A 22-year-old autistic blind singer won NBC’s America’s Got Talent contest Wednesday night, inspiring millions and sparking celebration among autistic families nationwide.
With his mother Tina standing by his side, Kodi Lee was announced as the winner in front of a national audience, edging the second-place act, the Detroit Youth Choir. He won $1 million and a chance to perform at a Las Vegas show.
“He won! Yes!” a member of the Autism Support Group of Southwest Missouri wrote on Facebook.
The popular series is a talent show for singers, dancers, comedians and illusionists – anyone with a unique gift that can entertain an audience. Viewers vote to decide the winner.
Lee speaks primarily through his music, playing the piano and hitting notes few singers can. He is autistic but also has savant syndrome, which, according to the National Institutes of Health website, is a “rare, but extraordinary, condition in which persons with serious mental disabilities” including autism have an “island of genius.” Lee, though, is what is called “prodigious savant” – a term “reserved for those extraordinarily rare individuals for whom the special skill is so outstanding that it would be spectacular even if it were to occur in a non-impaired person.”
His website says there are only about 25 individuals in the world like him.
Lee…
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