Jacob Barnett, who has an I.Q. higher than
Einstein, speaks at TEDxTeen, with a presentation called, "Forget What
You Know", posted April 9, 2012
An Indiana mother said that her determination to find a niche for her
autistic son, who doctors had little hope for, led him to flourish into a
budding astrophysicist with an off-the-charts IQ, and he is now
pursuing a PhD. in physics.
Kristine Barnett's son, Jacob, 15, was diagnosed with moderate to severe
autism when he was 2. Because he had lost language, he was on the more
severe end of the spectrum. Psychologists and teachers believed that the
young boy may not ever speak again. As Barnett put it, they thought
that he was lost.
"He was very precise," she told ABCNews.com. "He wasn't barreling
through the world like other little boys. He lined cars up precisely.
His mannerisms were precise.
"He seemed to like schedule and routine, even from infancy," she said.
After his diagnosis, Jacob was visited frequently by a number of
psychologists under an Indiana program called First Steps, which
included a developmental therapist, an occupational therapist, and a
speech therapist, among others.
But early signs in Jacob's childhood hinted at an inner world that was
harboring massive intelligence. At a very young age, he would carry a
set of beloved alphabet cards with him wherever he'd go.
At one point, he took a bundle of crayons and arranged them across the
living room floor in the color spectrum, which he had distinguished from
light coming through the living room window and hitting glasses perched
on a table.
As Barnett would run a daycare out of her home, she would play with
other people's kids outside while Jacob was slumped over the table
inside, where he would work with therapists. He was spending hours
trying to put a ball in a cup.
One spring day, as the kids ran through a sprinkler, she decided to make a change.
"We were forgetting his childhood. His spirit was being crushed by the
opinion that everything was wrong," she said. "I resolved to give it
back to him."
That night, Barnett took Jacob out after dark, turned on fog lights of
her car, put on some Louis Armstrong, laid on hood of the car with him
and looked at the stars.
"Little did I know it would be those stars that would bring him back
into our world," she said. "They were what we had. It was what we had to
hold onto. It was the beginning with a relationship with my child."
In an attempt to connect with her son and nurture the spark of interest
he showed when they would go look at the stars, she decided to take him
to a planetarium.
"I didn't get it. They seemed like far-away dots to me," she said. "He
then showed me a nebula on the computer, and it gave me a peek into his
mind -- into the way he sees the world."
Barnett decided to stop having Jacob meet with therapists. She said that
she was advised by everyone she knew, including her friends and her
husband, not to remove Jacob from the system.
By the age of 3, Jacob began to talk again, and everyone was asking
Barnett for the secret to the sudden recovery. Typically, it takes years
for an autistic child to recover speech.
By the age of 3-and-a-half, Jacob had taught himself to read. This is
what he'd been doing while taking books off to the corner, Barnett said
she realized.
She decided then to take a second trip to a planetarium. When they
arrived, a college-level lecture was taking place. Hesitant, she took
her boy in. Jacob immediately began reading the slides, and when the
professor asked a question about the density of Mars' moons, Jacob
answered the question -- correctly.
"At that point, my view changed, and I realized that his mind is
remarkable," Barnett said. "He understood complex concepts. My outlook
for his future was completely changed."
Today, Jacob is now working towards a PhD. at Indiana University-Purdue
University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Several IQ tests have been administered
on him, and Barnett said that it's been concluded that he can't be
measured, so he is always given the top number.
Speaking with ABCNews.com, he said that when he entered grade school, he was already hoping to be beginning algebra.
"In kindergarten, I knew that it was for kids to play and develop social
skills," he said. "By first grade, I thought we'd do some mathematics
-- algebra. Then, in second grade, still no algebra. They told me not
until high school. So, I guess this came out of my desire to learn more
mathematics."
Jacob, at one point, came home from school and sat inside a square
bookcase. His mother, fearing that he was beginning to regress, called a
psychologist.
"She said he's deeply bored. She said if you don't find what you did, you're going to lose him," Barnett said.
She started taking Jacob to more planetarium visits. At a point, after
attending lectures, he was told he could join classes. One was on
Saturn. Another was on electromagnetism. Jacob aced them all, and began
moving towards his advanced degree at an accelerated pace.
Barnett credits his success to putting her son in as many rich situations as she could find.
"If you find the passion in a child and tap into it, that will become
what their drive," she said. "And if somebody had drive, they can
accomplish anything."
Barnett's memoir, "The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius," was released in April.
Source : abc news , 30th May 2013
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