In Good Health Blog

Doctor Erika Nurmi and co-workers at Vanderbilt University recently, using genetic exploration and methods, were able to identify, and separate, a subset of persons with autism who shared savant skills from a much larger group of autistic persons who did not have such skills.

I met my first savant my first day on the job as a psychiatrist. And I have been intrigued with that extraordinary condition ever since.

While bike riding is a rite of passage and an accepted societal norm for adolescents, a number of children with cognitive as well as physical disabilities aren’t able to master bike riding other than by continued use of awkward training wheels and possibly other trike and four-wheeler adaptations

April 29, 2004 Asperger’s article in The New York Times
Amy Harmon: Answer, but No Cure, for a Social Disorder That Isolates Many

I met my first autistic child in 1955, when I was a second year medical student. That perplexing condition engaged and intrigued me then, and engages and intrigues me still, 52 years later.

Autism is not a new disorder, the ‘explosion’ in autism cases, whether apparent or real, notwithstanding.

Dr. Niels Birbaumer, of the Institute of Behavioral Neurobiology, in Tubingen, Germany has been studying what he calls “event-related brain potentials” (ERPs).

GIFTEDNESS & AUTISM

SAVANT SKILL FACT SHEET

An unusually important article, in my view, on the origins of autism was printed in the July 26, 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Distinguishing autistic-like behaviors from Autistic Disorder

Hyperlexia: children who read early—identifying the subtypes

Hyperlexia— precocious reading ability in very young children—can present itself in several ways.