The Flawed Genius 3: Channel the ability

The summation of my last blog is that behind every autism or learning disability may be a genius of legendary proportion, but the burden is on the people closest to such an individual to help channel that ability at such an early age. Derek from our last story had 0.5%  of  ability to comprehend or communicate with anybody, but that enhanced 99.99% of his appreciation of music. He remembers every note he hears even if ten individuals in an orchestra were playing the notes. No normal human brain can handle that, because we naturally use less than 1% of our brain, this means that the 99.99% appreciation Derek uses is more cognitive than the average brain usage of an average person. But it took his nanny to channel that innate ability.

Unfortunately, I come from  a country where children with learning disabilities are discriminated against and seen as either a curse or a burden. For the avoidance of doubt, I have been trained to understand and care for children with learning disabilities for more than three years in England, I have even had very difficult children get close to me. In all these, I noticed from their care plans that whenever they get into behaviours challenges, there is always something that got them quiet, maybe a puzzle,a computer game,music  etc. So children’s care homes always have facilities for playing, puzzles, books, they have artists come to evaluate their inclination towards the arts. In all these, the carer wants to find out the language the nonverbal child is inclined towards.

If many parents imbibe this practice with such children at home, by giving this kids a universal language like playing music for them at tender age, exposing them to puzzles,patterns,maths, construction or arts (I consider these universal languages), their genius might be revealed. Derek's Nanny understood this and started singing to him at a tender age and later brought a piano for him, when his brilliance in teaching himself became apparent, the father brought him a piano teacher.These were all acts of channeling fueled by love.

There is a story of an individual who had asperger syndrome, Gary McKinnon. He hacked 97 US Military and NASA computers, he said he was looking for evidence of UFOs and energy source that was beneficial to mankind. The truth of the story was that in 1987 when he was just 17 years old, he went to his local cinema and saw the movie of a whiz kid who hacked into Pentagon secret computers and nearly caused a war, but the intriguing part of the tale for the Derek must have been when the Pentagon congratulates the boy in the movie for his intelligence, and believes when he grows he will be an asset for NASA or Ministry of Defence. (See http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2 viewed 20/10/2013)

This kind of encouragement is also seen in the American film of “Catch me if you Can” where a serial bank fraudster is later employed by the government to help stop bank fraud. The truth is, every government needs to find every genius, even the ones who have shown their ingenuity by acts of criminality. Reform and put them to good use. I am not a supporter of crime, but the best thing for misguided geniuses,  is for the government of his country to help him channel his genius properly. May be by helping his country fight cyber espionage which is the next Third War going on now, he can help his country from an offensive angle or help them tighten their cyber thresholds.

In all, my thoughts on today’s blog is that on no account should a child with learning disabilities be seen as having nothing to offer. Maybe they have more to offer than we can imagine. Every responsible government should release funds to investigate, educate and help children with learning disabilities, because in doing so, such countries may be close to the next technological breakthrough.

The flawed genius 2: An Autistic Perspective

Developed countries do everything within their capability to get their hands on a genius. This is because, geniuses develop technology, some help in espionage, while some help stop cyber espionage. It is not unheard of that no matter how bad a genius is, if he is in jail and the survival of a country depends on his brilliance he will be treated like a king for him or her to save the day or put in a shift.

However,  sometimes genius comes with “madness”. The audacity to think of antimatter, the purest and best form of energy was madness, most of the scientific innovation we see strikes me like stuffs that could have existed in the mind of a mad man. Before, the mobile phone was invented, I saw insane men on the street talking to unknown people and if I had seen a person with a mobile phone then, speaking into the phone and gesticulating, I would have also thought the individual mad. Some of these guys with great inventions tried so many times and failed so many times, but their obsessive repetitive behaviours, which could be a mild or extreme form of autism has led to some of the worlds best minds in technology.

There is a form of autism that is worthy of note with regard to this topic of the flawed genius. Asperger Syndrome. In wikipedia it was considered as, “characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests” (see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome culled 19th of October 2010)

I am going to briefly talk about Derek Paravinic. He was born blind and autistic. His nanny felt that since the boy could not comprehend anything or see,she introduced him to the universal language of music. She sang to him for two years and she brought a keyboard from the loft of course for his play time. However, after a few months he started making good music, by teaching himself how to play the keyboard. By four years he could play "English country garden" just by listening to a tape from his nanny. His dad got him a piano named Adam Ockelford and he would not even let the teacher touch the keyboard, he was obsessed with it, but later the two got along well.  When he was 11 years of age, he was playing in big orchestras. Even though his ability to comprehend and use language at that time was 0.5%, yet his ability to process music was 99.99% he could hear and process every note played by any person even an orchestra. By the age of 11, could play  “Flight of a bumble bee” despite how fast the notes were. He was known as a child prodigy, the word “autism” was never even associated with him.

The question is how did or does he do it?  TEDTALK describes his ability to hear simultaneous sounds, process and memorize thus:

“In the TEDTalk, I argue that the two things are related. It was Derek's inability to process language in his early years, coupled with his inability to ascribe functional meaning to everyday sounds, that, I contend, led to his heightened ability to process all sounds in a musical way. One traded off the other. In fact, without the former, it is almost certain that the latter would never have developed. Derek's disabilities and abilities, like Freddie's are, I believe, different sides of the same coin.”

(story from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-ockelford/autism-genius_b_4118805.html read on the 19th of October, 2013)

 I guess, its time to help an autistic child discover the genius within. Do not do it, because you want to make the child famous, do because of love. What would tickle the brains of an autistic child is what it feels a connection to, love is a great connection. The gifts of love you buy, the lullaby, the Ipad, jack the builder toys, cartoons, art crayons or art sets might just be what that child needs.

The flawed Genius

The theory of the flawed genius will be imperative in reiterating my point that the advantage some legends have had over others, was the term, described as "Disability".

However, it has been scientifically proven that when an individual is impaired with regard to a certain sense, other senses become enhanced to balance the impaired sense. Blind individuals normally have great sense of hearing, taste, in fact, impeccable perception. I had a blind classmate who came to class unaided during my secondary school. He knew the feel of every currency and never gave a wrong note. I am sure he could taste ingredients in food better than us all, if he was a poet, he would appreciate the sound of the breeze better, the sound of the whistling pines or streams. They understanding feelings like love, hate because they don't see but feel.

I guess this explains the magnificence of Ray Charles. His descriptiveness in his songs makes you wonder whether he was indeed blind. I listen to the song, "Mess around" and I wonder he conjures the imageries in the song. His song "I got a woman" was instrumental to the development of Rock n Roll and Soul and it was his own composition.

Stevie Wonders is also one of a kind. His first hit was at the of 13. His appreciation of love in his songs shows you his one wish is to see the ones he loves even for one day. I grew up hearing this song, "I just called to say I love you". At that age, I could appreciate the depth and beauty of the song.

Its time to check whether what you consider a disability, is only meant to disable the things that inhibit your destiny