Latest Darold Treffert Quotes from Interviews

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• Savant syndrome and autism, I think, are not disorders of brain structure, but they're disorders of brain function.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Autism, Brain

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part III:". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 15, 2011.

• Not only when one does meditation one is getting into a different realm, cognitively, but if you look at the imaging that's done on people when they're meditating, they indeed are entering a different portion of the brain which is activated.

  Darold Treffert

  People, Meditation, Brain

• Now I realize, and I acknowledge, that the right brain/left brain distinction is a tremendous oversimplification. We don't come neatly divided into right and left hemispheres, but the fact is that the two hemispheres of the brain do specialize in certain functions.

  Darold Treffert

  Two, Brain, Hemisphere

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part III:". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 15, 2011.

• There does seem to be a higher educational level in parents of autistic youngsters, and I guess that's something that we need to look into.

  Darold Treffert

  Educational, Parent, Doe

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• Savant syndrome, characteristically, consists of left hemisphere dysfunction coupled with right hemisphere emergence, and what you see in the savant are basically right brain skills.

  Darold Treffert

  Skills, Dysfunction, Brain

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part III:". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 15, 2011.

• Originally when we talked about language disorder it was a catastrophic language disorder. It's substantial, and from a treatment standpoint it's okay to keep diluting that term, but from a research standpoint we need to be much more precise. I wish somebody would take up the mantle of just that particular task.

  Darold Treffert

  Wish, Tasks, Needs

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• I think one of the problems with the definition of autism is we keep expanding it. It started as "early infantile autism", and then it became "autism", and now it's "autism spectrum disorder". I'm not opposed to that from the standpoint of trying to broaden our vistas, and so forth. But from a research point of view, the term autism is lost in specificity.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Views, Autism

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• I think that if I could do any sort of research of autism that I wanted to do, at this point I would take a sample of classic, early infantile autism persons and compare them with what I call "classic late onset autism", individuals. I think we will find that the cause of those youngsters with autism who have autism from birth is probably different than those who have late onset autism.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Autism, Different

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• Parents don't particularly care whether it's early infantile autism or whatever label the clinicians have put on it. All they want is treatment, and they want what's best for their child, whatever that is. And when it comes to treatment, it may be that there's much more shared interventions that don't make any difference what label we're putting on it.

  Darold Treffert

  Children, Differences, Autism

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• When we come to research, if we want to find out the cause of autism, we're going to have to be much more specific, and that's why when it comes to research, I'm fairly strict with respect to criteria. When it comes to treatment, I'm much more open to not making that differentiation.

  Darold Treffert

  Autism, Differentiation, Research

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• I have a fairly strict definition of early infantile autism. That is not to say that people who don't meet that classic description don't have autism, but we might do well to narrow our definitions, and our samples, down to groups that are very similar, because I think you're more likely to find the cause.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, People, Autism

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• The narrower we define autism, and the more strictly we control for particular behaviors, the more likely we are to find what I think are the subgroups of autism.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Autism, Behavior

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names in research.

  Darold Treffert

  Names, Research

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part II: D". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 13, 2011.

• The term syndrome generally appears to be a constellation, or collection, of similar traits or behaviors within an individual. So, savants do have sort of a constellation of symptoms, which is characterized by some spectacular skill, or skills, coupled with this massive memory which is grafted on to some underlying disability. So those three conditions quantify, in my mind, the term syndrome.

  Darold Treffert

  Memories, Skills, Mind

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• Savant syndrome is not a disorder in the same way as autism is a disorder or dementia is a disorder. Savant syndrome are some conditions that are superimposed and grafted on to some underlying disability. So savant syndrome is not a disease or disorder in and of itself. It is a collection of characteristics, or symptoms, or behaviors that have grafted on to the underlying disability.

  Darold Treffert

  Autism, Disease, Way

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• We have medicalized a lot of things that I think are not really medical conditions.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Medical, Medical Conditions

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• We have to be careful that we don't keep multiplying disorders and diluting them. I think there is a difference. People talk about Asperger's as high-functioning autism, which I think it is. But it does have some of its own characteristics, like the preservation of language, particularly, which may be right brain dysfunction instead of left brain dysfunction, and we lose something in that, as things lose their specificity, and we keep diluting things. I'm not sure that's helpful.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Differences, Dysfunction

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• To some extent, we all have quirks or idiosyncrasies, and some geniuses, because of how bright they are and how focused they are, may have liberal eccentricities, but they're not at a disabling level.

  Darold Treffert

  Genius, Levels, May

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• We can't use the word normal anymore because it's sort of come to be politically incorrect, because normal implies a classification, and categorizations, and exclusions, and so forth. So neurotypical is the word that we now have to use for what I call normal behavior. Neurotypical behaviors are those kinds of behaviors within the range of usual human conduct that do not rise to the level of a disorder.

  Darold Treffert

  Usual, Use, Levels

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• Not everyone who has a savant skill I would equate with a genius.

  Darold Treffert

  Skills, Genius, Savants

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• There is such a thing as genius, and these are people who do not have a formal disability, DSM-IV-type. They may have liberal eccentricities or quirks in their personality, but they don't rise to the level of a disability.

  Darold Treffert

  People, Personality, Genius

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• A savant, by definition, is somebody who has a disability and, along with that disability, has some remarkable ability. Prodigies and geniuses have the remarkable abilities that the savant shows, but they do not have a disability. So, by definition, a savant includes someone with a disability, and a prodigy or genius are people who have these remarkable skills but they do not have a disability.

  Darold Treffert

  Skills, People, Genius

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• When I met my first savant in 1962, I was impressed by the abilities in these youngsters who had severe disabilities. They appeared to me to be islands of genius in the sea of disability. So I've maintained that word picture since that time, of these islands of genius that are so striking and so jarring when you see them, especially in people who have severe disability.

  Darold Treffert

  Islands, Sea, People

  "Conversations on Creativity with Darold Treffert, Part I: De". Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman, www.psychologytoday.com. April 11, 2011.

• Sometimes along the way, when people are actively working, they will start to do a search for their roots and maybe get really interested in ancestry and become very good at what was just a hobby. But I think that we shouldn't wait quite that long to develop and look for those parallel interests of ours and not sometimes see them as frivolous and take them a little more seriously, and spend some time and energy and maybe even capital in pursuing them.

  Darold Treffert

  Thinking, Roots, Long

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• What happens is most of us are so busy in our lives with our families and our vocation which we should be, but we tend not to look at what I call these parallel interests, and they develop along the way. And sometimes one can say, well, you know, why should I grow my own garden and spend all that time when I can buy carrots cheaper at the supermarket and just put aside that kind of an interest.

  Darold Treffert

  Garden, Looks, Way

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com