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Have you ever heard of savant syndrome before? Savant syndrome is a condition wherein a person with mental disabilities such as autistic disorder has immense gifts of intelligence or talents in a specific area. According to Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health, about 10% of autistic children have savant syndrome. Perhaps, savant syndrome is one of the most unbelievable phenomena in the study of human cognitive system.
“He has a remarkable musical ear and an uncanny ability to hear pretty much every detail in a piece of music”
image source: from Flickr http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/5398303/Human-iPod-Derek-Paravicini-to-give-first-full-concert.html
The exact cause of savant syndrome is still unknown, however, there are some hypothesis that explain how an autistic people can become savants. For example, some researchers think that the savant skills are entirely based on the ability to memorize; they memorize every single piece of what they need to perform their skills. Meanwhile, there is another hypothesis, which states that the intelligence is separated from mental ability and they are not related to each other.With this hypothesis, it is possible to explain how an autistic person can have such gifted abilities.
Their talents can appear in many areas including arts, music, and mathematics. There are many people who became popular with their gifted skills. An English autistic savant writer, Daniel Tammet is a representative example of autistic savant. He was diagnosed with asperger syndrome at his age of twenty-five, but he has incredible abilities of calculating numbers and learning languages. Actually, Daniel is the holder European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits. He has also written a book called, Thinking in Numbers, which has been selected as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in the United Kingdom, and he now works as writer and educator.
People with savant syndrome are accurate as computers, fast as calculators, and they also pictures like cameras. Should we call them disabled? or are they genius who are differently abled than us?
References:
Daniel Tammet, Autistic Genius, Savant – Causes of Savant Syndrome
by Sungbin Choi
