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Tyler Doi has taken many interests in life, but wind chimes are something truly special to him.

Not only can he identify Woodstock brand chimes just by looking at them, he can tell the difference just by hearing them.
It’s a skill that makes him special, a savant as some would say.

“It started when he was about 3-years-old, I guess having autism kids take interest in what you could call unusual things,” Sean Doi, Tyler’s father, said in an interview with Nikkei Voice. “On one particular day he went for a ride with my parents looking for bird feeders and instead pointed out a wind chime.”

Ever since then, Tyler’s love of wind chimes has grown into a collection of over a hundred of these outdoor music makers.
“It’s quite unique to him being able to hear a few notes from a wind chime and being able to know which one it is right away,” Sean Doi said. “It’s really a fantastic skill and he owns about 100 wind chimes and maybe there are five or six I can recognize while he can guess them all.”

Tyler’s love of chimes eventually lead him to the Woodstock chimes factory in New York.

There he met Garry Kvistad, founder and owner of the company. There the young boy wowed workers by demonstrating his ability to name their chimes just by listening to them.

“Tyler can hear more than what most people hear in a sound, because he’s inside of it,” Kvistad said. “We thought this would be a really nice connection to make and he just knocked us out by his ability to identify products just by sound,” he said.

This also lead to the creation of a special Mozart and the Woodstock Chimes for Autism that help support research of this affliction that affects all strata of our society. The Doi family has also taken part in a Walk Now for Autism Speaks Canada for the last six years.

The walk raises funds for autism research and support in Canada.

“With increased awareness and concern about how many children are impacted by this affliction,” Sean Doi said. “I’m hoping that will carry over to increased funding for research to find out what is the cause for autism and how it can be remedied.”

To find out more about the chimes, please visit: www.chimes.com/autism
And to find out more about Tyler Doi’s team, please see: www.support.autismspeaks.ca