People have a better understanding of a person with savant syndrome after the movie “Rain Man” in 1988 in which Raymond Babbitt (played by Destin Hoffman). There is a scene in the movie that Raymond tells the waitress her phone number, address, and other related information. Raymond memorized the entire phonebook and immediately recognized her by her name tag. Moreover, savant people beside their mental and physical disabilities have remarkable talent. Savant syndrome is one of the most interesting phenomenons in study of human differences and cognitive psychology. In1887, Dr. J. Langdon Down was first to recognized savant syndrome. He coined the term “Idiot Savant” _ meaning low intelligent and from French, savior, Knowing or Wise …show more content…
To begin with, Derek Paravicini was born extremely prematurely, at 25 weeks. His blindness was caused by oxygen therapy given during his time in a neonatal intensive care unit. This also affected his developing brain, resulting in his severe learning disability. He also has autism. He is able to play piano only by listening to a piece of music once; his brain is perfectly programed musical computer (Extraordinary People, 2013).Moreover, although Tommy McHugh 51 was criminal and drug addict, he had a brain hemorrhage which underwent a serious surgery because both sides of his brain bleeding. But he made it. Suddenly, he began to write poetry out of his control as he put it, “The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, it was like a drug.” McHugh spent every moment painting for 19 hours a day, he painted every surface such as wall, ceiling, and floor of his home .According to a neuroscientist who has studied McHugh, the brain hemorrhage flooded his frontal lobe with blood, which is responsible for creativity. In addition, Daniel Tammet was born with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. His brain is able to reciting the number pi up to the 22,514th digit. He is also diagnosed with synesthesia that curious crossing of the senses that causes him to “hear” colors, “smell” sounds, in different shapes, and textures. Synesthesia is incredibly rare (Tammet,
Disability they have, but styles to tell are more of difference. Nancy Mairs and David Sedaris use writing to address their disability in different ways. In both Nancy Mairs “On Being a Cripple” and David Sedaris “A Plague of Tics”, both authors describe and live with their disabilities in different ways. Mairs uses her familiarity to address the reader where Sedaris recollects his habits in a somewhat humorous way. Even though both have a disability it’s conveyed in two different ways. Mairs comes straight out the gate as being cripple stating “First, the matter of semantics. I am cripple” (Cohen 259). From this point on she goes on to explain her disease which gives you an idea of what’s to come. Sedaris approach is very different as he jumps into examples throughout his childhood and never states his disability. His habits are explained as “tics” while he uses his childhood experiences to describe his disability.
In the Ted Talk, “My stroke of insight”, the speaker Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist had undergone a stroke affecting her left hemisphere. During this process she was able to experience her brain deteriorating slowly and she was able to study it. She explains how she wanted to become a brain researcher because of her brother’s brain condition, schizophrenia. During the TedTalk she also explained her whole experience, including what it felt like, her emotions, and the world around her while having a stroke as well as the difficulties that she had encountered. Jill explains this experience as a tremendous gift.
Van Gogh’s works have been deeply considered and examined to unfold the mysteries of his mental illness. It was in Arles, southern France of 1888 where Van Gogh was an accomplished artist on his own, but still not having had much notice, when his me...
Savant syndrome describes a person having a developmental or mental handicap of some sort with extraordinary mental abilities not found in most people. Christopher?s mathematical interests are reflected in his numbering his chapters strictly with prime numbers, ignoring composite numbers, such as 4 and 6. He is also the first student to take an A level in Maths and to get an A grade at his school. Christopher has a photographic memory and is extremely observant. Similarly, Raymond has an excellent memory and is able to calculate complicated mathematical problems in his head with great speed and accuracy.... ...
Autism savant is “individuals with autism who have extraordinary skills not exhibited by most people” In his case a rarity of high functional autism. Let’s analyzed the criteria for someone with autism. I will display the three criteria’s that are listed in the DSM-5 “Autism Spectrum Disorder” the first criteria is deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts. Meaning having the inability to communicate effectively with a variety of different individuals. At the custody scene the doctor asked Raymond a series of questions. The specific questions that the doctor kept asking Raymond was “Do you want to stay with your brother Charles?” Raymond was unable to make the distinction between staying with his brother or staying at the mental facility with Dr. Bruner. Raymond kept repeating the same question and rocking back and forth. Another instance is when Raymond was at the casino talking to a lady, but was unable to answer any of her questions with a direct response. As you can see he was unable to communicate effectively and engaged in a conversation beyond a few words such as “yeah, and I don’t
Talk therapy is a variety of treatments that help a person with their problems within their life including feelings, behavior, and/or thoughts. Talk therapy includes talking treatments and counseling. Talk therapies include the following: Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, Humanistic Techniques, Psychodynamic Therapy Etc. The one that would be most efficient for savant autism would be Humanistic Techniques because they focus on how the person feels about themselves, their condition, and their family. It is also coinciding with Psychodynamic and Behavioral Techniques as well. Talking therapies can be very helpful when it comes to being able to identify one’s self, one’s abilities, and acceptance of the ability.Within the movie Rain Man, I noticed how he was a middle-aged man who has been
Whilst the concept of autism and what it means to be autistic is still widely unrecognised by many, Mark Haddon’s use of conventions of prose fiction and language amplifies the distinctive qualities of the text. Haddon exemplifies key themes such as the struggle to become independent, the nature of difference and the disorder of life through the strategic placement of literary devices.
Junior was born with disabilities, because he had too much water in his brain. Doctors thought he wouldn’t survive the surgery but in fact he did he got lucky and lived. Junior loves to draw it’s his way of communicating with others. Juniors thinks that a picture can be understood by anyone because it has no words and only drawings. Junior has a best friend who he loves a lot and cares for
A 23-year-old man, named Ryan Godfrey was observed in his everyday behaviors to understand how he deals with frontal lobe damage. When he was 7 years, old the doctors discovered a grapefruit size benign meningioma tumor in his brain. After this, he had six more surgeries and his last one left him paralyzed on his left side. This was because most of his tumors were found in the right hemisphere, prefrontal cortex with his last surgery towards the premotor and motor cortex causing his paralysis. Ryan overcame being paralyzed with a desire to play basketball and video games. Today he is running sound for church, working full time and helping with student ministries. People like him can benefit from understanding the brain and its functions.
Thiele, R. (2014, July 7). Could art help us understand autism? WMUK News. Retrieved from http://wmuk.org/post/could-art-help-us-understand-autism
“The word autism still conveys a fixed and dreadful meaning to most people—they visualize a child mute, rocking, screaming, inaccessible, cut off from human contact. And we almost always speak of autistic children, rarely of autistic adults, as if such children never grew up, or were somehow mysteriously spirited off the planet, out of society. Or else we think of an autistic “savant” a strange being with bizarre mannerisms and stereotypies, still cut off from normal life, but with uncanny powers of calculation, memory, drawing, whatever—like the savant portrayed in Rain Man. These pictures are not wholly false, but they fail to indicate that there are forms of autism which do not incapacitate in the same way, but may allow lives that are full of event and achievement, and a special sort of insight and courage too” (Grandin, 12).
Therefore, there were no causal factors suggested in the film for the character’s disorder but it is generally accepted that it is caused by abnormalities in brain structure or function. Brain scans show differences in the shape and structure of the brain in children with autism compared to in neurotypical children. Researchers do not know the exact cause of autism but are investigating a number of theories, including the links between heredity, genetics, and medical problems (Autism Society)”. The movie was released in 1988 so during this time period there really wasn’t a lot known about this disorder. Towards the end of the movie, Charlie takes Raymond to a doctor in order to learn more about his condition and the doctor simply states that Raymond has autism and that, “there is really not much you can do for him other than to deal with it”. Raymond does not take any medication throughout the movie; so, the only treatment that he received, if any, is staying at the Walbrook mental Institute. If fact, members of the Walbrook Institute wanted to keep Raymond in order to learn more about him. The understanding of autism has come a long way since the release of this movie Rain Man. Some of the treatments today include medication, behavioral training and specialized therapy that includes speech, occupational, and physical therapy. “Early diagnosis and treatment help young children with autism develop to their full
An idiot savant is defined as a person who is incredibly adept at one particular skill but is completely incapable in other aspects of life such as learning, reading, writing and decision making. The term idiot savant was applied to people with this disorder in 1887 by Dr. J. Langdon Down. The term idiot savant is basically an oxymoron. "Idiot" means someone who is in a class of people with an IQ less than 25, and "savant" comes from French and literally means "learned one." People can be born idiot savants, or it can be acquired later in life, even as late as adulthood. The major mystery with idiot savants is that they don't learn the knowledge they have, they just mysteriously have it.
Aziz-Zadeh, L., Liew, S.-L., & Dandekar, F. (2013). Exploring the neural correlates of visual creativity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(4), 475–480. doi:10.1093/scan/nss021
Savant syndrome isn’t bad or harmful at all to the autistic person it is actually highly beneficial to the person and other people so there is no need for treatment for this. There have been no previous records of anyone trying to treat savant. A big benefit that Charlie had from Raymond was being able to count playing cards. Charlie taught his brother how to play black jack. After Charlie took Raymond to the casinos in Las Vegas Raymond help Charlie when a bunch of money.