Hello and welcome to the psychology podcast with Dr Scott Barry Kaufman where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.

Each episode will feature a new guest who will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world

we live in.

Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Oh, Today it's my great pleasure to have the great

darold treffered on the show.

Darryl is a psychiatrist who specializes in the development of autism spectrum disorders in

savant syndrome he is on the staff at St Agnes Hospital and serves on the board of

trustees of Marianne University. Treffert was a consultant to the movie Rain Man

and his latest book is Islands of Genius,

The Bountiful Mind of the autistic acquired and Sodden Savant.

Thank you, Darrell, for talking to me today. My pleasure to be here.

As you know, I'm a long time fan, I guess you could say of your work and hopefully you'd consider me a colleague as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah, why did you I want to ask you why you called your book Islands of Genius?

Well, it when I met my first savant, which was way back in 1962, I was simply astounded frankly by these first savants were kids on a children's unit, some of whom were severely disabled and yet had these islands

of intactness or islands of genius at students such contrast to overall handicap that it just seemed to me that the term

island of genius was appropriate for these spectacular abilities in a sea of

disability.

Right, so there was just such a huge difference, striking contrast

between what they seem to be having difficulties doing in life and in their skill set and a different skill set that

they seem to be very extraordinary.

Some of them were actually mute and had no language whatsoever.

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