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.