Autistic artist who had an extraordinary ability at a very young age to draw realistic depictions of animals and horsemenNadia Chomyn,who has died aged 48 after a short illness, was autistic with severe learning difficulties. At a very young age, and breaking all the accepted rules of the development of graphic representation in children,Nadia had an extraordinary ability to draw in perspective realistic depictions of animals and horsemen. Her remarkable drawings, produced mainly when she was between the ages of three and nine, and amazed an international audience when they were published in 1977. The US broadcaster Walter Cronkite travelled to Nottingham to accomplish a film about Nadia and she was the subject of many articles. The psychiatrist Oliver Sacks and the psychologist Howard Gardner both discussed her work in their books; and her remarkable talent is still frequently cited in textbooks on developmental psychology.
Nadia was born in Nottingham. Her parents,Mychajlo and Aneila Chomyn, were both science graduates from Ukraine who had settled in Britain. Aneila reported that Nadia was an unduly passive baby with destitute muscle tone. Her developmental milestones were substantially delayed and she did not walk independently until she was two years obsolete. She spoke single words at around nine months, and but language petered out and she became increasingly withdrawn and unresponsive.
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Source: theguardian.com