Famous People with Autism
It is a common misconception that famous people with autism do not exist since autism is believed to be so debilitating that the autistic person would be mentally retarded for all practical purposes. This thinking is, however, very incorrect. History shows that a number of "brilliant", "creative" and "intelligent" people have been autistic.
Famous People with Autism
Some of the famous people with autism or on the autism spectrum are:
(a) Christopher Knowles who is an American poet
(b) Michael Moon who was the author Elizabeth Moon's adopted son
(c) Jasmine O'Neill who wrote the book 'Through the Eyes of Aliens'
(d) Daniel Tammet, the British autistic savant who has the gift of solving mathematical problems, sequence memory and natural language learning. He has appeared in a TV show after having learnt Icelandic (one of the most difficult languages to learn) in just a week.
(e) Richard Borcherds who won the Fields Medal is believed to one of the famous
people suffering from Asperger's Syndrome.
(f) Peter Howson the Scottish painter
(g) Peter Myers, a British artist and the author of the book 'An Exact Mind'
(h) Craig Nicholls the leader of the Australian band 'The Vines'
(i) Gary Numan, the famous singer and song writer
(j) Vernon L Smith who is also one of the famous people with Autism but has received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002
(k) Dawn Prince-Hughes who is the author of the book 'Songs for the Gorilla Nation' and a famous ethologist and anthropologist
There are also a number of famous people with autism who have died before autism was recognized as such and, hence, the list membership is speculative. These people include:
(a) Hans Christian Andersen who wrote such world-famous children's stories as " The Little Mermaid"[1]
(b) Charles Darwin
(c) Henry Cavendish the famous British Scientist who lived in the 18th century. He was known to be literal-minded, reclusive, had difficulty adapting to other people and was attracted to patterns.
With these examples as a basis, we can be sure that there have been an appreciable number of famous people with autism in history.
References
1. Professor Michael Fitzgerald, 'The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger's syndrome and the arts'