The Prodigy's Cousin (30 page)

His mind was awash
:
Similar anecdotes of extraordinary memory pepper the child prodigy literature. In a case study of a writing prodigy, for example, the authors characterized the child's memory as “extraordinary.” He
had excellent recall of his own writing, could recite whole paragraphs of books verbatim at two and a half, and reproduced the exact score of Bach's Sixth Suite from memory at four. See Alan L. Edmunds and Kathryn A. Noel, “Literary Precocity: An Exceptional Case Among Exceptional Cases,”
Roeper Review
25, no. 4 (2003): 185–94.

In a groundbreaking 1946 doctoral dissertation
:
Adriaan D. de Groot's work was eventually translated into English. See
Thought and Choice in Chess
(1965; reprint, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008).

Since then, dozens of studies
:
For a list of studies on expert memory in various fields, see Kim J. Vicente and JoAnne H. Wang, “An Ecological Theory of Expertise Effects in Memory Recall,”
Psychological Review
105, no. 1 (1998): 33–57.

waiters demonstrate better memories
:
Tristan A. Bekinschtein, Julian Cardozo, and Facundo F. Manes, “Strategies of Buenos Aires Waiters to Enhance Memory Capacity in a Real-Life Setting,”
Behavioural Neurology
20, no. 3 (2008): 65–70; H. L. Bennett, “Remembering Drink Orders: The Memory Skill of Cocktail Waitresses,”
Human Learning
2, no. 2 (1983): 157–69; K. Anders Ericsson and Peter G. Polson, “A Cognitive Analysis of Exceptional Memory for Restaurant Orders,” in
The Nature of Expertise,
ed. Michelene T. H. Chi, Robert Glaser, and M. J. Farr (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988), 23–70.

musicians demonstrate better memories
:
John A. Sloboda,
The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); John A. Sloboda, “Visual Perception of Musical Notation: Registering Pitch Symbols in Memory,”
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
28, no. 1 (1976): 1–16; John A. Sloboda, “Perception of Contour in Music Reading,”
Perception
7, no. 3 (1978): 323–31.

But when chess pieces
:
William G. Chase and Herbert A. Simon, “Perception in Chess,”
Cognitive Psychology
4, no. 1 (1973): 55–81.

Psychologists have thus theorized
:
K. Anders Ericsson and Peter G. Polson, “An Experimental Analysis of the Mechanisms of a Memory Skill,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
14, no. 2 (1988): 305–16.

not
superior overall memory
:
Chase and Simon, “Perception in Chess”; Vicente and Wang, “Ecological Theory of Expertise Effects in Memory Recall”; K. Anders Ericsson and William G. Chase, “Exceptional Memory,”
American Scientist
70, no. 6 (1982): 607–15.

Again and again, the prodigies
:
For an evolutionary explanation of child prodigies tied to working memory, see Larry R. Vandervert, “The Appearance of the Child Prodigy 10,000 Years Ago: An Evolutionary and Developmental Explanation,”
Journal of Mind and Behavior
30, nos. 1 and 2 (2009): 15–32.

“the information tends to be repeated”
:
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
4th ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994), 68.

“an inordinate number”
:
Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” 243.

Asperger similarly observed
:
Asperger, “‘Autistic Psychopathy' in Childhood,” 44, 75.

Similar reports of autists
:
Tom Fields-Meyer, “What One Father Learned from His Extraordinary Son's Autism,”
Atlantic,
Sept. 6, 2011; Gareth Cook, “The Autism Advantage,”
New York Times,
Nov. 29, 2012.

But systematic studies
:
For overviews of the research on autism and memory, see Jill Boucher, Andrew Mayes, and Sally Bigham, “Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder,”
Psychological Bulletin
138, no. 3 (2012): 458–96; and Suneeta Kercood et al., “Working Memory and Autism: A Review of Literature,”
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
8, no. 10 (2014): 1316–32.

a trait of some
:
Andrée-Anne S. Meilleur, Patricia Jelenic, and Laurent Mottron, “Prevalence of Clinically and Empirically Defined Talents and Strengths in Autism,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
45, no. 5 (2015): 1354–67.

Nadia
:
For the most comprehensive accounts of Nadia, see Lorne Selfe,
Nadia: A Case of Extraordinary Drawing Ability in an Autistic Child
(New York: Academic Press, 1977); and Lorne Selfe,
Nadia Revisited: A Longitudinal Study of an Autistic Savant
(New York: Psychology Press, 2011). For an informative review of the first book, see Nigel Dennis, “Portrait of the Artist,”
New York Review of Books,
May 4, 1978.

“island of genius”
:
Darold A. Treffert,
Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant
(London: Jessica Kingsley, 2010).

Treffert, a Wisconsin psychiatrist
:
Darold Treffert, telephone interview, April 2, 2015; Darold A. Treffert, “The Savant Registry: A Preliminary Report,” Wisconsin Medical Society, https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org.

a varied collection of talents
:
For an overview of the savants described here, see Treffert,
Islands of Genius
.

This ability is so predominant
:
Treffert,
Islands of Genius
.

“practically every song written”
:
Bernard Rimland and Deborah Fein, “Special Talents of Autistic Savants,” in
The Exceptional Brain: Neuropsychology of Talent and Special Abilities,
ed. Loraine K. Obler and Deborah Fein (New York: Guilford Press, 1988), 479.

John, the first savant
:
Treffert, telephone interview, April 2, 2015; Treffert,
Islands of Genius
.

An exceptional memory is
:
Darold A. Treffert, “The Savant Syndrome: An Extraordinary Condition,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364, no. 1522 (2009): 1353.

Chapter 4: Growing a Prodigy

an independent album
:
Jonathan Russell,
Stargazer,
CD (2015).

“My brain is in constant music mode”
:
Jonathan Russell, telephone interview, Jan. 20, 2014.

Music has been a part
:
The events in this chapter described by Jonathan Russell come from a telephone interview conducted on June 20, 2014; and e-mail. The events in this chapter described by Eve Weiss come from telephone interviews conducted on Jan. 20 and Nov. 18 and 19, 2014 (with occasional input from Jim Russell); and e-mail. In addition, Eve provided photographs of Jonathan. Jonathan's story was also drawn from his Web site, his YouTube channel (channel ID: jdrcomposer), and news reports, including Marc Ferris, “A Pet Named Mercutio and Spaceship Sheets,”
New York Times,
Nov. 17, 2002; Mike Voorheis, “Violin Prodigy, Guitar Expert Return to Jazz Fest,”
StarNews,
Feb. 15, 2011; Bobby Caina Calvan, “Sacramento Jazz Jubilee: Youthfull Feats (and Feet),”
Sacramento Bee,
May 27, 2007; Andy Webster, “A Funny Girl Strives to Survive,”
New York Times,
April 13, 2011.

His mother, Eve Weiss
:
Allen Hughes, “Recital: Eve Weiss, Guitarist,”
New York Times,
June 26, 1983.

“teeny tiny violin”
:
Eve Weiss, telephone interview, Nov. 18, 2014.

“sophisticated improvisations”
:
Ferris, “Pet Named Mercutio and Spaceship Sheets.”

“the rotary phone and the cell phone”
:
Voorheis, “Violin Prodigy, Guitar Expert Return to Jazz Fest.”

“pluckishly improvised”
:
Calvan, “Sacramento Jazz Jubilee: Youthful Feats (and Feet).”

“sprightly contributions”
:
Webster, “A Funny Girl Strives to Survive.

Lauren Voiers grew up in Westlake
:
The events in this chapter described by Lauren Voiers come from telephone interviews conducted on Feb. 6, Nov. 17, and Dec. 2, 2014, and Sept. 7, 2015; and e-mail. In addition, Lauren provided photographs and images of artwork. The events in this chapter described by Doug Voiers come from a telephone interview conducted on Nov. 30, 2014. The events in this chapter described by Nancy Voiers come from e-mail. Lauren's story was also drawn from her Web site and news reports, including John Soeder, “Cleveland Artist Lauren Voiers Sculpts John Lennon Tribute for Liverpool Park,”
Plain Dealer,
Oct. 8, 2010; Ron Vidika, “Lakewood Artist Creates Sculpture Honoring the Beatles' John Lennon,”
Morning Journal,
April 10, 2011; Fran Storch, “Two Talented Young Artists Display Their Works at Beck Center Through August 24,”
Lakewood Observer,
July 21, 2008; Joe Noga, “Westlake's Lauren Voiers Crafts Sculpture to Honor John Lennon's Legacy of Peace,” Cleveland.com, Sept. 29, 2010; “Making the Connection,”
ASCENT
(Autumn 2011); “Artist of the Month,”
Art List,
May 2007; and Lauren's appearances on local television channels, including Fox 8, WKYC, and ABC Live on 5, many of which can be found on YouTube.

She quickly moved toward cubism
:
For an overview of cubism, see “Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/.

“a more stained-glass effect”
:
“Artist of the Month,” quoting Lauren Voiers.

“not precocious”
:
“Training Supermen,”
New York Times,
May 7,1914.

“not geniuses” and “not even exceptionally bright”
:
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman,
Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener
(New York: Basic Books, 2005), 21, quoting a 1909 article from Boston's
Sunday Herald
. For other examples of these parents claiming that their children were not innately exceptional, see “The Boy Prodigy of Harvard,”
Current Literature,
March 1910; H. Addington Bruce, “New Ideas in Child Training,”
American,
July 1911; H. Addington Bruce, “New Ideas in Child Training,”
Journal of Education,
Sept. 21, 1911. On one occasion, though, Wiener did describe Norbert as having a “keen analytical mind” and “tremendous memory.” See Conway and Siegelman,
Dark Hero of the Information Age,
5.

“I could take almost any child”
:
“Training Supermen.”

In their parents' telling
:
On the parents' educational philosophies, see “Illustrating a System of Education,”
New York Times,
Jan. 7, 1910; “Boy Prodigy of Harvard”; Bruce, “New Ideas in Child Training,”
American;
“Give Easy Recipe for Child Prodigies,”
New York Times,
Oct. 31, 1920; Greg Daugherty, “The Child Prodigies Who Became 20th-Century Celebrities,”
Smithsonian,
June 24, 2013; Winifred Sackville Stoner,
Natural Education
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1914); Conway and Siegelman,
Dark Hero of the Information Age;
Bruce, “New Ideas in Child Training,”
Journal of Education
; and H. Addington Bruce, “Bending the Twig: The Education of the Eleven Year Old Boy Who Lectured Before the Harvard Professors on the Fourth Dimension,”
American,
March 1910.

“verses, zoologic and botanic names”
:
Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” 243.

“emotional refrigeration”
:
Leo Kanner and Leon Eisenberg, “Notes on the Follow-Up Studies of Autistic Children,” in
Psychopathology of
Childhood,
ed. Paul H. Hoch and Joseph Zubin (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1955), 229.

He eventually concluded
:
Leo Kanner and Leon Eisenberg, “Early Infantile Autism, 1943–1955,”
Psychiatric Research Reports of the American Psychiatric Association
7 (1957): 62. See also Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact”; Leo Kanner, “Follow-Up Study of Eleven Autistic Children Originally Reported in 1943,”
Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia
1, no. 2 (1971): 119–45.

Bruno Bettelheim
:
Much has been written about Bruno Bettelheim; see, for example, Richard Pollak,
The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997); and Nina Sutton,
Bettelheim: A Life and a Legacy
(New York: Basic Books, 1996).