Analyzing The Savant Syndrome

In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” Richard Restak considers the effect of technology on our brains. As we process increasing amounts of information at ever-faster speeds, Restak argues that our brains are undergoing “profound alterations” in order to adapt to the changing needs of our modern world. As technology connects us to more people, places, and information than ever before, Restak warns that we are losing important cognitive functions, in particular our ability to focus and concentrate. However Restak fails to mention that technology has created significant affordances as well. Allowing society to advance as a whole, via social media, e-mail, cell phones, and other various communications. Technology is reshaping our habits of mind.Yes technology created a slight defect to the mind but many advantages came about using technology as an asset.

In psychotherapy, it is important to be able to distinguish between a gifted person in crisis and one with a legitimate neurological diagnosis such as general anxiety disorder so that they can receive the proper therapy and treatment, helping them to learn to deal with their own exceptionalities (Grobman, 2009). However, if a gifted student is never taught how to self-assess and address their own anxiety, they are at risk for developing further neurological issues as a secondary way of coping with what they did not know to address from the

Most people think children with Autism will never be able to learn and function in normal society but in fact, children with autism have the ability to learn and improve their education and even their behavior which allows them to function as close if not equally in society. Depending on the level of the disease, most children diagnosed with autism still need assistance with living and job skills throughout their adulthood and later years. Most autistics are classified as “mentally retarded” but there are about 10 percent are considered “autistic savants.” (POV, 2013) A savant is defined as “someone who excels in a particular area.” (Riccio, 1999) An example of an autistic savant is someone who can play Beethoven sonata after only hearing it one time. Another great example is an autistic person can tell you if September 2, 1962 fell on a Saturday or Sunday. These examples are part of the autistic child’s brain function. Even though autistic children may seem mentally challenged they have great ability to stick to a particular motive and excel in that one

It is universally accepted that happiness pushes human society to progress. Happiness brings euphoria which all human beings naturally enjoy. To magnify happiness, people study philosophy to contemplate what brings happiness thus inventing new devices to ease their lives. Philosophy teaches people that acceptance, sharing and love arouse happiness. Consequently, new inventions implement their spiritual understandings about happiness in real life by facilitating communication. In Daniel Gilbert’s article “Reporting Live from Tomorrow”, he proposes that because there is not a single human encyclopedia in the world, communication is necessary to human beings and happiness stems from communication. Traditionally, people needed to make tremendous effort to communicate, but fortunately, new technologies bring easier communication. A good example is that electronic devices are extensively used now. However, immoderate usage of new technologies are harmful. In Richard Restak’s article “ Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era”, he exhibits that attention deficit which is referred to as a psychological disability, is becoming a label of modern society. With almost addictive symptoms, people pass the boundaries of proper use of new technologies again and again and are now emotionally dependent on them. However, is it possible that people can get true happiness through electronic-devices communication? Although technology heightens people’s happiness temporarily, the fake

These prodigies, who had reached professional status at a very young age had varying theories of causation ranging from nurture to nature. The results indicated they had elevated level of intelligence, working memory and attention to detail. Interestingly, however, their family pedigrees showed an over-representation of relatives with autism. This indicates a potential commonality between child prodigies and savants genetically leading to the conclusion that child prodigies possess a form of autism but suppress typical signs.

Savants are individuals who have notable inventive or intellectual skills although they may possess severe mental or physical inability. Orlando Serrell is a 10-year-old boy who developed a mysterious skill to perform complicated mathematical calculations. Orlando was hit on the left side of his head while he was playing baseball with his friends. Ever since his accident, Orlando is just not able to perform the complex mathematical calculations, but he is also able to remind the weather, his location, and what he does each day. Therefore, researchers consider Orlando an acquired savant because of his extraordinary abilities. The Wisconsin psychiatrist Darold Treffert has recorded 330 from all over the world, and only 30 of them are acquired

In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” Restak expresses his theory of how in this age, the brain’s attention is constantly being divided by our advancing technology so often that our brains may be rewiring themselves to multitask excessively,therefore dampen its ability to focus. This is his way of explaining the spike of people being diagnosed with ADD and ADHD. These “disorders” could be the latest way of life, although this is widely doubted due to the fact that this is an aboriginally fresh change from the norm and it can be nearly impossible to convince a mass of people to stray from the familiar. Within the years, the number of people with ADD and ADHD will likely keep rising, resulting in life will slowly adjusting to

Today’s society is drastically different from the previous. In the past, the most advanced technology was working electricity, no one had to worry about checking their work emails at home. Today we are constantly surrounded by technology, in fact we come in contact with it so often we are almost fully dependent on it in the work place, and at home. Richard Restak shows us the negative effects of that dependency in his essay “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era”. We are constantly at work with technology, and it is literally changing the way we operate. Matt Richtel has proof of this in his article based off a study by some neurologists titled “Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain”. Today, we have little to no control over our addiction to technology and our work life, the two have merged into one stress filled existence. However, Alexandra Samuel lets us know there are better ways to deal with our technology based work addiction than quitting cold turkey in her article “’Plug In Better’: A Manifesto”. Due to technology, our work and personal lives have become impossible to decipher, leaving no time for a stress free and balanced life away from the office.

Savant syndrome is characterized by seemingly innate ability that far surpasses normal human capacity manifested in a specialized skill such as rapid calculation, memorization, or musical ability though usually accompanied by mental disability. Kim Peek, credited as the inspiration for the movie Rain Man, was diagnosed with FG syndrome characterized by intellectual disability, hyperactivity, and low muscle tone. In addition to FG, Peek was born without a corpus callosum and secondary hemispherical connections. One of his most notable abilities was his exceptional declarative memory, with the ability to recall entire books in a single read through. It is thought that his abilities may be associated with his split hemispheres, allowing him to process immense amount of information in parallel. Daniel Tammet is a notable Asperger’s syndrome savant with remarkable numerical

Yolanda’s Genius is the story of Andrew Blue, along with his mother and sister. The Blues family is previously from Chicago, Illinois and they just recently moved to Grand River, Michigan. Andrew is seven years old and does not communicate very often with his surroundings and does not know how to read; instead he uses a harmonica to convey language and to express his feelings. One could argue that Andrew has a learning disability from his lack of language abilities and reading capabilities, it could also be argued that Andrew (as his sister Yolanda states) is a musical genius. Which end of the spectrum is Andrew? Is he learning disabled, normal for his age or actually a genius? From the evidence in Yolanda’s Genius and the readings from the textbook, Child Development I have come to the premises that Andrew is in fact a genius with music but at the same time learning disabled due to his problems with semantics, grammar, and pragmatics.

For my summer homework assignment I read Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet. It is an autobiography describing Daniel’s life and experiences as an Autistic Savant. I have always been fascinated with Savant Syndrome. Savants have tremendous abilities but at the same time have trouble interacting and living everyday life. It has always been a mystery to me how a person can have such genius but also struggle with activities most humans do not even give a second thought.

When most hear the word addiction, they associate that with drugs, gambling and unhealthy food. Very few realize that anything, other than the bare necessities for live, can be easily turned into an addiction if one associates happiness with an object or idea. “…almost everyone who unplugs, whether for a day or a month, eventually plugs back in. We can interpret that as addiction…” (Samuel). .In the writing piece titled Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era, Richard Restak analyzed the various consequences of technologies’ ubiquity in our society. Unfortunately, due to today’s reach of technology into each and every aspect of daily life, we

Through extensive observations and reports, the article states what they know about the disorder. Some of the key findings found were “Men out numbered females in autism and savant syndrome, and that Savant skills typically occur in a narrow range of special abilities” (Treffert, 2009). Such as math, art, mechanical or spatial skills, and music were found to be in the top general categories in Savant syndrome. Interestingly enough, “savant skills characteristically continue, rather than disappear” (Treffert, 2009), which aids in helping those with autism have an improvement in other areas of there life such as social, daily living skills, and with there language skills. I feel this article and its scientific findings definitely correlated with Raymond’s character because he demonstrated remarkable memory and one of his savant skill was his mathematical skills which was one of the highlights of the movie and made the disorder of Savant Syndrome worldwide

They could seem robotic, have repetitive motions and be obsessed with certain items. It seems more cognition related. These developmental issues affect how they make sense of the world around them. Individuals with Autism usually have average to well above average IQ’s. It is not usual for an individual with Autism to have an intellectual disability. While Mental retardation is considered to be intellectual disability. Individuals with MR will have low to below average IQ’s. Not above average IQ’s. With MR individuals will have deficits with intellect, communication, social/interpersonal skills and self-care abilities. With ASD they do not have below average intellect but they may have issues with types of communication, types of social and interpersonal skills and may need help with daily routines. Yes, Mental Retardation and ASD have some things in common but in different ways, and the biggest part that separates the two is intellectual abilities. I guess I can see how some people can mistake the two. (Graziano, 2002) (Psychiatric & CDC,

Savant is a unique form of autism that has its own special skills, which set Savant apart from all other forms of autism. The most common