Autism and Creativity

Is There a Link between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability?

Michael Fitzgerald

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135453404
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Autism and Creativity is a stimulating study of male creativity and autism, arguing that a major genetic endowment is a prerequisite of genius, and that cultural and environmental factors are less significant than has often been claimed.
Chapters on the diagnosis and psychology of autism set the scene for a detailed examination of a number of important historical figures. For example:
* in the Indian mathematician Ramanujan, the classic traits of Asperger's syndrome are shown to have coexisted with an extraordinary level of creativity
* more unexpectedly, from the fields of philosophy, politics and literature, scrutiny of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sir Keith Joseph, Eamon de Valera, Lewis Carroll and William Butler Yeats reveals classical autistic features.

Autism and Creativity will prove fascinating reading not only for professionals and students in the field of autism and Asperger's syndrome, but for anyone wanting to know how individuals presenting autistic features have on many occasions changed the way we understand society.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Genius, creativity and talent

From time immemorial humankind has searched for the roots of creativity. In antiquity those with creative powers were usually revered and deified. Certainly the most basic tasks we take for granted today, such as lighting a fire or using a wheel, were wondrous discoveries at the time. Rossman has noted how the ancients thoroughly understood the great importance of inventions and discoveries, honouring their inventors by making them gods: ‘the Egyptian God Osiris taught the art of farming and the use of the plough. Prometheus, according to Greek mythology, taught the use of fire.’¹

Over the centuries the paradigm of genius altered, shifting from one associated with place or person to one of inherent ability, according to R.C. Atkinson. He claims that in antiquity, the ‘Romans spoke of the genius of a person or place. But by the sixteenth century this idea had been metaphorically extended to describe the innate capacity of a person.’² None the less, the mystery associated with genius endured. Atkinson notes that the phenomenon of genius has provoked thinkers for many centuries, most likely because it presents itself as ‘inexplicable’.

Throughout history there have been many attempts to account for the phenomenon of genius, with various cultures putting forward differing explanations. Roy Porter has observed that ‘Graeco-Roman antiquity had at least three major doctrines competing for attention, the ‘divine fire’ or ‘God's touch’ idea, the notion that creativity was the product of the melancholy humour, and of course the Muses’.³

The etymology of genius points to the innate or spiritual dimension of the individual. According to the Oxford Companion to the Mind, the word ‘genius’ itself comes from the Latin word genius, i.e. the male spirit of a household existing, during his lifetime, in the head of the family and subsequently in the divine or spiritual part of each individual.⁴ In discussing genius Howe acknowledges its roots in the Latin word genius which, he says, ‘stems from gens, meaning family but also from the Latin ingenium, denoting natural disposition or innate ability’.⁵ Clearly the notion of inherent power linked to individual achievement is one that persists over time. Indeed, Mark Twain knew about innate differences when he declared that ‘individual differences are what make horse races’.⁶ The durability of genius is also linked with the individual. Howe points out that for Immanuel Kant, genius was an ‘incommunicable gift that cannot be taught or handed on, but is mysteriously imparted to certain artists by nature, and dies with the person’.⁷ This is certainly true. Similarly, the Oxford English Dictionary defines genius as:

native intellectual power of an exalted type, such as is attributed to those who are esteemed greatest in any department of art, speculation or practice; instinctive and extraordinary capacity for imaginative creation, original thought, inventions, or discovery. Often contrasted with talent.⁸

Therefore in assuming that genius is innate, it is consequently implied that it cannot be acquired. On this point Webster's New World Dictionary states that ‘talent implies an apparently native ability for a specific pursuit and connotes either that it is or that it can be cultivated by the one possessing it’.

Undoubtedly, the capacity for higher order thinking is one that distinguishes the person with genius. In his understanding of genius, Ezra Pound noted that it ‘is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and where the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register multiple perception in the material of his art’.⁹ This ability to ‘see’ things and effect change is ground breaking and therein lies the kernel of creativity and invention. Clearly, the creative acts of genius must be original, novel and bring about change in our understanding of a subject.

Negative connotations of genius have persisted also. Certainly, the notion of the individual rebelling against received wisdom with arrogance and narcissism has gathered currency. In this respect, Bernard Berenson's definition of genius as ‘the capacity for productive reaction against one's training’ is germane.¹⁰ Arguably, the advent of change that creativity inevitably produces is not always welcomed by society, often making the genius unpopular. Indeed, Samuel Butler believed genius was ‘immoral’ because it disturbed the world.¹¹ Similarly, Jonathan Swift tells us how to recognise a true genius: ‘you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him’.¹²

Creativity and autism

Many features of high-functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome (HFA/ASP) enhance creativity.¹³ Certainly, the ability to focus intensely on a topic and to take endless pains to produce a creative work is a characteristic feature of this syndrome. People with HFA/ASP have an extraordinary capacity to focus on a topic for very long periods (days on end – without interruption even for meals. They do not give up when obstacles to their creativity are encountered. For this reason they can be termed workaholics and show a remarkable capacity for persistence. As inventors, they have high levels of energy and motivation, and tremendous capacities for observation. Many, such as Einstein, show an extraordinary capacity for visual imagination. Consequently, there are many inventors in the areas of engineering and mathematics with HFA/ASP. An enormous capacity for curiosity and a compulsion to understand and make sense of the world are evident too. People with HFA/ASP do not accept current scientific or other views of the world, often rejecting received wisdom and experts in their domains. In this respect they often come across as being childlike and having immature personalities.

Autism and Asperger's syndrome

Ever since the term ‘autism’ entered the public mind, its perception has not been linked with genius and creativity. Rather, in the minds of many people, autism is associated with a very significant learning disability, and with intelligence levels significantly below the average range. Some of these people, particularly those called autistic savants, can have special abilities, for example they are well known as calculating prodigies.

A genius is a person with high ability, with or without autism, who produces work that changes our view of a subject. This book deals with people with HFA/ASP and genius. According to Grossman,¹⁴ a savant is ‘a person of low intelligence who possesses an unusually high skill in some mental task like mental arithmetic, remembering dates or numbers or in performing other rote tasks at a remarkably high level’, and savants are found more frequently among people with autism than among the general population.

Gillberg¹⁵ gives a definition of savant skills which is relevant to the people discussed in this book, and which is different from Beta Hermelin's definition of savantism in low-functioning autism. Gillberg states that the term savant skills ‘is now used for special talents at a very high level of functioning, much above what would be expected on the basis of a person's IQ’. This might refer to some of the people discussed in this book, but probably not to all.

In terms of creativity, HFA/ASP is quite different from low-functioning autism. In making the distinction between HFA/ASP and low-functioning autism, it is critically important that people with low-functioning autism are not capable of the kind of creativity described in this book. This point is very well made by Beta Hermelin, who points out that ‘another requirement for true creative ability, which is certainly missing in savants, is the search for new forms of expression that characterise the history of Western art’.¹⁶She goes on to point out that:

of course, the mental impairments from which savants suffer set boundaries to the development of their talents. There are no savant geniuses about. None of them will discover a new mathematical theorem, or initiate a novel stylistic movement in the visual arts or in music. Neither will a savant pianist give a novel, revealing interpretation of a Beethoven piano sonata. Their mental limitations disallow and preclude an awareness of innovative developments in the areas of their special abilities.¹⁷

Clearly Hermelin is describing people with ‘more disabling forms of autism’. These are certainly not the people I am discussing in this book, indeed, quite the opposite. A proportion of people with the more disabling forms of autism with learning disabilities can have special abilities in remembering dates or in mathematical calculations, but they are different from the people described in this book. Hermelin points out that:

a savant is a rare phenomenon. Between two and three percent of the population suffer from some degree of mental handicap … only 0.06% of these had initially been estimated to possess an unusually high level of specific ability that is far above that of the average normal person … savant ability is much more frequently found in those who suffer from some form of autism. An early estimate was that in every 100 autistic individuals 10 showed some high-level specific skill. However, it is more realistically held that at most 1 or 2 in 200 of those within the Autism Spectrum Disorder can justifiably be regarded as having a genuine talent.¹⁸

The lack of any association between autism and creativity is apparent not only among the general public but also among academics. Oliver Sacks, in his study of perhaps one of the best-known people with autism, Temple Grandin, claimed that for many people autism represented ‘a child mute, rocking, screaming, inaccessible, cut off from human contact’.¹⁹ Moreover, he points out that many people with autism are ‘so lacking in subjectivity and inwardness that major creativity is beyond them’.²⁰ However, Sacks does concede that the possibility of a creative capacity has been suggested by Christopher Gillberg, one of the finest clinical observers of autism. Gillberg feels that ‘autistic people of the Asperger type, in contrast, may be capable of major creativity’.²¹ This is precisely what I plan to demonstrate in this book.

The other image of autism in the public mind is from the Hollywood film Rainman (1988). Undoubtedly this film gives a better background understanding to the people described in this book with HFA/ASP. However, what it does not indicate is the enormous capacity for creativity shown by these people. The capacity to hold strong beliefs and feelings, often seen to be necessary to produce a work of creativity, is perceived to be lacking in those with autism. Certainly, clinical opinion has changed on this issue and now reflects a more complex theory of mind. On this point, Ami Klin and colleagues quote a person in a support group for people with autism, who rejects the notion that a theory of mind is absent in those with autism:

you, the neurotypicals, believe that autistic people have no feelings, no beliefs, not even sexual thoughts. Who are the ones without a theory of mind? Because we don't talk as much about these things, you assume that your beliefs about us are true. Well, this is a false belief, if I am allowed to make a little pun, another thing I am not supposed to be able to do because I am autistic.²²

The authors point out that these remarks reflect ‘his ability to think about other people's beliefs and to make deliberately sarcastic and humorous statements’. Furthermore, they also note that no researcher:

working within the framework of theory of mind holds the notion that individuals with autism have no beliefs or feelings: rather the current theory of mind hypothesis of autism suggests that the ability to think about thinking, to have beliefs about other people's beliefs, etc. is greatly reduced, delayed, or inflexible, may be reflecting an unusual or atypical developmental acquisition of these skills.²³

This is precisely what this book is attempting to illustrate. Moreover, it highlights this statement in a very profound way. People with HFA/ASP have beliefs, feelings and certainly show a capacity for thinking but these skills are often delayed in development. It is not an all-or-none situation. To suggest that theory of mind is absent in HFA/ASP is simplistic. Rather, the notion that varying problems in the theory of mind area exist is closer to what one will find in the people with HFA/ASP discussed in this book.

Autistic intelligence

This book is very much about ‘autistic intelligence’. Hans Asperger wrote about ‘autistic intelligence’ and saw it as a sort of intelligence hardly touched by tradition and culture – ‘unconventional, unorthodox, strangely ‘pure’ and original, akin to the intelligence of true creativity’.²⁴ Such pure intelligence can be found in the descriptions of many of the people studied in this book. Certainly, Bertrand Russell used the word to describe Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical ability. None the less, autistic intelligence is unconventional and unorthodox. Indeed, Temple Grandin has stated that ‘it is likely that genius is an abnormality’.²⁵ However, Grandin believes that autistic intelligence is necessary in order to add diversity and creativity in the world: ‘It is possible that persons with bits of these traits are more creative, are possibly even geniuses … If science eliminated these...