Trish’s Blog

Sarah and Josh watched a program on TV about a man who learned Icelandic in less than a week. I caught glimpses of the program watching him do large calculations in his head that scientists checked (and found correct) with a calculator. That’s all I remember about the program because I didn’t sit and watch the whole thing with them.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a book in the autobiography section of the library and found Born on A Blue Day. I thought it was an intriguing title for a book, so I checked it out. I found it funny that as a child the author, Daniel Tammet, would scan the shelves at the library looking for his name on a book. He learned later that in order to find his name on a book in the library, he would have to write it.

Before I could read very far into it, I got excited and told Sarah that she needed to read the book. His prose is very easy to understand, so I thought she could easily follow it. I couldn’t wait, so I read the first chapter out loud to her. She said, “Oh, it’s like that guy on TV.” I flipped to the back cover of the book and she saw a picture of Daniel Tammet and yelled, “That’s him!” We laughed! Of course, there can only be one Daniel Tammet. Up until then I had been looking at the picture wondering why he looked so familiar.

He is an inspiration. He is able to give scientists new insight into the world of autistm because he can tell them exactly how and what he is feeling and seeing in his mind. Numbers are like beautiful landscapes in his mind. He successfully memorized over 22,500 numbers of pi (a record) and the scientists asked him to look at a page of the numbers of pi while he was hooked up to a galvanic meter. They messed with him when they purposely substituted sixes for nines and were fascinated when they saw a physiological response. He described it as having his numerical landscapes vandalized.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Daniel got to meet Kim Peek. He’s the man that Dustin Hoffman spent time with while shooting the movie Rain Man in order to become the character Raymond Babbit. HIs having an instant connection with someone was heart warming.

Reading Daniel’s book confirmed to me the things I learned from a friend about her son who also has Asperger’s syndrome. Not all with autism are like Raymon Babbitt in Rain Man. There are high functioning autistics with invisible disabilities like Daniel and my friend’s son. The need for a set daily routine, literal use of language, and finding comfort in counting are eye-opening nuggets of information that lead to understanding and acceptance.

I highly recommend this book! The program Sarah and Josh watched on the Discovery Channel was filmed in 2005 and is called Brainman, according to the book. If you can find it, I recommend that, too.

Posted on July 17th, 2008 by trish
Filed under: In My Opinion, TV