But Peek also showed flashes of unusual abilities even at that early age: memorizing things with perfect recall before he was even two and reciting books he read line for line with perfect recall. By the time he was 18, despite his lack of schooling, Peek had a job doing payroll for a company with employees. It took him only a few hours a week, and he performed all the necessary calculations in his head. One reason Kim was able to provide so much detail and depth from his voluminous memory was that he could speed-read anything put in front of him.
Peek could open a book and read each of the two facing pages at the same time — the left eye reading the left page, the right eye reading the right one, effectively absorbing both pages at once. He had begun reading both pages at the same time, one with his left eye and one with his right even if he was reading the book upside down or sideways!
While people with savant syndrome often become a bit of an expert in one or two subjects, Kim boasted at least fifteen! By memorising maps, he could also provide directions for someone to drive between any two cities in the world!
He also memorised musical compositions note-for-note, could do calendar calculations like work out what day of the week it was on June 24, , and later in his life could play those musical compositions he memorised on the piano. In , screenwriter Barry Morrow met Kim Peek by chance, and was so blown away that he decided to write the story which would eventually become Rain Man.
He was born in with an abnormally large-sized head. This condition is called macrocephaly. The doctors then found out that not only the size of the head but also the structure of brain of the baby was different. Kim was born with a damaged cerebellum. And, the bundle of nerves connecting both the hemispheres of the brain was also missing.
When Kim was 9-months old, doctors suggested his parents to send him to an institution. Seeing his condition, doctors said that the child will never be able to talk or walk. Kim started exhibiting his exceptional memory at a very young age. When he was just one year old, he would memorize the entire book being read to him.
He remembered the entire Bible word by word till the age of seven. Kim did not like hearing the same story over and over again. So, he devised a technique to convey his message. Once a book was read to him, he would keep the book upside down to show that he already memorized the book and is not interested to hear it again. Kim followed this style of keeping a finished book upside down for his entire life. News of his death led to an outpouring of expressions of gratitude from thousands of parents of disabled children who said that the film, and Peek's many public appearances that followed it, had given them comfort and hope.
Peek was born on 11 November with damage to the cerebellum; the corpus callosum, the large bundle of nerves that connects the left and right hemispheres, was also missing. At the age of two his severe disabilities almost landed him for life in an asylum. In those days his condition was known as "idiot savant" and considered best treated in mental institutions. He was seen by a neurologist who famously could spare only five minutes as he was on his way to a golf course, and who concluded that the infant Kim would never be able to speak or learn and should be taken out of society.
Fran Peek, however, refused to accept that advice — after all by the age of two Kim could already read and memorise books. For the following 56 years, Fran acted as his son's primary carer, guide and loyal friend. Together, father and son toured the world, taking their story of the potential to overcome even seemingly intractable disabilities to more than 2 million people.
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