Who has not seen or at the very least heard of the academy-award winning film, "Rain Man"? Well, I have a little story I would like to share will all of you. You see, my husband's cousin has a teenage son who is considered a "high functioning" autistic. I have heard stories about him from the family, but never actually had the chance to meet him in person as they live in New Jersey. I finally had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time.
His name is Mikey and ever since he was a small boy, he had a talent with numbers! His father told me that he would spend hours and hours just reading calendars. Yes, I said the plural form of that word. I felt much like I was in a scene from the movie, "Rain Man" after his dad asked me to tell Mikey my birth date and Mikey could tell me what day of the week my birthday fell on this year. I told him, "February 23." Mikey responded, "It was a Friday." Was he correct? YUP! Then he proceeded to tell me what day of the week my husband's birthday would be on this year - December 4th. Mikey quickly replied, "It will be on a Tuesday." Right again! Still not convinced? His dad asked what day of the week the next leap year in 2020 would be on and I googled it ... yup, he said "on a Saturday" and he is correct!
How he has this unbelievable ability to do this is simply astounding to me! I did find an interesting article on this particular subject. Please click on this link to read more on this.
Another example of how incredibly high functioning some individuals with autism can be, one only need think of the amazing talents of the following people ... as I said, UNBELIEVABLE!
(For more about Kim Peek, please click here)
There is also Derek Paravicini, who is both autistic and blind since birth. One of my favorite books entitled, "In the Key of Genius" written by Adam Ockelford (Derek's music teacher who also specializes in working with special needs children) tells the story of Derek's amazing journey. Here is a link to a short video to learn more about this inspirational book.
(For more info on Derek, just click on his name here: Derek Paravicini)
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I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to finally meet Mikey after all this time. He is quite amazing to me!
