24: "Spectacular Ability in a Sea of Disability”: The Psychology of Savantism

autism spectrum disorders in savant syndrome. He is on the staff at Saint Agnes Hospital and serves on the board of Trustees of Marianne University. Trefford was a consultant to the movie rain Man and his latest book is Islands of Genius, The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired and Sudden Savant. Thank you, Daryld for talking to me today. My pleasure to be here. As you know, I'm a longtime fan I you could say of your work and

hopefully you'd consider me a colleague as well. Absolutely, yeah, why did you? I want to ask you why you called your book Islands of Genius. Well, it when I met my first savant, which was way back in nineteen sixty two. I was simply astounded, frankly by these These first savants were kids on a children's unit. Some of them were severely disabled, and yet had these islands of intactnos or islands of genius at students such contrast overall handicap.

It just seemed to me that the term island genius was appropriate for these tacular abilities in a sea of disability. Right. So there was just such a huge difference, striking contrast between what they seem to be having difficulties doing in life and in their their skill set and a different skill set that they seem to be very extraordinary. Right. Yeah, some of them were actually mute and had no language whatsoever, and yet I had some spectacular ability. And that just

struck me that what does this say about human potential overall? Well, now, with the iPad and the talking tablet, we're finding that these kids who were mute and have no expressive language are able to communicate with the with the talking tablet, and some of them at a frankly an astonishing level, right Right, And I remember seeing a very touching video clip. I can't remember Phil was Leslie Lempke here or now it was? It was an autistic savant who was blind.

He picked up the music very easily and he didn't talk, but he started singing one day. You know, he's playing music and his his caretaker was just like amazed, absolutely amazed. Right, And that's true that Leslie. As a matter of fact, he talked somewhat. A lot of it is ecchoeic and it's hard to carry on a conversation, but he well seeing any tune that he's heard. And as a musical salana, it's a little unusual to find someone who is a

pianist but also singing, and Leslie does both. Right. So I want to ask a question, because you were the scientific advisor to the movie rain Man, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about the main character in that in that movie, to what extent was Raymond Babbitt based on a real character? Well, the film was inspired by Kim Peek, who is what I call him everest memory.

He simply is as the most phenomenal memory of any Savannah. Ever, it turns out, quite by by accident, that very Morrow, who had written two made for television programs in the past about called Bill about when Mickey Rooney was playing someone who was comptly disabled. They just happened to be in the same room at the same time at this convention, and very Morrow was simply struck by Kim Peaks's memory.

They they happened to be in a library room, and he was pulling books out and and and quizzing Kim about about them. And so he on the way back on the plane back to California, he wrote down autistic savant, and then he went about writing the script for for the movie rain Man, inspired by Kim Peak. But the Raymond Babbitt is a composite savant. Uh, it's not the story of Kim Peak. And all the scenes that you see in the movie are based on real life savants.

The toothpick scene, the memorizing the phone book, the computing mathematical equations but not knowing the difference between the candy barn a sports car, all of those are our real life scenes. But Raymond Babbitt is a composite savant rather than the story of Kim Peak, right, right, So that's very interesting. So I want to I want to tase the tease a part A couple of things here, and

that's the difference between autism and savantism. Am I correct and saying they're not the same thing and they're not always co occurring. Yes, that's right. Could you define each? Would you mind defining each? For sure? Savant syndrome is a is a remarkable but rare condition in which a person has some underlying developmental disability or other brain disorder who has some spectacular island of genius and stands in

star contrast overall handicapped. So savant syndrome by definition means that somebody has an underlying disability and the savant ability is grafted onto that underlying disability. Now, about seventy percent of the time savants have autism as the underlying disability, but the other thirty percent have some other condition. Could be a traumatic brain injury, could be dementia, could be cognitive ability. So this so that not all savants are autistic,

and not all autistic persons are savants. And I think one of the things that people come away from the movie saying, oh, I know what an autistic savant is, and they assume that all autistic savants or all autistic persons have the abilities of Raymond Babbitt, And that's not true. About one out of ten persons with autism does have some savannability, but means nine out of ten do not.

So interesting, And I just wonder, like what what kind of traits or characteristics of autism can facilitate savant skills, because I mean, it's I don't think it's any coincidence that that most savant skills virtually all of them are non verbal in the nonverbal demean is that, right? Most? Mostly, there are some lots of ods who do have language abilities, where that where the ability to UH speak or or

to interpret languages are is the ability. But that's that's really quite rare, right, So maybe some of these kind of characteristics of autism, like attention to detail, uh, interest in visual spatial reasoning, these sorts of things might be conducive to extraordinary skill, right. I think those that you mentioned attention to detail, the ability to to organize and and and and to memorize massive memory or extraordinary memory

is shared as well. And the ability to UH to focus on detail rather than then the big picture is certainly a part of autism. And in terms of as I said, about one in ten persons with autism has savantabilities, but it's about one in fourteen hundred persons with other brain disorders underlying has savannabilities, So it's it's much more common in autism, and people are trying to find out why, what is that? What is the connection? Why is it one out of ten autistic persons and one out of

fourteen hundred. Let me flip this. Let me flip the script for one second here. So there are a lot of things that non savants is what some people call neurotypical individuals are really good at, but we don't make a big deal out of it because it's just it's just a normally developing thing. So, for instance, like most people's social skills, probably a savant looks at their social skills and things think they're savants. Like savants probably look

at don savants and say, wow, you're savanna and social skills. Yeah, So, I mean it seems to me like, you know, if you spend so much time developing one area to the exclusion of other areas, you can become really good in that area, you know, and like savants show up and I don't think and we're going to get to this later. It's not all practice by any means. But you know, this is sort of attention to detail. They're sort of like you know, you see in the savant interests that

they're not. They don't seem to be as interested in some things that that so that most quote neurotypical people are interested in. Would you say it's correct? Yeah, that's that's that's certainly true that there their interests are narrow often to uh several areas, and they do spend an awful lot of time uh in those areas. Uh at the expends frankly of of other things that that most

of us spend our time with. So what do you think of the proposed d s M five changes or not the proposed the ones that are actually in the new DSM. In regards to autism, I know there's been some controversy surrounding that. Well, I think we I think

there's some good news and bad news. I think that the good news is that there's some attempt to separate communication disorders out from autism, because there are some uh uh children with with hyperlexia particularly that are are often diagnosed mistakenly as autistic because of their preoccupational numbers and and and letters and so forth. So I think there there there has been a some lack of clarity between communication disorders and children with autism. So I think separating

out some of the communicat disorders is a good thing. Uh. I think increasingly though the d s M tends to keep diluting m hm UH autism and expanding the definition. Uh. I still go back to Leo Kanner's original description of early infatile autism, which in which he described all of the characteristics of of that condition, and it was fairly narrow in terms of it's who would qualify, and we keep expanding that and to where I think autism is

lost as specificity. So that's an interesting thing, an interesting point. You said specificity. So there even within the Savanta mean you go to great pains to differentiate between different kinds of savants to kind of get at that more granular level, granular level, right, So you could you maybe outline some of these different types of savants and why you think it's important to differentiate between them, why it matters. Well, I think in my experience at least divide savans into

into three groups. And admittedly these are subjective at this point, and we need to come down with you know, I'd like to create some specific rationale and criteria, but at this point, the first level are splinter skills, and autistic children who are adults many times will have preoccupation with one one thing or another. May be calendar calculating, it may be remembering birthdays, license plates, other kinds of trivia, and they sort of people marvel at their ability to

know everybody's birthday and remember everybody's birthday. When there's a fan or union, they go around and tell everybody remember whether birth is. Those are called splinter skills, and they do occur in persons with autism. The second level is something I call talented level, and this is where a skill becomes even more conspicuous, and generally a single skill like music or art, and it's conspicuous not just in relationship to the disability, but in the peer group in general.

Is higher than you would find even in neurotypical youngsters. And then there's a third category called prodigious avants, and these are it's a high threshold level, and if these persons did not have a disability, we would call them a prodigy or genius. And I used to say there were twenty five such people in the world. I'm up to about one hundred down. Then there's probably probably many more than we don't know about. But what are some of the things these people can do? Can you give

people conquered examples? Well, Kim Peek certainly with his memory he had memorized wal a thousand books and my memorize I'm talking about with page numbers, including I could do that for breakfast. Are you kidding me? That's nothing? Of course I know probably more than several thousand, probably, And so his his memory was uh was phenomenal. Uh. Leslie Lemke Uh is able to play back any song that he hears with a single hearing and has this repertoire

which is endless. If he's heard the piece and you you remember how he coded it when he put it into his memory bank, Uh, he can pull that out.

But but he also Uh, one of the concerts in Texas, instead of having him play the piece back that the person had played, we said, lest what we want you to this with the person, and so he waited about this person started a song he had never heard before, waited about three seconds, and then he began to play back what he had just heard, processed it and was outputting in his parallel processing and and I measured IQ

of fifty eight. I think so. And Stephen Wiltshire can go by a helicopter over Manhattan for forty five minutes and then spend the next three days drawing what he saw window by window and building by building, And if you want to superimpose a digital photograph on what he

saw on the helicopter, it's exactly the same. So there are and there are other artists who have that have ability to recreate with such fidelity that UH after a single UH viewing an Unlike many other artists, they don't keep going back to the to the photograph or to whatever they're drawing, and it's a single image and that's there, you know, permanently. What do you think is going on there? From like a biological neurological perspective, do you think you

see minimal practice? Is that right? Minimal deliberate practice to get to that level? What do you think is going on there? I I know we have kind of different UH or complementary but somewhat different theories about the origins of those things. Maybe let's hear you, let's hear what what your thoughts are on that. Well, I think there's there's two things that seem to be going on with with savants and at any of these these three levels.

The first is that there is some brain damage, often in the right hemisphere, but not always I'm sorry, in the left hemisphere. And and then there is a recruitment of some still intact cortical tissue on damaged tissue, there is a rewiring to that area, and then the release of dormant potential within that area. That's what I call the three rs. So there's there's brain damage in one area and then a recruitment of still intact often right

hemisphere ability. But at the same time and probably by the same factor, there is a damage to the higher level memory circuits, so called cognitive or semantic memory, with a reliance on more procedural or lower level cortical triadle memory instead of cornical olympic memory. So what you see in the savon is often our right brain skills coupled with this procedural or habit memory, which is very very

very narrow. Well, that's just that that does tells so nicely actually with with some of my work on impulsit learning, the work you know, we know that stratum is is related to the ability to non consciously soak up patterns. Yeah. So, and I and my whole dissertation was on individual differences and implicit learning. Do people differ in this ability? I found they do and it's independent of IQ. So yeah, actually that's interesting. Yeah, now I think of it, there's

a Yeah, I know, it's a really uh. In my book and Gifted, I write a lot about your theory and then talk about impusit learning as playing a possible uh role there, but it still begs the question like how much of that is you know? Or maybe some people are kind of like wired in a certain way that that allows for this important warning to happen more automatically than others. Yes, yeah, that's possible. Yeah, I think I think that's true. Uh. And I think that that

there is that difference even in in neurotypical persons. I think some you know better those kind of skills than others. But I think in the in the salan that the memory is as impressive to me as as the skill itself. And those are connected, but I think they're two. There are two different processes in different areas of the brain that are affected. Yeah, and I think there's a lot

of misconceptions about Savantism. One big one is that that these these they're very they're not people of creativity or improvisation, sort of outside a very narrow structure. And you've, you've, you've really argued against that myth right right. In my first book, Extraordinary People, I wrote that savants where we're not very creative. And I was wrong. And the reason that I was wrong was because I had just at that point, just an early single stamp shot of the savants.

But now that I've been able to follow them for a number of years, what I've seen as a pattern in all of them that starts with with a phenomenal ability to recollect, to remember, whether it's remember a piece they've heard, or remember a scene from the Helicopter uh or memorized books. They have this tremendous recollection. But then if you follow them long enough, they seem to get bored with their records and begin to improvise. And that's

certainly true of Leslie. He will if you play a piece for him and ask him to play it back, he will dutifully do that. But but after he's done doing that, he will start improvising and new variations on the theme of what he just learned and get a hold of control. And then the third stage is creativity

producing something new. And I've seen this an artists who start with tremendous recollection, you know by fiber and animal for example, but then they begin to put a bush here that wasn't in the picture there, and soon they're doing some free freestyle. So there is this movement from recollection to improvisation to creativity, and some of it is really startling as the recollection itself. In other words, some

of them some of the creativity. Leslie if you ask him to play a tune that he's never heard, it may not even exist. Some people trying to stump Leslie by by I'm saying to play something that doesn't exist. He will, he will create on the spot. He will create a song with the lyrics for that particular topic. Well, that is very impressive. Would you say any of these savants, though,

are bona fide geniuses? Would you say any of them like really could go down the history books the genius And is that possible for savant to be like a like a like a historical genius. Yeah, yes, I think so okay cool, and there are some I think that maybe on the way to that. There is a a Savon and Australia who uh got his pH d in mathematics from U C. L A. And is doing some work which I think, you know, may may may push

us farther along than we've ever been. Interestingly, his brother, who is not autistic on the fields, medal in mathematics. Uh and uh, but uh and uh. I think some of the uh, some of the Savants that are into interested now in quantum physics particularly or quantum theory are I think may take us farther than we've been. What makes them sravants though, as opposed to just people with high autism like traits. Where is their disability? What's their disability?

It is autism and some of them it depends on I mean that uh. There they may have very limited daily living skills, They can't manage their own finances, They may need some caretakers. Sounds like this, sounds like me. I think. I think Kim Peek if he had Unfortunately Kim died about two or three years ago, but if

he had continued, I think he would have. In fact, NASA was spending some time with him, and I think if there was such a thing as is such a thing as super intelligence, I think Kim was would be a candidate. On the other hand, he had to have helped dressing himself, He couldn't brush his own teeth because of some more skills, and had other problems with anxiety and so forth. So his autistic underpinnings were there, and that that's true of some of these others, is that right?

That towards the and as he got older, Kim Peek started to be able to do some things that he wasn't able to do, Like there was a core progression and development of some of these quote neurotypical skills like social skills and stuff. Right, And I would put him on the same recollection and improvisation to creation spectrum because when I first met Kim he had memorized this factual

memory which was simply astounding. But as time went on, rather than just bringing up a fact, he would he often would make a pun or some kind of a wit or some kind of on a connection sort of like a Google like connection. Originally, with Kim, if you said Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, he would give you the whole history of when it was written, first time it was played, and all that kind of thing. But toward the end of his life, I asked him one time, what do

you know about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? And he said Churchill And I said, I don't, Kim, I don't. I don't get it. He said, well, Morris code is for dot. Dot is the letter V. And Churchill always had this letter V. Whenever you saw him, he was flashing the letter B and so he was making the connection between And one time I asked him, what do you know about Lincoln's Gettysburg address and he said fourteen ten Front Street.

I said, I don't get it. He said, well, that's where Lincoln stayed the night before he gave his famous speech. So that was his Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Well, you know, it seems like he was like a walking hippocampus. I mean, it just seems like he, you know, his associative memory. We all have ability for socis of memory, but we don't peer into that. We also, like have all these other brain networks getting in the way and inhibiting it.

And it's almost like he was just having direct access to his hippocampus whenever he wanted free, rain free, raid free rate. Well, that's true, and many times his dad was able to be kind of an interpreter because Kim was so far ahead many times with these puns or associations that I didn't understand, or even his dad didn't understand, but he was and they were instant. I mean, he would do this on speaking engagements or other kinds of things.

He would make these these puns or these witticisms that were simply jaw dropping. And that's and that's when you spend time with him, that's what you got in terms of trying to converse with him and trying to keep up with him. Oh wow, it's so interesting what you know to look at, like how much the brain can impact this stuff. You know a lot of people say, well,

culture and learning and environments really important too. But in some of these specific cases, it's hard for me to wrap my head around how Kim peak would have been different? What what ways do you think his memory abilities would have been different under different conditions. Maybe if he wasn't nurtured as much, he wouldn't have been as good, But I don't know, Like what do you what do you think is the role of the environment. It's not like a teacher taught him how to memorize. He doesn't do

all his memory tricks, you know. Well, naturally, it's a it's a preoccupy, the preoccupation, uh, and it's it's kind of a force as much as a gift. H. He has to I mean, he has to read leslie Lempkley, has to play the piano. If he doesn't, he gets anxious. And and and and John Sarking acquired savon. He has to paint and so Uh. It's this drive that uh is continually mining or digging with the area. And and for some it it gets to be uh, sort of insatiable.

I remember a calendar calculator, George Finn uh who was able with his twin brother, and there they were calendar

calculators as well as other number specialists. And I one time uh uh he lived in New York and we had a cable TV show somewhere in New Jersey, and so we had to travel by car from New York to wherever this was, and the conversation was just continually about numbers and dates, and you know, it was almost exhausting that by the time we were there because everything just revolved around these uh uh these numbers and so forth. So I think it is sort of insatiable need to uh,

to rehearse or to demonstrate the ability. Several of the acquired sponts, like Tommy mchughe in England or or John Sarkin in this country became artists after their uh traumatic brain injury. But they can't stop. I mean they're drawing on the floor, they're drawing on the ceiling, they're drawing on you know, they just have to keep drawing. And it's it's this insatiable kind of force, and it's it's not so much a practice effect as it is needing to to discharge this uh, the need to draw or

to paint or to compute. Right, So you've proposedally called like genetic memory, and how do you reconcize the genetic memory deal with this idea of the acquired savant. Well, the acquired savant I think demonstrates genetic memory in that these are ordinary folk who have a brain injury or a stroke or some central nervous system incident and become expert in art or music or math, where there was no such ability before. Tommy McHugh, for example, was a

construction worker basically in London. We had a rather colorful life and in terms of you know, and out of prisons and that sort of thing. And uh had a stroke from which he recovered. But what he had the became a poet. I mean, if there was a likely person to be a poet, it was Tommy make you and an artist. And he simply was drawing everywhere anywhere, and so uh that ability had to be inside him prior to the stroke. He didn't learn that, he didn't learn how to draw or to become a poet. It

just appeared, uh after in his recovery. So it had to exist. And I think that those pockets of ability exists in all of us in an a dormant capacity. Uh and the the acquired savant taps into that. And the question is where did where did Tommy mccuse our ability and interest and come from? And I guess from my standpoint the only way it could be there is through genetic memory. And then there are these pockets of dormant capacity within all of us that are transmitted genetically.

And so what I'm saying is that we inherit not just the color of our eyes or how tall we're going to be, or even behavior traits. I think we actually inherit knowledge, and by then I'm talking about the rules of music, art or math, for example, I'll come Another possibility is that we inherit the ability to learn the rules. We don't actually inherit the rules themselves. We kind of like where some people are more prepared to it's like a template or a skeleton, and they just

their experience fills it in. You know, yeah, well, I think that's I think that's possible. I'm open to that. The thing that that serves me away from that is the rapidity and the the the epiphany like quality that these have that that appear and they appear to me intact as opposed to to rapid learning. Uh. It's hard to prove that or disprove that, but but I think I know that there are many people who feel that the what is inherited is is the scaffolding or the

ability to learn quickly. But I've got some cases where this just appeared with such uh spontaneity and such intactness that it's hard to believe that the person learned that. And in some cases, for example, in Man, they they're able to uh compute prime numbers or do other kinds of formulas and so forth, without ever having been exposed to them. No. In fact, I've got some autistic savants who are able to now that that we have the

type typing tablet and they can. They have been mute, but they're they're now typing on their own on this tablet. Who who are u uh uh typing out the periodic table, for example, never having seen the periodic table. That is very that is very impressive. Do you think the same thing is kind of going on with people with talents just neurotypical people with talents or I guess they wouldn't be nor typical if they have an extraordinary talent, But

I don't know, like people with prodigies prodigies. Do you think a lot of these things are kind of similar phenomenon? Yeah, I think the I've been I get a lot of emails that say I've got a son or daughter who and then the parent tells me there the story about the the special skill. Generally that they've because they've heard about savants, and many times it's it's difficult to sort out uh savant abilities from prodigy from giftedness and some of these. I think some of these children are are

profoundly gifted. I guess I suppose you could call them a prodigy. I know, but uh, well, the strategy officially yet to be before the age of ten. Okay, all right, But I think sometimes these profoundly gifted children or prodigies are difficult to sort out from autisms. Not if the autism symptoms are are severe, the child is mute and withdrawn and obviously autistic, then you know that it's clear

that that would be a savant skill. But I think that Daniel Tannet when we did a program together, and he said that, you know, the line between genius and savant is a very thin one, the very narrow one. And I think he's right in terms of the trying to trying to differentiate those in terms of their their ability and skill on the face of it. But it's an important distinction because if if what let's say, hyperlexia a childhood reads very early, we're talking about kids in

twenty or twenty two months reading. Now some of those sometimes the hyperlexia is a splenter skill, and as the picture emerges, it turns out that that child is autistic. But what has the hyperlexia is sort of his savon skill. But there's but there are a group of children out there who are hyperlexic with autistic like symptoms for a period of time where the outcome is entirely so I'm

trying to to sort those out is a real challenge. Yeah, but it's also very important, you know, I'm for gifting talented education and identification of kids who are falling between the cracks. Yeah, I think it's really important. Well, it is. And I got an email just yesterday from a family where the child is hyperlexic and thought to be autistic, and the school was insisting that this child go to special education, which is exactly the wrong place for this

particular child. Unfortunately, the parents resisted that and put them into a different educational system, and now I think the outcome is going to be that's a whole Another area of my work is what I call hyperlexia three, which is, uh, there are three kinds of hyperlexia. One is normal kids, neurotypical, ordinary kids who read very early. And then there's a second group where the hyperlexia is a part of their

autistic splinter skill. But there's a third group called hyperlexia three where kids have autistic like symptoms for a period of time, which they outgrow and go on to be very bright, contributing normal individuals, and the educational decisions that are made are crucial, UH in that group of youngsters. So what does this kid's outcome in the new school

doing marvelously great? Great in terms of growth socially particularly and just UH had been and a lot of trouble with UH was reading very early and that was very striking in the hyperlexia, but language was slowed. And now in this first months in this new school, language has sort of erupted marvelously, as as have the social skills in the school. Is but the other school was actually wanting this child to who was bored with math, you know,

because I had a way ahead of the curve. But they were saying, you have to go through these the usual math sequence because that's what that's the way it is in the school. So it's crucial to sort those those out. I absolutely absolutely agree, and I'm really glad that you're making these points I wanted to talk about, and I'm very mindful of your time, you know, but this is so the so so fun talk to you. Do you do you mind having another fifteen minutes or so? Absolutely?

You know, we talked about the acquired savant. Let's talk about the sudden savant for instance. For example, for a second, this individual, Jason Paget, has again a lot of he wrote a book recently, and so I've seen a lot of interviews. I've listened to a lot of interviews radio on radio interviews with him and stuff. This guy got,

you know, I think it's his head. You know, he got he got beat up, robbed, you know, his wallet stone or something out of after leaving a bar, and he the next day started seeing he said, he started seeing like numbers and things. Do you think any of these people are just making it up? Yeah, well he's not, because I I just spent I had him here for a lecture two weeks ago, okay, a chance to spend a lot of time with him, and he was simply had no interest in math and managed to sort of

graduate from high school by substituting somebody else's work. And you know, I mean he simply was not an acadimis she just didn't care about that. And then he ends up getting mugged and has this concussion and begins to see these strange images which he had never seen before. And somebody said, as he tried to describe them to people, they said, well, I don't know what you're told him as you draw on them. And so he had never done any drawing before either, and so he drew these out.

And they're very complicated and very precise. It may take two weeks sometimes to complete one of these images. And he was sitting somewhere having coffee or something, and a professor or physics professor came by and he said, my gosh, you know what those ares, don't you? He said, no, I those are fractals, and he said, you know what's a fractal? And so then and so he learned what a fractal is and has become He did go back to college then and is taking math courses and has

become very expert. And he may be one of these people that lead us a little further than we've been in terms of when you hear him talk about relativity and explaining it and so forth and swan so he his for real. I think there are some others where there are are questions raised as to whether a musician, for example, really didn't have any musical training in the past.

I have I think now somewhere in the range of seventy acquired savants that have have that I've learned about, and and they seem genuine and uh real, you know, their story seemed very genuine and real. There was this girl recently who had U was a ordinary person without any particular drawing skills or artistic skills, and she had a head injury rather mild actually, but then began to do these tonsile sketches and she sent them to me,

and they're simply striking. There's simply stunning in the She's never done any of that kind of thing before. So now that uh what I'm what I'm trying to in terms of the acquired savant. Some of these acquire a new skill but pay a price for it in terms of cognitive ability or memory or other kinds of a trade off of some sort. But I'm seeing more acquired savants now where there doesn't seem to be a trade off. And I would I would I would put a Jason

into into that category. And and then I get other emails from people who have not necessarily had an injury but have an epiphany of talent that just arrives on the scene and they suddenly become expert in something we're not expert. That's the sudden savan. These are people who where there has been no no central nervous system incident and and suddenly they are artists or poets or whatever. And uh that that's even more more unusual. But I'm

seeing some of those cases now. And uh I got an email a couple of days ago from a young woman who had never I mean, she was an average student and she was I think in junior high school and just woke up at one point one day and suddenly had this this sudden urge and preoccupation with math that she had no interest in before. And now she's,

you know, excelling and in that in that area. Why you know why that happened on that particular day or what, I don't know, But that's those are the sudden slats,

is there? So if there is, as you've said, a little rain man in all of us, then you know, what can we what can like you know, the average Joe Joe do without you know, hitting their head against you know, a concrete wall, or you know, to change their brain or you know, I mean, I know there's new like there's researchers doing like t you know, to doing like transcranial stimulate you're trying to do that and

stuff like that. What else can people do? Well, I think there's all sorts of effort to make ourselves smarter. And coffee exactly that, as a matter of fact, is uh, you know, the pharmacologic route and the people have been experimenting for and coffee is a good example. It does work in the short run, and there are other uh uh chemicals out there now which will improve memory in the short run at least make you feel like you're smarter.

Whether or not you're actually smarter is a different story. Yeah, well, yeah, well it'll certainly it will impact demonstrably on memory capacity. For example, the amphetamines will you know, make you make your memory, improve your memory, and you can demonstrate that

on tests, but it's it's not a lasting effect. So there's a pharmacologic and of course anything if you watch any television now, no matter what what it is, there's all of the metabolic products out there, the jellyfish that makes our that makes our brains better and work better.

So there's this perpetual search for something pharmacologic. There's the technologic you mentioned the h R T M S. There is, in fact, doctor Allen Snyder in Australia has been working with with that in a very systematic kind of way. But there is if you, if you google it down, you can buy these headsets that are available to commercially to put on your head and stimulate your cortex and

supposedly help. So there's that technological route, there's the pharmacological route. Uh. There is the uh meditation and mindfulness route that sort of taking a deliberate cognitive approach to expanding your mind,

your memory. I think the less dramatic route is simply to make some effort to sort of what I call rummage in our right hemisphere a bit and find a skill or capacity or interest that that that one can can pursue, not necessarily just as a hobby or any retirement, but to find out a lot of people do find that out after they retire. They have an ability or they have something they've always wanted to pursue, and now I have the time to do so. And I'm saying

we should get started earlier on that, uh too. And that's a different it's not a very dramatic kind of mind expansion. But I think it's the kind that works. Can you become really good at something without any talent to begin with? Like can't? Doesn't practice like matter as well? Well? I think practice matters, and it matters even in the Sabans. That the thing that with the Samans, the musical Samans for example, as they they they train the talent and

they get better by doing that. And so the fact that they can, that you can train it or develop it doesn't necessarily obviate the fact that in the saman is just there and sometimes they're in a way that they haven't been exposed to, and that so there's no question that practice effect can improve the skill. But that doesn't negate the fact that savants know things they never learned, and that's another you know, that's that's another whole area of course, as you know, some you know people argue

for the ten thousand hours practice effect. You know, give me a child and give me a bright child, or just give me a child who is and the only thing he or she has to do is to learn music and concentrate only on that, and I will know

at the end of it, have a prodigy. Your genius, and I say no, I think there is a substrate of talent that's distributed in the bell shaped curve that we're not all going to be a little angeloser or Einstein's but at the extremes there is this talent, and I'm adding to talent knowledge of the rules of that particular talent that I think are inherited. So such an interesting conversation for me, and I really appreciate it. I want to end a little bit talking about your theory

of mellow How can we all be more mellow? And what are some you know, other side interests or hobbies or things they most excite you today? Right? Well, of course mellowing comes from listening to patients through the years. And obviously if you listen to well, like any doctor in any specialty, towards the end of your career, you get more and more interested in prevention rather than treatment. You know, all along one wonders about how can you

keep this from happening? But I think and the longer one it's in a career, the more intrigued one gets with how can we keep this from happy? So I listened to patients for all these years and learned certain things from them, from listening to them, and I just put those together in a formula or a booklet or whatever you want to call it, called mellowing and for example, being able to well. First of all, my definition of mental health is being relaxed at ease and pleasantly convivial.

And that's what mello means, relaxed at ease and pleasantly convivial. And how does one become that? Well, there are things you can do, for example, to focus more on on who I am rather than what I do, and not all of my identity, you know, wrapped up in what I do, rather than the who I am, sorting out what I called the urgent from the important. That we spend so much of our times with urgent things in our life, and we ignore the important things like love

and care and concern and interaction with each other. We priorities, we get our priorities uh mixed up in and a variety of other kinds of things that are really common sense, but but we we don't know. We don't pay much attention to our health until it's interrupted. Then suddenly it's like we don't pay much attention to sleep until we can't sleep well. And once your health is interrupted, then I especially with mental health, there are things one can can look at. So I've put those together in a

little formula. I guess that make us more able to be relaxed, at ease and pleasantly con vivial. And part of it is just getting off the treadmill that that that we that we that we end up on, some of which is necessary and and but but a lot of it we encurrent things that that we learn later on We're not all that important. This is really great diald. And you know, I feel like you've I've got a lot of wisdom from you in lots of different ways. I mean, looking back, you know, your whole your very

long career. You know what is like, what is like a major like? What was given you the greatest sense of like meaning in your life has been interacting with these savants, getting to really know them as people as opposed to just doing scientific research. You know what, what are really some of the most meaningful highlights of your career.

I think the highlight has been not so much what I might have discovered or insights that I've had, but it's the effect that some of those insights or interactions have had on people and their lives, not only the Savans,

but their families as well. And the real compensation that I get at this point in my career is from the letters from parents or from I got a long email the other day from a girl who is now twenty one years old, and she was hyperlexic, given a diagnosis mistakenly of autism, and treated in some ways that really was not anyway. She wrote, I need this letter of what it's like to have gone through that, in the hopes that I could share that with other youngsters

or parents. The thing that the knowledge that I've been helpful to people. It's one thing to do your job well and take satisfaction in doing a good job, but the real satisfaction comes from knowing that that effort is appreciated, and so you get I think at the end of a I know doctor Walder Kempster, who was the superintendent

of Winnebago a century before I was. When he retired, his staff gave him a bunch of books, the library, books which in those days were very valuable, and he said, I really, I really, I'm glad to get these books and I will treasure them. But he said that more important than knowing that I did the job well. Is that the knowledge that my efforts were appreciated. And I think that's true of all of us. And so my

satisfaction comes from and it's in small ways. I every now and then go on and meet with a high school class of the advanced psychology students or whatever. I go to a little village here here called Oakfield once a year and we get together and I do this lecture. And each year they send me back a card signed by all of these kids. You know how appreciative they were.

And for some they will say it's been a meaningful you know, I'm thinking about I want to be a psychiatrist, or I want to be a psychologist, or I want to be a neuroscientist. And I have a couple of kids out there now who are about to graduate from medical school. When they wrote to me and said, the reason I'm in medical school is because of this lecture that you give it that I said I wanted to attendant.

So it's that kind of feedback that you know, it's not monetary, but it is the appreciation and knowing that you've had a really positive impact on these and the appreciation letters from these parents especially, are are just really really moving. You know. I know for a fact, a lot of people really appreciate you. I really appreciate you.

And I've seen videos. I've seen you interact with these savants, many of these individuals who there's hardly anyone else in their life who really appreciate them, their uniqueness, and you kind of bring out of them. I've seen you bring out of them is kind of special, you know, the expression of themselves that a lot of people haven't been able to coax out of them. So I think you've really done a great, great service. Well, thank you. I

think you know. I when I started the children's unit at Winnebago, we had these very disturbed kids, and and we started this unit, and we started a school, and there weren't any models out there, so we had to we had to create our own. And my motto, or I guess my strategy, was that no matter how disturbed this child is and how how closed they are, somewhere in there is an island of intactnus uh. And that's true of every psychotic patient or every depressed patient too.

No matter how depressed, you know, there is this island of intactness and our job is to find that island of intagnis and to build on it, you know, to to nurture it and to make it grow. And so it is with the savants that that within them. Uh, it's easy. With some of them, there's this island of

genius that you know that it strikes. But even with some of the other kids that are really considerately or some of the psychotic patients that I've treated, I search for that island of antagonists, or even with some of the behavioral kids, the kids that are acting out, and so you're still so I guess I have that if there's a sort of an urge within me, and it's

to search for that island of antagnus. And no matter how how disturbed the person is, I love that and that and sometimes you know, you learn, you learn from your patients. And that's what this melowing book that is all about the things that I've learned from some of some of the things are are very obvious. I I when I first became superintendent the hospital, I put on a suggestion box and I said to the patients, you know I go home every night, you stay here. What

can we do to make this a better place? And one guy put a suggestion, he said, don't serve beans on dance night. And it's very practical and easy to implement. Easy to implement. So if you listen, you hear things that you learn, you are the savant whisperer. Last question, you know, what are you most excited about in the future. You know, it could be recent advances and technology. Can

you be you personally in your own personal life. I think the neuroscience frontier is I think we're you know, we we have barely scratched the surface of the brain and it's and it's complexity. The more I've worked with it, the more in awe I am of this three and a half pounds of circuitry and what it can do, and and how little we're we really have been able to,

uh to unravel about that. But I think we're now have some technology and techniques, not all imaging, but some other kinds of things as well that that will allow us to you know, my hope is that that's some of the things that I've been talking about, including the genetic memory kind of thing, we'll be able to somebody will be able to pick up and to prove. So that's what I'm uh looking looking forward to and seeing

some of these. I gave a recently, gave a lecture to a bunch of fourth graders and in an elementary school. They asked me to come, and I thought, she's I know how to talk to adults, and I, you know, graduate students will say the fourth graders. And so I went there and we had we just had a blast. Those kids were prepared for obviously the teacher had prepared them. And said, doctor Treford, how come there are more male savants than female sevants. I mean these are fourth graders,

you know, raising that kind of a question. And at the end of it, a little guy and a little girl came up and the guy said to me, he said, I want to be a neuroscientist when I grow up, and the little girl said me to And for me, the real payoff would be the day they walk across the stage and get their master's degree and neuroscience and their doctorate and carry on the work that I've sort of started or have been immersed in. And I you know that to me is that's where I drawing my satisfy.

I had. Also, I've got a huge orchard which I take care of which I it's in full bloom right at the moment, and it's just marvelous. And so I spent a lot of time on our property. We've got a beautiful waterfall on our property too, and so I can you know, soap that up just as much as genetic memory. Please take a picture of them in bloom and I can put in the show notes. Okay, picture you take. I will, thank you, Dad. I just have

really treasure this conversation and getting all the conversations we've had. Well. I appreciate the chance to talk with you and get to know you a bit better and electronically, at least at some point, I hope our paths will cross and I'll keep doing what I'm doing and you keep doing what you're doing, and between the two of us will move things ahead a little bit more. Sounds great, Tyrol, thank you? Okay, Okay, thanks thanks for listening to The

Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as an informative and thought provoking as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com.