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| Jacob was always an exceptional kid. |
Every once in a while, someone is born with the ability and potential to defy society’s paradigms and reshape the way we think about our world and who we are. This might just be the case of an autistic boy who, with only 19 years old, already has an IQ higher than Einstein’s. Jacob Barnett is now considered a genius and his future work could win him a Nobel prize. However, his talent wasn’t always in clear sight for everyone who knew him.
He was born in 1998. He used to speak a few words, tell his mom and dad that he loved them, greet them every day in the mornings. But by the time he was 2 years old, he went completely silent. He was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism, and his mom was told that he probably would never be able to talk, read or even tide his shoes. From then on, he began therapy and was signed up to a school for children with special needs.
However, his mom, Kristine Barnett, was not satisfied. Jacob was fascinated with patterns from a very early age, with sunlight's play in a pond, shadows across walls. He learned how to organize hundreds of crayons into the colors of a rainbow by simply watching how a water glass splashed a rainbow across the table when being turned. However, therapists didn’t indulge these games, claiming he was only exhibiting “perseverative behavior.” But Kristine knew better. She knew it was something that Jacob wanted to do and decided to go against every treatment and trust her son more than any specialist. “I was quite a rebel in his early life because I was always determined to let him explore the world and do the things he loved.” She explained in an interview with Maclean’s.
And so the journey of finding out who Jacob truly was began. She pulled him out of school and one day took him to an observatory, where he listened to a lecture given by a university professor. At the end of this talk, the professor asked why Mars' moons were oblong, like potatoes. Jacob’s hand went up. “Excuse me, but could you please tell me the size of these moons?” He had never talked so much in his life. After the professor told him that Mars’s moons are small, he responded: “The gravitational effects of the moons are not large enough to pull them into complete spheres.” And he was right even though he was 3 only years old.
Jacob started gaining an increasing interest in physics, and by the time he was 15 years old, he was already enrolled in the Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. Today, he’s given TED lectures, he’s studying a doctorate, and he’s considered one of the world’s most promising physicists. He could someday make discoveries that would put him on the list of names to get the Nobel prize.
However, to Jacob, his success has nothing to do with being a so-called genius. He thinks that the only thing that’s needed to accomplish great things is to start thinking about your own perspective and stop trying to learn everything that’s been said about a certain field. Once you use your thinking, instead of your ability to learn, you’ll find yourself creating new things that are unique, just like your way of seeing the world.
Being diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder is many times considered as a sentence of permanent limitation in life. There might not be anything we can do about it, but it doesn’t have to dictate our entire identity. We will always be more than those things we can’t control about our lives. And Jacob is a living proof of that! We think that, beyond his many talents and intelligence, Jacob shows us that the most impressive things can come from the most unexpected places and that, regardless of who they are o where they come from, absolutely no one should ever be underestimated.
Jessica A. Yuncoza B.
Autism Soccer Blogger
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| He won't be stopped! |
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