As you know, almost all well-known scientists and artists to one degree or another suffered from mental disorder.
Among them are Charles Darwin, Blaise Pascal, Albert Einstein, Nikolai Gogol, Hans Christian Andersen, Alexander Blok … Experts believe that clear signs of autism were visible in their behavior. But how did this relate to their abilities?
Children are aliens
The term "autism" was coined in 1912 by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugene Bloeler. This complex neurobiological disorder usually manifests itself in children under three years of age and is characterized primarily by developmental delay and unwillingness to make contact with others. Pathology occurs in about one to six children in a thousand.
The causes of autism are not fully understood. Some experts (and most of them) believe that autism has genetic roots, others argue that these are social factors: unfavorable living conditions, the wrong attitude of parents to the child.
Psychologist Natalia Fil believes that in most cases, autism occurs in children who were born as a result of severe pregnancy and childbirth. At birth, these children are usually considered normal, and the first signs of autism are found in them between the ages of three to four months to two and a half years. It occurs four times more often in boys than in girls.
- An autistic child does not smile, does not show positive emotions at the age of six months or more, says Natalya Fil. - Does not repeat sounds after adults, does not babble at the age of one. Does not make ordinary gestures - at one year old does not point a finger, does not wave a pen goodbye. Doesn't know any words at the age of sixteen months and does not utter meaningful phrases at the age of two. It happens that autism manifests itself a little later, when the child suddenly stops talking and reacting to others.
Promotional video:
He can only play completely alone, while always arranging toys in the same order - for example, by color. Outward signs of an autistic child: the baby has a motionless face, he does not look into his eyes, you do not understand his gestures … The speech of such children, if they can speak, is usually monotonous, as if they are repeating a memorized text. Often they tend to reproduce other people's words as an echo, without thinking about their meaning, they can repeat the same action many times. In other words, an autistic child resembles a small robot …
According to the theory of Swiss neuroscientists Camilla and Henry Markram. autism develops due to an overabundance of information that the child is unable to digest. As a result, "going into the shell" becomes a kind of defensive reaction. Even the typical behavior of autistic children - the monotony of movements - may be nothing more than an attempt to stabilize the world around them.
How should the parents of an alien child behave? This is what Natalya Antonova, a child psychologist and preschool education specialist, advises:
1. First of all, while the child is small, let him live according to his own schedule: let him decide for himself when to walk, eat, sleep or play. If you impose your "correct" regime on him, it can exacerbate the deviations in behavior.
2. If the child successfully completed any task, praise him. Encourage any "normal" action.
3. An autistic child needs individual correction sessions with specialists. If there are clear signs of autism, do not try to send your child to a regular kindergarten or school: he will not be able to adapt there. But in an institution specializing in the upbringing and education of children with similar problems, they will help him at least a little to adapt to a normal life.
In a world of irritants
Autism is not at all a form of mental disability, the intelligence of an autistic person can be several orders of magnitude higher than that of the average individual, psychologists say. People with autism often show outstanding ability in one or more areas. Most often this is due to their phenomenal memory. American psychologist Michael Kissin claims that autistic people are highly sensitive from childhood. This sometimes makes them uncomfortable.
Therefore, autistic people usually avoid society - for them, communication with other people can be simply unbearable due to the abundance of external stimuli, such as sounds and smells. Isolation from the outside world prevents the autistic from gaining the experience necessary for survival, and therefore, despite extensive intellectual knowledge, in a practical sense, such a person is often completely helpless or behaves inadequately.
So, one acquaintance of the author of this article achieved great scientific and professional success, knew nine foreign languages, but at the same time could not master a computer and a mobile phone, and besides, he constantly suffered from unpleasant odors, which no one except him could smell …
Rain Man Syndrome
A typical example of an autistic genius is the recently deceased American Kim Peak, who became the prototype for the protagonist in the famous film by Barry Levinson, Rain Man.
Kim Peek suffered from the so-called "savant syndrome". He possessed outstanding knowledge in fifteen different areas of human life: history, geography, literature, music, mathematics, sports, and so on. But at the same time he was absolutely incapable of independent life, he did not know how to do elementary everyday things - to dress, turn on and off the light …
Kim was born with a disproportionately large head. Doctors discovered hydrocephalus in the boy - dropsy of the brain. Usually these children suffer from dementia. But Pick's case was completely different. His right and left cerebral hemispheres were not disconnected from each other, as in most people, but made up one whole. Perhaps this was the reason for his extraordinary talents.
At the age of one and a half years, Kim easily memorized the text of any book read aloud to him. He began to speak early, but he began to walk only at the age of four. By the same age, the boy already knew how to handle numbers - add and subtract.
Having learned to read, Kim read and memorized more than nine thousand books. His favorite pastime was reading telephone and address directories, the content of which he also easily memorized.
For the past twenty years, Kim Peek has made a living by lecturing throughout America. People were amazed at his amazing abilities. In 1996, Kim's father published a book about his son called "The Real Rain Man."
The researchers drew attention to the fact that over the years, Peak's talents manifested themselves more and more. And his behavior has changed somewhat. Kim's father said that his son stopped avoiding large crowds of people, he developed a semblance of a sense of humor, he began to read fiction, and was able to distinguish literary fiction from reality.
At NASA's California Life Science Center for Life in Outer Space, a three-dimensional scan of Kim Peak's brain was performed using computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The images were compared to those taken in 1988 while examining Kim, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of Utah. It turned out that in recent years, Peak's brain activity has significantly increased. It can be assumed that this is the result of an increase in the number of contacts with the outside world.
Of course, not all geniuses are autistic, just like not all autists are geniuses. But researchers in any case have something to think about.
Irina SHLIONSKAYA