Essay On Savants

Immense knowledge and expertise is something that everyone spends their whole lives gaining, but for some it comes much easier than others. In the case of savants, their special skills are often far superior to any skills of normal people and have amazed the world to this day. Through years of study since the first documented case, researchers have come to understand the enhanced perceptions and pattern usage, relations to autism and differing types of abilities that is present savant syndrome enough to recognize certain patterns and distinctions these extraordinary people display.

In his book Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, Ronald J. Comer features an informational box discussing savant syndrome. A savant is specified as “a person with a major mental disorder or intellectual handicap who has some spectacular ability” (Comer, 2014, p. 461). A variety of savant abilities have been recorded including incredible memorizing, counting, and mathematical calculations. Individuals commonly perform tasks such as calendar calculating, which is quickly determine the day of the week of a future date, or replicating a musical piece perfectly only having listened to it one time. A few theories give different ideas of the origin of savant abilities. Some suggest unique cognitive functioning contributing to abilities, while others propose they are rather the constructive aspect of other cognitive shortfalls, as savants often experience a level of autism as well. I chose this box because the things savants can do amaze me and I am very interested in learning more about the syndrome and how their brain may function differently from that of an average human being allowing them to do such remarkable things.

Dr. David A. Treffert, a clinical p...

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... since it official discovery and documentation has yielded conclusions and furthered researchers’ understandings about its relations to autism, enhanced perception, usage and recognition of structured patterns, and the differing types of savant abilities. By studying individuals who have acquired abilities after injury, researchers have learned how the brain may compensate for other cognitive losses and that the specific abilities may have existed all along, but been repressed by other functioning. Savant syndrome is often, but not always observed in those also diagnosed with autism and has been found to share a similar type of enhanced perceptual functioning as autism. While more is known than what used to be, there is still much to learn about this mindboggling condition and research will continue into the future to gain a clearer understanding of savant syndrome.