Dr Judith Gould, consultant clinical psychologist and director of the centre, lines up word-matching tests and is astonished to find he performs as well as someone aged 19. This suggests a very superior verbal recognition ability. Of course, one must not get the impression that Tito is typical. He is a very rare case of a small group of autistic people who have a specific talent or ability. The experts were rightly sceptical, says Dr Lorna Wing, a consultant psychiatrist and pioneer of research into this condition.
Parents often delude themselves that their children are different.
But we have no difficulty in believing that Tito is an exception. What I saw was amazing. He is classically autistic, with a profound neurological disability. The thinking part of his brain is exceptionally good, but the connection between thinking and action is markedly impaired. It is only with his mother's patient, never-ending help that he has become as independent as he is now.