Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Just
Speaker 1: a quick note that today's episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a rerun the next season of the Psychology Podcast we'll
Speaker 1: begin later this year. I haven't taken any break in
Speaker 1: five years of doing this podcast, so I thought it
Speaker 1: was about time to take a step back and think
Speaker 1: about how it can make this a better experience for
Speaker 1: you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives. Today,
Speaker 1: it's my great pleasure to have a great Daryld Trefford
Speaker 1: on the show. Daryld is a psychiatrist who specially lies
Speaker 1: in the development of autism spectrum disorders in savant syndrome.
Speaker 1: He's on the staff at Saint Agnes Hospital and serves
Speaker 1: on the board of Trustees of Marianne University. Strefford was
Speaker 1: a consultant to the movie rain Man, and his latest
Speaker 1: book is Islands of Genius, The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic,
Speaker 1: acquired and Sudden Savant. Thank you, Daryl for talking to
Speaker 1: me today. My pleasure to be here. As you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime fan I you could say of your work,
Speaker 1: and hopefully you'd consider me a colleague as well. Absolutely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Why did you I want to ask you why you
Speaker 1: called your book Islands of Genius. Well, it when I
Speaker 1: met my first savant, which was way back in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, I was simply astounded, frankly by these These
Speaker 1: these first Savants were kids on a children's unit who
Speaker 1: some of them were severely disabled, and yet had these
Speaker 1: islands of intactus or islands of genius. At students such
Speaker 1: contrast overall handicap, it just seemed to me that the
Speaker 1: term island of genius was appropriate for these spectacular abilities
Speaker 1: in a sea of disability. Right, So, there was just
Speaker 1: such a huge difference, striking contrast between what they seemed
Speaker 1: to be having difficulties doing in life and their their
Speaker 1: skill set and a different skill set that they seemed
Speaker 1: to be very extraordinary. Right, some of them were actually
Speaker 1: mute and had no language whatsoever, and yet I had
Speaker 1: some spectacular ability. And that just struck me that what
Speaker 1: does this say about human potential overall? Well, now, with
Speaker 1: the iPad and the the talking tablet, we're finding that
Speaker 1: these kids who were mute and have no expressive language
Speaker 1: are able to communicate with the with the talking tablet,
Speaker 1: and some of them at a frankly an astonishing level, right, Right.
Speaker 1: And I remember seeing a very touching video clip. I
Speaker 1: can't remember phil was Leslie web he or not. It
Speaker 1: was autistic savant who was blind. He picked up the
Speaker 1: music very easily, and he didn't talk, but he started
Speaker 1: singing one day. You know, he's playing music and his
Speaker 1: caretaker was just like amazed, absolutely amazed. Right, And that's
Speaker 1: true that Leslie. As a matter of fact, he talked someone.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is ecchoeic and it's hard to
Speaker 1: carry on a conversation, but he well seeing any tune
Speaker 1: that he has heard. And as a musical savannah, it's
Speaker 1: a little unusual to find someone who is a pianist
Speaker 1: but also singing, and Leslie does both. Right. So I
Speaker 1: want to ask a question, because you were the scientific
Speaker 1: advisors to the movie rain Man. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of misconceptions about the main character in that in
Speaker 1: that movie. To what extent was Raymond Babbitt based on
Speaker 1: a real character. Well, the film was inspired by Kim Peek,
Speaker 1: who is what I call him everest memory. He simply
Speaker 1: is as the most phenomenal memory of any Savannah've ever.
Speaker 1: It turns out, quite by by accident that Barry Morrow,
Speaker 1: who had written two made for television programs in the
Speaker 1: past about called Bill about when Mickey Rooney was playing
Speaker 1: someone who was coldly disabled, they just happened to be
Speaker 1: in the same room at the same time at this convention,
Speaker 1: and very Morrow was simply struck by Kim Peak's memory.
Speaker 1: They they happened to be in a library room and
Speaker 1: he was pulling books out and and quizzing Kim about
Speaker 1: about them. And so he on the way back on
Speaker 1: the plane back to California, he wrote down autistic Savant
Speaker 1: and then he went about writing the script for for
Speaker 1: the movie rain Man inspired by Kim Peak. But the
Speaker 1: Raymond Babbitt is a composite savant. Uh, it's not the
Speaker 1: story of Kim Peak. And all the scenes that you
Speaker 1: see in the movie are based on real life savants.
Speaker 1: The toothpick scene, the memorizing the phone book, the computing
Speaker 1: uh mathematical equations but not knowing the difference between the
Speaker 1: candy bar and a sports car. All of those are
Speaker 1: our real life scenes. But Raymond babbittt is a composite
Speaker 1: savant rather than the story of Kim Peak, right, right,
Speaker 1: So that's very interesting. So I want to I want
Speaker 1: to tase and tease a part a couple of things here,
Speaker 1: And that's the difference between autism and savantism. Am I correct?
Speaker 1: Is saying they're not the same thing, and they're not
Speaker 1: always co occurring. Yes, that's right. Can you define each?
Speaker 1: Would you mind defining each? For sure? Savant syndrome is
Speaker 1: a is a remarkable but rare condition in which a
Speaker 1: person has some underlying developmental disability or other brain disorder
Speaker 1: who has some spectacular island of genius that stands in
Speaker 1: start contrast to overall handicapped. So savant syndrome by definition
Speaker 1: means that somebody has an underlying disability and the savant
Speaker 1: ability is grafted onto that underlying disability. Now, about seventy
Speaker 1: percent of the time savants have autism as the underlying disability,
Speaker 1: but the other thirty percent have some other condition. Could
Speaker 1: be a traumatic brain injury, could be dementia, could be
Speaker 1: cognitive disability. So this so that not all savants are
Speaker 1: autistic and not all autistic persons are savants. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that people come away from
Speaker 1: the movie saying, oh, I know what an autistic savant is,
Speaker 1: and they assume that all autistic savants or all autistic
Speaker 1: persons have the abilities of Raymond Babbitt, And that's not true.
Speaker 1: About one out of ten persons with autism does have
Speaker 1: some savantability, but means nine out of ten do not.
Speaker 1: So interesting, And I just wonder, like, what what kind
Speaker 1: of traits or characteristics of autism can facilitate savant skills,
Speaker 1: because I mean, it's I don't think it's any coincidence
Speaker 1: that that most savant skills virtually all of them are
Speaker 1: non verbal in the non verbal demean is that right? Uh? Most,
Speaker 1: mostly there are some polyglots of wants who do have
Speaker 1: language abilities, where that where the ability to speak or
Speaker 1: or to interpret languages are is the ability. But that's
Speaker 1: that's really quite rare, right, So maybe some of these
Speaker 1: kind of characteristics of autism, like attention to detail, uh,
Speaker 1: interest in visual spatial reasoning. These sorts of things might
Speaker 1: be conducive to extraordinary skill, right. I think those that
Speaker 1: you mentioned attention to detail, the ability to to or
Speaker 1: organize and to memorize, massive memory or extraordinary memory is
Speaker 1: shared as well. And the ability to focus on detail
Speaker 1: rather than then the big picture is certainly a part
Speaker 1: of autism. And it turns out, as I said, about
Speaker 1: one in ten persons with autism has savannabilities, but it's
Speaker 1: about one in fourteen hundred persons with other brain disorders
Speaker 1: underlying has avandability. So it's it's much more common in autism,
Speaker 1: and people are trying to find out why what is that?
Speaker 1: What is the connection? Why is it one out of
Speaker 1: ten autistic persons and one out of fourteen hundreds Let
Speaker 1: me you flip the Let me flip the script for
Speaker 1: one second here. So there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: that non savants is what some people call neurotypical individuals
Speaker 1: are really good at, but we don't make a big
Speaker 1: deal out of it because it's just it's just a
Speaker 1: really developing things. So, for instance, like most people's social skills,
Speaker 1: probably a savant looks at their social skills and thinks
Speaker 1: think they're savants, you know, like like savants probably look
Speaker 1: at don savants and say, wow, you're a savant and
Speaker 1: social skills. Yeah, so, I mean, so it seems to
Speaker 1: me like, you know, if you spend so much time
Speaker 1: developing one area to the exclusion of other areas, you
Speaker 1: can become really good in that area, you know, and
Speaker 1: like savants show up and I don't think and we're
Speaker 1: going to get to this later. It's not all practice
Speaker 1: by any means, but you know, this is sort of
Speaker 1: attention to detail. They're sort of like, you know, you
Speaker 1: see in the savant interests that they're not. They don't
Speaker 1: seem to be as interested in some things that that
Speaker 1: so that most quote neurotypical people are interested in. Would
Speaker 1: you say that's correct, Yeah, that's that's that's certainly true
Speaker 1: that there their interests are narrow often to uh, several areas,
Speaker 1: and they do spend an awful lot of time in
Speaker 1: those areas at the expense frankly of other things that
Speaker 1: most of us spend our time with. So what do
Speaker 1: you think of the proposed d s M five changes
Speaker 1: or not the proposed the ones that are actually in
Speaker 1: the new d s M in regards to autism. I
Speaker 1: know there's been some controversy surrounding that. Well, I think
Speaker 1: we I think there's some good news and bad news.
Speaker 1: I think that the good news is that there's some
Speaker 1: attempt to separate communication disorders out from autism, because there
Speaker 1: are some uh uh children with with hyperlexia, particularly that
Speaker 1: are are often diagnosed mistakenly as autistic because of their
Speaker 1: preoccupational numbers and and and letters and so forth. So
Speaker 1: I think there there there has been a some lack
Speaker 1: of clarity between communication disorders and children with autism. So
Speaker 1: I think separating out some of the communicat disorders is
Speaker 1: a good thing. I think increasingly though the d s
Speaker 1: M tends to keep diluting autism and expanding the definition.
Speaker 1: I still go back to Leo Canner's original description of
Speaker 1: early infatile autism, which in which he described all of
Speaker 1: the characteristics of that condition, and it was fairly narrow
Speaker 1: in terms of it's who would qualify, And we keep
Speaker 1: expanding that and to where I think autism is lost
Speaker 1: as specificity. So that's an interesting thing, that interesting point.
Speaker 1: You said specificity. So there even within the Savanta Meine
Speaker 1: you go to great pains to differentially between different kinds
Speaker 1: of savants, to kind of get at that more granual level,
Speaker 1: granular level, right, So you could you maybe outline some
Speaker 1: of these different types of savants and why you think
Speaker 1: it's important to differentiate between them, why it matters. Well,
Speaker 1: I think in my experience at least I divide savants
Speaker 1: into into into three three groups. And admittedly these are
Speaker 1: subjective at this point, and we need to come down
Speaker 1: with you know, I might to create some specific rationale
Speaker 1: and criteria, but at this point. The first level are
Speaker 1: splitter skills and autistic children who are adults. Many times
Speaker 1: we'll have preoccupation with one one thing or another. May
Speaker 1: be calendar calculating, it, may be remembering birthdays, license plates,
Speaker 1: other kinds of trivia, and they of people marvel at
Speaker 1: their ability to know everybody's birthday and remember everybody's birthday.
Speaker 1: When there's a fan or union, they go around and
Speaker 1: tell everybody remember whether their birth is. Those are called
Speaker 1: splinter skills, and they do occur in persons with autism.
Speaker 1: The second level is something I call talented level, and
Speaker 1: this is where a skill becomes even more conspicuous and
Speaker 1: generally a single skill like music or art, and it's
Speaker 1: conspicuous not just in relationship to the disability, but in
Speaker 1: the peer group in general. Is higher than you would
Speaker 1: find even in neurotypical youngsters. And then there's a third
Speaker 1: category called prodigious avants, and these are it's a high
Speaker 1: threshold level. And if these persons do not have a disability,
Speaker 1: we would call them a prodigy or genius. And I
Speaker 1: used to say there were twenty five such people in
Speaker 1: the world. I'm up to about one hundred down. Then
Speaker 1: it's probably probably many more than we don't we don't
Speaker 1: know about. But what are some of the things these
Speaker 1: people can do? Can you give people conquered examples? Well,
Speaker 1: Kim Peek certainly with his memory, he had memorized several
Speaker 1: thousand books in my memorize I'm talking about with page numbers,
Speaker 1: including I could do that for breakfast. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: That's nothing? Of course, I know, probably more than several thousand, probably,
Speaker 1: And so his uh, his memory was uh was phenomenal. Uh.
Speaker 1: Leslie lemke Uh is able to playback any song that
Speaker 1: he hears with a single hearing and has this repertoire
Speaker 1: which is endless. If he's heard the piece, and you
Speaker 1: you remember how he coded it when he put it
Speaker 1: into his memory bank. He can pull that out. But
Speaker 1: he also at one of the concerts in Texas, instead
Speaker 1: of having him play the piece back that the person
Speaker 1: had played, we said, lest so we want you to
Speaker 1: play this with the person. And so he waited about
Speaker 1: this person started a song he had never heard before,
Speaker 1: waited about three seconds, and then he began to play
Speaker 1: back what he had just heard, processed it and was
Speaker 1: outputting in his parallel processing. When I measured IQ of
Speaker 1: fifty eight, I think so and Stephen Wiltshire can go
Speaker 1: buy a helicopter over Manhattan for forty five minutes and
Speaker 1: then spend the next three days drawing what he saw
Speaker 1: window by window and building by building. And if you
Speaker 1: want to super impose a digital photograph on it, you
Speaker 1: saw on the helicopter, it's exactly the same. So there
Speaker 1: are and there are other artists who have that have
Speaker 1: ability to recreate with such fidelity that UH after a
Speaker 1: single UH viewing an unlike many are other artists, they
Speaker 1: don't keep going back to the to the photograph or
Speaker 1: to whatever they're drawing, and it's a single image and
Speaker 1: that's there, you know, permanently. What do you think is
Speaker 1: going on there? From like a biological neurological perspective, do
Speaker 1: you think you see minimal practice? Is that right? Minimal
Speaker 1: deliberate practice to get to that level. What do you
Speaker 1: think is going on there? I I know we have
Speaker 1: kind of different, uh, complimentary but somewhat different theories about
Speaker 1: the origins of those things. Maybe let's hear you, let's
Speaker 1: hear what what your thoughts are on that? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's there's two things that seem to be
Speaker 1: going on with with savants and at any of these
Speaker 1: these three levels. The first is that there is some
Speaker 1: brain damage, often in the right hemisphere, but not always
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, in the left hemisphere and uh, and then
Speaker 1: there is a recruitment of some still intact cornical tissue,
Speaker 1: undamaged tissue. There is a rewiring to that area, and
Speaker 1: then the release of dormant potential within that area. That's
Speaker 1: what I call the three rs. So there's there's brain
Speaker 1: damage in one area and then a recruitment of still
Speaker 1: intact often right hemisphere ability. But at the same time
Speaker 1: and probably by the same factor, there is a damage
Speaker 1: to the higher level memory circuits so called cognitive or
Speaker 1: semantic memory with a reliance on more procedural or more
Speaker 1: level cortical striatal memory instead of cortical olympic memory. So
Speaker 1: what you see in the savon is often our right
Speaker 1: brain skills coupled with this procedural or habit memory which
Speaker 1: is very but very very narrow. Well, that's just that
Speaker 1: that does tell so nicely actually with with some of
Speaker 1: my work on implicit learning. The work you know, we
Speaker 1: know that stratum is is related to the ability to
Speaker 1: non consciously soak up patterns. Yeah, and I and my
Speaker 1: whole dissertation was on individual differences in implicit learning. Do
Speaker 1: people differ in this abilit I found they do and
Speaker 1: it's independent of IQ, So yes, actually that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now I think of it, there's a yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's a really In my book and Gifted, I read
Speaker 1: a lot about your theory and then talk about impusit
Speaker 1: learning as playing a possible role there. But it still
Speaker 1: begs the question like how much of that is you know?
Speaker 1: Or maybe some people are kind of like wired in
Speaker 1: a certain way that that allows for this implicit learning
Speaker 1: to happen more automatically than others. Yes, Yeah, that's possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that's true. And I think that
Speaker 1: that there is that difference even in in neurotypical persons.
Speaker 1: I think some you know better those kind of skills
Speaker 1: than others. But I think in the in the salon,
Speaker 1: the the memory is as impressive to me as as
Speaker 1: the skill itself. And those are connected, but I think
Speaker 1: they're two. There two different processes in different areas of
Speaker 1: the brain that are affected. Yeah, And I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of misconceptions about savantism. One big one is
Speaker 1: that that these these they're very they're not people of creativity,
Speaker 1: were improvisation sort of outside a very narrow structure. And
Speaker 1: you've you've you've really argued against that myth right right.
Speaker 1: In my first book, Extraordinary People, I wrote that, uh,
Speaker 1: savants where we're not very creative. And I was wrong.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I was wrong was because I
Speaker 1: had just at that point, just an early, single snapshot
Speaker 1: of the savants. But now that I've been able to
Speaker 1: follow them for a number of years, what I've seen
Speaker 1: as a pattern in all of them that starts with
Speaker 1: with a phenomenal ability to recollect, to remember, whether it's
Speaker 1: remember a piece they've heard or remember a scene from
Speaker 1: the helicopter or memorize books. They have this tremendous recollection.
Speaker 1: But then if you follow them long enough, they seem
Speaker 1: to get bored with their records and begin to improvise.
Speaker 1: And that's certainly true. And Leslie, he will if you
Speaker 1: play a piece for him and ask him to play
Speaker 1: it back, he will dutifully do that. But but after
Speaker 1: he's done doing that, he will start improvising and do
Speaker 1: variations on the theme of what he just earned and
Speaker 1: get a hold of concern. And then the third stage
Speaker 1: is creativity, producing something new. And I've seen this an
Speaker 1: artists who start with tremendous recollection, you know, by fiber
Speaker 1: and animal for example, but then they begin to put
Speaker 1: a bush here that wasn't in the picture there, and
Speaker 1: as soon they're doing some free freestyle. So there is
Speaker 1: this movement from recollection to improvisation to creativity, and some
Speaker 1: of it is really uh as startling as the recollection itself.
Speaker 1: In other words, some of the some of the creativity Leslie, uh,
Speaker 1: if you ask him to play a tune that he's
Speaker 1: never heard, it may not even exist. Some people trying
Speaker 1: to stump Leslie by By, I'm saying, to play something
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist, he will, he will create on the spot,
Speaker 1: he will create a song with the lyrics for that
Speaker 1: particular topic. Well, that is very impressive. Would you say
Speaker 1: any of these savants though, or bona fide geniuses? Would
Speaker 1: you say any of them like really could go down
Speaker 1: the history books the genius. Is that possible for savant
Speaker 1: to be like a like a like a historical genius. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I think so. And there are some I think that
Speaker 1: maybe on the way to that. There is a a
Speaker 1: savon in Australia who uh got his pH d in
Speaker 1: mathematics from u C. L A. And is doing some
Speaker 1: work which I think, you know, may may may push
Speaker 1: us farther along than we've ever been. Interestingly, his brother,
Speaker 1: who is not autistic on the fields, medal in mathematics.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh but uh and uh. I think some
Speaker 1: of the some of the savants that are into interested
Speaker 1: now in quantum physics particularly or quantum theory, are I
Speaker 1: think may take us farther than we've been. What makes
Speaker 1: them stravants though, as opposed to just people with high
Speaker 1: autism like traits. Where is their disability? What's their disability.
Speaker 1: It is autism, and some of them it depends on
Speaker 1: I mean that uh there, they may have very limited
Speaker 1: daily living skills, they can't manage their own finances, they
Speaker 1: may need some caretakers. It sounds like this sounds like me.
Speaker 1: I think. I think Kim Peek if he had Unfortunately
Speaker 1: Kim died about two or three years ago, but if
Speaker 1: he had continued, I think he would have. In fact,
Speaker 1: NASA was spending some time with him. And I think
Speaker 1: if there was such a thing as is such a
Speaker 1: thing as super intelligence, I think Kim was would be
Speaker 1: a candidate. On the other hand, he had to have
Speaker 1: helped dressing himself. He couldn't brush his own teeth because
Speaker 1: of some motor skills, and had other problems with anxiety
Speaker 1: and so forth. So his autistic underpinnings were there, and
Speaker 1: that that's true of some of these others. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That towards the and as he got older, Kim Peek
Speaker 1: started to be able to do some things that he
Speaker 1: wasn't able to do, Like there was a core progression
Speaker 1: and development of some of these quote neurotypical skills like
Speaker 1: social skills and stuff, right, And I would put him
Speaker 1: on the same recollection and improvisation to creation spectrum. Because
Speaker 1: when I first met Kim, he had memorized this factual memory,
Speaker 1: which was simply astounding. But as time went on, rather
Speaker 1: than just bringing up a fact, he would he often
Speaker 1: would make a pun or some kind of a wit
Speaker 1: or some kind of a h on a connection sort
Speaker 1: of like a Google like connection. Originally with Kim, if
Speaker 1: you if you said Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, he would give
Speaker 1: you the whole history of when it was written, first
Speaker 1: time it was played, and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But toward the end of his life, I asked him
Speaker 1: one time, what do you know about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony?
Speaker 1: And he said Churchill? And I said I don't, Kim,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't get it. He said, well, Morris
Speaker 1: code is for dot. Dot is the letter V, and
Speaker 1: Churchill always had this letter V. Whenever you saw him,
Speaker 1: he was flashing the letter B, and so he was
Speaker 1: making the connection between and uh. One time I asked him,
Speaker 1: what do you know about Lincoln's Gettysburg address? And he
Speaker 1: said fourteen ten Front Street. I said, I don't get it.
Speaker 1: He said, well, that's where Lincoln stayed the night before
Speaker 1: he gave his famous speech, so that was his Lincoln's
Speaker 1: Gettysburg address. Well, you know, it seems like he was
Speaker 1: like a walking hippocampus. I mean, it just seems like he,
Speaker 1: you know, his associative memory. We all have ability for
Speaker 1: sociive memory, but we don't peer into that. We also
Speaker 1: like have all these other brain networks getting the way
Speaker 1: and inhibiting it. And it's almost like he was just
Speaker 1: having direct access to his hippocampus whenever he wanted free,
Speaker 1: rang free, raid free rate. Well, that's true, and many
Speaker 1: times his dad was able to be kind of an
Speaker 1: interpreter because Kim was so far ahead many times with
Speaker 1: these ponds or associations that I didn't understand, or even
Speaker 1: his dad didn't understand, but he was and they were instant.
Speaker 1: I mean he would do this on speaking engagements or
Speaker 1: or other kinds of things. He would make these these
Speaker 1: puns or these witticisms that were simply jaw dropping. And
Speaker 1: and that's and that's when you spend time with him,
Speaker 1: that's what you got in terms of trying to converse
Speaker 1: with him and trying to keep up with him. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting what you know to look at like
Speaker 1: how much the brain can impact this stuff. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, well, culture and learning and
Speaker 1: environments really important too, But in some of these specific cases,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to wrap my head around how
Speaker 1: kim peak would have been different? What what? What ways
Speaker 1: do you think his memory abilities would have been different
Speaker 1: under different conditions? Maybe if he wasn't nurtured as much,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have been as good. But I don't know, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you what do you think is the role
Speaker 1: of the environment. It's not like a teacher taught him
Speaker 1: how to memorize. He doesn't do all these memory tricks.
Speaker 1: You know, well, naturally it's a it's a preoccupy. The preoccupation, uh,
Speaker 1: and the it's it's kind of a force as much
Speaker 1: as a gift. Uh. He has to I mean, he
Speaker 1: has to read, uh, Leslie Limpkley has to play the piano.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't, he gets anxious, and and and and
Speaker 1: John Sarkin acquired somevon he has to paint. And so Uh,
Speaker 1: it's this drive that uh is continually mining or digging
Speaker 1: with the area. And and for some it it gets
Speaker 1: to be uh sort of insatiable. I remember a calendar
Speaker 1: calculator George finn uh who was able with his twin brother,
Speaker 1: and there they were calendar calculators as well as other
Speaker 1: number of specialists. And I one time, uh uh. He
Speaker 1: lived in New York and we had a cable TV
Speaker 1: show somewhere in New Jersey, and so we had to
Speaker 1: travel by car from New York to wherever this was,
Speaker 1: and the conversation was just continually about numbers and dates,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was almost exhausting by the time
Speaker 1: we were there because everything just revolved around these uh uh,
Speaker 1: these numbers and so forth. So I think it is
Speaker 1: sort of insatiable need to uh, to rehearse or to
Speaker 1: demonstrate the ability. Several of the acquired sponts, like Tommy
Speaker 1: Mchughe in England or or John Sarkin in this country,
Speaker 1: became artists after their traumatic brain injury. But they can't stop.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're drawing on the floor, they're drawing on
Speaker 1: the ceiling, they're drawing on You just have to keep drawing.
Speaker 1: And it's it's this insatiable kind of force, and it's
Speaker 1: it's not so much a practice effect as it is
Speaker 1: needing to to discharge this the need to draw or
Speaker 1: or to paint or to compute. Right, So you've supposedly
Speaker 1: called like genetic memory, and and I how do you
Speaker 1: recognize the genetic memory? Deal with this idea of the
Speaker 1: acquired savant. Well, the the acquired savant I think demonstrates
Speaker 1: genetic memory, okay, in that these are ordinary folk who
Speaker 1: have a brain injury or a stroke or some central
Speaker 1: nervous system incident and become expert in art or music
Speaker 1: or math where there was no such ability before. Tommy McHugh,
Speaker 1: for example, was a construction worker basically in London. We
Speaker 1: had a rather colorful life and in terms of in
Speaker 1: and out of prisons and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: had a stroke from which he recovered, but he became
Speaker 1: a poet. I mean, if there was a likely person
Speaker 1: to be a poet, it was Tommy mcewe and an artist.
Speaker 1: And he simply was drawing everywhere, anywhere, And so that
Speaker 1: ability had to be inside him prior to the stroke.
Speaker 1: He didn't learn that, he didn't learn how to draw
Speaker 1: or to become a poet. It just appeared after in
Speaker 1: his recovery. So it had to exist. And I think
Speaker 1: that those pockets of ability exist in all of us
Speaker 1: in a dormant capacity. Uh. And they the acquired savant
Speaker 1: taps into that. And the question is where where did
Speaker 1: Tommy accuse our ability and interest and come from? And
Speaker 1: I guess from my standpoint, the only way it could
Speaker 1: be there is through uh genetic memory uh uh, and
Speaker 1: that there are these pockets of dormant capacity within all
Speaker 1: of us that are transmitted genetically. And so what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that we inherit not just the color of
Speaker 1: our eyes or how tall we're going to be, or
Speaker 1: even behavior traits. I think we actually inherit knowledge. And
Speaker 1: by that I'm talking about the rules of music, art
Speaker 1: or math, for example. Come Another possibility is that we
Speaker 1: inherit the ability to learn the rules. We don't actually
Speaker 1: inherit the rules themselves. We kind of like where some
Speaker 1: people are more prepared to to. It's like a template
Speaker 1: or a skeleton, and they just their experience fills it in.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, well I think that's I think that's possible,
Speaker 1: and I'm open to that. The thing that that excers
Speaker 1: me away from that is the rapidity and the the
Speaker 1: the epiphany like quality that these have that that appear
Speaker 1: and they appear to me intact as opposed to to
Speaker 1: rapid learning. Uh, it's hard to prove that or disprove that,
Speaker 1: but but I think I know that there are many
Speaker 1: people who feel that the what is inherited is is
Speaker 1: the scaffolding or the ability to learn quickly. But I've
Speaker 1: got some cases is where this just appeared with such
Speaker 1: uh spontaneity and such intactness that it's hard to believe
Speaker 1: that the person learned that. And in some cases, for example,
Speaker 1: in math, they they're able to uh compute prime numbers
Speaker 1: or do other kinds of formulas and so forth without
Speaker 1: ever having been exposed to them. Now, in fact, I've
Speaker 1: got some autistic savants who are able to now that
Speaker 1: that we have the type typing tablet, and they can.
Speaker 1: They have been mute, but they're they're now typing on
Speaker 1: their own on this tablet. Who are uh uh uh
Speaker 1: typing out the periodic table, for example, never having seen
Speaker 1: the periodic table. That is very that is very impressive.
Speaker 1: Do you think the same thing is kind of going
Speaker 1: on with people with talents just neurotypical people with talents,
Speaker 1: or I guess they wouldn't be norrotypical if they have
Speaker 1: an extraordinary talent. But I don't know, like people with
Speaker 1: prodigies prodigies. Do you think a lot of these things
Speaker 1: are kind of similar phenomenon? Yeah, I think the I've
Speaker 1: been I get a lot of emails that say, I've
Speaker 1: got a son or daughter who and then the parent
Speaker 1: tells me there the story about the the special skill.
Speaker 1: Generally that they've because they've heard about samants, and many
Speaker 1: times it's it's difficult to sort out, uh, savant abilities
Speaker 1: from product g from giftedness, and some of these I
Speaker 1: think some of these children are are profoundly gifted. I
Speaker 1: guess I suppose you could call them a prodigy. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but uh, well, strategy officially yet to be
Speaker 1: before the age of ten. Okay, all right, But I
Speaker 1: think sometimes these profoundly gifted children or prodigies are difficult
Speaker 1: to sort out from autisms. Not if the autism symptoms
Speaker 1: are are severe, the child is mute and withdrawn and
Speaker 1: obviously autistic, then you know that it's clear that that
Speaker 1: would be a savant skill. But I think that Daniel Tammitt,
Speaker 1: uh when we did a program together, and he said that,
Speaker 1: you know, the line between genius and so on is
Speaker 1: a very thin one, the very narrow one. And I
Speaker 1: think he's right in terms of the trying to trying
Speaker 1: to differentiate those in terms of their their ability and
Speaker 1: skill on the face of it, but it's an important
Speaker 1: distinction because if if what let's say, hyperlexia a childhood
Speaker 1: reads very early, we're talking about kids in twenty or
Speaker 1: twenty two months on reading. Some of those Sometimes the
Speaker 1: hyperlexia is a splendors skill and as the picture emerges,
Speaker 1: it turns out that that child is autistic, but what
Speaker 1: has hyperlexia is sort of his savon skill. But there's
Speaker 1: but there are a group of children out there who
Speaker 1: are hyperlexic with autistic like symptoms for a period of
Speaker 1: time where the outcome is entirely good. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to to sort those out is a real challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's also very important, you know. I'm for gifted
Speaker 1: talented education and identification of kids who are falling between
Speaker 1: the cracks. Yeah, I think it's really important. Well, it is.
Speaker 1: And I got an email just yesterday from a family
Speaker 1: where the child is hyperlexic and thought to be autistic,
Speaker 1: and the school was insisting that this child go to
Speaker 1: a special education, which is exactly the wrong place for
Speaker 1: this particular child. Unfortunately the parents resisted that and put
Speaker 1: them into a different educational system, and now I think
Speaker 1: the outcome is going to be That's a whole. Another
Speaker 1: area of my work is what I call hyperlexia three,
Speaker 1: which is there are three kinds of hyperlexia. One is
Speaker 1: normal kids, neurotypical, ordinary kids who read very early. And
Speaker 1: then there's a second group where the hyperlexia is a
Speaker 1: part of their autistic splinter skill. But there's a third
Speaker 1: group called hyperlexia three, where kids have autistic like symptoms
Speaker 1: for a period of time, which the outgrowth and go
Speaker 1: on to be very bright, contributing normal individuals, and the
Speaker 1: educational decisions that are made are crucial in that group
Speaker 1: of youngsters. So what is this kid's outcome in the
Speaker 1: new school doing marvelously right in terms of UH growth
Speaker 1: socially particularly UH and just UH had been and a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble with was reading very early, and I
Speaker 1: was very striking in the hyperlexia, but language was slowed.
Speaker 1: And UH. Now in this first months in this new school,
Speaker 1: languages has sort of erupted marvelously, as as have the
Speaker 1: social skills in the school. Is but the other school
Speaker 1: was actually UH wanting this child to h who was
Speaker 1: bored with math, you know, because it was I had
Speaker 1: a way ahead of the curve. But they were saying,
Speaker 1: you have to go through these the usual math sequence,
Speaker 1: because that's what that's the way it is in this
Speaker 1: So it's crucial to sort those those out. I absolutely
Speaker 1: absolutely agree, and I'm really glad that you're making these
Speaker 1: points I wanted to talk about. And I'm very mindful
Speaker 1: of your time, you know, but this is so so
Speaker 1: so fun talk to you. Do you do you mind
Speaker 1: have another fifteen minutes or so? Absolutely no good. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about the acquired savant. Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: sudden savant for instance. For example, for a second, this individual,
Speaker 1: Jason Paget, has again a lot of he wrote a
Speaker 1: book recently, and so I've seen a lot of interviews.
Speaker 1: I've listened to a lot of interviews radio on radio
Speaker 1: interviews with him and stuff. This guy got, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's his head. You know, he got he
Speaker 1: got beat up, robbed, you know, his wallet stone or
Speaker 1: something out of after leaving a bar. And he the
Speaker 1: next day he started seeing, he said, he started seeing
Speaker 1: like numbers and things. Do you think any of these
Speaker 1: people are just making it up. Yeah, well he's not,
Speaker 1: because I just spent I had him here for a
Speaker 1: lecture two weeks ago, and a chance to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time with him. And he was simply had
Speaker 1: no interest in math and managed to sort of graduate
Speaker 1: from high school by substituting somebody else's work. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, he simply was not an active iss. She
Speaker 1: just didn't care about that. And then he ends up
Speaker 1: getting mugged and has this concussion and begins to see
Speaker 1: these strange images which he had never seen before. And
Speaker 1: somebody said, as he tried to describe them to people,
Speaker 1: they said, well, I don't know what you told him,
Speaker 1: as you draw on them. And so he had never
Speaker 1: done any drawing before either, and so he drew these out.
Speaker 1: And they're very complicated and very precise. It may take
Speaker 1: two weeks sometimes to complete one of these images. And
Speaker 1: he was sitting some we're having coffee or something, and
Speaker 1: a professor or physics professor came by and he said,
Speaker 1: my gosh, you know what those ares, don't you? He said, finally,
Speaker 1: those are fractals, and he said, you know what's a fractal?
Speaker 1: And so then and so he learned what a fractal
Speaker 1: is and has become. He did go back to college
Speaker 1: then and is taking math courses and has become very expert.
Speaker 1: And he may be one of these people that lead
Speaker 1: us a little further than we've been in terms of
Speaker 1: when you hear him talk about relativity and explaining it
Speaker 1: and so forth and swan so he his for real.
Speaker 1: I think there are some others where are questions raised
Speaker 1: as to whether a musician, for example, really didn't have
Speaker 1: any musical training in the past. I have, I think
Speaker 1: now somewhere in the range of seventy acquired savants have
Speaker 1: that I've learned about, and they seem genuine and uh real,
Speaker 1: you know, their story seemed very genuine and real. There
Speaker 1: was this girl recently who had uh was a ordinary
Speaker 1: person without any particular drawing skills or artistic skills, and
Speaker 1: she had a head injury rather mild actually, but then
Speaker 1: began to do these tonsile sketches and she sent them
Speaker 1: to me and they're simply striking. There's simply stunning, uh
Speaker 1: and uh she never done any of that kind of
Speaker 1: thing before. So uh now that uh what I'm when
Speaker 1: I'm trying to in terms of the acquired savant. Some
Speaker 1: of these acquire a new skill but pay a price
Speaker 1: for it in terms of cognitive ability or memory or
Speaker 1: other kinds of a trade off of some sort. But
Speaker 1: I'm seeing more acquired savants now where there doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be a trade off, And I would I would
Speaker 1: I would put adjacent into that category. And and then
Speaker 1: I get other emails from people who have not necessarily
Speaker 1: had an injury, but have an epiphany of talent that
Speaker 1: just arrives on the scene and they suddenly become expert
Speaker 1: in something we're not expert. That's the sudden sapan. These
Speaker 1: are people who where there has been no no central
Speaker 1: nervous system incident and and suddenly they are artists or
Speaker 1: poets or whatever. And uh that that's even more more unusual.
Speaker 1: But I'm seeing some of those cases now. And uh.
Speaker 1: I got an email a couple of days ago from
Speaker 1: a young woman who had never I mean, she was
Speaker 1: an average student and she was I think in junior
Speaker 1: high school and just woke up at one point one
Speaker 1: day and suddenly had this this sudden urge and preoccupation
Speaker 1: with math that she had no interest in before. And
Speaker 1: now she's, you know, excelling and in that in that area.
Speaker 1: Why you know why that happened and on that particular
Speaker 1: day or what, I don't know, but that's those are
Speaker 1: the sudden sponts is there? So if there is, as
Speaker 1: you've said, a little rain man in all of us,
Speaker 1: then you know, what can we do? What can like,
Speaker 1: you know, the average Joe Joe do without you know,
Speaker 1: hitting their head against you know, a concrete wall, or
Speaker 1: you know, to change their brain or you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know there's new like there's researchers doing like t
Speaker 1: you know, to doing like transcranial stimulation, you're trying to
Speaker 1: do that and stuff like that. What else can people do? Well?
Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of effort to make ourselves smarter.
Speaker 1: And coffee, yeah exactly, that as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, the pharmacologic route and the people
Speaker 1: have been experimenting for and coffee is a good example.
Speaker 1: It does work in the short run, and there are
Speaker 1: other uh uh chemicals out there now which will improve
Speaker 1: memory in the short run, or at least make you
Speaker 1: feel like you're smarter, whether or not you're actually smarter
Speaker 1: is a different story. Yeah, well, yeah, well it will
Speaker 1: certainly it will impact demonstrably on memory capacity. For example,
Speaker 1: the amphetamines will you know, make you make your memory,
Speaker 1: improve your memory, and you can demonstrate that on tests,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not a lasting effect. So there's a
Speaker 1: pharmacologic and of course anything if you watch any television now,
Speaker 1: no matter what what it is, there's all of the
Speaker 1: metabolic products out there, the jellyfish that makes our that
Speaker 1: makes our brains better and work better. So there's this
Speaker 1: perpetual search for something pharmacologic. There's the technologic You mentioned
Speaker 1: that the uh R t M S. There is, in
Speaker 1: fact doctor Allen Snyder in Australia has been working with
Speaker 1: with that in a very systematic kind of way. But
Speaker 1: there is if you if you google it down, you
Speaker 1: can buy these headsets that are available to commercially to
Speaker 1: put on your head and stimulate your cortex and supposedly help.
Speaker 1: So there's that technological route. There's the pharmacologic route. Uh
Speaker 1: there is the uh meditation and mindfulness route that sort
Speaker 1: of taking a deliberate cognitive approach to expanding your mind
Speaker 1: or memory. I think the less dramatic route is simply
Speaker 1: to make some effort to sort of what I call
Speaker 1: rummage in our right hemisphere a bit and find a
Speaker 1: skill or capacity or interest that one can can pursue,
Speaker 1: not necessarily just as a hobby or any retirement, but
Speaker 1: to find out a lot of people do find that
Speaker 1: out after they retire they have an ability or they
Speaker 1: have something they've always wanted to pursue and now have
Speaker 1: the time to do. So what I'm saying we should
Speaker 1: get started earlier on that, uh too. And that's a
Speaker 1: different It's not a very dramatic kind of mind expansion,
Speaker 1: but I think it's the kind that works. Can you
Speaker 1: become really good at something without any talent to begin with?
Speaker 1: Like can't? Doesn't practice like matter as well? Well? I
Speaker 1: think practice matters, and it matters even in the savants.
Speaker 1: That the thing that with the savants, the musical Samans
Speaker 1: for example, as they they they train the talent and
Speaker 1: they get better by doing that. And so the fact
Speaker 1: that they can that you can train it or develop
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily obviate the fact that in the saman
Speaker 1: is just there and sometimes they're in a way that
Speaker 1: they haven't been exposed to and that so there's no
Speaker 1: question that practice effect can improve the skill, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't negate the fact that samants know things they never learned,
Speaker 1: and that's another you know, that's that's another whole area.
Speaker 1: Of course, as you know, some you know people argue
Speaker 1: for the ten thousand hour practice effect. You know, give
Speaker 1: me a child and give me a bright child, or
Speaker 1: just give me a child who is and the only
Speaker 1: thing he or she has to do is to learn
Speaker 1: music and concentrate only on that. And I will at
Speaker 1: the end of it, have a prodigt your genius. And
Speaker 1: I'm saying, no, I think there is a substrate of
Speaker 1: talent that's distributed in the bell shaped curve. That We're
Speaker 1: not all going to be little Michael Angelo's or Einstein's,
Speaker 1: but at the extremes there is this talent and I'm
Speaker 1: adding to talent knowledge of the rules of that particular
Speaker 1: talent that I think are inherent and so such an
Speaker 1: interesting conversation for me, and I really appreciate it. I
Speaker 1: want to end a little bit talking about your theory
Speaker 1: of mellow How can we all be more mellow? And
Speaker 1: and what are some you know, other side interests or
Speaker 1: hobbies or things they most excite you today? Right, Well,
Speaker 1: of course, mellowing comes from listening to patients through the years.
Speaker 1: And obviously if you listen to like any doctor in
Speaker 1: any specialty, toward the end of your career, you get
Speaker 1: more and more interested in prevention rather than treating it.
Speaker 1: You know, all along one wonders about how can you
Speaker 1: keep this from happening? But I think and the longer
Speaker 1: one's in a career, the more intrigued one gets with
Speaker 1: how can we keep this from having So I listened
Speaker 1: to patients for all these years and learned certain things
Speaker 1: from them from listening to them, and I just put
Speaker 1: those together in a formula or a booklet or whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, called mellowing, for example, being
Speaker 1: able to First of all, my definition of mental health
Speaker 1: is being relaxed at ease and pleasantly convivial. And that's
Speaker 1: what melo means, relaxed at ease and pleasantly convivial. And
Speaker 1: how does become that? Well, there are things you can do,
Speaker 1: for example, to focus more on on who I am
Speaker 1: rather than what I do, and not all of my identity,
Speaker 1: you know, wrapped up in what I do rather than
Speaker 1: who I am, sorting out what I called the urgent
Speaker 1: from the important that we spend so much of our
Speaker 1: times with urgent things in our life, and we ignore
Speaker 1: the important things like love and care and concern and
Speaker 1: interaction with each other. We priorities, we get our priorities
Speaker 1: mixed up, and and a variety of other kinds of
Speaker 1: things that are really common sense but that we don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't pay much attention to our health until it's interrupted.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly It's like we don't pay much attention to
Speaker 1: sleep until we can't sleep well. And and once your
Speaker 1: health is interrupted, then I especially with mental health, there
Speaker 1: are things one can U can look at. So I've
Speaker 1: put those together in a little formula. I guess that
Speaker 1: make us more able to be relaxed, at ease and
Speaker 1: pleasantly convivial. And part of it is just getting off
Speaker 1: the treadmill that that uh that we that we that
Speaker 1: we end up on, some of which is necessary and
Speaker 1: and but but a lot of it we I think
Speaker 1: there are things that that we learn later on we're
Speaker 1: not all that important. This is really great diald. And
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like you've I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of wisdom from you in lots of different ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: looking back, you know your whole you're very long career.
Speaker 1: You know what is like what is like a major like?
Speaker 1: What was given you The greatest sense of like meaning
Speaker 1: in your life has been interacting with these savants, getting
Speaker 1: to really know them as people as opposed to just
Speaker 1: doing scientific research. You know what is what are some
Speaker 1: what are really some of the most meaningful highlights of
Speaker 1: your career. I think that the highlight has been not
Speaker 1: so much what I might have discovered or insights that
Speaker 1: I've had, but it's the the effect that some of
Speaker 1: those insights or interactions have had on people and their lives,
Speaker 1: not only of the savants but their families as well.
Speaker 1: And the real compensation that I get at this point
Speaker 1: in my career is from the letters from parents or
Speaker 1: from I got a a long email the other day
Speaker 1: from my girl who was now twenty one years old,
Speaker 1: and she was hyperlexic, given a diagnosis mistakenly of autism,
Speaker 1: and treated in some ways that really was not anyway.
Speaker 1: She wrote, I need this letter of what it's like
Speaker 1: to have gone through that in the hopes that I
Speaker 1: could share that with other youngsters or parents. The thing
Speaker 1: that the knowledge that I've been helpful to people. It's
Speaker 1: one thing to do your job well and take satisfaction
Speaker 1: in doing a good job. But the real satisfaction comes
Speaker 1: from knowing that that effort is appreciated, and so you
Speaker 1: get I think at the end of a I know
Speaker 1: doctor Walder Kempster, who was the superintendent of Winnebago a
Speaker 1: century before I was. When he retired, his staff gave
Speaker 1: him a bunch of books, the library, books which in
Speaker 1: those days were very valuable, and he said, I really,
Speaker 1: I really, I'm glad to get these books, and I
Speaker 1: will treasure them. But he said that more important than
Speaker 1: knowing that I did the job well is that the
Speaker 1: knowledge that my efforts were appreciated. And I think that's
Speaker 1: true of all of us, and so my satisfaction comes
Speaker 1: from and in small ways. I every now and then
Speaker 1: would go on and meet with a high school class
Speaker 1: of the advanced psychology students or whatever. I go to
Speaker 1: a little village here here called Oakfield once a year
Speaker 1: and we get together and I do this lecture. And
Speaker 1: each year they send me back a card signed by
Speaker 1: all of these kids. You know how appreciative they were.
Speaker 1: And for some they will say it's been a meaningful
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking about I want to be a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: or I want to be a psychologist or I want
Speaker 1: to be a neuroscientist. And I have a couple of
Speaker 1: kids out there now who are about to graduate from
Speaker 1: medical school when they wrote to me instead, the reason
Speaker 1: that I'm in medical school is because of this lecture
Speaker 1: that you gave it that I said I wanted to attendant.
Speaker 1: So it's that kind of feedback that you know, it's
Speaker 1: not monetary, but it is the appreciation and knowing that
Speaker 1: you've had a really positive impact on these and the
Speaker 1: appreciation letters from these parents especially are are just really
Speaker 1: really moving. You know. I know for a fact, a
Speaker 1: lot of people really appresive you. I really appreciate you,
Speaker 1: and I've seen videos I've seen you interact with these savants,
Speaker 1: many of these individuals who there's there's hardly anyone else
Speaker 1: in their life who really appreciate them their uniqueness, and
Speaker 1: you kind of bring out of them I've seen you
Speaker 1: bring out of them is kind of special, you know,
Speaker 1: the expression of themselves that a lot of people haven't
Speaker 1: been able to coax out of them. So I think
Speaker 1: you've really done a great, great service. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think you know, I when I started the children's
Speaker 1: unit at Winnebagel. We had these already disturbed kids on
Speaker 1: and we started this unit, and we started a school,
Speaker 1: and there weren't any models out there, so we had
Speaker 1: to we had to create our own. And my motto,
Speaker 1: or I guess my strategy, was that no matter how
Speaker 1: disturbed this child is and how how closed they are,
Speaker 1: somewhere in there is an island of intact us. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's true of every psychotic patient or every depressed
Speaker 1: patient too. No matter how depressed, you know, there is
Speaker 1: this island of intactness. And our job is to find
Speaker 1: that island of antagonists and to build on it, you know,
Speaker 1: to to nurture it and to make it grow. And
Speaker 1: so it is with the samants that that within them
Speaker 1: it is easy. With some of them, there's this island
Speaker 1: of genius that you know that it strikes. But even
Speaker 1: with some of the other kids that are really severely
Speaker 1: or some of the psychotic patients that I've treated, I
Speaker 1: search for that island of antagonists, or even with some
Speaker 1: of the behavioral kids, the kids that are acting out,
Speaker 1: and so you're still so I guess I have that
Speaker 1: if there's a sort of an urge within me, and
Speaker 1: it's to search for that island of intactness and no
Speaker 1: matter how how disturbed the person is, I love that
Speaker 1: and that and sometimes you know you are and you'll
Speaker 1: learn from your patients. And that's what this melowing book
Speaker 1: that is all about the things that I've learned from.
Speaker 1: Some of the things are are very obvious. I when
Speaker 1: I first became superintendent in the hospital, I put out
Speaker 1: a suggestion box and I said to the patients, you
Speaker 1: know I go home every night, you stay here. What
Speaker 1: can we do to make this a better place? And
Speaker 1: one guy put a suggestion. He said, don't serve beans
Speaker 1: on dance night. And it's very practical and easy, easy
Speaker 1: to implement. So if you listen, you hear things that
Speaker 1: you learn, you are the savant whisperer. Last question, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you most excited about in the future. You know,
Speaker 1: it could be recent advances and technology. Can you be
Speaker 1: you personally in your own personal life? I think the
Speaker 1: the neuroscience frontier is. I think we're you know, we
Speaker 1: we have barely scratched the surface of the brain and
Speaker 1: it's and it's complexity. The more I've worked with it,
Speaker 1: the more in awe I am of this Three and
Speaker 1: a half pounds of circuitry and what it can do,
Speaker 1: and how little we're we really have been able to
Speaker 1: unravel about that. But I think we're now have some
Speaker 1: technology and techniques, not all imaging, but some other kinds
Speaker 1: of things as well that that will allow us to
Speaker 1: you know, my hope is that that's some of the
Speaker 1: things that I've been talking about, including the genetic memory
Speaker 1: kind of thing, we'll be able to somebody will be
Speaker 1: able to pick up and to prove. So that's what
Speaker 1: I'm uh looking looking forward to and seeing some of
Speaker 1: these I gave a recently. I gave a lecture to
Speaker 1: a bunch of fourth graders in an elementary school. They
Speaker 1: asked me to come, and I thought, she's I know
Speaker 1: how to talk to adults and I, you know, graduate
Speaker 1: students will say in the fourth graders. And so I
Speaker 1: went there and we had we just had a blast.
Speaker 1: Those kids were prepared for obviously, the teacher had prepared them.
Speaker 1: I said, doctor Treford, how come there are more male
Speaker 1: savants than female sealants? I mean these are fourth graders,
Speaker 1: you know, And raising that kind of a question, And
Speaker 1: at the end of it, a little guy and a
Speaker 1: little girl came up and the guy said to me,
Speaker 1: he said, I want to be a neuroscientist when I
Speaker 1: grow up. And the little girl said me too. And
Speaker 1: and for me, the real payoff would be the day
Speaker 1: they will walk across the stage and get their master's
Speaker 1: degree in neuroscience and their doctorate and curry on the
Speaker 1: work that I've sort of started or they have been
Speaker 1: immersed in. And I you know that to me, is
Speaker 1: that's where I drawing my satisfy. I also, I've got
Speaker 1: a huge orchard which I take care of, which I
Speaker 1: it's in full bloom right at the moment, and it's
Speaker 1: just marvelous. And so I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: on our property. We've got a beautiful waterfall on our
Speaker 1: property too, and so I can you know, soap that
Speaker 1: up just as much as genetic memory. Please take a
Speaker 1: picture of of them in bloom and I can put
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Okay, sure you take. I will
Speaker 1: thank you, Doud. I just have really treasure this conversation
Speaker 1: and getting all the conversations we've had. Well. I appreciate
Speaker 1: the chance to talk with you and get to know
Speaker 1: you a bit better and lectronically, at least at some
Speaker 1: point I hope our past will cross and I'll keep
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing, and you keep doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and between the two of us, we'll move things ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Sounds great, Tyler. Thanks, okay, okay, thanks.
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