The Prodigy's Cousin (18 page)

The intense world theory also has something intriguing to say about empathy. The scientists believe that there's no autism empathy deficit at all. According to this theory, autists are too perceptive; they feel
too deeply
for others—so much so that they become overwhelmed by their feelings and withdraw or avoid social interactions.

It's an intriguing theory built not around deficits but, in a sense, around strengths.
It's yet to be proved, and not all scientists support it.

But for many families and autists, this theory—particularly the empathy piece—better aligns with their experiences. Certainly some people recognize a failure to read emotional cues in the autists they know, but others perceive their children as extraordinarily attuned to others and give them nicknames like “
emotional barometer” and “
mood ring” for their abilities to sense others' feelings.

Some autists have articulated the way that this sensitivity can make social interactions feel like an assault, just as predicted by the intense world theory. One man commented that to him other people seemed like “
emotional tornadoes”;
a woman felt as if others' emotions were punching her in the face. Such social experiences can leave those with autism feeling exposed or overcharged: one man felt as if his heart and soul were “
like an exposed nerve to the world.”

As a result, some autists report experiencing the predicted emotional overloads. One woman wrote about her tendency to “
go into
sensory lock down,” ensconcing herself in the safety of her “bubble.” A woman with Asperger's disorder was distraught for an entire weekend because she thought she had killed a butterfly. Positive experiences, on the other hand, could also reverberate deeply.
As one individual put it, a non-autist would need a whole evening of hugs and reassurance to feel as cared for as he did after receiving a pat on the back and a smile from another autist.

There's still much work to be done on the intense world theory of autism. But seen from the perspective of this theory, many autists have astounding intellectual capabilities
and
are highly sensitive to the plight of others—just like the prodigies. If mind blindness seemed to cast prodigies and autists as polar opposites, the intense world theory casts them as close cousins.

It had been there all along.

The idea that autism was linked to various strengths has appeared in academic writings since Kanner identified autism as an independent condition in 1943. In that first paper, he described the autists' excellent memories for vocabulary, rhymes, and patterns; he said the children were all “
unquestionably endowed with good cognitive potentialities.” The following year, Asperger observed that some autists demonstrate “
a high level of original thought and experience.”
A late 1970s study concluded that approximately 10 percent of autists possessed notable abilities in music, art, and other areas; since then, scientists have identified other autism-linked strengths, such as excellent attention to detail.

For decades, these strengths were mostly relegated to the background as researchers sought a cognitive explanation for autism. But over time, researchers adopted a broader understanding of what autism could look like, and there was a renewal of interest in those intriguing abilities and strengths that had appeared in even the earliest autism studies. The deficit-focused orientation toward autism began to give way.

Frith was partly responsible for this shift. Her own perception of
autism was already evolving when she read Hans Asperger's 1944 paper during a seminar. Frith was struck by Asperger's description of autism, and she eventually decided that it should be made more widely available.
Her 1991 translation of his work into English put autism in a startlingly different light for many people.

In this paper, Asperger notes the children's social difficulties and repetitive behaviors as well as their highly original use of language, distinct areas of special interest, and excellent logical and abstract thinking. He claimed that autism could affect individuals of
any
ability level and emphasized that autists of high ability had extraordinary potential. As long as they were “intellectually intact,” Asperger thought that professional success, “usually in highly specialised academic professions, often in very high positions,” was almost inevitable given the autists' deep passions and keen intellects:

Able autistic individuals can rise to eminent positions and perform with such outstanding success that one may even conclude that only such people are capable of certain achievements. It is as if they had compensatory abilities to counter-balance their deficiencies. Their unswerving determination and penetrating intellectual powers, part of their spontaneous and original mental activity, their narrowness and single-mindedness, as manifested in their special interests, can be immensely valuable and can lead to outstanding achievements in their chosen areas. We can see in the autistic person, far more clearly than with any normal child, a predestination for a particular profession from earliest youth. A particular line of work often grows naturally out of their special abilities.

From this description of autism, finally available to English-speaking audiences more than forty-five years after it was first published, the gap
between prodigy and autist seems quite small. With minimal tinkering, the same passage could have been written about child prodigies.

But some researchers questioned whether individuals like those described by Asperger were actually autistic. When Asperger's disorder first appeared in the
DSM
in 1994, it was listed as a diagnosis
separate from autism
. It wasn't until the
DSM-5
was published in 2013 that Asperger's disorder was formally enveloped into autism spectrum disorder.

Encompassing Asperger's disorder within the folds of autism was part of a larger trend toward loosening the definition of autism.
Even before the
DSM-5
was issued, autism diagnostic criteria had been evolving in ways that led to more autism diagnoses and to people with a broader range of abilities being included on the autism spectrum.

New evidence also made autism and intellectual disability seem less closely intertwined.
A 2006 review study challenged the evidence on which claims of extensive overlap between the two conditions had been based.
Another study found that while a significant percentage of autists were intellectually disabled, a significant percentage also had average IQs, and some even had above-average IQs (a finding that might have been due in part to the broadening criteria for autism).

Another line of research suggested that merely swapping out an intelligence test that required oral instructions and responses (the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) for a differently structured, nonverbal test (the Raven's Progressive Matrices) significantly increased autists' scores. In one study, switching to the nonverbal test catapulted the autists' average score thirty percentage points and removed the scores of all but 5 percent of the autistic children from the “low functioning” range.

The cognitive theories of autism, too, evolved to more fully incorporate autistic strengths.
The executive function theory (based on the idea that autism stems from deficits in planning, goal-setting, and related abilities) was essentially dismissed as a primary explanation for autism.
The weak central coherence theory (based on the idea that autists have an imbalance in the way they integrate information) was revised to emphasize autists' superior local processing rather than their failure to see the big picture.

Baron-Cohen recast mind blindness as the empathizing-systemizing theory of autism.
The new theory emphasized that autists had intact or strong systemizing, the drive to find the rules that govern systems such as language syntax, train timetables, and tidal wave patterns. Though an empathy deficit remained at its core, even this component of the theory didn't divide prodigies and autists as much as it might seem. Baron-Cohen and other researchers believe that empathy actually has two components—cognitive empathy (the ability to recognize the feelings of another) and emotional or affective empathy (having an appropriate emotional response to others' feelings).
These researchers think that autists have a deficit in cognitive empathy but have intact or an overabundance of affective empathy. Baron-Cohen has further explained that even though autists lack cognitive empathy, they are often “supermoral.” The drive to
systemize, Baron-Cohen says, leads autists to develop highly sophisticated moral codes and a strong sense of justice.

These new and revised theories portray autism as a condition that encompasses strengths as well as weaknesses. The revised weak central coherence theory emphasizes autistic attention to detail, a trait shared with the prodigies. The empathizing-systemizing theory of autism accounts for autists' strengths in rule-based subjects, like math and chess, and specifies that autists have excellent affective empathy—just like the prodigies. The intense world theory portrays autists as highly empathetic and perceptive individuals with enhanced memory capabilities. These strength-recognizing theories, built from the rubble of the early, deficit-focused theories, offer a starkly different take on autism. From this perspective, the connection between autism and prodigy isn't just conceivable; it's almost inevitable.

Sometimes the genetic, autism-linked explanation for prodigy comes up short. The family connection between autism and prodigy is strong, but it's not perfect. Some—roughly half—of the prodigies come from families without autistic relatives.

These prodigies still have autistic traits. They demonstrate the same heightened attention to detail and penchant for obsessive interests as the other prodigies.

How could these traits stem from a family link with autism if there's no autism in the family?

There are a few potential explanations. Perhaps there's autism in far-flung parts of the family tree. Perhaps it's the unique combination of the prodigies' parents' genes that introduced some autism-linked traits into the family for the first time. Perhaps these prodigies didn't inherit the relevant genes at all but have de novo genetic mutations—mutations present in the individual but not in either parent—that contribute to their incredible memories and focus.

But there's another possibility as well. Perhaps the pathway to prodigiousness is paved not just by the children's genes but also by their environments—the events or substances to which they are exposed prenatally or even after birth.

This seems to be the case for autism.
Though it's highly heritable, genes don't always tell the whole story. There are some known
environmental risk factors for autism (environmental in the sense that they aren't directly tied to genes—not in the long-discarded “refrigerator mother” sense). Children exposed in utero to valproate, an antiepilepsy medication, or to thalidomide, a medication once tragically prescribed to treat morning sickness (and now used to treat skin conditions and cancer) and known to cause severe birth defects, have increased rates of autism.
Similarly, some studies have demonstrated an increased risk of autism for children with congenital rubella (a condition that can develop when a pregnant woman contracts rubella).

Exposure to such environmental risk factors doesn't always actually result in autism. What accounts for the variance in outcome?
Some scientists have proposed that one factor is the individual's genes; some people's genes may leave them more susceptible than others to such environmental exposure. Their genes and the environment interact in a way that may result in autism—though the same would not necessarily be the case for others with the same environmental exposure and different genetic profiles.

Perhaps, just as with autism, there are environmental “risk” factors for prodigy—events or exposures that increase the likelihood that a genetically predisposed child will demonstrate the unchecked drive, incredible memory, and heightened attention to detail that characterize prodigious behavior.

It's a possibility that the Tiessens, a Canadian family of four with first one and then two prodigious sons, have experienced firsthand.

In 2012,
The Huffington Post
featured Josh Tiessen as one of “ten art prodigies you should know.” The accompanying video shows an interview with the artist, a soft-spoken seventeen-year-old with carefully styled, slightly spiked brown hair. He appears very thin, almost gangly, and he speaks with gentle reverence about celebrating God's creations through his art.

The video of that artwork reveals stunningly detailed pictures of
animals and architecture: in
Snow White,
a portrait of a tiger Josh created at thirteen, he painted tiny, distinct hairs on the animal's face and body; in
Behold the Door,
a zoomed-in view of a battered doorway Josh painted at fifteen, he carefully portrayed chipping paint, knots in the wood, and tiny nails.

Joanne met Josh in the winter of 2013. Josh had graduated from high school but still lived with his parents in Ontario. Joanne drove through a snowstorm to the family's charming Tudor-style home. When she arrived, Josh's parents, Julie and Doug, provided a detailed family history. No one in Doug's family was autistic. Julie was adopted; she had some information about her biological parents' families, but there were also blank spots in the family tree. As far as Julie and Doug knew, though, they didn't have any autistic relatives.

Julie and Doug brought Joanne to Josh's studio—a bright space at the back of the house with a slanted ceiling and shiny wood floors—and showed her some of Josh's work. It was as extraordinary as it appeared online.

Joanne knew that the Tiessens' younger son, Zac, had a talent for music, but it wasn't until Doug and Julie walked Joanne through his history that Joanne realized he, too, seemed prodigious. He had the same lightning-quick development of a skill that had served as Joanne's hallmark for these distinctive children.

But, unlike the other prodigies, Zac didn't show any particular passion for music early on. As a child, he hated music class and refused to take up an instrument. It wasn't until a thirteen-year-old Zac bashed his head against a church floor that he wanted anything—and then everything—to do with music. Up to that point, he was just the kid brother of a child prodigy.

Josh Tiessen was born in Russia, where his parents were then serving as missionaries. It had been a harrowing pregnancy and birth that
slung his parents through a labyrinth of Russian hospitals and medical procedures, but Josh emerged seemingly unscathed.

Zac eased into the world in a Moscow hospital thirteen months later, the product of an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth.

Josh learned to hold a crayon around the time Zac was born. He immediately wanted to draw, but he ignored the stacks of coloring books his grandparents mailed to Russia; he only wanted blank paper. His nanny, Lena Zhyk, fussed over Josh's artwork. Look what he did today, she would say while holding up a sheet of paper. Julie and Doug rolled their eyes. It's just scribbling, they thought to themselves. There's no picture there.

When Josh was around three, Lena taught him perspective. She held up stuffed animals for him to draw and talked to him about shading. Josh would sit at the small table in the playroom drawing for long periods of time, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he worked. Lena often corrected him; if Josh got the perspective wrong, she would rub out what he had done and draw or paint over it.

Zac occasionally scribbled in the cast-off coloring books for a few minutes, but no project held him for long.

Increasingly impressive artwork began emerging from the playroom, but Julie was convinced Lena still had a hand in its creation. By the time Josh was five, Lena swore she was no longer touching his projects. Julie and Doug were skeptical that they had a great artist on their hands, but they encouraged Josh to sign his pictures and jokingly referred to them as “Joshy originals.” Colleagues who visited the Tiessen home never believed the pictures were truly Josh's work: the art was far too advanced for five-year-old hands.

When Josh was six, the Tiessens moved back to Canada. For several years, Josh's interest in art fizzled, at least as far as Julie and Doug could tell. School occupied much of his day. Sometimes, though, when Julie thought Josh was playing, she would find him up in his room drawing sports logos or sneakers at his desk; when he
was watching TV, he would whip out paper and begin sketching. But the long afternoons he had spent on art as a toddler seemed to have been left behind in Russia.

After Josh finished third grade and Zac second, Julie began homeschooling the boys. Josh took to it immediately. He loved the quiet atmosphere and the wide-open afternoons no longer stuffed full of classes and activities.

Zac was a dervish of a student. “We had lots of blood, sweat, and tears that first year trying to get Zac to concentrate,” Julie recalled. “I cried a lot of days.”

One day, frustrated with the boys, Julie gave Josh and Zac paper and pencils and told them to go outside and draw. Zac spent fifteen or twenty minutes sketching something that vaguely resembled a fountain and then abandoned the project. He spent the rest of the afternoon underfoot in the house.

Josh perched himself on the family's lawn and set about drawing the long, rambling home they lived in at the time. He zeroed in on every brick, every roof shingle, the design on the doors. When he ran out of space, he came back into the house for more paper, eventually taping several pieces together. Julie and Doug had to coax him in for dinner.

When Julie found a book on perspective at a library shared by a group of homeschooling parents, Josh read it, studied it, and incorporated what he learned into his drawings. Zac quickly got bored with the project and moved on, creating havoc in the home classroom.

Julie enrolled both boys in a church arts club to complement her homeschooling lessons. One of the club advisers, Valerie Jones, a British expat in her mid-sixties who crafted animal portraits as a serious hobby, noticed Josh immediately. She watched as the nine-year-old used clean strokes and hard lines to embed his name within a red-and-blue geometric design on a name tag; he was completely engrossed in his work.

Over the next few weeks, she kept an eye on Josh as the group
worked on shading and perspective. The other children all produced what Valerie thought of as “kids' art,” but not Josh. His drawings had incredible precision.

His approach to the projects was different, too. Other kids grew distracted; they couldn't focus on any one task for too long. The room, filled with ten or so kids, was busy; it sometimes got loud. But Josh shut everything else out. He focused intently on executing his drawings.

Valerie was convinced that this was a talent that needed to be nurtured. She sought out Josh's parents and raved about their son's abilities. She later invited Josh and Zac to her studio for lessons, and the boys began spending Wednesday afternoons in Val's basement studio, working at a table adjacent to her laundry room. Zac continued for six months or so before giving it up. Josh kept at it. He was quiet, respectful, and surprisingly mature—almost like a miniature adult. He soaked in Val's instructions; he was never distracted.

Soon, Val was ushering Julie down to the laundry room to see Josh's latest projects. Julie was shocked at what she saw, particularly when Val showed her Josh's chalk pastel depiction of a lion inspired by Aslan, a Christlike figure from the
Narnia
series. The lion's green eyes appear liquid, his mane wild; he possesses a stirring dignity. In a moment reminiscent of Josh's toddler days with Lena, Val insisted that Josh had done it entirely on his own.

After a few months, Val called Julie to ask if she could arrange an art exhibition for Josh. Julie laughed. Josh was only ten! But Val insisted that the world needed to see his work. Julie relented, and Josh had his first exhibition at eleven and his first sale to a stranger: a nurse purchased one of his photographs, a shot of a child taken during a mission trip to Honduras.

Other exhibitions—and sales—trickled in. Josh displayed his work with other artists at a local business, a church, and a gallery. At fourteen, he had his first solo gallery exhibition when his work was featured on the Community Wall at the
Art Gallery of Burlington.

Zac attended every event. He was always a spectator, never a
participant. He helped carry canvases and, in exchange for a small commission, sold artist note cards. He never showed anything of his own.

Josh got his big break when he grabbed the attention of Robert Bateman, a prominent Canadian painter. He was Josh's professional idol—a man who, much like Josh, specialized in detailed, realistic portrayals of nature and animals. Josh had written to him a few months before his Burlington exhibition, attaching images of his paintings. Just a day after Josh took down the last of the works he had hung at the Burlington gallery, he got a response. Robert praised Josh's work and invited him to a Master Artist Seminar.

The seminar was on Cortes Island, off the coast of British Columbia, more than twenty-five hundred miles from the Tiessens' home. Money was scarce.
Doug had been diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease two years before, a condition his doctors believed he had contracted in Russia, and his health was failing. Julie's health was declining as well; she would be diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease the following year. Long-term disability payments were the family's only source of income.