Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Today, I'm very pleased to
Speaker 1: have Kimberly Stevens on the podcast together with Joanne ruth Satz.
Speaker 1: She is co author of the book The Prodig's Cousin,
Speaker 1: The Family Link between Autism and Extraordinary Talent. Thanks Kimberly
Speaker 1: for being on the show with me today. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. What a fascinating book I've been, you know,
Speaker 1: very endlessly fascinated with prodigies and their extraordinary capabilities and
Speaker 1: provide a lot of new insights in this book on
Speaker 1: what some of these causes could be. Could you first
Speaker 1: of all tell me what's your relationship with the joe
Speaker 1: Anne ruth SATs and how did you both decide to
Speaker 1: go through this investigation. Well, that's easy. She's my mom,
Speaker 1: so you know I know her quite well, and you know,
Speaker 1: she really started on sort of the prodigy path when
Speaker 1: she was in graduate school. She was at Case and
Speaker 1: she was in her last year and she'd been studying
Speaker 1: expertise and kind of extraordinary performers, and just sort of
Speaker 1: on a whim, she learned a child prodigy in Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and so she and my dad went down there to
Speaker 1: see him. And she had this theory about what might
Speaker 1: be behind adult expertise and she wanted to see if
Speaker 1: it would you know, hold for a child who could
Speaker 1: do incredible things with you know, musically at two years old,
Speaker 1: three years old, and by this time he was six.
Speaker 1: So she went down there and she gave him some tests,
Speaker 1: an IQ test, a music audiation test, and what she
Speaker 1: found sort of surprised her. She thought he was going
Speaker 1: to have just a truly extraordinary IQ to explain what
Speaker 1: he could do. And you know, he was a very
Speaker 1: smart kid. He had a very high IQ, but it
Speaker 1: was nowhere near as extraordinary as sort of his abilities
Speaker 1: with his instrument. But what she did find was he
Speaker 1: had a really incredible working memory and he had great
Speaker 1: you know, music audiation skills. But she still wasn't convinced
Speaker 1: that that was sort of could be the whole answer,
Speaker 1: and so just by chance, heysked for a break in
Speaker 1: the middle of the test and they ended up going
Speaker 1: to McDonald's, where she ran into his cousin who had autism,
Speaker 1: and she kind of had this light bulb moment of
Speaker 1: you know, is there some connection with autism here that
Speaker 1: might be behind or have something to do with his
Speaker 1: really extraordinary abilities. And that sort of got the ball
Speaker 1: rolling for her and then later for me very exciting.
Speaker 1: So it's clearly more to the story about these prodigious
Speaker 1: youths than just a high IQ. But what are some
Speaker 1: of the other factors that she found that were important
Speaker 1: and explaining their rapid learning ability for their specific domain. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what she found, and it started immediately with that
Speaker 1: first prodigy and kind of continued on with every kid
Speaker 1: she worked with, was that they all had truly extraordinary
Speaker 1: working memories. And to sort of distinguish that from regular memory.
Speaker 1: You know, recall might be if I rattled box seven
Speaker 1: numbers to you and you repeated them back to me.
Speaker 1: But working memory would be if you can manipulate the information,
Speaker 1: and so you would if I said, you know, can
Speaker 1: you add the first three numbers in that series. I
Speaker 1: read to you that that would be working that way,
Speaker 1: and they were just truly extreme on that trait, like
Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine percentile on the test, And so
Speaker 1: that was sort of one of the first big pieces
Speaker 1: of the puzzle. And the next was that when she
Speaker 1: tested them on attention to detail, they were very, very
Speaker 1: strong on that trait. They kind of all had a
Speaker 1: real eye for, you know, minutia that the rest of
Speaker 1: us might not pick up on. And the third was
Speaker 1: this really really strong pension to develop passionate interests and
Speaker 1: to let those interests kind of to just love to
Speaker 1: do their thing in a way that is extreme and
Speaker 1: unusual and kind of pervaded every area of their lives.
Speaker 1: Right what about grit Where does that come into play
Speaker 1: with prodigies? It seems like there it appears as though
Speaker 1: their work is effortless. But how much of the grid
Speaker 1: aspect is do you see in them? I think definitely some.
Speaker 1: I think some of it sort of the passion piece
Speaker 1: takes care of for them that they want to do
Speaker 1: their skills so much and they derive I think so
Speaker 1: much pleasure from it that it doesn't feel like work.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time, it feels like what they
Speaker 1: want to do, which isn't to say there are, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, bumps in every road, and I think that
Speaker 1: the kids who really make a career of it figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, how to navigate those bumps and how to
Speaker 1: sort of stick with parts that are more difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this common perception in our society that prodigies are,
Speaker 1: you know, have tiger moms, right, They're constantly being pushed
Speaker 1: by the parents. I think the literature suggests that if anything,
Speaker 1: it's the children pushing the parents, it's the other way around.
Speaker 1: Do you see that as the case amongst the prodigies
Speaker 1: you've studied. I think that was absolutely true. You know.
Speaker 1: I was really struck actually, as you know, my mom
Speaker 1: had worked with many of these families, and I spent
Speaker 1: more and more time kind of talking to them, talking
Speaker 1: to their parents. But this real conflict that most of
Speaker 1: them felt between they had this child who could do
Speaker 1: something really incredible and love to do it, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to support that, but they also, I think constantly
Speaker 1: felt this sort of pull in the other direction to
Speaker 1: try to help them have a more typical childhood on
Speaker 1: the one hand, and to make sure that they didn't
Speaker 1: see their own self esteem and self worth as totally
Speaker 1: tied up in this one ability and sort of being
Speaker 1: special in this one way to sort of help them be,
Speaker 1: you know, see themselves as whole people. For sure. I
Speaker 1: think that whole person approach is really important for these
Speaker 1: developing children who have they may lag in lots of
Speaker 1: other areas, right, So they might show amazing proficiency at
Speaker 1: putting the violin, but they may tie their shoes or
Speaker 1: they can't, you know, have they have made have difficulty
Speaker 1: making friends and things? Right? Do you see these kind
Speaker 1: of jagged profiles? You know, I think there's certainly some
Speaker 1: of that that for some of the kids it was
Speaker 1: hard to relate to peers because you know, if all
Speaker 1: you want to talk about is physics and you're you know,
Speaker 1: seven year old friends aren't into it, it's hard to
Speaker 1: find common ground. But for many of them, that actually
Speaker 1: I think wasn't an issue that they were you know,
Speaker 1: there are these kids tend to be extremely empathetic and
Speaker 1: so they you know, they could connect with people and
Speaker 1: even people at their age over over other things. So
Speaker 1: there are jagged profiles, but I think that varies. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's sort of universal to prodigy. I hear
Speaker 1: the empathy thing a lot in the literature on giftedness
Speaker 1: and the literature and prodigies. What do you think is
Speaker 1: the psychological mechanism going on there? Why would there be
Speaker 1: a co currence of a high ability in one area
Speaker 1: and having this general empathy. It's not obvious to me
Speaker 1: why there would be that connection, but you do see
Speaker 1: that a lot in the literature. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what you think is going on there? Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think that's really interesting and one of the for my mom,
Speaker 1: one of the very unexpected things that she found is
Speaker 1: you know that these kids they not only you know,
Speaker 1: wanted to play violin heart and soul, they also wanted
Speaker 1: to use that to really benefit other people, which was intriguing.
Speaker 1: And I think that there, you know, this is sort
Speaker 1: of a preliminary aspect of the research, but I think
Speaker 1: you actually could potentially, with the prodigies, connect that back
Speaker 1: to autism as well. That you know, there's you hear
Speaker 1: sometimes that autism comes with sort of a lack of empathy,
Speaker 1: but there's a competing theory actually that autism entails sort
Speaker 1: of an over abundance of empathy that these individuals actually
Speaker 1: are highly highly sensitive to other people's feelings and other
Speaker 1: people's sort of state of mind, so much so that
Speaker 1: when someone else is upset or having a hard time
Speaker 1: for some reason, that it causes them to shut down.
Speaker 1: So they actually have an over abundance of empathy that
Speaker 1: sort of doesn't allow them to visibly empathize in the
Speaker 1: way that some other people do. Right, And you brought
Speaker 1: up the autism topic, and that a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: That gets the core of this book, right then, a
Speaker 1: major discovery of this book. And so let's back up
Speaker 1: a second. So what are some findings that Joanne found
Speaker 1: that linked autism to being a prodigy. There are various
Speaker 1: levels which she found that, right, Yeah, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think it sort of starts most obviously where with their families,
Speaker 1: where actually many of the kids had a close autistic relatives,
Speaker 1: you know, a sibling or a first cousin or even
Speaker 1: a parent, and that papped up again and again. And
Speaker 1: then the second level, I think would be these behavioral
Speaker 1: and cognitive similarities. So we've talked a bit about the
Speaker 1: working memory and how sort of central to the prodigy
Speaker 1: phenomenon that seems to be, and that's very interesting because
Speaker 1: there are repeated reports starting with you know, Le O'Connor
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, with you know, people with autism
Speaker 1: having these really extreary memories as well, and it's complicated,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't turn up in every study, but
Speaker 1: there does seem to be this rain of extreme memory
Speaker 1: that's associated with some pieces of autism, and particularly in
Speaker 1: autistic savants. You see it in all of them. You know,
Speaker 1: people say it's sort of the lynchpin of autistic subplans
Speaker 1: as well. That attention to detail is also connected with autism,
Speaker 1: as is you know, the real tendency toward passionate interests,
Speaker 1: which are sometimes in the context of autism called obsession,
Speaker 1: but I think don't always necessarily look that different. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty thin line between the two. And then the
Speaker 1: third and maybe most intriguing of the connections was genetic
Speaker 1: that my mom and her colleagues at Ohio State have
Speaker 1: found some preliminary evidence that both prodigies and autistic individuals
Speaker 1: have shared mutation on chromosome one that you know, it's
Speaker 1: early days, it's sort of the beginning of that process,
Speaker 1: but it's really interesting to think that they share a
Speaker 1: mutation that they're non prodigious, non autistic siblings do not.
Speaker 1: That is interesting if that replicates, and what is that
Speaker 1: particular mutation what has been correlated with in the past
Speaker 1: and other research. So it hasn't shown up a lot
Speaker 1: actually in autism research, which is interesting in itself. I
Speaker 1: think it's only shown up in one or two studies,
Speaker 1: and in each case, I think it was not actually
Speaker 1: statistically significant. It kind of just you know, got just
Speaker 1: enough traction to be mentioned in the paper, but didn't
Speaker 1: actually reach that, you know, that critical level statistically. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of novel ground, I think for autism in
Speaker 1: some ways. And you need a really large samples and
Speaker 1: this is one of the difficulties of studying prodigies. You
Speaker 1: need very large samples to find repical genes, and it's
Speaker 1: very hard to find large samples of prodigies. Yes, which
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most incredible things about
Speaker 1: her research actually is that you know how much perseverance
Speaker 1: it took to find these kids sort of or in
Speaker 1: the trust of their families and put together these what
Speaker 1: are actually large by prodigy standards, but you know, might
Speaker 1: seem small in the context of really large genetic studies.
Speaker 1: Sample of kids. But it was interesting in the in
Speaker 1: the genetics study becase is when I was talking to
Speaker 1: my mom and talking to her collaborators at Ohio State
Speaker 1: in connection with this book. You know, that was definitely
Speaker 1: something that came up again and again is that if
Speaker 1: we're going to find something, it's going to have to
Speaker 1: be really powerful because you know, even with this sample,
Speaker 1: it's still quite small by genetic standards, right, to find
Speaker 1: kind of an effect amongst all that noise is quite impressive,
Speaker 1: especially from a genetics perspective. I mean, trying to find
Speaker 1: the genes for IQ is taking hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker 1: you know, to kind of find any replicable signal there
Speaker 1: among the noise. So that is impressive. So tell me
Speaker 1: about yourself a little bit. You're a treelance journalist, is
Speaker 1: that right? Yes? Yes, yeah. What kind of topics do
Speaker 1: you write on? So this is sort of early days
Speaker 1: for me. I've been writing a lot about prodigies, but
Speaker 1: I hope to continue to write more about science and
Speaker 1: about prodigies and autism. I think these are all really
Speaker 1: great areas that I'm sort of excited to dig into.
Speaker 1: They are exciting and by us understanding prodigies. Do you
Speaker 1: think that we learn learn something more generally about the
Speaker 1: nature of human achievement? I do. I think that it's
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think we can have a full
Speaker 1: sort of understanding of talent and expertise and what really
Speaker 1: is underlying achievement until we can understand child prodigies. I
Speaker 1: think it's a really important piece of the puzzle for sure.
Speaker 1: And you're probably quite familiar with the so called ten
Speaker 1: year role or ten thousand hours of practice, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these prodigies get to very high level of
Speaker 1: proficiency well below the ten thousand hour mark, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So clearly there's individual differences that matter in you know,
Speaker 1: practice matters, but there's different rates of learning, and these
Speaker 1: young kids that are learning things at such a rapid rate,
Speaker 1: you know, there's still children at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: and you know, what are your thoughts on how to
Speaker 1: best support talent and nurture talent. Have you given much
Speaker 1: thought to show the dev talent development process? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that it's something I thought a lot about,
Speaker 1: you know, after I think telling these parents who sort
Speaker 1: of struggled with that question day to day is that
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it felt like, if I can't was
Speaker 1: support this talent, we're actually going to have a real
Speaker 1: problem because the kid is so passionate and dedicated to
Speaker 1: doing this, you know, it's really all they want to
Speaker 1: do in some cases. But I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: letting the kids take the lead was a very important
Speaker 1: part of this for them. That it never felt like
Speaker 1: a job or like something their parents expected them to
Speaker 1: do ten hours a day. That you know, this was
Speaker 1: really a child driven phenomenon, and that I think the
Speaker 1: parents for the most part, try to you know, they
Speaker 1: might provide lessons, or they might pay for instruments or
Speaker 1: whatever the thing is, but I think they try to
Speaker 1: keep it that way, try to keep it so that
Speaker 1: it comes from the kid. Yeah, I think it's good
Speaker 1: to add a human dimension to this kind of research.
Speaker 1: Your book does do that and provide some of these
Speaker 1: case studies and show that these are living, breathing human beings.
Speaker 1: They're not these just these machines that society is going
Speaker 1: to use for its own purposes. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: ever cringe it all when you see some of these
Speaker 1: television shows where they bring on a product and then
Speaker 1: kind of milk their talent for all it's worth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that the kids like doing their things,
Speaker 1: so it definitely well, you know, I think they yeah
Speaker 1: as well, It actually is sort of I think sometimes
Speaker 1: how they feel the most comfortable and the most fulfilled.
Speaker 1: But I do think sometimes there is a tendency to
Speaker 1: be sort of snarky about prodigies, which I think is
Speaker 1: really sort of too bad, because the kids are pretty
Speaker 1: incredible themselves and so interesting from a research perspective, for sure.
Speaker 1: I think of some really famous prodigies who made a
Speaker 1: big you know, I really find Michael Jackson interesting. Net
Speaker 1: if you could have studied you know, could sure back
Speaker 1: the hands of time, and you could have studied his genes,
Speaker 1: you know, did he have a dash of autism? You know,
Speaker 1: did he have a dash of He certainly has. People
Speaker 1: have talked a lot. His colleagues talked a lot about
Speaker 1: his attention to detail when he would perform and when
Speaker 1: he would practice with them. So when you start going
Speaker 1: through some of this stuff, you start to see some
Speaker 1: of these patterns emerge, for sure, But like you said,
Speaker 1: there's variability here. It's not all prodigies that have this,
Speaker 1: you know, autism. As back to it, you find the
Speaker 1: working memory for sure, but you also find a very
Speaker 1: specific passion. What do you think are some other factors
Speaker 1: do you think, Like so, how much do you think
Speaker 1: nurture or cultural sort of exposure to certain domeans plays
Speaker 1: a role in this? I think you have to imagine
Speaker 1: that it certainly plays a role, because we're looking at
Speaker 1: kids who've really achieved a lot, and to reach that
Speaker 1: kind of achievement, even with you know, incredible innate abilities,
Speaker 1: you know, it still requires some support. I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that in these families there's definitely a range of
Speaker 1: expertise in the parents, you know, how much they know
Speaker 1: about music or art or map or whatever their kid's
Speaker 1: passionate is there. You know, there's a range from professional
Speaker 1: music instructor to we have no idea with this child
Speaker 1: talking about right, But they all came from, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty stable families who were willing to support the talent
Speaker 1: in some way. So I think it's you know, you
Speaker 1: hear extreme cases that come from places where you know
Speaker 1: there's really almost no support, but the most more commonly
Speaker 1: you seem to see families who, even if they're not knowledgeable,
Speaker 1: you know, are willing to provide instruments or painting lessons
Speaker 1: or whatever the thing is that would be helpful. Sure personally.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got a chance to see some of
Speaker 1: these prodigies, right and talk to them. Do you have
Speaker 1: any stories you want to share, anything that you really
Speaker 1: struck you about any of these children? You know. I
Speaker 1: had this conversation with Jonathan Russell, who was violin prodigy
Speaker 1: as a kid, and he's now I think he's now twenty,
Speaker 1: and he's very into film scoring. Now that's the sort
Speaker 1: of direction his talent has taken. And I was so
Speaker 1: struck by how deep and broad his knowledge was of
Speaker 1: his topic that and how much you know, like I've mentioned,
Speaker 1: it really colored all aspects of his life. He started
Speaker 1: playing on the piano while we were talking, and he'd
Speaker 1: play parts of film scores and he'd say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: everyone knows this one, or you know, anybody could recognize
Speaker 1: this or do that, And I would think, I don't
Speaker 1: know what song that is, and I could never create
Speaker 1: that like you did. But you know, he'd also talk
Speaker 1: about hanging out with a friend and they one of
Speaker 1: the things that they would try to do is recreate
Speaker 1: music using just household appliances. You know, can we make
Speaker 1: this song using a blender in the washing machine and
Speaker 1: like it. I think that the very incredible love for
Speaker 1: what they do struck me every time. I love that
Speaker 1: kind of story. I love it because it really humanizes
Speaker 1: talent and it's something that I think we could use
Speaker 1: more of in our society that in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: it demonizes talent, you know, and you know a lot
Speaker 1: of kids that might be more advanced from more ready
Speaker 1: for more challenges, kind of get bullied, right, they can
Speaker 1: be made fun of, and kind of celebrating a culture
Speaker 1: of excellence I think is something that would be good
Speaker 1: for society especially now, say thank you so much for
Speaker 1: the work you've done, and is there anything you want
Speaker 1: to add to this interview? That was great? Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with
Speaker 1: Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode
Speaker 1: just as thought provoking and interesting as I did. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to read the show notes for this episode,
Speaker 1: or here are past episodes, you can go to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast dot com.