Oliver Sacks describes Stephen Wiltshire’s backstory in the beginning of Prodigies. Stephen was initially placed at a school for disabled children when people took note of his odd behavior and diagnosed him with infantile autism. He unsurprisingly did not flourish in school, until he started to draw. His drawing surpassed any child his age, and his abilities continued to thrive, despite his lack of social and language skills. It was not until he had shown these abilities that teachers and colleagues became interested him, and took effort to understand him. BBC became intrigued as well, featured him multiple times, Stephen eventually got his work published, and became a sensation for not only scientists but the general public (195-203). Our society often views autistics as disadvantaged and uninteresting until they show abilities that interest us. If not for Stephen’s special talent, he would have most likely had a very uneventful life due to the way he would be treated as a deficit.

By Grace Armstrong