Born on a Blue Day

Daniel Tammet (author & reader)

Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks, UK: 2007; 3cds

ISBN: 9781844564798

Genre/s: autobiography

Issues: disability, giftedness, identity

Daniel Tammet has Asperger's Syndrome, he is a savant, and he experiences synaesthesia. This unusual combination has resulted in an extraordinary mind and an unusual life.

The eldest of nine children, Daniel was blessed with remarkable parents who dealt with the difficult behaviour of his early years with extraordinary patience and tolerance. Daniel's behaviour was manageable and therefore he did not need the intervention and support that a label may have provided. Instead his parents proceeded to use patient experimentation and their own commonsense to deal with his behavioural quirks and learning difficulties. As a result, Daniel was able to overcome much of the extreme anxiety that ‘Aspergians' suffer and, in combination with his extraordinary savant abilities, he has achieved some remarkable things.

In his early years Daniel suffered the extreme loneliness and isolation common to those on the autistic spectrum. His parents encouraged him to develop social skills through a local chess club, chess being a game that was very appealing to his love and understanding of patterns.

Synaesthesia is the crossover between areas of the brain that means that people have visual, oral or aural associations with language or numbers. Daniel's synaesthesia means he sees numbers and words as colours and textures. This, in combination with his savant syndrome means he can perform astonishing mathematical calculations incredibly rapidly, recall dates easily, and learn languages with ease - at the time of writing his autobiography he spoke ten.

This audio autobiography, abridged from the book of the same name, is the story of how Daniel made a place for himself in the ‘normal' world. Given his very unusual combination of problems and abilities, this is not a particularly useful text for those trying to understand someone suffering only from Asperger's Syndrome. It is, nonetheless, an inspirational story as Daniel is a living reminder and model of an Asperger's sufferer who has achieved an independent life that includes paid work and a loving partner.

Read by the author, the text is somewhat monotonous in delivery and the linear nature of the writing can also be tedious. That said, the style and delivery themselves demonstrate very clearly part of the communication problems of those with Asperger's. Daniel's life story is so remarkable that it is worth persevering.