The prototype of the hero of the film "Rain Man" was Kim Peek, who suffers from a syndrome of giftedness

Kim Peek was born in 1951 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The diagnosis of "autism", delivered the baby with an abnormally large head, traumatic brain injury and cerebellar herniation, turned out later to be wrong. And when Kim grew up, it became clear that the child syndrome Gifted (savant syndrome).

The phenomenal development in a particular area to the detriment of others - these are the main features of this rare disease. So, Kim Peek, free to read the book three years from the parent library, could not own dress, wash or go to the toilet. Due to the underdevelopment of the cerebellar ataxia was observed. At the same time, the child managed to put on the shelves of books read roots up, so as not to confuse them with more to read. It is understood that about any regular schools speech could not be - Kim Peek is a comprehensive and completely unsolved mystery of nature. Despite the fact that the overall picture of his illness was known - the absence of the so-called corpus callosum of the brain that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, physicians had a lot of ambiguities - neither this nor any other congenital malformations of the brain did not have to lead to any dementia or , especially to the endowment. However, Kim Peek showed something unprecedented - his sick brain was like a computer. Firstly, he has developed his own technique of reading, in which the right eye he read the right page at the same time the left - the left. Thus, reversal reading standard books he took about 8-10 seconds. This old forever remain in his memory with amazing accuracy, down to the smallest detail. So, Kim is stored in the memory contents of thousands of books read. For this ability to store huge amounts of information even nicknamed Kim "Kim-puter».





In 1984 there was a meeting, which, though not turned the life of Kim, but has become, to some extent fatal - it is thanks to a meeting with the writer Barry Morrow phenomenal person, mentally defective genius recognized worldwide. So Morrow met with a peak in the framework of the program of activities of the "Association of mentally retarded people." However, the 'mentally retarded' so shocked the writer, that that meeting was embodied in the script of the famous movie "Rain Man" with Dustin Hoffman. So "Kim-puter" became the prototype of the "Oscar" of the film, however, the plot of the movie does not repeat the events in the life of Kim's Peak, and a real hero does not actually suffered from autism, which ended up being a character Hoffman. But the unexpected popularity, as well as meetings with actors and directors concelebrated previously closed, and avoid people of Pico in good stead - he became bolder, learned to talk about themselves and gave many people with disabilities the chance to believe in themselves. Kim stopped being afraid of people even began to joke, to read art books, especially books by Stephen King. The history of real life Pick Kim told his father Frank Peak, in his book 'The Real Rain Man'. The book was published in 1996 and stirred up a wave of interest in savant syndrome in general and in particular Kim Peak. It was found that in the world there are no more than 25 people suffering from this disease. However, at the same time sounded, and the question - whether it is a disease at all, or savant syndrome - the price of genius?

After the rental "Rain Man" Peak traveled with his father, showing his abilities around the world. To his 53 years, he knew by heart the more than 7,000 books, most of which - directories and statistical tables. Despite the large number of tests and studies, scientists have not managed to find the cause of such a rare disease and Pick's talents. No confirmed theories about the causes of mental disorder or effective therapies yet.

Kim Peek died on 19 December 2009 in a hospital in Salt Lake City from a heart attack, he was 58 years old.

Source: www.peoples.ru

via factroom.ru