Wednesday, April 23, 2008


Autism and Savants


My colleague and friend Dan Olmsted wrote an article about autism and savantism for Spectrum Magazine. You can read it HERE. The following provides a taste:

Lately I’ve been trying to make sense of savants. What is the relationship between autism and the extraordinary abilities that, in a small percentage of cases, accompany it? Rain Man put both autism and savant skills on the map and may have created a bias toward believing that they go together a lot more often than they do.





I’ve written in Spectrum about my reporting that suggests the early cases of autism in this country can be connected to organic mercury – in fungicides and vaccines. Donald T., for example, lives in the aptly named Forest, Miss., in the middle of a national forest and not far from where mercury was first tested as a lumber preservative. (That may seem like a reach, but consider that Case 2 was the son of a forestry professor in the south, and Case 3 the son of a plant pathologist.)

5 comments:

Tyhitia Green said...

Wow. I'm going to read the rest of this article. The snippet was fascinating. :*)

ORION said...

Your interview at demon's was great kim!
And yes for heavens sake DONT rely on the school system for your child with autism...
IMHO we will rue the day we introduced so many chemicals into our lives...

Ada [The Duchess] said...

Wow you're a hero.

I wanted to say that we have a family friend and their son has autism as well. He's about 2 years older the me (23 ish),and they live near a chemical power plant. Well they used to before they moved. Do you think it has something to do with it?

Bernita said...

Kim, thank you for your determined courage, and thank you for stopping by my blog with kind wishes.

Kim Rossi Stagliano said...

Bernita, it's been ages since I blog hopped - I miss the old Miss Snark crew! Don't you? :) I'm glad your husband is safe and sound. Could have been a terrible outcome. His guardian angel was alert and ready!

K