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.

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.

With respect to why some acquired savants are musical, and some are good at the arts, and some are mathematical, why aren't they all the same; I think that has to do with this genetic endowment that all of us have.

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.

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

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.

When you first try to learn to ride a bike, you work very carefully at keeping your balance, and trying to keep one pedal in front of the other, and all that, and all of a sudden, ah, you know, I got it. And that's true of skiing, or it's true of all kinds of things.