Hidden Genius
You'll have to forgive Caren Lerman if she comes off a little over-the-top when describing her son's artwork. "I was shaking when I realized that there's this island of genius, that I had no idea," she says of her son.
It's not just that her 14-year-old son, Jonathan, from upstate New York, is wowing professional art circles all over the world, that his drawings are commanding up to $2,000 apiece.
It's that Jonathan Lerman has autism, a puzzling form of brain damage that severely limits his ability to communicate. Jim Axelrod reports.
"Autistic children need to be taught pretty much everything," says Caren. "They don't learn from the environment the way normal kids do."
Even though Jonathan has a tough time learning like other children his age, he excels at other areas.
It wasn't until Jonathan started drawing in an after-school program when he was ten, that his mother realized the depth of his talent and his emotions. "We went from thinking that we had a fairly significantly handicapped child to realizing that we had a gifted child," she says.
Jonathan uses his artwork as an outlet to express his innermost thoughts and feelings. It is here where he can express himself, and reveal what he can't say in words.
Caren understands that her son uses his art as a channel of expression. "It's a window into his world," she says.
San Francisco neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller has been studying these islands of brilliance within damaged brains.
"It's really the paradox of autism, this combination of deficit and great strength," he says. "I think these pictures in children with autism come out almost like an instinct. I think his brain is a beehive of visual activity and I think it's telling us that his brain is very active and very functional."
While he and other scientists still aren't sure how such remarkable talent can emerge, Dr. Miller has found some clues in another group of extraordinary and unlikely artists. One of these people is 86-year-old Audrey Cyr of Mandeville, Louisiana.
Four years ago, Audrey was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. That's when her amazing ability was suddenly unleashed, talent she'd never shown before.
Audrey's daughter, Kathy, is happy that her mother has been given this unexpected gift.
"The neurologist suggested that we try different things that she had never done before to challenge parts of her brain that she hadn't used," Kathy said. "So I took her to a local art class and signed her up, and she started producing these incredible works. And we're like, How did you do this? This was remarkable."
Dr. Miller also considers Audrey's new skill remarkable.
"When you see someone like Audrey Cyr, and you can see her painting, you know that the dementia has unlocked something and that this would never probably have occurred if it hadn't been for that degenerative disease," says Dr. Miller.
And Dr. Miller has seen this kind of compensation in half a dozen of his patients suffering from dementia.
The left hemisphere of the brain is damaged in both autistic and Alzheimer's disease patients. Somehow, the damage on the left side strengthens the right side.
Dr. Miller believes that this injury to the left side of the brain then increases activity in the right side: "I think the right side of the brain, is suddenly expressing itself in a way that it never had before and its expressing itself in pictures."
Unfortunately for Audrey, this period of creativity will be short-lived, according to Dr. Miller. Unlike Jonathan, the right side of Audrey's brain will eventually be ravaged as well.
But until it is extinguished, this burst of brilliance is providing scientists with a better understanding of how our complex brains work.
"We don't know why it happens but I think it does suggest that there are lots of talents that all of us have that are turned off," says Dr. Miller. "And I think that it really shows the great potential of human beings."