Watching Robert Gagno play pinball is a bit like watching Maradona toy with a soccer ball. In the garage behind his Burnaby family home, Robert leans his lanky frame over one of seven pinball machines. His long, thin fingers hit the buttons, as his eyes flit across the playfield with extraordinary concentration. He can catch the silver ball in the crook of the flipper, hold it there, pass it from left to right and make it run backwards up the "alley." He aims with remarkable precision, triggering the game's flashing contraptions, booming sound effects and staggering escalation of points.

Robert's high score is 8.3 billion points. He's number 1 in Canada, 19 in the world, and he shows no signs of slowing down.

Robert and autism

Robert was diagnosed with autism when he was five, but his parents noticed things were a bit different earlier on.

"He'd spin to music, twirling around on his knees," says father Maurizio. "By the time he was three or four - boy, he could really spin around very fast."

At times, he would spin for up to half-an-hour, but he never seemed to get dizzy.

Linguistically, Robert couldn't really be understood till he was about six years old.

"He had a language all his own," Maurizio says. Robert developed his personal words for things that only his close family could decipher. Fish was "doe," bridge was also "doe," and Michael (his brother's name) was "guy-go."

At five, Robert was put in a special program to improve his communication skills and learn sign language. His speech developed around eight, and as a teen, he received some additional therapy to speak more clearly.

"He can get by now just fine, and he talks a lot. He likes talking," Maurizio says.

Robert's autism means he will probably never live independently. He can do things, like clean his room and take transit alone, but his parents worry over how trusting he is of other people. For instance, Robert was out one day, when a man approached, recognizing him as the pinball whiz kid. The man said he had some pinball machines at his home and invited Robert to come over, and Robert went with him. Fortunately, the man actually did have some machines, and everything was OK, but it's Robert's overly trusting nature that worries his parents.

"He is high functioning, but people can take advantage of him because he'll believe what you tell him," Maurizio said. "He's too trusting of people."

If you ask Robert about his autism, he seems quite accepting and nonchalant about the whole thing.

"I just see myself as a regular kind of guy. People don't really think of me in that way. They think of me as a regular, fun guy," he says.

When he's not hitting the silver ball, Robert spends his time puttering about on Facebook or hanging out with friends. He also does gymnastics and bowling with the Special Olympics.

His pinball career

Robert got his first pinball machine on his 10th birthday.

"Robert had a huge smile on his face," Maurizio says. He played it the first couple of years, but because of the noise, other family members complained. So the machine was covered up and the cats slept on it.

Then, when Robert was 18, he entered a tournament in Toronto while Maurizio was on a business trip. It was Robert's first competition, and he placed 12th out of roughly 100 people.

"I was amazed at watching him play," Maurizio says.

Then Robert got involved with a local pinball association, and his parents bought him another machine ... and another, and another. The Gagno family garage now houses seven machines in total.

Meanwhile, Robert has climbed the pinball ranks from about 3,733 in the world out of roughly 9,000 competitive players to being the youngest player in the top 20. (He's now ranked at 19 but has been as high as 18.)

"He's got a phenomenal capability," Maurizio says. "Anything related to numbers, he's really good. Anything related to language, verbal, he's really low."

Robert's skills caught the attention of an American production company working on a show called Ingenious Minds. A film crew followed Robert to the Mayo clinic in the U.S. for an MRI scan from a chief neurologist to figure out what makes his brain unique.

(The show aired Thursday, Feb. 24 on the Science Channel, but only in the U.S. To see a promo with clips of Robert, go to http://science.discovery.com/tv/ingenious-minds.)

Getting into poker

Robert's latest passion is poker. For the past three or four months, he's been teaching himself how to play by watching YouTube videos and has already ranked No. 11 in one of B.C.'s amateur leagues. With his natural ability to handle numbers, statistics and probabilities, Robert seems cut out for the game.

"If you ask him, 'What are the chances of getting royal flush?' He'll probably say, 'One in 650,000,' " Maurizio says. "He tells me this stuff, and it goes over my head."

Maurizio is reluctant to compare his son to Kim Peek, the real-life savant who inspired the character portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, but he does recall a time that Robert had an entire section of the talking Yellow Pages committed to memory.

He can also memorize long lists of random numbers and repeat them, both forwards and backwards.

The autism expert

Grace Iarocci is an associate psychology professor at SFU who specializes in autism.

No one knows what causes the spectrum of disorders - there's no biological marker, no blood test, no prenatal screening - but it tends to run in families, she says.

"It's the most heritable of all the childhood disorders."

Autism generally affects three areas: social interaction, communication and interests, which are often repetitive and narrow.

In lieu of strong evidence, explanations on autism are often left to theory. One idea is because people with autism are not attuned to social information, they can focus more on different things, Iarocci says.

Repetitive behaviour could be why people with autism excel at certain tasks, as is the case with Robert and pinball.

"(That) makes them practise it over and over again till they become really talented," she says. "But then again, there's a cost. If you spend so much time on the task, it's maybe taking away from social learning."

As for Robert's poker skills, Iarocci suggested that he has a really good working memory.

"He's keeping track of all the things that are happening in the game, and he's constantly updating his memory and calculating probabilities as things are unfolding," she says.

Iarocci says it's important to balance special skills with social activities because people with autism could become focused in an unhealthy way.

"They can become so overwhelmed by the skills that it takes up significant parts of their life, where it interferes with other activities. They start to get into this cycle where they are more narrow and restricted in activities, they can get isolated," she says, adding that can lead to anxiety and depression.

Robert's future:

Robert hopes to get married to someone who understands him.

"Hopefully he can find someone, a girl who can understand autism and deal with it," Maurizio says.

Robert is taking a Douglas College course in retail and business for people with special needs. They learn to restock shelves, bag groceries and work in a warehouse.

"I hope he could be working in warehouse and doing restocking," Maurizio says.

Robert seems to have different ideas.

"(I plan to) be on TV, film and TV, and playing poker," he says.

Maurizio has no plans to capitalize on his son's skills at the casino.

"It's an addictive thing, and I'm a bit concerned about that, to play for money," he says, although he concedes that some money was made at Robert's first poker tournament in Coquitlam. "I don't want people to take advantage of him."

Maurizio also thinks his son hasn't reached his peak yet.

"I think he's got potential to move up even further," Maurizio says.