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Sacks. ?Autism ... America. In the book An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks describes
his encounter with Stephen Wiltshire, a man with autism. ...
... Oliver Sacks? ?The Mind?s Eye: What the Blind See? and Tim O?Brien?s ?How
to Tell a True War Story? bring the relationship of truth and reality ...
Prodigies. Oliver Sacks is not your typical research doctor that continuously
tests and examines the subject as if it were not human. ...
... The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: By Oliver Sacks Oliver Sacks wrote a collection
of narratives titled, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, we see ...
... Oliver Sacks disrupts my childhood understanding of what is plausible and
what is not in the real world. In his Book, The Man Who ...
Submitted by kelly1219 on November 8, 2006
Category: English
Words: 963 | Pages: 4
Views: 248
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“Autism is a complex developmental disability...and is the result of a neurological disorder that effects the normal functioning of the brain, impacting development in the areas of social interaction and communication skills.”-Autism Society of America.
In the book An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks describes his encounter with Stephen Wiltshire, a man with autism. Stephen was considered one of the top child artists in Britain, and supposedly his autism helped him, giving him the ability to remember things exactly the way they are. Whatever Stephen sees he is able to recreate, almost perfectly, in a drawing. He is a genius in mimicry but is unfortunately deficient in symbolism and the meaning of things.
Sacks explains a time when Stephen and himself traveled to Moscow along with Margaret, Stephen’s literary agent. Margaret and Oliver took Stephen to the History Museum then, afterwards, had asked him to draw the museum exactly from memory. But what Stephen drew was quite different from the museum. Stephen had drawn too many onion domes that were not there. His rendition was completely off. Sacks then asked Stephen to draw St. Basil’s, and within a few minutes Stephen’s version was quite accurate. Sacks and Margaret had decided that the reason Stephen wasn’t able to copy the History Museum was before he was distracted by police that were there at the time, which made him nervous, and because Stephen was only able to copy something he found interesting.
Sacks goes on to tell more stories of Stephen and his able to mimic whatever he sees or hears. When Sacks says that Stephen has a genius in mimicry this is exactly what he is talking about, Stephen’s ability to copy. But Stephen lacks the capacity to understand the meaning of something, or as Sacks explains, the “thisness”. Which means that Stephen can copy whatever, but have no clue what it stands for or the meaning behind it. Like, if Stephen were to sing a song, he...
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