Delving Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant
Terence M. Aud
Florida State College at Jacksonville

Delving Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant Unravelling the mind of an autistic savant is a difficult task. The cause and cure of savant syndrome is still unknown. How is it possible to understand an autistic savant without a cause or remedy? New technology, research, education, and observation is the only way to get a closer glimpse of understanding this fascinating syndrome.
An autistic savant (also known as savant syndrome) is someone that has overall sublevel intelligence with outstanding ability in an exclusive area. The first known person diagnosed as an autistic savant was in 1751. Only ten percent of the individuals declared to be …show more content…
Regardless of the elite skill, immense memory is continually linked to savant syndrome. Calendar calculating and musical skill can not be tied to superior memory skills found in all autistic savants (Hermelin, 2001). Some savants are shown to have eidetic imagery, which is the ability to retain an accurate, detailed visual image of a complex scene or pattern, while others are not (Kennedy & Squire, 2007). Eidetic imagery is considered to be more from brain damage than savant syndrome (Donnelly, n.d.).
Forms of Savant Syndrome
Savant syndrome comes in two forms, genetic or procured. Most autistic talents transpire during childhood and adolescence with an overshadowing learning disability discovered at childbirth. In some instances, savant skills do not emerge until someone has a neuro injury, or disease later in life (Treffert, 1989). Some studies have shown that elderly people with frontal temporal dementia acquire savant skills (Miller et al. 2000). With these findings, damage to the central nervous system could be a key variable of savant syndrome. (Fabricius, T.