Kim Peek at UVU

Today, I had the fantastic opportunity to go to the UVU Ballroom and hear a presentation given by Fran and Kim Peek. Fran is Kim’s father and companion. Kim is known as a mega savant. He has incredible abilities including reading books and accurately remembering 98.7% of what he reads. This is indeed incredible because Kim was born with severe mental retardation. At the age of 9 months it was recommended to his parents that Kim should be institutionalized at a mental hospital in American Fork. The Peeks refused and cared for Kim at home. Very early on, Kim began reading and memorizing books. At the age of 6, the Peeks enrolled Kim in school but due to behavior problems they had to bring him home again. At their insistence, the school provided a retired school teacher to tutor Kim 45 minutes a day twice a week. Kim completed the high school curriculum at the age of 14. Although Kim has incredible mental abilities, he requires help on basic functions such as showering, shaving, and dressing. When Kim was 32 years old it was discovered that the two hemispheres of his brain were completely fused together. There was no corpus collosum.

The movie “Rain Man” was written after the writer met Kim. Dustin Hoffman spent time with Kim and his father before he did portrayed Kim in the movie. Dustin made his father promise that he would share Kim with the world. Fran did not know if that were possible because Kim was severely mentally retarded. Fran began working with the Jordan School District on commercials about caring and respecting differences. After the students had prepared questions for Kim he attended an assembly to answer them. With a few minutes left, they asked other students for questions. One boy asked, “What is it like to be a spastic?” Kim answered with a positive response and found out the boy had been dared to ask the question by two friends. Then Kim replied, “Now that you have been education, we can now be friends.”

Apparently Kim has improved significantly in his social skills since receiving notoriety as the real “Rain Man.” Kim was given the “Best Performance for 1988” Oscar, and takes it with him to his presentations and allows everyone to hold it. During the presentation, Kim seemed warm, friendly, personable, and funny. He would randomly start talking about unusual items and his father could eventually get around to figuring out what he was saying. He has presented to 5.3 million people and he has a mission which is: “Recognize and respect differences in others and treat them as much as they want them to treat you so we can have a better world to live in. You don’t have to be handicapped to be different. Everybody is different.”

The human brain is capable of amazing things. Kim Peek is a remarkable person with unbelievable mental abilities. Fran Peek is a dedicated and loving father. Their presentation made me wonder about the brain’s capacity and made me want to reach higher in all I do.