Life

11-Year-Old Autistic Boy Draws Map From Memory

by Catie Keck

Every once in a while, something surfaces on the Internet that restores our faith in humanity, even fleetingly. That took shape this week in a reddit post about an 11-year-old autistic boy who drew a world map from memory on a classroom whiteboard. From his memory, you guys. This child will lead the geographic literacy revolution, and hopefully he’ll even inspire his fellow Americans to learn where different countries are located on a map.

The little boy is said to be the son of a New York professor who invited him to her classroom, where he then scaled a chair and began outlining continents and scribbling in their country names. A student apparently snapped the photo of his drawing, after which her parent posted the photo to his or her reddit under the name bobitis. One photo shows the boy atop a chair mid-drawing while another shows the finished product. Both are pointedly precise, even if they had been transcribed from a visual aid nearby (although, from what we understand, however, that’s not the case and makes this all the more impressive).

It is possible that this is a viral ruse born of the Internet’s greedy need for validation from strangers? It’s certainly possible, yes. One reddit user noted that a number of others had hijacked the imagery for their own attempts at viral threads using a variation of the same thread title — “An 11 year old boy with autism came into my daughters college class today and drew this from memory” [sic] — though they’ve since been deleted.But by all accounts immediately available, however, we have no reason to believe that this wasn’t the work of a super talented kid with an enviable grasp of geography.

I, for one, am certainly impressed.

Images: imgur/bobitis