Something you guys should know (savant skills)

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I enjoyed the article too. It gave me another vantage point.

Without knowing your I.Q, I believe THAT your ability qualifies you as a savant. Why? Because what you are able to do, would be considered spectacular in a 'normal non-autist". The term for your ability is called calender calculating which is one of the more common forms of savant skills.



TheSunAlsoRises

I'm pretty sure most of the record holders (yes believe it or not people gather from all over the world to do this) are NTs and are not considered savants. In general the people who are considered savants are below normal IQ and have a memory component like remembering the weather for a particular date. On the other hand, I don't give a crap what the weather was like or what happened that day, I just like the rocking feeling of coming to the answer.

Since writing that post, it has been happening more often. I think I reawakened my desire to do this, maybe that is what turned it off, that I didn't want to be able to do it anymore. I think I'm going to try and cultivate it again, but I'm not really sure what the best way to do that would be... any suggestions?

*These are two types of memory involved. While there are many exceptions, from what i gather IS THAT those on the spectrum rely primarily on eidetic memory(as best as it can be defined) rather than mnemonic strategies which a number of non-Autistics appear to use in-order to enhance memory performance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory

*What I gather about savant syndrome IS THAT it is primarily found in those with developmental disabilities (inclusive of HFA/Aspergers). This means an individual can have a high I.Q and be considered a savant, Daniel Tammet comes to mind.

* There is a such thing as an Acquired Savant. This simply means a person who had no previous (splinter to exceptional) talent acquires an ability through accident or disease. In Acquired savantism, a developmental disability IS NOT a requirement.

*In my opinion, an acquired savant by definition could be looked upon as an acquired genius(when there is no disability present). This makes (The)Savant Syndrome concept a bit more interesting (when applied to non-autists); anecdotal evidence suggests what Dr. Treffert believes(is true) which is... dormant potential may lie in all of US.

http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/ ... estions#q1

What is savant syndrome?

Savant Syndrome is a rare, but spectacular, condition in which persons with various developmental disorders, including autistic disorder, have astonishing islands of ability, brilliance or talent that stand in stark, markedly incongruous contrast to overall limitations. The condition can be congenital (genetic or inborn), or can be acquired later in childhood, or even in adults. The savant skills co-exist with, or are superimposed upon, various developmental disabilities including autistic disorder, or other conditions such as mental retardation or brain injury or disease that occurs before (pre-natal) during (peri-natal) or after birth (post-natal), or even later in childhood or adult life. The extraordinary skills are always linked with prodigious memory of a special type — exceedingly deep but very, very narrow.


What are the typical savant skills?

Particularly striking is the consistent observation also over this past century that savant skills typically, and curiously, are generally confined to only about five general areas of expertise — music, art, lightning calculating or other mathematical skills, calendar calculating and mechanical/spatial skills. This very limited, but spectacular, array of special skills is noteworthy considering the much wider palette of skills in the human repertoire, and the rarity of the obscure skill of calendar calculating in the general population, which seems an ability almost universal, innately so, among savants.

Music is the generally the most common savant skill-usually playing piano by ear and almost always with perfect pitch. Other percussion instruments such as marimba or drums can be mastered as well, but much less frequently. Musical performance abilities predominate, but outstanding composing skills have been documented as well, most often linked to performance ability, but not necessarily so. The triad of mental disability, blindness and musical genius occurs with a curious, conspicuous frequency in reports over this past century, particularly when one considers the relative rarity of each of those circumstances individually.

Artistic talent, usually painting or drawing, is seen next most frequently. Other forms of artistic talent can occur as well, such as sculpting. Lightning calculating or other mathematical skills, such as the ability to compute multi-digit prime numbers contrasted with the inability to perform even simple arithmetic, has often been reported. Mechanical ability, constructing or repairing intricate machines or motors for example, or spatial skills such as intricate map and route memorizing, or being able to compute distances with precise accuracy just from visualization, do occur, but are seen somewhat less frequently.

Calendar calculating is curiously and conspicuously common among savants, particularly considering the rarity of that obscure skill in the general population. Beyond being able to name the day of the week that a date will occur on in any particular year, calendar calculating includes being able to name all the years in the next 100 in which Easter will fall on March 23rd, for example, or all the years in the next 20 when July 4 will fall on a Tuesday. The so-called 'calculating twins' reported extensively in the literature, have a calendar calculating span of over 40000 years backward or forward in time. They also remember the weather for every day of their adult life.

Other skills are occasionally seen including multilingual acquisition ability or other unusual language (polyglot) skills, exquisite sensory discrimination in smell or touch, perfect appreciation of passing time without access to a clock face, or outstanding knowledge in specific fields such as neurophysiology, statistics, history or navigation, to name a few. While always controversial, there have been some reports of extra-sensory perception skills occurring in savants as well.

Typically a particular one of these skills occurs singly in each person with savant syndrome. However in some instances multiple skills occur in the same person. Regardless of the type of skill, it is always combined with prodigious memory, and it is this special kind of memory-extraordinarily deep but very, very narrow — that cuts across all the various special skills and welds the condition of savant syndrome together.

TheSunAlsoRises

Continue


http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/ ... estions#q8

What is the relationship of savant syndrome to IQ?

When Dr. Down originally named the condition idiot savant, he linked its name with a classification of IQ of less than 25, but almost all reported cases have occurred in persons with an IQ above 40. However a low measured IQ score, or 'mental retardation' either as a symptom or separate disorder, is not what determines whether a person is or is not a savant. Instead the term savant syndrome encompasses a number of different mental disabilities including, but not limited to, the separate disorder of mental retardation itself. When applied to savant syndrome, the term 'mental disability' can include disorders as Autism, Asperger's, Hyperlexia or Williams Syndrome, for example. In some of these persons measured IQ can be normal or even superior, although when that is the case, usually the IQ sub-scores show a wide scatter among the various sub-tests that make up the overall IQ test battery with some sub-tests showing severe limitations and other showing extremely high scores. Thus a low IQ score, while often present in savant syndrome, is not necessarily the case in all instances, and it is not a finding essential or requisite to savant syndrome. Some savants do score in the normal or superior range on commonly used IQ tests, or at least on some of the sub-tests that make up the overall IQ test battery.

IQ is a measure of so-called 'general intelligence'. While some scatter is common in most persons on the sub-tests of the IQ test battery, sub-test scores do tend to cluster in certain ranges for a given individual producing, when averaged, an overall 'general' intelligence score, or IQ. That IQ score does tend to be correlated with a general level of overall intellectual functioning. But the very wide scatter of abilities seen in some savants on the IQ sub-scores, which is much more pronounced than in most persons, has raised the question of whether it would be more accurate to view all persons as a series of multiple intelligences, rather than having what has been designated general intelligence, or IQ. Indeed some investigators view savants as refuting the notion of 'general intelligence' and argue, instead, that each of us have multiple intelligences and testing & measurement of "IQ" in all persons should be revised to reflect that reality.

Further, in viewing 'mental retardation' one needs to differentiate between 'actual' retardation (measured IQ below 70) and 'functional' retardation. The latter can occur in someone with seemingly normal or even superior intellectual capacity whose mental disability, from whatever etiology, causes them to function at a much lower level over all than one might expect from estimated or even measured IQ. It is not uncommon to see some autistic persons, for example, function at a superior level in some areas such as mathematics, verbal skills or memory, but be so severely disabled in other areas so as to 'function' at much lower level overall. The present IQ sub-tests, such as digit span, for example, are not sufficiently tailored to realistically assess certain areas of superior function in savants, and do need to be revised and tailored accordingly to be able to get a true measure of savant capabilities for comparative studies in the area of 'intelligence'.

In summary, measured IQ levels in savant syndrome most often are below 70. However while savant syndrome can occur in persons where Mental Retardation is the basic CNS disorder, savant syndrome can also be seen in persons with IO's below 70 as a finding or symptom where the basic developmental disorder is instead Autism, Asperger's, Hyperlexia, PDD or Williams Syndrome, for example, or a number of other conditions following CNS injury or disease. While it is true that in most persons with savant syndrome measured IQ is below 70, savant syndrome includes a number of mental disorders in which IQ function, in scattered areas of functioning at least, can be normal or even superior. In short, savant syndrome is not synonymous with, nor limited to mental retardation, and in some persons with savant syndrome IQ can be in the normal, or even superior range.


TheSunAlsoRises

I read somewhere THAT the abilities either stay the same or increase; rarely are they lost. My hunch was THAT you were too old to have lost your abilities. I have only come across one or two(in savant literature) who lost their abilities and they were young children.

I believe your abilities can be tied to your emotional state. The tone of your post is different; it seems to me THAT you have found a degree of closure.

(1)

This is one way:
You can keep a diary of when and where your abilities often occur? What type of math problems, do you most often-times solve (basic math to calculus) ?Any numbers THAT are easier for you to manipulate than others ( are 2 and 4 easier to work with than 1 and 3) ? Your emotional state i.e do you perform better when angry or calm ?

Etc, Etc
---------------------------------------------


(2)
This is another way

You can just let it happen, don't question IT. Simply embrace it..........

(3)

A combination of (1) and (2)

* Just my opinions and should be taken as such

TheSunAlsoRises

That was a REALLY good post Sun. I guess why I don't see someone like myself in the savant category is in this paragraph:

I don't know what day Easter will fall on because I never really cared. I also probably couldn't tell you what the weather was last week let alone 10 years ago. People like Daniel Tammet (sp?) are in a completely different league. His abilities revolve around synesthesia (again SP?) and this is more in line with what I consider a savant.

There are many different methods to arriving at the day for a particular date and even people with an IQ of 60 will have different strategies. I'm still on the fence about whether calendar calculation by itself, without other abilities such as weather memory for example, should even be considered a savant skill.

One thing I've found REALLY odd when I've read about this subject is that people find large year spans unusual, like the 40000 year twins and this guy ---> http://www.trendite.net/2008/09/07/calendar-man-mareesh-takes-only-45-seconds-to-set-new-perpetual-calendar-world-record/. I just can't fathom why people would find it more difficult to find a day in the year 92510 than a day in the year 2110. Makes absolutely no sense to me.

My advice to you would be to just start playing with a calendar and look for the patterns. That's how I started as a kid.

I feel very much like this about them, although without the feeling like a fraud part, it just feels weird to get complements on something that comes very naturally to me. I don't feel like a fraud, but I don't feel like I deserve compliments. And I strive for -perfection- with many things, so I definitely identify with not being satisfied with results.

My main obsession is music. On top of having absolute pitch (the ability to distinguish notes and chords without outside reference), I can tell you, without thinking about it, every single note of any of the 7 western musical modes, as well as any other modes (scales) I know, in any key. On a bass or guitar (any stringed instrument really, as long as you tell me the tuning), I can also tell you the fingerings for all these scales for the entire fingerboard/fretboard, all the way up and down.

I learn new instruments very fast. In a day I was able to improvise on the ocarina (12 hole - I've never played 4 hole or any of the others). In an hour I already had all the fingerings and their corresponding notes down, as well as knowing that my air pressure affected the correctness of the note (and also that my ocarina wasn't perfectly in tune, but that's from absolute pitch). I've only played piano for 2.5 years, and I'm already better than all the piano players I know personally (many who have played for almost their entire lives).

I also remember songs I hear very easily, in good detail, for a long time. For example, I once heard a song that a friend wrote, just once, and then 3 months later, heard another song he wrote, and I noticed that the last three notes were the main motif in his other song, and mentioned that to him. He didn't even realize it, but he went and played the older song, and sure enough, it was the same three notes, not just in relation to each other but the exact same three notes in the same pattern.

I could go on and on. But the thing is, to me, all of these things seem -terribly- obvious. I don't feel like I've done anything worthy of notice because it's all just so obvious and easy and natural. Then when I show people things, they try like, once or twice, and give up! Of course you're not going to play it when you give up so easily! They just give up and say "I can't do that."

As far as IQ goes, I'm above average. I do not consider myself a savant. I also certainly -never- call myself a savant - I also never say I have savant skills or savant-like skills. I don't like talking about what I can do - I'm a very modest person, and I don't want it to seem like I am bragging.

Interesting.

It's a different cognitive style....... that exist across the spectrum.

TheSunAlsoRises

I'm like you in this sense, except for the above average IQ. I've never even told my parents about my fixation with calendars and numbers. My therapist doesn't know. My friends never knew, not that I have any or ever did have many. I've just kept it hidden for 35 years. I'm just glad I've found people (WP) that understand me, sort of.

You know TBH I can't even remember now why I made this thread. I just remember it was something not obvious in the thread that I would bring up later but for the life of me I can't remember what it was now

You have a valid question since one can become proficient at this ability........BUT i'm thinking THAT speed, lack of prior exposure, and inability to explain 'how' you arrive at an answer figures into the the savant concepts.

You make an excellent point. Calender calculating with the ability to give the weather on a particular day raises the standard BUT the standard is based on non-autistics abilities.<<-this should be repeated 3 more times for emphasis

TheSunAlsoRises

You followed your instincts and found no need to tell anyone .....

I think instincts are a good thing.....

TheSunAlsoRises

I identify with the "inability to explain 'how' you arrive at an answer" bit. I often will do something, then someone will ask me how I did it, and I can't explain how I do it - I just do it - so that's what I tell them. It's very much like doing something EXTREMELY obvious or easy to the point of automation, like reading, or walking, or going up to a door and realizing that you must turn the handle and push/pull to get through.

What i have highlighted above is a reoccurring theme on this thread..................

So, for the sake of argument, let's make a leap in theory ............ with a simple question.

Let's look at the question: How do you do IT ? Non-Autists (I am talking about those with extensive scientific knowledge in their respective fields, also) can NOT answer this simple question(as it pertains to themselves) IF IT concerns something THAT is done instinctually.

So, what is instinctual (so-called savant abilities) to the Autist is not necessarily so with non-Autists and vice versa.

Components of social interaction(as one example) are instinctual to the non-Autist BUT not necessarily so in regards to the Autist.

IF these abilities are spread throughout the Autism spectrum(which i suspect they are) in large numbers and different degrees; it looks to me as IF this is simply a different cognitive phenotype.

TheSunAlsoRises