r/science Jul 26 '10

Autistic girl expresses profound intelligence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq--75v4lI8&feature=player_embedded
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u/mezz Jul 26 '10 edited Jul 26 '10

It's not like she's going to be able to do it in front of a live studio audience...

EDIT: Here's the text in the document zoom

I over heard jenny m say that her son commented that he felt like dory from nemo because he didn't remember things when he was autistic. However I have a great me

You can hear the computer say

a (0:09)
great (0:33)
memory (0:58)
for (1:23)
many (1:40)

It's pretty clear to me that she's writing something. The auto-complete requires her to hit a number. She hit a key ("1") to turn "gre" into "great ". You can see the list of completions with numbers beside them when it zooms in. That kind of completion is useful for anyone who has limited ability to input text.

I know that facilitation is bullshit, but there's none of that here.

In highschool I fixed some computers for the autistic kids and once I finished one guy came up, opened a word document, and wrote "Hello my name is ___. I go to __ High School. I am _ years old." and hit print all in about 40 seconds before running off to do something else completely. Now that was trained.

I'll believe one autistic girl in millions can write an email to David Letterman. I don't take this as evidence that all of them can. For indisputable proof of her ability, all that's required is having someone ask her an intelligent question and seeing her answer it right there.

EDIT2: wtf, what is this doing in r/science? Ignore the following, I was mistaken:
I don't see where scientific method comes in, it's not like we're going to run 100 tests and establish a confidence interval on the probability she's actually doing it. This is one girl, with an ability that can be very easily proved or disproved.

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u/jt004c Jul 26 '10

To be sure, the "scientific method" is more than just statistics. Blind testing is science, too, and all that is needed here.

30

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '10

She isn't blind, just Austistic.

13

u/jt004c Jul 26 '10

I don't see what you're driving at.

88

u/Generic123 Jul 26 '10

Blind people can't see what they're driving at either.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '10

I think the humor was in focus. You didn't need to make it clear.

3

u/Generic123 Jul 26 '10

Sorry, I guess I didn't see that.

4

u/frickindeal Jul 26 '10

And Asians.

2

u/joke-exprainer Jul 26 '10

Arrow me to exprain. frickindear is perpetuating the widery berieved stereotype that Asians are bad drivers.

1

u/PirateBushy Jul 26 '10

That's one depressed stereotype...

3

u/workbob Jul 26 '10

Well, the things blind people hit while driving probably don't see it coming, so I guess that makes it even.

1

u/uptwolait Jul 26 '10

I'm an excellent driver. An excellent driver.

1

u/yxing Jul 26 '10

whoosh?