What is your savant skill?
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Rexi
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Location: "I know there's nothing we can do. But my heart can't accept it." "If this is real, then I want to change the future."
I like gathering information from many areas and helping people gain more knowledge, it's the only way to fix issues.
I can remember nothing for long except relationship data that I read about, and psychology and what I learned from them. And yet I struggled and struggle with them still.
I can also bark and bark-howl which kids in high school would make me do. I can also remember behavior, training and needs of dogs (training can be really challenging especially trying to teach someone elses puppy if you have no access to their feeding schedule, their food and this puppy was never given even a toy, building interest in toys at that point can be a challenge and owners complain but they dont take my tips seriously, they keep yelling at the dog and that destroys relationships and makes the dog confused and dodging as though he thinks hes gonna get hit which they have before, and he doesnt understand human norms or language unless taught and exercised, besides he learned to mouth peoples clothes and get around their legs that can trip people, he wasn't set for success) and i used to remember a lot of dog breeds as a kid and got a really close friendship with a certain dog and I'd spend all the time with her and taught her tricks and off leash not leaving far. I cant say i havent made mistakes and training didnt pay off in every instance, leash pulling and eating off the ground I couldn't fix but I knew nothing at the time.
I struggle with opposite poles concepts such as left-right, west-east, earlier-later and some maths even though when I was little I discovered the whole way to do an equation backwards, but my dad said it's the same way and didn't think anything about it even though I told him it's backwards.
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Last edited by Rexi on 05 Dec 2021, 3:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
I’m not entirely sure how accurately ‘savant’ this is, but I knew adult concepts from a very early age without being told. This might be related to being able to see patterns in observing people’s behaviour.
For example, I knew that my father was a drug addict from the age of 6. This knowledge ‘came’ to me seemingly out of nowhere whilst walking behind him one day. The adults were remarkably surprised to find that I already knew when they officially told me at 13.
I was always musically talented from an early age and could listen to music and learn to play it on the violin very quickly. Good mimicry and good recall.
I also have a photographic memory and exceptionally good working long term memory for lines in movies, quotes, song lyrics and random facts that I’ve picked up. Also languages and pattern making/relationships, particularly between romantic languages.
I think having synaesthesia sounds fascinating!
Rexi
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Location: "I know there's nothing we can do. But my heart can't accept it." "If this is real, then I want to change the future."
For example, I knew that my father was a drug addict from the age of 6. This knowledge ‘came’ to me seemingly out of nowhere whilst walking behind him one day. The adults were remarkably surprised to find that I already knew when they officially told me at 13.
I was always musically talented from an early age and could listen to music and learn to play it on the violin very quickly. Good mimicry and good recall.
I also have a photographic memory and exceptionally good working long term memory for lines in movies, quotes, song lyrics and random facts that I’ve picked up. Also languages and pattern making/relationships, particularly between romantic languages.
I think having synaesthesia sounds fascinating!
I remember song and movie lyrics too at times and sometimes they seem fit to a situation. I had a gift with learning languages, French and English, I was top class at them both. I have forgotten much of the French I have known and Latin could never grow on me, it's really complicated and the teacher rushed the lessons and focused in the classes on a different subject she was also teaching so we didn't have the time to learn it slowly and surely, and we didn't learn it for as many years as others either.
I sometimes tend to pick up patterns about people to the point they affect my understanding of the more complicated issues that aren't necessarily related.
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My Pepe Le Skunk. I have so much faith in our love for one another. Thanks for being an amazing partner. x
Any topic, PM me; mind my profile.
Not sure what the breakpoint is to achieve a savant level of ability, but if it was anything it'd be my spatial cognition, which can be expressed in a lot of ways that is unintuitive to most people's understand of the concept.
One odd way it seems to be expressed is my cognition of metaphysics with spatial concepts, like shapes, volume, quantity, positioning etc. It allows me to naturally handle symbols and their interactions better than most. My grasp of semantics (and naturally, my propensity for pedantics) seems to be better all around than most. The most obvious behavior regarding this would be the number of words I know, can figure out, and that pop into my spoken/written vocabulary.
Another odd expression of this is my handling of possibilities. I tend to consider a broader array of possibilities than most. I tend to form my understandings based on spatial concepts, so when considering possibilities I imagine/mentally simulate a kind of spatial environment based on info known of the situation at hand and just kind of throw any related or interacteable ideas at it to see how they interact. And funny enough, this also boosts my potential for creativity. Once I became aware of and familiar enough with the ways creativity works it was just a matter of replicating known efficient methods.
One of the traits I remember exhibiting quite strongly during childhood was in accounting, in the areas of finance, social interactions and property.
The most obvious behavior in my childhood was my ease at understanding maps (even if my memory for names was far below average, a necessity for geography class), with 3D crafts like origami and lego, and the various spatial perspectives and transitions present in video games.
As I grew up I realized I had a talent for learning and tinkering with things, and I did very well with mechanics, math and engineering. I was the best in my class at handling kinematics and 2D and 3D modeling. Conversely, I was the worst at picking up calculus. Rather than learning it as an operation with rules, I had to seek out the more geometric origins of it before it finally clicked.
That being said, my memory regarding spatial cognition is only a little above average, so in that regard I'm definitely not at savant levels... but I'm fine with that. Memory extinctioning is important for evolving new and more complex ideas, not to mention fueling the desire for novelty and new information, a necessity for better understand the world around us. I do remember places I've traveled very very well, though.
Fineprint: I'm basing my 'ranking' by contrasting my self awareness against the observable behavior of others, which of course has it's limits. As such, I have no idea where exactly my 'ranking' lays aside from being secure in the knowledge that it is above average. As far as guesses go, within the bracket of above average I'm very likely not in the bottom quarter, and very unlikely to be top quarter (though still possible). Not sure elsewise.
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Thank you deeply for sharing your experiences. I don't feel so alone anymore.
I've had ECT since and I can't do it anymore.
I have an autistic friend who can play classical piano. She just makes it up right there and it always sounds good.
One of my friends dropped maths in high school because she was too good at it. She'd just look at an equation and solve it in her head without being able to show how. The teachers were constantly accusing her of cheating.
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None . Some people think im savant just because i always have to know, i'll research something untill i understand it its just the way i am. I'm also above average in history and science because i've always had interrests in that area.
However there are also somethings i'm not good at like math. especially if i miss instructional time no matter how much i try to teach myself i just can't.
Rexi
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Joined: 3 Sep 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,388
Location: "I know there's nothing we can do. But my heart can't accept it." "If this is real, then I want to change the future."
I've had ECT since and I can't do it anymore.
I have an autistic friend who can play classical piano. She just makes it up right there and it always sounds good.
One of my friends dropped maths in high school because she was too good at it. She'd just look at an equation and solve it in her head without being able to show how. The teachers were constantly accusing her of cheating.
That's exactly what happened to my ex. Although I'm not sure if she dropped maths. Is it possible to drop maths without repercussions?
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My Pepe Le Skunk. I have so much faith in our love for one another. Thanks for being an amazing partner. x
Any topic, PM me; mind my profile.
When I was almost 4 years old, I figured out, on my own, how to play the piano by ear, melodies at first, then chords. This happened at around the same time I finally got around to learning to walk and talk.
My musical skills never reached prodigy level or professional level, but were certainly well beyond those of the vast majority of kids.
I also have well-above-average math skills and general analytical skills.
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Now that's something----not being able to walk until 4 years of age.
I walked at the "normal" age, but didn't talk until age 5 1/2.
I believe I might have had some sort of "savant skill" at one time----but these skills might have become sublimated through my adaptations to the "normal" world.