As cute as it is to have a kid singing along with songs from his dad's music collection, is it credible that a 5 year old would know all the right words and be able to sing them, even if he is autistic?
I'm just asking because I sing along to my fave songs (and I'm old enough to remember some of these songs the first time round) but I usually get some of the words wrong.
Its possible. Someone I know with autism knew every song in the hymn book - about 500 or so.
shareWell, it seems to me he knows all his Dad's 80's and 90's CD's and that he listens to the same songs on a regular basis - routine and all that, so he'd learn the words quite quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if he never hears new music, always listens to the same range of tracks. My daughter's the same, two hearings and the words are memorised.
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I'm the player to be named later.
This is possible, but he'd need to have seen the words written down to memorise them, or heard them very clearly multiple times, or be told them, parrot-fashion by his Dad. Similarly, he sometimes recites who a song is by and when it was released - this is information he would need to have been told specifically in relation to that song. Whether this child could read the lyrics for himself is another matter. He's displaying a feat of memory related to music.
Autism is interesting in that it prioritises the processing of information, sometimes in some surprising ways - hence those who can calculate the day of the week a particular date fell on. It is pure calculation.
I remember seeing a documentary about 25 years ago on a young lad, cannot remember his name. He was able to draw pictures of famous landmarks. He was shown Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, St Pauls Cathedral.
He was then asked to draw St Pauls Cathedral I think, he drew it from memory. It was amazing, when the picture was put next to the drawing and how much detail this young lad had captured.
So not surprised that the character Joe, knew the words of the songs etc. Hats off to the young lad Max who had to memorize all this and gave an outstanding performance.
"Look upward... and share the wonders I have seen" John Crichton, Farscape
Absolutely credible. It used to be called "idiot savant," and then later "autist savant." Children with autism can have amazing memory-processing capabilities.
shareour daughter at two knew the words to all her books. she would "pretend" to read to us and friends, but she wasn't actually recognizing words at that point.
she was not autistic. she was just remembering what we read to her. My brother at age 4 could tell us the names to every single 45 record I had. and we figured out that "something about each record" was important to him. He is now a doctor and is not autistic! These are things typical children can also do.
So imagine a child who is very focused in only one way. they can't react normally to stimuli so they over focus on music. so this boy could definitely remember the words.
Autistic children are not dumb. they are of normal intelligence but the disability gets in the way. sometimes they are ADD or ADHD, dyslexic too.
with therapy they can greatly improve.
I have Aspergers. Syndrome, which is a type of autism, and I remember words to a lot of songs, as well as remembering lots of other things.
shareWell the five year old actor playing Joe managed it, so why not a fictional autistic character who has the type of condition that can heighten one's memory capacity?
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