Ten Greatest Aspies, Dyslexics, Dyspraxics, or Neuro-Divergants …

In the autumn of 2002, the BBC, in an attempt to make history more accessible to the viewing public, broadcast its “Ten Greatest Britons” series in which, Big Brother style, viewers were asked by phone, email and SMS to nominate their top Brit of all time. The ‘top ten’ had in turn been whittled down from a hundred eligible candidates for this honour and, over the ten weeks, contemporary public figures from the arts, media and political worlds made their cases for their respective nominees from Oliver Cromwell, William Shakespeare and Princess Diana down to the eventual winner – Winston Churchill - the other contestants were Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Darwin, Queen Elizabeth I, Horatio Nelson, Sir Isaac Newton and John Lennon.

What was not mentioned among the eulogies to the great and good listed above was that at least seven of them were affected by what we now know to be specific learning difficulties. The problems that Princess Diana had with Attention Deficit Disorder have been attested to in the popular and celebrity press. The other modern iconic figure amongst the Ten Greatest Britons, John Lennon, also had AD(H)D.

Going back into history, research by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University and loan James, an Oxford mathematician has established that Isaac Newton (and Albert Einstein) had traits of Asperger Syndrome, the three key symptoms of which are obsessive interests, difficulty in social relationships, and problems communicating. Newton, who discovered the laws of gravity, was reputedly so devoted to his work that he often forgot to eat, hardly spoke and was lukewarm and ill tempered with his few friends. He would deliver lectures to an empty room if nobody attended them. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/health 30 April 2003).

As a child during his school days he would build models of windmills and watermills, construct sundials and keep an almanac of whenever the sun came. He pursued these typically Asperger interests to the detriment of his duties on the family estate in to where the age of 17 he was recalled from school by his mother with predictably disastrous results.  Newton’s genius would surely have been lost to the world had an uncle and his old schoolmaster not agreed to take him back to grammar school and subsidise his place at Cambridge University (Richard S. Westfall “The Life of Isaac Newton” Cambridge University Press 1993 pp. 14-19).

Winston Churchill was diagnosed with dyslexia and hyper kinesis (now known as AD(H)D hence the impulsive behaviour and poor short memory recall which marked his life course. At school he had difficulty in paying attention and was often accused of daydreaming. He never completed class assignments and rarely homework. He was poor at mathematics (many Neuro-Divergants have problems with this subject – Einstein actually failed school maths) was disorganised and had poor fine-motor control as demonstrated by his slow handwriting. Poor short-term recall led him to fail a Latin examination at Harrow, as he could not remember a single word of the particular translation. His father wrote of him “I have an idiot as a son” (Lawrence Clayton and Jaydene Morrison “Coping with a Learning Disability” published by Rosen Publishing Group).

Churchill compensated by his proficiency at fencing, due not only to his good gross-motor co-ordination but also to his daring nature and impulsiveness. His flair for speech-making and writing, which he discovered as a youth, and excellent visual short-term memory, which he put to good use as a war correspondent and novelist. Most importantly, like most people with AD(H)D he would pursue energetically and conscientiously, matters in which he had great interest.

By enrolling in Sandhurst Military College and then following a career in the army, Churchill would give free rein to the positive aspects of his AD(H)D (which ran in his family). His excessive energy and impulsiveness were invaluable in the theatre of battle. Churchill also possessed the ability to grasp immediately complex situations and present them in a simplified form readily understood by the public. This quality and his readiness to pursue any solution with the utmost zeal helped to deliver victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, notwithstanding strategic disasters on the way.