I did a blog post on Khan Academy the other day, and how he is teaching math to thousands of kids, but Jacob Barnett is one kid who does not need to watch any of Sal Khan’s videos.

He could actually do a few for him!

If you’re a college student in Calculus 2 and are having trouble with integration by parts or trig substitution, then you may want to watch this “back of the house calculation”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFmrlIEpJOE

In case you have any doubts, he is absolutely correct!

Jacob is mildly autistic (according to this story in the Indianapolis paper) and his parents were at one time very concerned for his outlook in life. Autistic children see the world in a far different way than so called normal people. Many times they can grasp difficult mathematical concepts that others have a great deal if difficulty with.

My son is autistic, (to a significant degree more than Jacob) but he amazes me how quickly he will put a puzzle together, or remember the needed key strokes to find his favorite pictures on my mac book.