Autistic Savants

Autistic Savants

Out of about six billion eight hundred forty million people in the world there are fewer than 50 prodigious autistic savants (Jones). Savant Autism Syndrome is an extremely rare condition in which people born with serious mental or physical disabilities have incredible talents, or abilities. About 10% of all autistic people in the have some greater area of competence, like musical or mathematical, which is in contrast to their disability. This condition is genetic in nature and can develop at any point in an autistic savant's life. The skill or talent is above the norm of most people and also above the person's general ability in other areas of their lives. The autistic savant's particular skill has a range in which this rare condition appears. Savant autism is not a learned behavior, but is in a person's nature caused by abnormalities in the brain and can present itself it a variety of ways.

Savant Autism syndrome was first discovered in 1887 by Dr. J. Langdon Down. Down also named the condition Down Syndrome (Treffert, Wallace). There are three different types of autistic savants, the splinter skills, talent savants, and prodigious savants (Better Health Channel). The splinter skills are the most common. This type of savant can memorize random obscure facts ranging from trivia and license plate numbers, mathematical equations to historical facts. It is called a splinter skill, because this talent does not relate to any other area of this person's life. This type of talent can be built upon and bring the autistic person a great deal of self esteem, knowing that they have this unique talent that is different form most people. Talented savants have single expertise in music, artistic, mathematical, and some other special skills like language. The least common type of autistic savant is the prodigious savant. They tend to have a skill that even would be spectacular or qualify him as a "prodigy" even for a non-handicapped person. About half of these types of autistic people are prodigious musical savants. Daniel Tammet an autistic savant is considered prodigious. (His talents are that he can do incredible mathematic feats and even recite pi up to more than twenty two thousand decimal spaces. Tammet also can learn any language in only a week's time. Tammet writes:

"I have always thought of abstract information--numbers for example--in visual, dynamic form. Numbers assume complex, multi-dimensional shapes in my head that I manipulate to form the solution to sums, or compare when determining whether they are prime or not. In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my "friends." I think this is why my memory is very deep, because the information is not static. I say