Short Report Fantastic children

Abstract

Children demonstrating exceptional mental abilities are reported in the medical literature, but it is more intriguing when such children are also mentally impaired. This short report describes some unique abilities of children with autism spectrum disorders and attempts to provide possible explanations for the existence of these exceptional aptitudes. The exceptional abilities were mostly unrecognized and their impairments and oddities were more readily recognised. These children were all seen at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for assessment and diagnosis and the description here will be confined to their unique mental abilities. All are boys and the names given are fictitious. Twelve year old Dilan has a single preoccupation, the Sri Lankan cricket team. His favourite player is Sanath Jayasuriya. He will promptly and accurately give Sanath’s batting score in any match played for the past several years. However, Dilan never plays cricket himself as he does not mix with peers and is reluctant to attend school. He has significant difficulty in managing school work and has marked attention deficit. Eight year old Shan has an exceptional ability in calendar calculation. When dates were randomly selected from several past years and the year to come, he gave the corresponding days of the week, which were all found to be exact when checked with the existing calendars. His educational abilities matched that of a child 2 to 3 years his senior when working with his mother at home, but he refused to do any work in school. His class teacher recommended special education, much to the frustration of the mother, but failed to convince the school about his abilities. • Four year old Mahen correctly reads and spells almost any word in English or Sinhala, which others of his age could not manage to do