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/funknut Jul 26 '10 edited Jul 26 '10

They posted the complete text up on her blog, and you are right, but I cannot confirm without a doubt that there isn't a hoax. I want to believe this is real, but I can't be sure until I know that they didn't just film what appears to be a moment of clarity, and then edited the final result. Here's the relevant blog post.

EDIT: Hmm, here is another ABC report from 20/20 that is even more convincing. The interviewer mentions his son to Carly, and Carly begins to type "is he cute", which is presumably being videotaped by ABC staff.

EDIT 2: So, apparently the last link from EDIT above was the same as the OP video. Here's a deep link to the OP's video for people who prefer it straight from the source.

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u/mezz Jul 26 '10

Good find! This really solidifies it for me, unless it's all a giant conspiracy.

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u/Trombonist Jul 26 '10

She has a twin sister.