Jake Barnett is twelve years old, and has an IQ of 170. He also has aspergers syndrome. His interest in astronomy and advanced mathematics eventually lead him to question the calculations of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This, from a child who psychologists thought would always remain detached from the world around him.
Asperger’s syndrome is a form of autism. It’s been described as high functioning autism. Symptoms tend to include an intensely focused interest in one particular subject to the point where the person knows everything about it. Other symptoms involve delayed motor skills, a lack of eye contact, and a difficulty with social skills. Teens with aspergers syndrome can find it hard to make friends with their peer group.
When Jake was little, his mother says that although he had started talking, he started losing language skills when he was eighteen months old, and had lost nearly all of them by the time he was two years old. She was told that he would never talk, would never look at her, and that he would need to be in special education classes forever. His mother felt devastated, but she didn’t give up on Jake.
Instead, she started doing something that is called “floor time”. This is when parents of a child who has autism follow his lead. Floor time is a way to foster developmental growth. She watched the stimming behaviors he did, and tried her best to understand why he was doing them. She was able to figure out what his main interest was from these observations.
Since Jake liked astronomy and mathematics, she started taking him to a local observatory and planetarium. At the age of three, he not only understood the discussion the guide had started, but was able to ask and answer questions about it in a way that was much more advanced than his chronological age. When he was eight, his mother took him to sit in at advanced astronomy classes at a university. This, and pulling him out of the public elementary school he was attending (and was completely bored at), helped a lot.
Now, at the age of 12, Jake is attending classes that are a college entrance program designed for gifted and talented high schoolers. He still attends astronomy and high level mathematics classes at the university, and is almost beyond what his professors can teach him. There is a possibility that Jake may develop his own theory of quantum physics, or could soon be teaching university courses. This, from a child who started off silent, who wasn’t expected to improve.
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