He then presented 10 cases of persons with ‘special faculties’ that read exactly similar to cases now 121 years later. In that lecture, he reflected on his 30 years as a physician at the Earlswood Hospital and described ‘an interesting class of cases for which the term ‘idiot savants’ has been given, and of which a considerable number have come under my observation’. Langdon Down gave that year's prestigious Lettsomian Lecture at the invitation of the Medical Society of London. However, the first specific description of savant syndrome took place in London in 1887 when Dr J. However, when Fuller was asked how many seconds a man had lived who was 70 years, 17 days and 12 hours old, he gave the correct answer of 2 210 500 800 in 90 s, even correcting for the 17 leap years included ( Scripture 1891). Rush (1789), the father of American psychiatry, also provided one of the earliest reports when he described the lightning calculating ability of Thomas Fuller ‘who could comprehend scarcely anything, either theoretical or practical, more complex than counting’. The first account of savant syndrome in a scientific paper appeared in the German psychology journal, Gnothi Sauton, in 1783, describing the case of Jedediah Buxton, a lightning calculator with extraordinary memory ( Mortiz 1783). Savant syndrome, with its ‘islands of genius’, has a long history. Moreover, information about many of them, including some video clips, can be accessed on the savant syndrome website at maintained by the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation. Treffert (2006 a) described a blind, autistic musical savant who, along with her musical ability, demonstrated very precise spatial location abilities and precise time-keeping skills without access to a clock face or other time instruments.ĭetailed reports of these and many other savants dating from Down's original description of the disorder are contained in Extraordinary people: understanding savant syndrome ( Treffert 2006 a). Viscott (1969) documented in detail, including psychodynamic formulations, a female musical savant whom he followed for many years. Selfe (1978) described the case of Nadia, which has triggered considerable debate about the possible ‘trade-off’ of special skills for language and social skills acquisition. Reports of female savants continue to be relatively few. Why that rare triad of musical genius, blindness and mental handicaps should occur so consistently in the already rare condition of savant syndrome deserves very careful study. Prominent cases include Blind Tom who travelled internationally and became famous in the 1800s, Tredgold's case at the Salpetriere even earlier than that and a number of well-known present-day musical savants. The combination of blindness, mental handicap and musical genius is conspicuously over-represented throughout the reports of savant syndrome from earliest times. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows the absence of the corpus callosum along with other substantial central nervous system (CNS) damage. Of unique interest is his ability to read extremely rapidly, simultaneously scanning one page with the left eye and the other page with the right eye. He also has calendar-calculating abilities and, more recently, rather advanced musical talent has surfaced. He has also memorized the maps in the front of telephone books and can tell you precisely how to get from one US city to another, and then how to get around in that city street by street. He can name all the US area codes and major city zip codes. However, the original inspiration for the savant portrayed in Rain man was a now 57-year-old male who has memorized over 6000 books and has encyclopedic knowledge of geography, music, literature, history, sports and nine other areas of expertise ( Peek & Hanson 2008). Without doubt, the best-known autistic savant is a fictional one, Raymond Babbitt, as portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 1988 movie Rain man.
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