The Prodigy's Cousin (31 page)

“devouring witch”
:
Bruno Bettelheim,
The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self
(New York: Free Press, 1967), 71.

In the first of these
:
Susan Folstein and Michael Rutter, “Infantile Autism: A Genetic Study of 21 Twin Pairs,”
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
18, no. 4 (1977): 297–321.

These findings were buttressed
:
Edward R. Ritvo et al., “Concordance for the Syndrome of Autism in 40 Pairs of Afflicted Twins,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
142, no. 1 (1985): 74–77; Suzanne Steffenburg et al., “A Twin Study of Autism in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden,”
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines
30, no. 3 (1989): 405–16; and A. Bailey et al., “Autism as a Strongly Genetic Disorder: Evidence from a British Twin Study,”
Psychological Medicine
25, no. 1 (1995): 63–77. For a more recent twin study, see Rebecca E. Rosenberg et al., “Characteristics and Concordance of Autism Spectrum Disorders Among 277 Twin Pairs,”
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
163, no. 10 (2009): 907–14. For a study finding a higher-than-expected incidence of concordance for autism in fraternal twins, see Joachim Hallmayer et al., “Genetic Heritability and Shared Environmental Factors Among Twin Pairs with Autism,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
68, no. 11 (2011): 1095–102.

studies that identified a higher prevalence
:
Early studies focused on an elevated rate of intellectual disability among autists' family members; for a review, see Patrick Bolton and Michael Rutter, “Genetic Influences in Autism,”
International Review of Psychiatry
2, no. 1 (1990): 67–80. For an example of an early study identifying subclinical social and communication deficits in autists' families, see P. Bolton, “A Case-Control Family History Study of Autism,”
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
35, no. 5 (1994): 877–900. For a more recent review, see Gerdts and Bernier, “Broader Autism Phenotype and Its Implications on the Etiology and Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders.”

“striking and extreme”
:
Feldman and Goldsmith,
Nature's Gambit,
43.

Kelvin Doe, for example
:
THNKR, “Kelvin Doe at TEDxTeen”; Kelvin Doe, “Persistent Experimentation,” TEDxTeen; Ian Steadman, “Teenager Signs £60,000 Contract to Develop His Own Solar Panel Technology,”
Wired UK
, Oct. 10, 2013; Oswald Hanciles, “The Mystery (and Challenge) of Kelvin Doe,”
Concord Times,
July 1, 2015; Nina Strochlic, “Why the Clintons Love Sierra Leone's Boy Genius,”
Daily Beast,
Sept. 26, 2013.

“a beautifully choreographed”
:
Feldman and Goldsmith,
Nature's Gambit,
14.

“stand out like Gulliver”
:
Goode, “Uneasy Fit of the Precocious and the Average.”

the music prodigy
:
“Musical Prodigy, Bluejay,”
60 Minutes,
Nov. 30, 2006.

“real learning”
:
Written summary of Alex's and William's development, provided by Lucie, 2012.

“He then put his pencil down”
:
Ibid.

“I think we'll just avoid”
:
Lucie, telephone interview, Sept. 12, 2014.

“rage to master”
:
Winner, “The Rage to Master: The Decisive Role of Talent in the Visual Arts.”

Chapter 5: The Evidence Mounts

He was born in Newport-on-Tay
:
The events in this chapter described by Mike Wawro come from telephone interviews conducted on Dec. 14 and 16, 2014, and March 30, 2015; and e-mail. In addition, Mike provided photographs, images of Richard's artwork, and a record of Richard's drawings and sales. The events described by Laurence A. Becker come from a telephone interview conducted on Dec. 17, 2014; and e-mail. Richard's story was also drawn from his Web site; documentaries, including Ron Zimmerman and Laurence A. Becker,
With Eyes Wide Open
(1983); and news reports, including “A Conversation with Laurence A. Becker: On the Gifted Handicapped,”
The Human Condition,
adapted for publication by Charlene Warren (Austin: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and the University of Texas, 1981); Ann Shearer, “Subnormal—but an Astounding Artist,”
Guardian,
April 18, 1970; “Richard Wawro,”
Scotsman,
March 9, 2006; “Richard Wawro,”
Telegraph,
March 11, 2006; Jonathan Brinckman, “Autistic Artist Can't Explain How His Talent Works,”
New Haven Register,
May 20, 1990; Lee Kelly, “Austin Exhibit of Wawro's Artwork Kicks Off National Tour,”
Austin American-Statesman,
April 8, 1990; Mary Meehan, “Blind Artist Shows His True Colors,”
Orlando Sentinel,
May 10, 1990; Adam Geller, “Art That Speaks—Autistic and Nearly Blind, Scot Inspires Disabled Kids,”
Record,
April 7, 1998; Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, “Phenomenon,” ca. mid-1960s, translated version used by the Wawro family provided by Mike Wawro; Joseph Blank, “I Can See Feeling Good,”
Reader's Digest,
Nov. 1983; and Denise Gamino, “Renowned Artist Savant Visits Austin,”
Austin American-Statesman,
Oct. 13, 1994.

“It was enough to drive you mad”
:
Brinckman, “Autistic Artist Can't Explain How His Talent Works.”

“was never still”
:
Molly Leishman, “Richard Wawro, Artist,” http://www.wawro.net/Richard_Wawro/Early_life.html.

“It wasn't the usual picture”
:
Molly Leishman, television interview, Zimmerman and Becker,
With Eyes Wide Open.

“thunderstruck”
:
Bohusz-Szyszko, “Phenomenon.”

Richard Demarco
: “
Richard Wawro,”
Scotsman
.

“On the first evening”
:
Blank, “I Can See Feeling Good.”

“hold them up”
:
“A Conversation with Laurence A. Becker: On the Gifted Handicapped”; this publication includes the bookstore manager quotation from Richard A. Abrams,
American Statesman,
ca. 1980.

At some of his exhibitions
:
For an excellent overview of Richard's technique, see Zimmerman and Becker,
With Eyes Wide Open
.

Richard showed his parents
:
To see a recording of this celebration ritual, see ibid.

“I can't get over the number”
:
Ibid. (narrator Cactus Pryor is speaking).

Autism became the official
:
See, for example, “Richard Wawro,”
Scotsman.

Olive had contracted rubella
:
For an overview of studies investigating a potential relationship between congenital rubella and autism, see Jane E. Libbey et al., “Autistic Disorder and Viral Infections,”
Journal of NeuroVirology
11, no. 1 (2005): 1–10.

at his brother's flat in Glasgow
:
Zimmerman and Becker,
With Eyes Wide Open
.

“world champion picture”
:
Brinckman, “Autistic Artist Can't Explain How His Talent Works.”

“He talks of little else”
:
Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact,” 233.

Asperger, too, noted a tendency
:
Asperger, “‘Autistic Psychopathy' in Childhood,” 72.

“highly restricted, fixated interests”
:
In the
DSM-5,
this description falls under the umbrella category of “restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.”
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
fifth ed. (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Many autists demonstrate such circumscribed interests
:
See, for example, Lauren M. Turner-Brown et al., “Phenomenology and Measurement of Circumscribed Interests in Autism Spectrum Disorders,”
Autism
15, no. 4 (2011): 437–56; Mikle South, Sally Ozonoff, and William M. McMahon,
“Repetitive Behavior Profiles in Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
35, no. 2 (2005): 145–58; and Turner-Brown et al., “Phenomenology and Measurement of Circumscribed Interests in Autism Spectrum Disorders.”

Several researchers have observed
:
Turner-Brown et al., “Phenomenology and Measurement of Circumscribed Interests in Autism Spectrum Disorders”; Ami Klin et al., “Circumscribed Interests in Higher Functioning Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Exploratory Study,”
Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities
32, no. 2 (2007): 89–100.

the autists' interests can lie in any area
:
See, for example, South, Ozonoff, and McMahon, “Repetitive Behavior Profiles in Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism.”

From the autist's family's perspective
:
Céline Mercier, Laurent Mottron, and Sylvie Belleville, “A Psychosocial Study on Restricted Interests in High Functioning Persons with Pervasive Developmental Disorders,”
Autism
4, no. 4 (2000): 406–25; South, Ozonoff, and McMahon, “Repetitive Behavior Profiles in Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism.”

Joanne took stock
:
Joanne Ruthsatz and Jourdan B. Urbach, “Child Prodigy: A Novel Cognitive Profile Places Elevated General Intelligence, Exceptional Working Memory, and Attention to Detail at the Root of Prodigiousness,”
Intelligence
40, no. 5 (2012): 419–26.

Autism is more common among men
:
Eric Fombonne, “Epidemiology of Pervasive Developmental Disorders,”
Pediatric Research
65, no. 6 (2009): 591–98.

The reasons for this asymmetry
:
See, for example, Bonnie Auyeung et al., “Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits,”
British Journal of Psychology
100, no. 1 (2009): 1–22.

“extreme male brain”
:
See, for example, Simon Baron-Cohen, “The Extreme Male Brain Theory of Autism,”
TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences
6, no. 6 (2002): 248–54. A similar idea was proposed by Hans Asperger. See Asperger, “‘Autistic Psychopathy' in Childhood,” 84.

Others have proposed
:
S. Jacquemont et al., “A Higher Mutational Burden in Females Supports a ‘Female Protective Model' in Neurodevelopmental Disorders,”
American Journal of Human Genetics
94, no. 3 (2014): 415–25; Elise B. Robinson et al., “Examining and Interpreting the Female Protective Effect Against Autistic Behavior,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
110, no. 13 (2013): 5258–62; T. W. Frazier et al., “Behavioral and Cognitive Characteristics of Females and Males with Autism in the Simons Simplex Collection,”
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
53, no. 3 (2014): 329–40.

Still others suggest
:
Alexandra M. Head, Jane A. McGillivray, and Mark A. Stokes, “Gender Differences in Emotionality and Sociability in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders,”
Molecular Autism
5, no. 19 (2014); T. W. Frazier et al., “Behavioral and Cognitive Characteristics of Females and Males with Autism in the Simons Simplex Collection.”

“a universal feature”
:
Simon Baron-Cohen et al., “Talent in Autism: Hyper-Systemizing, Hyper-Attention to Detail, and Sensory Hypersensitivity,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
364, no. 1522 (2009): 1377.

Heightened attention
:
See, for example, Francesca Happé and Uta Frith, “The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-Focused Cognitive Style in Autism Spectrum Disorders,”
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
36, no. 1 (2006): 5–25.

In one highly publicized 1996 incident
:
Rick Bragg, “Autism No Handicap, Boy Defies Swamp,”
New York Times,
Aug. 17, 1996; Patrick Rogers, “Alive!,”
People,
Sept. 2, 1996; “Autistic Boy Is Found After 4 Nights in Swamp,” Associated Press, Aug. 12, 1996.

Afterward, Stephen reproduced it
:
“The Foolish Wise Ones,”
QED
, 1986.

On other occasions, he has produced
:
Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain,
2006; Treffert,
Islands of Genius
.

They outscored those
:
Ruthsatz and Urbach, “Child Prodigy.”