The Prodigy's Cousin by Joanne Ruthsatz and Kimberly Stephens Page B

many—perhaps most—cases, the savants’ underlying disorder is autism. Treffert estimated based on his most recent study that
70 to 75 percent
of savants have autism. With figures like that, it’s not a strange coincidence that Nadia, a child with developmental abnormalities and extreme drawing ability, was autistic; it’s highly probable.
    Savants also seem to have nearly infallible memories.This ability is so predominant among savants that Treffert has declared “massive memory” present in every individual with savant skills. An early, large-scale study of savants included a child, Ilene, who knew “practically every song written—who wrote it, what show it is from (or film), who first recorded it, in what year it was popular, etc.” Another child in the study could recite the actor who played each part in the TV program
Roots
after once watching a quick display of the credits.John, the first savant Treffert ever encountered, memorized the Milwaukee bus system; if you told him the time of day and a bus number, he could tell you the precise location of that bus.
    But those turned out to be almost run-of-the-mill memory exploits. As Treffert recounts in his book
Islands of Genius,
during his decades of working with savants, he encountered savants with skills—and memories—so notable they had the press running three-ring circuses around them. Daniel Tammet, a man with Asperger’s disorder, memorized pi to the 22,514th decimal; he recited the figure without error in just over five hours. A pair of identical twin autistic savants memorized every question and answer (as well as what the host wore) from every episode of their favorite game show.An exceptionalmemory is, as Treffert once characterized it, “integral” to savant syndrome.
    Joanne’s pilot study had suggested that child prodigies’ family members had a heightened attention to detail, a trait associated with autism. She had worked closely with only two prodigies, barely scratching the surface in her quest to understand the underpinnings of their abilities. But already she had discovered that both children had extraordinary working memories—an occurrence highly unlikely to occur by chance. It seemed probable that extraordinary memory was an important characteristic of prodigy—and another possible link to autism, or at least autistic savants.

Chapter 4
Growing a Prodigy
    Can you create a prodigy?
    If you focus on prodigy’s external markers—the astounding work with the brush, the early entrance to college, the excellence at the piano—it
almost
seems possible. Maybe with the right expertise, maybe with enough determination, you could get the right teachers, instill an unstoppable work ethic, and place a kid on the fast track to Carnegie Hall.
    Or could you?
    Between the summer of 2010 and the summer of 2011, Joanne zigzagged across the East Coast and the Midwest in pursuit of prodigies. Her sample swelled from two to nine. That may not sound like a big number, but it was the largest group of prodigies anyone had assembled in eighty years.
    As Joanne went from one home to the next, she examined the kids and spent time with their families. She listened as the parents described their experiences raising their children. Did they share some little-known secret to unleashing prodigious abilities? What portion of the prodigies’ skills was the product of nurture, careful shaping in the hands of adept parents, and what portion was the product of nature?
    It’s a question perhaps best investigated by exploring the lives of two of those nine prodigies: Jonathan Russell, the son of an expert, and Lauren Voiers, the daughter of an amateur.

    Jonathan Russell is a twenty-year-old New York University student with curly dark hair, thick eyebrows, scruffy facial hair, and a near-encyclopedic knowledge of film scores. He recently releasedan independent album of fifteen original