Home page Subscribe (print edition) Selected articles Our publications Our mailing lists
PDF edition Subscribe (PDF edition) Back issue contents Autism books Contact us

Tony DeBlois - the blind autistic savant who plays 20 instruments

From Volume 4 Number 10

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA: At birth, Tony DeBlois weighed less than 2 pounds, became blind within days and was later diagnosed as autistic, but ignoring conventional wisdom, his mother's love uncovered his musical genius.
    Tony now plays 20 instruments and knows more than 8,000 songs.
    "I feel special when I play this kind of music. I sort of blossom," he said.
    It was his mother who first noticed his musical ability at the age of two, when she bought him a toy piano.
    "The more music that we've given him, the more language we got out of him. I used to teach him vocabulary by singing songs to him, said Tony's mother, Janice DeBlois.
    Yet, he never really spoke conversationally until he went to the Berklee College of Music and graduated with honours, much to the amazement of all the so-called "experts."
    Now, his extraordinary life is in the pages of a new book - Some Kind of Genius.
    "I've always wanted to write a book for a long time. Any time you write something out on paper, you relive every event," Janice DeBlois said.
    It has truly been his mother's love that not only saved Tony from death - when doctors suggested shortly after birth that she let her one-pound son die - but her unwavering determination to help him find his destiny.
    Some Kind of Genius is dedicated, in part, to local musicians Bo and Bill Winiker, who happened to meet DeBlois 15 years ago at Skipjacks during one of their Sunday brunch performances.
            "I feel like I'm in the company of a genius," Bo Winiker said. "When I first met Tony, he wasn't able to communicate with me through the spoken word, but we were able to communicate with music. Working with Tony has been the highlight of our career."
       Whether it was the devotion and tutelage of musicians like the Winikers or the other mentors along the way who believed in giving Tony a chance, his biggest dreamer has been and continues to be his mother.
    "There's nothing that he doesn't think he can do. I open the doors for him, he proudly walks through them," she said.
    Tony has recorded his fifth CD to go along with the book, Some Kind of Genius.

Looking Up, 16-page English PDF Edition, Back Issues and Current Issue

Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 1 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 2 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 3 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 4 PDF edition front cover
Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 5 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 6 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 7 PDF edition front cover Looking Up, Volume 5 Number 8 PDF edition front cover

Current 40-page print edition issue
Current print edition of Looking Up

HOW TO CONTACT US

Email (general enquiries):Info@lookingupautism.org
Email (subscription/order enquiries):    Subscriptions@lookingupautism.org
Postal address:Looking Up, PO Box 25727, London, SW19 1WF, UK
Telephone (London, UK):+44-208-5427702, or 0208-5427702 from the UK
FAX (UK):+44-871-3140327, or 0871-3140327 from the UK
Our Home Page:http://www.lookingupautism.org

Search our autism pages

PRINT EDITION BACK ISSUE CONTENTS AND FRONT COVERS
VOLUME 1, Number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12   VOLUME 2, Number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
VOLUME 3, Number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12   VOLUME 4, Number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
VOLUME 5, Number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
You can find our PDF EDITION CONTENTS AND COVERS on our PDF EDITION BACK ISSUES PAGE

Home page Subscribe (print edition) Selected articles Our publications Our mailing lists
PDF edition Subscribe (PDF edition) Back issue contents Autism books Contact us

Privacy

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and would like to know your options in relation to·not having this information used by these companies, click here.

Copyright declaration

Materials available from these web pages are copyright © AFPublications.org unless otherwise stated.