Savantism

I guess it's only natural that working with kids ASD four days a week would eventually lead my interest to savant syndrome. As I've come to understand it, a person suffering from savantism seriously struggles with developmental disorder. Often these individuals are completely unable to learn to read, write, and cannot understand their incredible talents in areas like math, music, language, etc. 

Society has become most familiar with autistic savantism through Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise's 1988 Rain Man, based on Kim Peek. Though he is not actually autistic, Peek apparently has a "photographic" (eidetic) memory and thus, his mind seems an endless capacity for information. I've not actually seen the movie yet, but I'm looking forward to checking it out now that I have a little background on the syndrome. 

This article, though its credibility is questionable, has fed my interest to reading more about highly radical theories on the concept of intelligence. Like the string theory (if you have plenty of time on your hands, you should probably watch those videos, they are awesome) in physics, these theories are highly abstract and characterize intelligence as a capacity not contained within the dimensions of space and time. Whaaaat? Yeah, I know. I'm still reading about all of this and trying to grasp the concept too.

One of the students at the Chartwell Center, I believe, may have a modest savantistic ability. On the way to City Park last Thursday, Mr. Adam told me about Sami's familiarity with the calendar. If asked what the date the Thursday two weeks from now would fall on, he would tell you with no problem, other than understanding the question, that it's April 3rd. I found it strikingly similar to the amazing calendar calculation abilities described in several articles. We didn't test him on dates that were too difficult, like what day Mardi Gras would be on 2029, but I am interested in finding out how well he knows or can calculate the calendar. 

In addition to but unrelated to savantism, several different people have told me about a story called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a story written by British writer Mark Haddon from the perspective of a boy suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's falls on the autism spectrum and is characterized by empathetic social interaction, language acquisition and use abnormalities and often things like obsessive or compulsion movements or preoccupations. A lady I met on the street car one day and a friend back at UNC both recommended I read this story, and I plan to as I finish writing this. The link above is to an online copy of the book if anyone else is interested in reading it. 

There is soo much to learn about so many things in life. It's unsettling to think about how much there is to know. Here is just another topic that will obviously open doors to even more,like physics theories  and philosophies on intelligence, haha. Just something to think about.

p.s. forgive all the wikipedia links. Though they're often less credible, I think they are good places to form a basic understanding and start research on a topic. Here are some additional links:

http://encefalus.com/cognitive/amazing-brain-autistic-savant/

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

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=savants-cognition-thinking

Currently watching: Segen Max, the two-year-old drumming phenom

Currently listening to: The Beatles Let it Be