www.aspie-editorial.com

 

July 30th, 2010 by Yen Yen

Born on a blue day: inside the extraordinary mind of an autistic savant: a  memoir

 Daniel Tammet
 Call no: 616.858 TAM – [HEA]
 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2006

This memoir brings us deeply into the life of an autistic savant. If you have seen ‘Rainman’ starring Dustin Hoffman, the term autistic savant should not be unfamiliar. Even after having seen the film, there is still so much that is unexplained and misunderstood. (If you are unclear about the definition, Tammet described it as the presence of impairments affecting social interaction, communication and imagination).

Through “Born on a blue day”, 25-year old Tammet shares his experiences and life accounts since he was a baby. Tammet might possess incredible cerebral ability but human interaction is a difficult process. Some of his extraordinary capabilities include memorizing the numbers of ‘pi’ and learning a new language in a week. The social interaction impairment is evident when Tammet does not indulge in playtime with his younger brother even when they were toddlers. The extent of their sibling interaction is as such: “I had no strong feelings towards my brother and we lived parallel lives.”

Read in Full:  http://blogs.nlb.gov.sg/highbrowseonline/whos-reading-what/yen-yen-has-read-born-on-a-blue-day/