‘Savant’ Theory Shines a Spotlight on Mentally Disabled Performing Troupe

After living two decades in board-and-care homes for the mentally retarded, Gary Ahearn, 33, seemed to be at the edge of oblivion. He was without family, without friends--trapped forever, it appeared, by speech and muscular disabilities and an IQ in the 50 to 70 range.

He would shuffle wordlessly through the hallways of a Los Angeles job training center for the disabled, his eyes downcast.

Until one day he saw an organ keyboard in a crafts classroom.

He began wandering in daily, motioning to the teacher to let him play. She finally agreed, and Ahearn sat down and promptly played a lilting melody resembling Liszt’s “Liebestraume.”

‘Bolt of Lightning’

“It was absolutely astounding,” said the teacher, Scotty Argelander. “Hearing Gary play was like a bolt of lightning.”

Now seven years later, Ahearn, of Santa Ana, also plays the guitar, banjo, drums, harmonica, trumpet and trombone. He is a member of the Anaheim-based Hi Hopes, a nationally known touring troupe of 10 musicians and singers--all mentally handicapped.

“He still hardly talks. He never says anything about his family or where he picked up his music,” said Argelander, now retired. “But he is much more alive, so eager, especially when you turn him loose on the keyboard.”

Hi Hopes organizers believe that Ahearn and others in the group are examples of the “savant syndrome,” the new term for mentally disabled persons who display astounding intellectual or creative gifts in selected areas, said Doris Walker, teacher and Hi Hopes founder.

Although social scientists have yet to determine the causes of the savant phenomenon and many question the number of such gifted retarded, the concept has caught the public eye.

National Media Coverage

As an example of the savant phenomenon, Hi Hopes has been recently featured in the national media, including Time magazine and cable television. A documentary is in the works for national public television. There is talk of possible movie ventures.

And a private, nonprofit adult school in Anaheim founded four years ago just for Hi Hopes performers may soon move to new quarters so that enrollment can be expanded from 35 students to 100.

“There’s no other program quite like it, either with the same arts emphasis or with the same full-time, year-round aspirations,” said James Maas, chairman of Cornell University’s psychology department, who is preparing the TV documentary on Hi Hopes and the Anaheim school.

Given the rather lofty title of Hope University/UNICO National College, the school operates from a tiny, $450-a-month storefront in the rear of a shopping center at Ball Road and Brookhurst Street.

Three-Acre Anaheim Site

UNICO--which stands for Unity, Neighborliness, Integrity, Charity, Opportunity--a national Italian-American service organization that supports mental health causes, is its chief supporter. UNICO is buying a three-acre Anaheim site for $1 million from the Euclid Street Baptist Church. The property is to be a permanent Hope/UNICO campus.

Classes at the school are based on music--including those involving drama, movement and visual arts. Sessions on spelling, handling money, managing households and other tasks are done through song sketches and dramatic improvisations.

The Hi Hopes troupe is the core of the program, however. Its 10 members--most of whom live with their families in Orange County--are the only full-time students. (Full-time tuition is $600 a semester; some students receive assistance from Kiwanis and other organizations.)

While the troupe continues as a regular on the Southern California circuit, including hospitals, conferences, Disneyland and nursing homes, twice yearly national tours for UNICO also take them to conventions, fairs, theme parks and universities from Las Vegas, Denver and Chicago to New Orleans, Philadelphia and the Mall in Washington. The troupe is not paid, but expenses are picked up by UNICO and other sponsors.

Aura of Novelty

Although the group’s appearances still have an aura of novelty, supporters say the overall impact is one of sympathetic acceptance. “The sideshow image, I think, has long faded,” said Allan Simmons, a California Department of Education consultant for the developmentally disabled. “We’re dealing with a society today that is far more sophisticated about such matters.”

Walker contends that four performers reveal the savant signs--singers Paul Kuehn and Gloria Lenhoff, pianist Tim Baley and Ahearn.

“For reasons we still do not understand, these students have an incredible, instinctive capacity for music,” said Walker, 62. “Their knowledge is encyclopedic. Overall, they cannot read well; yet they remember everything--lyrics, melodies, titles, dates.”

Some researchers, however, suggest that the most impressive Hi Hopes troupers may be talented but not to an exceptional degree.

“In their case, we’re probably talking about relatively normal talents, but these seem so stunning, so dramatic because they occur in people who are severely afflicted in other areas of mental capacity,” Francis Crinella, director of the state Department of Developmental Services’ Research Institutes, said from his office in Costa Mesa.

‘A Great Mystery’

Said psychologist Bernard Rimland of San Diego, who has done savant studies on the autistic: “It’s a subject about which we can only theorize--such as the possible link with the brain’s creative or right side or the unusually intense concentration that these disabled seem to have. But why and exactly how this happens, we still have no real clues. It’s still a great mystery.”

The idea for Hi Hopes began in 1969 when Walker met Kuehn at a Buena Park public school for the “trainable” mentally retarded.

Kuehn, who is also blind, was terribly withdrawn, Walker said. “But he had this incredible ear for music. He could pick up a note, a word, almost instantly.”

Kuehn was the nucleus of the first Hi Hopes troupe formed in 1972 for local school and club visits. He has since sung the national anthem at Dodger Stadium and Anaheim Stadium. Kuehn, also a drummer, said he is delighted with the troupe’s growing celebrity status. “It’s exciting. I like doing all the television (news shows) and having our pictures taken. I want to tell everyone we love music.”

Like Kuehn, Lenhoff, 32, has a clear, soaring, show-stopping voice, especially her “Ave Maria” and “God Bless America” solos.

“I can sing in different languages--Hebrew, Greek, Japanese,” said Lenhoff, who joined the troupe in 1982 and works as a part-time aide in a Yorba Linda preschool. “I don’t know why we have this (talent). I just know we do--and people like us.”

Baley, 34, was already a widely traveled concert soloist based in El Paso when he joined the Hi Hopes last year.

“There’s nothing I want to do more,” said Baley, who also suffers from cerebral palsy. “I like the (audience) faces. I like doing something for people. I forget everything else.”