Daniel Tammet - Daniel Paul Tammet
Daniel Paul Tammet (born 31 January 1979) is a writer with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. His bestselling 2006 memoir Born On A Blue Day was named a "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association. Tammet's second book, Embracing the Wide Sky, was named one of France's bestselling books of 2009 by the Express magazine in its March 2010 edition.
Tammet was born and raised in East London, the eldest of nine children. Born with a different surname, he decided to change it by deed poll because "it didn't fit with the way he saw himself." "Tammet" means "oak tree" in Estonian and "oak trees" in Finnish. At four he suffered epileptic seizures, which he subsequently outgrew following medical treatment. At age twenty-five he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (a high-functioning form of autism) by the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.
He was the subject of a documentary film in the UK entitled The Boy With The Incredible Brain, first broadcast on the British television station Channel Four on 23 May 2005. The documentary showed him meeting Kim Peek, a world famous savant. Peek was shown hugging Tammet telling him that "Some day you will be as great as I am", to which Tammet replied, "That was a wonderful compliment; what an aspiration to have!"
When Tammet finished Secondary School instead of going onto higher education, like his parents had anticipated, he began looking for job opportunities, on the grounds that he "was never comfortable with the idea of going on to university". He sought a job which was "structured, logical, and quiet". He ended up being accepted for a youth branch of VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). After one week's training he was given his assignment: an English-teaching placement in Lithuania. He taught English lessons to Lithuanian women there, returning to the UK a year later.
In 2002 Tammet created the website Optimnem. The site offers language courses (currently French and Spanish) and is "an approved member of the U.K.'s National Grid for Learning", since 2006.
