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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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Savant Syndrome - interesting read/videos
Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 9:14 AM
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Savant Syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_Syndrome
An autistic savant (historically described as idiot savant) is an autistic person with Savant Syndrome [1]. Savant Syndrome describes people with both a severe developmental or mental handicap and extraordinary mental abilities not found in most people. The Savant Syndrome skills involve striking feats of memory and often include arithmetic calculation and sometimes art or music.
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Here is a link to a list of profiles on people who have been diagnosed with this syndrome. There's also videos.
http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant/profiles.cfm
I watched the video on Stephen Wiltshire, where they show him drawing a replica of Rome after seeing it from a helicopter for the first time. It's amazing.
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It makes me wonder if these amazing abilities are there in everyone's minds, yet simply not accessible.
I'm also wondering... if a 13 yr old child can go from playing only simple songs, to playing tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 after hearing it once, what will happen in the near future when savants grow up w/ access to various forms of technology, like the Web? Will they make similar leaps of knowledge and experience in the areas of science and technology?
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Michael Chocholak
Joined: 01/14/04
Posts: 135
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RE: Savant Syndrome - interesting read/videos
Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 10:11 PM
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interesting post. interesting links. one thing I find really amazing is that it's a page created by the wisconsin medical society since most of the medical community considers ALL autism a horrible disability that must be eradicated. this seemed like a really enlightened perspective.
the autistic community itself seems to be split with one end made up of groups like Cure Autism Now and groups that encourage abortion if there is a likelihood of autism to pages like this one at Aspies for Freedom; http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/index.php?page=documentview&document=autism_genocide
which sees the current approach to autism as akin to genocide.
certainly severe autism can be heartbreaking, but I think the core issue is that no one understands it completely. I heard an autism 'expert' say the other day that scientists don't understand 95% of how the brain works, normal or otherwise. autism used to be classified as a type of schizophrenia. then it was put in a category of its own. then it was redefined as a spectrum disorder meaning that it covers a rather huge range of characteristics from severe to those folks classified as having asperger's syndrome or 'high functioning' autistics. but again, the community itself considers it from the perspective of neurological diversity; not disabled at all, simply different.
lots of autistics and aspies are savants or are so focused on a few subject areas that they appear to have those qualities. historically autie/aspies included people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Beethoven, Albert Einstein, Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, Bill Gates, Kant, Bartok, Orwell, Tim Burton, Gary Numan, etc, etc, etc. you've got to wonder what the world would be like if these people had been 'cured'.
I think most people have large untapped potentials - although perhaps not to the extent of savant. unfortunately I also think most cultures and societies are set up to squelch these potentials early on so that everyone becomes as 'normalized' as possible. that big bulge in the middle of the bell curve. so if the potentials are there, its that much harder to realize them. it's as if you've got to be willing to become an outcast if you're really going to dig into it and open it up. which is a real shame for everybody. all that untapped potential...
but technology makes a huge difference. without the net for example, there probably wouldn't even be communities.
Que la musique sonne - Edgard Varese
You don't need a mouth to communicate, you don't need rules to create. Anything is a potential instrument. Play it. - MC
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