September 20, 2015 • 68 mins
A leading expert in the psychology of savantism for over 40 years and the scientific advisor for the film Rain Man, Darold Treffert is a wellspring of knowledge on this fascinating yet often misunderstood condition. In this episode we cover the brain anatomy of savantism, its causes and some of the incredible abilities of famous savants like Kim Peak, who memorized thousands of books verbatim (down to the page number)! We feel fortunate to have had this chance to learn so much about such an interesting topic from one of the most well respected researchers in the field. Please enjoy and tell us what you think!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain,
behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest
who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater
understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today. It's my
(00:35):
great pleasure to have a great Daryld Trefford on the show.
Daryld is a psychiatrist who specializes in the development of
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
(00:59):
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
(01:23):
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
(01:43):
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
(02:08):
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
(02:32):
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,
(02:54):
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,
(03:16):
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
(03:39):
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
(04:00):
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,
(04:24):
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
(04:45):
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,
(05:06):
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.
(05:30):
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
(05:52):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:35):
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
(06:59):
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
(07:22):
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,
(07:44):
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,
(08:04):
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
(08:26):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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
(09:30):
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
(09:50):
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,
(10:12):
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
(10:33):
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
(10:59):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:46):
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
(12:10):
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.
(12:35):
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,
(12:57):
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
(13:18):
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,
(13:41):
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
(14:02):
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
(14:25):
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
(14:49):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:30):
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,
(15:53):
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
(16:13):
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
(16:35):
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
(17:01):
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
(17:23):
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
(17:43):
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
(18:06):
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
(18:28):
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
(18:53):
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
(19:14):
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,
(19:38):
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
(20:00):
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.
(20:24):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:16):
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
(21:42):
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
(22:04):
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
(22:27):
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
(22:52):
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
(23:13):
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,
(23:34):
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
(23:55):
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,
(24:18):
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
(24:40):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:24):
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
(25:45):
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?
(26:05):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:48):
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,
(27:10):
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
(27:34):
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.
(27:57):
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.
(28:17):
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,
(28:40):
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
(29:00):
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
(29:20):
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
(29:44):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:29):
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
(30:53):
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,
(31:18):
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
(31:40):
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
(32:03):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:45):
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
(33:09):
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
(33:31):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:19):
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
(34:42):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:31):
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
(35:52):
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
(36:14):
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.
(36:34):
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
(36:55):
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
(37:17):
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
(37:50):
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
(38:18):
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
(38:38):
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
(38:59):
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
(39:20):
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.
(39:43):
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,
(40:07):
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,
(40:30):
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
(40:50):
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
(41:12):
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
(41:34):
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
(41:59):
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
(42:19):
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
(42:40):
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.
(43:02):
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,
(43:24):
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,
(43:46):
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
(44:09):
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,
(44:30):
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,
(44:51):
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
(45:13):
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.
(45:34):
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
(46:03):
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
(46:26):
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
(46:47):
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
(47:07):
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
(47:28):
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
(47:51):
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
(48:16):
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,
(48:39):
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
(49:01):
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
(49:22):
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,
(49:43):
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
(50:06):
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
(50:31):
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
(50:58):
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
(51:18):
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
(51:41):
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
(52:04):
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.
(52:29):
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
(52:50):
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
(53:16):
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
(53:39):
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
(54:03):
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
(54:25):
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
(54:49):
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
(55:11):
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,
(55:31):
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
(55:53):
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
(56:14):
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,
(56:36):
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
(57:00):
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
(57:23):
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
(57:44):
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.
(58:05):
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,
(58:28):
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
(58:52):
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
(59:17):
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
(59:41):
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
(01:00:03):
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
(01:00:24):
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.
(01:00:44):
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
(01:01:05):
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
(01:01:26):
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
(01:01:50):
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
(01:02:14):
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
(01:02:34):
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
(01:02:56):
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
(01:03:16):
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
(01:03:39):
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
(01:04:01):
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
(01:04:24):
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,
(01:04:50):
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,
(01:05:11):
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
(01:05:34):
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
(01:05:57):
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.
(01:06:18):
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,
(01:06:42):
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
(01:07:03):
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
(01:07:28):
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
(01:07:48):
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
(01:08:08):
notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can
go to the Psychology Podcast dot com.
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain,
behavior and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest
who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater
understanding of yourself, others, and the world we live in.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today. It's my
(00:35):
great pleasure to have a great Daryld Trefford on the show.
Daryld is a psychiatrist who specializes in the development of
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
(00:59):
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
(01:23):
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
(01:43):
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
(02:08):
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
(02:32):
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,
(02:54):
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,
(03:16):
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
(03:39):
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
(04:00):
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,
(04:24):
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
(04:45):
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,
(05:06):
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.
(05:30):
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
(05:52):
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
(06:13):
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
(06:35):
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
(06:59):
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
(07:22):
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,
(07:44):
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,
(08:04):
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
(08:26):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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
(09:30):
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
(09:50):
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,
(10:12):
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
(10:33):
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
(10:59):
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
(11:24):
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
(11:46):
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
(12:10):
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.
(12:35):
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,
(12:57):
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
(13:18):
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,
(13:41):
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
(14:02):
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
(14:25):
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
(14:49):
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
(15:09):
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
(15:30):
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,
(15:53):
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
(16:13):
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
(16:35):
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
(17:01):
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
(17:23):
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
(17:43):
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
(18:06):
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
(18:28):
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
(18:53):
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
(19:14):
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,
(19:38):
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
(20:00):
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.
(20:24):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:16):
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
(21:42):
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
(22:04):
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
(22:27):
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
(22:52):
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
(23:13):
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,
(23:34):
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
(23:55):
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,
(24:18):
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
(24:40):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:24):
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
(25:45):
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?
(26:05):
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
(26:27):
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
(26:48):
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,
(27:10):
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
(27:34):
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.
(27:57):
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.
(28:17):
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,
(28:40):
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
(29:00):
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
(29:20):
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
(29:44):
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
(30:09):
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
(30:29):
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
(30:53):
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,
(31:18):
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
(31:40):
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
(32:03):
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
(32:24):
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
(32:45):
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
(33:09):
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
(33:31):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:19):
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
(34:42):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:31):
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
(35:52):
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
(36:14):
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.
(36:34):
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
(36:55):
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
(37:17):
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
(37:50):
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
(38:18):
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
(38:38):
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
(38:59):
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
(39:20):
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.
(39:43):
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,
(40:07):
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,
(40:30):
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
(40:50):
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
(41:12):
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
(41:34):
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
(41:59):
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
(42:19):
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
(42:40):
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.
(43:02):
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,
(43:24):
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,
(43:46):
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
(44:09):
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,
(44:30):
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,
(44:51):
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
(45:13):
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.
(45:34):
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
(46:03):
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
(46:26):
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
(46:47):
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
(47:07):
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
(47:28):
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
(47:51):
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
(48:16):
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,
(48:39):
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
(49:01):
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
(49:22):
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,
(49:43):
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
(50:06):
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
(50:31):
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
(50:58):
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
(51:18):
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
(51:41):
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
(52:04):
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.
(52:29):
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
(52:50):
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
(53:16):
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
(53:39):
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
(54:03):
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
(54:25):
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
(54:49):
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
(55:11):
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,
(55:31):
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
(55:53):
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
(56:14):
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,
(56:36):
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
(57:00):
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
(57:23):
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
(57:44):
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.
(58:05):
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,
(58:28):
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
(58:52):
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
(59:17):
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
(59:41):
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
(01:00:03):
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
(01:00:24):
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.
(01:00:44):
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
(01:01:05):
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
(01:01:26):
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
(01:01:50):
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
(01:02:14):
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
(01:02:34):
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
(01:02:56):
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
(01:03:16):
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
(01:03:39):
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
(01:04:01):
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
(01:04:24):
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,
(01:04:50):
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,
(01:05:11):
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
(01:05:34):
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
(01:05:57):
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.
(01:06:18):
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,
(01:06:42):
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
(01:07:03):
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
(01:07:28):
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
(01:07:48):
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
(01:08:08):
notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can
go to the Psychology Podcast dot com.
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