would you be able to tell danial tammet has autism?

Post Reply New Topic

He looks pretty normal to me..what symptoms do you see?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fjBENKFVYM

None. He has come a long way. Doesn't mean he never has any.

He doesn't do much with his eyebrows.

I have nothing else.

Fairly monotone voice (little inflection).

I'd probably be able to talk to someone like him if there's a set topic too. He's talking about things he knows rather than spontaneous social interaction regarding a multitude of topics (lecturing on a topic).

i believe he has lectured before.

He has Aspergers.

I feel harsh to lay down criticisms or minor tells but there are some. But he did better than I would have in the face of letterman playing thick.

I can see it being possible from the interview, but there's not enough data there to tell one way or the other. You would need to talk to him about his daily life, the difficulties he has, his cognitive style, his childhood history. This is a formal interview, which is a very easy sort of conversation to do. You answer the questions they ask you. The interviewer can guide the conversation. I sounded pretty non-autistic when I got interviewed for the radio--formal, sure, but not obviously impaired. You wanna see me looking autistic--get me a bit tired, put me in a party, and expect me to try to converse... you'll get scripted, repetitive, awkward stuff in about five minutes, and within twenty minutes either withdrawal (usually) or meltdown (if cornered and unable to escape).

He's quite good, socially. He could pass for an experienced college professor in terms of public speaking. He doesn't seem to have any social anxiety, which goes a long way. He's talking about the things he's interested in, so I think he may even be enjoying the interview. I think he likes talking about his savant syndrome, because he knows people find it interesting and so he likes to tell people about it. He's written about it, too; I found his experiences interesting to learn about.

It's kind of ironic--the sort of speaking that NTs find most difficult seems to be easier for us, provided it doesn't make us anxious: Interviews, public speaking, acting and poetry recitation, and teaching. These are all things that require you to speak precisely and carefully, and give you time to prepare. An interview is often about your topic of expertise. We can be deceptively adept at this sort of communication, though I think many of us do use the same sorts of strategies for conversations, treating a conversation as though it were a loosely scripted scene, for example. Many of us slip into lecture mode when conversations get tough.

do tell that is why i made the thread.

I can't tell that he is from this interview. He talks in a smooth coherent way, but some autistic people are very articulate, and he must be one of them.

Some people in my grasp group, I can't tell that they are different in person, but most are diagnosed. Telling that someone is an aspie is often based on what isn't showing instead of what is. If someone is more severely affected than typical aspie, then you start to see more clear signs of autism, not just a general lack of nt behaviors like facial exp and up and down voice.

I'd say that he comes across as more Aspergers than the average person on the street, but not in an obvious way.

Some Aspie things I noticed:
The way he looks at David, is it just me, or does his posture seem a little off? His voice seems slightly monotone to me, his facial expressions seem to be lacking, the way he's sitting, the way he moves, and how much he moves seems a little Aspie-ish to me. He appears to make an effort appear "normal", and some of his methods to do so seem pretty typical of Aspergers to me (which is where the moving things came from)

I can't read NT non-verbals, and I can't read autistic non-verbals.

I got nothin'.

he comes across as slightly neuro-diverse but not in a speciically Asperger's way.

I'm suspicious about two things:-

1. I'm sure I heard on a documentary that Savants were usually learning disabled/not usually able to live independent lives, as the savant skills took up all their processing power and they were therefore left disadvantaged in other ways

2. He talked about having had Epilepsy. In my opinion this puts him into a different category.
I've met people with epilepsy before who tried to say they were also in the autism camp but they evidently weren't. In my opinion you can't be both epileptic and autistic - they are two different conditions with a different profile of effects on the person, which can have similarities with autism/Aspergers but isn't the same ie still neurotypical way of thinking. I'd put people with epilepsy more in the Learning Disability camp but again he doesn't seem to have a learning disability so it's very confusing.

3. But anyway, this explains why he isn't coming across like a typical aspie - because he isn't one

It all goes to prove the AS label is meaningless anyway

Whatever he's got, he's able to put on a pretty good neurotypical act anyway. I do sense it's an act though ie a lot of effort has gone into making it seem natural in my opinion.

In fact he says it here in this video ie that he had to learn social language:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H-3uxJ23N4

He looks more aspie/awkward in the above video in my opinion

Can I also just say I don't really like him - he's a bit to precious for me - too keen on informing us all how brilliant he is

Why cant AS and Epilepsy co-exist? They are obviously different but no reason to believe they exclude each other.

I dont think it proves AS is meaningless.

He has worked on it - what is wrong with that?

Ive never heard of him. In fact I was confused how he was 26 and born before me.

Stiff gate.
Holds his hands together when he's not gesturing.
Rubbing his hands.
Extremely calculated eye contact (I do the same thing now, but it took a long time to get to any eye contact at all.)
A lot of "too long" gazing directly at Dave.
Does not move around in his seat at all, facing Dave the entire time (with his body ~ head moving independently only when addressing the audience).

This is all stuff I've been told I tend to do myself in situations like that, so I guess I tend to notice what's common with me. There may actually be more I couldn't identify with but those caught my eye. I honestly wouldn't know if he hadn't said it, but I would definitely wonder if he were on the spectrum if I'd just met him.

One guy I work with acts very similarly, and I've been meaning to ask him if he is.

I'm nearly positive someone coached Dave on how to interview him. Dave was pretty easy on him compared to how he tends to be with most of his guests.

EDIT: DUH! I forgot the one most obvious thing! Whenever Dave inserted any jokes or anything that wasn't about him, he didn't respond in any way at all, but became animated only when the topic came back to him and his interest.

Last edited by MrXxx on 25 Dec 2012, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Because it would indicate that his condition is caused by the epilepsy - a different condition

In fact he says himself that his savant skills developed after the epilepsy fits

As far as I know, Asperger's is there from birth and is genetic

So he has taken a different route to his savant-ism ie via epilepsy

Epilepsy is a different condition and this is what has caused what he has in my opinion
It just so happens that it's similar to Aspergers in some ways hence he gets his asperger's diagnosis but I'd query it

Or I'd say the Asperger diagnosis just about covers anyone who wants it to cover them ie making it meaningless

I find it curious that people rarely want to challenge anyone's diagnosis - they seem to take anything anyone tells them as gospel truth

The world isn't like this - it is all about mistakes and lies and faking so going on that premise why on earth should 100% of people who say they have Asperger's actually have it??

I probably don't even have it myself

His gestures seem a little stiff, I guess. Kind of self-conscious. At the same time, he's saying things that could be construed as bragging without the, I don't know, apologetic? self-deprecating?... tone NTs would use for such statements.

He's doing much better than I would in his shoes. I'd probably act more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qQkozkn8Cc