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Ilurricanc Sandy Blows a Wrench Into

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Autism’s First Child

As new cases of autism have exploded in recent years—some form of the condition affects about one inno children today—efforts have multiplied to understand and accommodate the condition in childhood. But children with autism will become adults with autism, some 500,000 of them in this decade alone. What then?Meet Donald Cray Triplett, 77, ofForest, Mississippi. He was the first person ever diagnosed with autism. And his long, happy, surprising life may hołd some answers.

By JOHN DONYAN and CAREN ZUCKER    ^ +1    5    Sharo O E Recommend 101

Miler Mo&ey.¹ ReCuX

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In Focus

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Ilurricanc Sandy in Photos | oct 29.2012

IN 1951, A Ilungarian-bom psychologist, mind rcadcr, and hypnotist namcd Eranz Polgar was bookcd for a single night’s performance in a town called Eorest, Mississippi, at the timc a community of some 3,000 peoplc and no hotel accommodations. Pcrhaps bccause of his social position—he went by Dr. Polgar, had appeared in Life magazine, and elaimed (falsely) to havcbccn Sigmund 1'reud’s “medical hypnotist"—Polgar was lodgcd at thc homc of one of 1'orest's wealthiest and bcst-cducatcd couplcs, who treated the cstecmcd mentalist as their pcrsonal guest.

Polgar’s all-knowing, all-seeing aethadbeen mesmerizing audiences in American towns large and smali for several years. But that night it was his tum to be dazzled, when he met the couple's older son, Donald, who w^łas then 18. Oddly distant, uninterested in conversation, and awkward in his movcments, Donald nevertheless possessed a few advanccd facultics of his own, including a flawless ability to name musical notes as they were played on a piano and a genius for multiplying numbers in his head. Polgar tossed out “87 times 23," and Donald, with his cyes closcd and not a hint of hesitation, corrcctly answered “2,001."

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