In AP Psychology Junior year in our unit when we learned about Autism we also learned about savants and Savant Syndrome. I had heard the word before but I didn’t know much about savants. I had seen episodes  of shows like 60 minutes where they would show someone who has some sort of disability yet is really good at one certain thing. I was confused while learning about Savant Syndrome because it didn’t make sense to me that someone who had a disability was so talented at something, even more than the average person. Someone who functioned not nearly like an average person was way better at a task than normal people were. That really did not make sense to me.

What exactly is Savant Syndrome? 

Basically it is a condition where someone with a serious disability is able to preform certain tasks amazingly well that completely surpass what would be thought of as normal performance on them. While doing research about this condition the first source I read talks about how it is extremely rare and because the amazing talents these “savants” have scientist may never truly fully grasp how the human memory and cognition work until they are able to fully understand savants. Also in this source I read that this syndrome is much more common in men than woman. Men out number women in a 6 to 1 ratio regarding this condition. This made me wonder why it’s so much more common in males. Could it have to do with genetic makeup? Or maybe it has something to do with the hormones in males that females do not have. After coming across this question i had I did some research on it. (FINISH LOOKING FOR RESEARCH FOR THIS)

 Savant Syndrome

When I did research on why exactly Savant Syndrome happens I came across Bernard Rimland, he studied over 34,000 cases of Autism in his lifetime and he found that when studying the autistic patients that had the savant skills they were skills found in the right hemisphere of the brain. He also found that the skills these people lacked, that most do not, are skills associated with the left hemisphere of the brain. This seems to me like people with the Savant Syndrome has more access to their right brain. Maybe not more access but I think it would make sense that because they have deficiencies in their left hemisphere this would make their right brain stronger and perhaps this is why they are very talented in certain skills. After reading the first source I realized that there is probably a link between autism and Savant Syndrome. All of the patients of Rimland’s had Autism and he used them to study the savant skills they had. So, I decided to do some research on this realization of mine. In the piece of research I found it is explained that not everyone who is autistic has savant skills and vice versa but there is definitely a correlation between the two. This source also mentions that there are savants who are average people who were not born with Autism that can develop savant skills after an event where they have had brain damage. That logically does not make much sense. If someone has serious neurological damage why would they develop an extremely above average ability. Something traumatic happens to their brain and then somehow they have acquired an amazing new skill. It is baffling to think about and although scientists and doctors know some information about Savants I think it is also baffling to them and they will not fully understand them for a long time. In the same source  it talks about how these savant abilities all have the cause of them in common, abnormal brain activity. Another source I found says that their may be a genetic part of Savant Syndrome. This piece talked about how the prodigies with Autism, what this source considered savants, are more likely to have a member of their family with Autism. They didn’t provide any more information about this so I can’t really agree with this statement. I do agree that Autism definitely seems to have a genetic link but I am not convinced that Savant Syndrome does. I am aware that it is common for people with autism to also be considered a savant but I don’t think that would prove that Savant Syndrome itself is genetic. Scientists have pinpointed the fact that the abnormal brain activity is the cause of the savant talents but there is not much further detailed information about it that I have not already covered.

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Bibliography

“Savant Syndrome.” Savant Syndrome. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

Kaufman, Scott Barry. “Where Do Savant Skills Come From?” Scientific American Blog Network. N.p., 25 Feb. 2014. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

SingularityHub. “Unleashing the Power of the Savant Brain in All of Us.” Singularity HUB. N.p., 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

“The Science behind Savants.” The Advisory Board Daily Briefing. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.

“Neurowiki 2013.” Savant Syndrome – Neurowiki 2013. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2016.