Kim Peek - The Original Rain Man

Today I was privileged to hear Kim Peek and his father, Fran, speak at our school. I was very intrigued by such a fascinating and sweet man that he is. I loved his motto and message to the world that is his goal to share with everyone he meets "Learning to recognize and respect differences in others and treating them the way you would have them threat you. You don't have to be handicapped to be different, everyone is different."

The amazing amount of facts and knowledge Kim holds and recalls is phenomenal. Fran told us of some of the experiences they have had throughout the years in their quest to meet people, get diagnoses, and spread their message. The most amazing thing to me that Kim remembers is the days of the week for any date in any year.

The student that gave a quick bio about Kim spoke so fast that I went to google and YouTube to find more info about him. Born with brain damage and diagnosed never to walk or communicate, Kim had memorized every book read to him at 16-20 months old. At 3 years old he had read and memorized the dictionary and asked his mother what certain words meant. By the age 14, he had completed the entire high school curriculum. Kim is an autistic savant- which means he has mental infirmities coupled with extraordinary skills such as his exceptional memory. Kim is missing the corpus callosum which connects two parts/lobes of the brain. He also has some damage to the cerebellum.

A page of text takes an average person 3 min to read, Kim can read the same thing in 8-10 seconds and remember everything. He reads an average sized book in about an hour. As he reads his left eye reads the left side of the page and his right eye reads the right side. He can recall the names of around 12000 books (Fran mentioned that they have 6000-7000 books in their home).

I was drawn to his warm and loving personality which his father says he shares with everyone around him. He truly cares about people although he may not be able to express such feelings in a socially accepted way.