Behavior: They All Have High Hopes

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The idiot savant has a long tradition in the U.S., much of it as victim. A typical 19th century savant, Tom Bethune was sightless and barely able to grunt monosyllables. But he had the ability to play complicated classical piano pieces by ear, and promoters exhibited him in vaudeville as an amusing freak. Since that time, savants -- retarded and autistic people who have inexplicable gifts, usually in art, mathematics and music -- have been the objects of diversion and exploitation. But at a unique institution called Hope University in Anaheim, Calif., they are being trained to reveal their surprising gifts and develop self-confidence. Some have multiple handicaps: Paul Kuehn, for example, is blind, yet he has the ability to reproduce and create music and is one of the stars of a school group, the Hi Hopes, who have sung to thunderous applause at concerts from Disneyland and Las Vegas to the White House lawn and the stage of Opryland.

Kuehn and 37 other young adults owe their progress to a dynamic 62-year-old school secretary turned educator. Recalls Doris Walker: "I was a little old lady in tennis shoes to my classmates when I went back to college to get a degree in special education." With her new teaching certificate in hand, she took over a public school special-education class in Buena Park, Calif. Twelve years later, in 1980, she founded Hope University-Unico National College for the Gifted Mentally Retarded. Despite the grand title, the institution is located in two cramped rooms behind a shopping center. Still, says Walker, "we have a good beginning, and I have big plans." Among them: a new building with 22 classrooms to be funded by Unico National, the Italian- American service organization that has adopted the school as one of its charities.

The college's slogan is "adult education through the fine arts." As Walker explains it, "We want to develop the whole person, and we use the elements of performance, music education, music therapy, drama, dance and art to enable our students to achieve new awareness, personal growth and change in their lives." She developed her approach while at Buena Park, where one of her students, Kuehn, was considered autistic and virtually untrainable. During a music period she mumbled under her breath, "Now what key do we do this song in?" Kuehn correctly piped up, "Key of G." His vocal training began immediately and gave rise to the first Hi Hopes group.

A few years later Gary Ahearn sat down at the organ in a Los Angeles special-education classroom. Facing the keyboard for the first time, he played an imperfect but recognizable version of Liszt's Liebestraume. A teacher brought him to Walker, and today he plays eight instruments. Like Ahearn, the students at Hope University have learned emotional and physical control through music and art instruction. Indeed, Hope's program has been so successful that many students now hold part-time jobs.