Did you see that story on 60 Minutes tonight about the autistic savants Stephen Wiltshire and Daniel Tammet? For a person who is supposed to be "an awkward, painfully shy person with few social skills" Tammet is doing a pretty slick job of presenting himself on all the shows in all the different forms of media. I guess he's got an agent or a PR person or something like that. That Professor Snyder was in the story too, with his zany hat and kooky specs and all. There's no show about savants without the expert in the zany hat there to explain it all to the folks at home.

Professor Synder apparently believes that inside every non-autistic, neurotypical person there is a little autistic savant "rain man" waiting patiently, keen to bestow amazing savant skills on the neurotypical person if some professor comes along and messes up the "higher thought" parts of their "normal" brains enough to simulate the "damage found in the brain of savants" (this insulting phrase was used by the 60 Minutes journalist). Apparently this is done with strong magnetism. To date the professor has I believe not to created any Tammets or Einsteins or Mozarts using his methodology. If he hopes to simulate Tammet's extraordinary gifts I'd have thought at least the professor would be trying to simulate synaesthesia. A logical first step, and not unprecedented.

The professor tells us that there's a little autistic "Rain man" inside every neurotypical person, and all around the world there are neurotypical parents of autistic kids who believe that inside their autistic offspring there is a little neurotypical "social butterfly child" struggling valiantly to emerge from their "hollow, dead cocoon of autism". Ya gotta laugh.

I really like this quote from Daniel Tammet:
"It's only as I got older that I realised it isn't bad to be different. It can be a good thing if you can find what it is that makes you unique and have the courage to live that out then I think you can be happy."

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=285127