Autism, Savants, Genius and the Male Brain

An interesting article from wired magazine:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/genius_pr.html

I particularly liked this diagnosis of famous geniuses at the end of the article:

GrEAtNess DiAgNosEd
Are certain forms of creativity enhanced by brain damage? Do the same genetic traits that produce disorders like savant syndrome, autism, and Tourette's contribute to genius? Hans Asperger, who in the early 1940s pioneered the study of autism, believed the answer was yes. "For success in science and art," he wrote, "a dash of autism is essential." The biographies of many innovative thinkers bear him out. - S.S.


Thelonious Monk
Jazz composer and improviser
Possible diagnosis: Tourette's syndrome
The high priest of bebop spoke in a medley of grunts and cosmic aphorisms and danced around his piano - and his ticcish syncopations blasted jazz out of the swing era.


Carl Friedrich Gauss
Mathematician and astronomer
Possible diagnosis: prodigious savant
Gauss taught himself to read at age 3; by 10 he was considered a math prodigy. His discoveries in number theory threw open the gates of post-Euclidian geometry.


Glenn Gould
Classical pianist
Possible diagnosis: Asperger's syndrome
Gould was a legendary control freak in the studio. But when he sat down at the piano, he channeled Bach. Like many savants, he had absolute pitch and a steel-trap memory.


Samuel Johnson
Writer and lexicographer
Possible diagnosis: Tourette's syndrome
Johnson, the author of the first English dictionary, was prone to ritualistic movements punctuated by outbursts of barnyard noises and fragments of the Lord's Prayer.


Andre-Marie Ampere
Physicist and mathematician
Possible diagnosis: prodigious savant
A pioneer in the study of electromagnetism, Ampere started calculating even before he could read numbers, working out complex formulas with stones and cookie crumbs.


Temple Grandin
Professor of animal science
Diagnosis: high-functioning autism
Grandin designs more efficient and humane livestock-handling facilities by taking a cow's-eye view, using an autistic mode of cognition that she calls "thinking in pictures."