan. We usually take it all the way to the end at 33rd Street where we catch a subway up to where Jim’s office is near Lincoln Center and get some dinner together but Friday night was different. Philosopher Ian Hacking, Professor Emeritus of the College de France, was giving a lecture on How We Have Been Learning to Talk About Autism as a keynote lecture for a conference, Cognitive Disability: A Challenge to Moral Philosophy. The conference’s stated aim was to explore
philosophical …read more