Savant Syndrome Theory

For example, a family member with Aspergers syndrome was completely fixated on Buzz Lightyear and used to shout out 'to infinity and beyond' at the most inappropriate moments, normally in response to a comment totally unrelated to Toy Story. He is now very interested in trains and their timetables, a classic example. Unfortunately, this rigidity in one interest can restrict the development of others. Also, in children and young adults it can be very isolating, the refusal to share in an interest or play of another child can leave the ASD sufferer with a very small circle of friends, if any.

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.

People with the disorder show uneven skill development and have problems in certain areas especially trying to express themselves and social skills. Even though they have developmental delays, they may have unusually developed skills in other areas. Jake Barnett is an example of a child prodigy. He is only thirteen years old, but he is a college sophomore and a math and science prodigy. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of two. He takes honors classes in math and physics while doing scientific research and tutoring fellow students. No one, including his parents and doctors, thought he would be able to go to college, but they were proved wrong. “’ That, I believe, is the reason why I am in college and I am so successful’” (“Jake” 1/15/2012). Jake Barnett is proud of his autism and believes it is the reason he is a child prodigy. Another skill he has is the ability to memorize numbers or words. He memorized over two-hundred numbers of pi in one afternoon. Jake Barnett is one example of a child prodigy living with autism. (CBS News 1/17/2012)

I learned how to best aid the development of some children with autism, especially Lawrence, who now can leverage his savant abilities to better interact with others. However, as I pored over articles and textbooks, I realized that I had not even scratched the surface of the physiological and psychological elements of the brain. Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences offers numerous opportunities to pursue my passion and I am thrilled at the prospect of exploring

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

Over the years, more people are becoming aware of Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD. The growing number of individuals who are affected by ASD have been increasing over the years. This could be do to the new DSM development of what is considered ASD or simply more children are being born with ASD. Either way, ASD is more predominate in our society today. ASD is defined in the DSM 5 as having abnormal social aspects, lack of social skills, non-verbal communications skills, deficits in development, lack of understanding of relationships, and self-stimulation through repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although these are not all of the symptoms caused by ASD

If students with ASD are not taught social emotional skills they will be greatly effected as adults. Research done has suggested that adults with ASD will often experience social isolation. Approximately one-half to two-thirds of these adults have no close friendships, and in the cases where friendships do occur they are often less close and less supportive than friendships had by adults in the general population (Orsmond, Shattuck, Cooper, Sterzing, and Anderson 2013). Studies have been done in Canadian and European populations and have found that fewer than half of adults with ASD participate in social events in the community such as attending church or special interest groups that would provide social opportunities (Orsmond, Shattuck,

The 1988 film, “Rain Man”, told a story of an autistic man with incredible savant abilities. He can instantly count hundreds of objects at once, has an astounding memory for baseball statistics, the telephone book, and the amazing ability to count cards in Las Vegas. The hit movie exposed millions of people to both autism, and the phenomena known as Savant syndrome. Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which the person demonstrates profound abilities that are not commonly possessed by most people. Raymond Babbit’s autism, extraordinary special abilities, and remarkable memory are what categorize him as the world’s most famous autistic savant.

Some of the types of ASD include Autistic disorder, sometimes known as "classic autism". This includes unusual behaviors and social and communication challenges. Asperger syndrome's symptoms are less severe than classic autism. There are also social challenges and unusual behaviors but there are no learning disabilities. Children with Asperger's may have problems with understanding humor or figures of speech. Pervasive developmental disorder known as "atypical autism", are individuals that have some of the criteria for autistic disorder or Asperger syndrome, but not all. Children with ASD may also have other problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

ASD is not something people can tell just by taking a look. People with autism behave, interact, communicate and learn through other ways an average person would. The learning, thinking, and problem solving abilities for people with autism

Autism spectrum disorder affects many Americans and until the last 20 years was widely unknown. This disorder is characterized by a deficit in social communication and interaction (Mitchell, 2012). Autism spectrum disorder is also characterized in DSM-V by difficulties following the rules of conversation and understanding things that are not explicitly stated. The purpose of this paper is to see how savant syndrome is related to autism spectrum disorder in cognitive functioning. Savant syndrome is a condition where people with developmental disabilities have one area where they excel (Treffert, 2013). A famous example comes from the movie Rain Man, where Dustin Hoffman plays a man with autism spectrum disorder and savant

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

Studies have also shown that the difficulty that individuals with ASD have with the acquisition and understanding of humor is the effect of their deficits in theory of mind (ToM) (Semrud-Clikeman & Glass, 2008; Jaegher, 2013; Samson, 2013; Whyte, Nelson, & Scherf, 2014; Wu et al., 2014). Theory of mind can be defined as the ability to understand and assign beliefs, traits, and emotions to oneself and others, in other words the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes (Semrud-Clikeman & Glass, 2008; Samson, 2014; Wu et al., 2014). ToM is a complex linguistic ability (Wu et al., 2014). Emerich et al., found from their study that there was no specific sequence in the individuals with ASDs’ reasoning through the text of

Savant syndrome is an uncommon yet extraordinary status that individuals with developmental inabilities, or another central nervous system (CNS) injury or illness possess some extraordinary talent. Savant syndrome can be congenital or acquired. According to [1], not all savants are autistic, and not all autistic are savants. One in ten individual with autism possess savant abilities, and nine out of ten do not. In the two types of savant, congenital and acquired, there is damage in some area of the brain. Usually this damage occurs on the left hemisphere, and still uninjured tissue somewhere in the brain. When this uninjured tissue is rewired, it liberates the inactive potential in a person. In addition, the two principal scientific mysteries

Some people with autism can memorize entire television shows, pages of the phone book, or the scores of every major league baseball game. Such skills, however, known as islets of intelligence or savant skills are rare.