A High-Functioning Autistic Savant and a Living Genius

Daniel Tammet is a high-functioning autistic savant.

"High-functioning" because unlike many autistics, Tammet has a high IQ and is able to communicate and explains his thoughts. In fact, he is able to speak eleven languages: English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Icelandic, Welsh, and Esperanto.⁴

As many as one in ten autistics has remarkable genius-like ability in some particular area and are known as "autistic savants".⁷ An example of an autistic savant was depicted in the 1989 movie Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. Tammet is a autistic savant because of his quick ability to pick up new languages and his amazing feats with numbers.

Daniel Tammet is listed in Britain's Telegraph.co.uk as one of "Top 100 Living Geniuses" and Entertainment Weekly is quoted as saying "the most remarkable mind on the planet just might belong to Daniel Tammet."

Amazing Mathematical Abilities

Tammet can recite the mathematical constant PI to over 22,500 digits. It took him a few weeks to learn and about 5 hours to recite and you can see portion of the recitation in the below documentary "Brain Man". "To him, pi isn't an abstract set of digits; it's a visual story, a film projected in front of his eyes."¹

He is able to compute calculations like ...

37x37x37x37 = 1,874,561
13/97 = 0.13402061855670103092783505154639

But he does not compute it the same way as we would do it on pencil or paper or even in the way that a computer does it.

Tammet sees numbers visually with texture, shapes, and colors. This ability is known as synesthesia. When performing mental mathematical calculations, he sees the shape of one number and the shape of the other number. The shapes transform and a third shape appears which is the answer.

Amazing Language Abilities

Tammet learned the Islandic language in a week with the help of a tutor for some pronunciations. Tammet appeared in a Islandic TV show where he demonstrated his mastery of the language by speaking Islandic. Islandic is a very difficult language. For example, there are 48 ways of saying the numbers one thru four depending on the context.^[8]

Scientists who has studied Tammet believed that it is his autism plus epilepsy that triggered this abilities in the brain. Also could there be a genetic link because Tammet's father has schizophrenia.

In the documentary "Brain Man" which is available on Google Video, you will see some scientists learn more details of Tammet's ability.

Like other people with autism (and Asperger syndrome of which Tammet has been diagnosed), Tammet is limited in social interactions and has a hard-time remembering faces. In the interview with Scientific American Mind, Tammet says "When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label 'intelligent.' It was often limited, repetitive and antisocial. I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person’s body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time."⁶

As seen in a YouTube video, David Letterman asked Tammet if it is a good thing to be a "savant". Tammet says yes, but "it has lots of drawbacks ... inability to socialize very easily ... strong narrow intests in particular areas. " As with many of Letterman's interview, there are some bits of humor in the interview like when Letterman confused PI (the mathematical constant) with pie (as in apple pie). Also funny was when Tammet thought Letterman looked like the number 117 (tall, lanky and a bit wobbly).

On "The Agenda" talk show, Steve Paikin talked with Daniel Tammet and Dr. Norman Doigde (author of the book The Brain that Changes Itself) about the amazing abilities. Paikin asked Tammet if there where days when he wished he was just an average guy like everyone else. Tammet says when he was a child, "yes" -- he wanted to fit in just like everyone else. But now he is grateful to have the chance to make a contribution to society and be glad that he has met many wonderful people along the way.[8]

In the introduction of his book "Embracing the Wide Sky", Tammet writes "This book is about the mind -- its nature and abilities. It combines some of the latest neuroscientific research with my personal reflections and detailed descriptions of my abilities and experiences. My primary intention in writing it is to show that differently functioning minds such as mine (or Gates's or Kasparov's) are not so strange, in fact, and that anyone can learn from them. Along the way, I hope to clear up many misconceptions aobut the nature of savant abilities and what it means to be intelligent or gifted."

Article written in 2009. Author may receive Amazon and Google revenues via display ads and links in this article.

• [1] A Genius Explains - Guardian.co.uk interviews Daniel Tammet
• [2] Amazing Minds: Inside Autism - National public radio
  
• [3] 60 Minutes on Autisum - video
• [4] Wikipedia on Daniel Tammet
• [5] Optimnem.co.uk - Official website of Daniel Tammet
• [6] Learn to Think Better: Tips from a Savant - Scientific American Mind interviews Daniel Tammet
• [7] Savant Syndrome: Islands of Genius - Wisconsin Medical Society
• [8] The Agenda with Steve Paikin interviews Tammet with Dr. Norman Doidge