Posted on 12/19/2001 6:43:00 PM PST by Bush2000
Edited on 06/29/2004 7:08:37 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Autism - and its milder cousin Asperger's syndrome - is surging among the children of Silicon Valley. Are math-and-tech genes to blame?
Nick is building a universe on his computer. He's already mapped out his first planet: an anvil-shaped world called Denthaim that is home to gnomes and gods, along with a three-gendered race known as kiman. As he tells me about his universe, Nick looks up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. "I'm thinking of making magic a form of quantum physics, but I haven't decided yet, actually," he explains. The music of his speech is pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic - as if the soul of an Oxford don has been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a chubby, rosy-cheeked boy from Silicon Valley. Nick is 11 years old.
(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com ...
I have often wondered if their pot use had any effect on their kids.
I don't know...just wondered, though. Nobody else in our family is autistic.
But there is definitely a connection between genius, classically depicted as socially inept from Einstein to Bill Gates to David Boies, and autism.
My son picked out all the letters of the alphabet from the newspaper at 13 months. He read fluently at 2 1/2. He was designing websites at 8. He's got his problems, and he's got his gifts, but don't we all? I wouldn't trade him for the world.
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