Research study on savantism in ASD

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Some say that Edison lost his gift around age 40.

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit.
Genius hits a target no one else can see."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

I would bet that complacency led to Edison losing his "gift."

http://www.creativitypost.com/index.php ... human_inte

Hope that link works. For me it was comforting reading, an antidote, after a day of reading how intellectually handicapped autistic savants are. Codswallop.. an IQ scored at two standard deviations about the mean is not intellectually handicapped, it's in the ^^ 2 percent range of the scale. If that's true of me, then it's going to be true for others here too, I'm not a sole outlier...

(The only "handicap' was the intense expectation placed on me to achieve 100% all the time, every day, in whatever I did, an expectation not put on any other child in those schools, though a few others were in the same percentile range.. I felt very weighed down by the pressure to bring honour to the school by winning scholarships so that the school could take credit for its teaching achievement, with me as some kind of totem of it - somewhat hypocritically given that I was very auto-didactic from an early age).

For tonight, goodnight, over and out. I'm still processing memories and residual suppressed feelings arising from many incidents in the past.

B19, you are among the most confident Wrong Planetians around. What you have told me about yourself proves it. I understand revisiting the past (I do that every night when I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up. I can't shake it.) But, in between those distressing times, good things can happen. Here's to more good things for you!

Apparently, brains, like CPUs, can run at higher or lower frequencies. I notice that when I set a multi-hue LED to amber, and look around at things near it, it seems to flash red and green, which is the actual case. For others, it always looks amber, regardless of eye motion. However, I don't think the range is the main reason for differences in IQ. I'd estimate that what I gain in IQ I lose in EQ - I just specialized on different things. Boys herding sheep had to to a lot of counting, and had not much else to think about much of the time, which made them over-represented in the lightning calculator population.

A question for those of us interested in physics, chemistry et al.. do you think the distinctive flair shown by gifted AS scientists arises not only from their ability (gifted NT scientists have that too) but rather that the AS scientists tend first and foremost love knowledge as an intrinsic value, for its own sake, rather than primarily a means to extrinsic ends eg fame, money, status? Are the two groups (do you think) driven by different sets of core values? Or not?

A secondary question: is it possible that the "savant" group of scientists have a particular set of core values in common?

Treffert describes that intrinsic knowledge as "prodigious memorization." I don't know sciences, but I can pick up a lot of useful memorization through Treffert's "Imitation -- Improvisation -- Creation" theory.

Speaking for myself as a one-time savant; fame, money, and status are all very inconvenient and distracting if one's share is much above average. Establishing a physical fact is a real accomplishment, unlike social success, which can be pure illusion.
See the video by the guy who invented Bitcoin - he only went public to chase the speculative reporters away from his group so they could get back to work. Also, Robert Persig has a fine rant on "the Temple of Knowledge" in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

First question: I was always interested in obtaining knowledge, going back as far as I can remember. To me, it is the most important pursuit that I do, even above teaching others what I have learned. For one to become a great teacher, one must also be a great learner of the subject matter at hand.

In my area of science, we have a duty to keep up with what is currently reported to be in the scientific literature. Unfortunately, many of my coworkers do not do this regularly enough. I will ask them questions about certain advancements and they will almost always answer me that they were not aware of it. They have a knowledge gap that does get transferred to their students over time. My graduate school advisor told my research group that we should be reading at least two full scientific articles a day in our area. I have tried to stick to that rule, not to please him, but for my own knowledge base. My coworkers that are behind the times basically have given up learning new material since they consider their Ph.D. (and their postdoc work) the end to what they had to know. These are the same people that are allowed to do research, yet due to my non-tenure track position, I am not. I see it as quite sad really. They are shortchanging their research students and that will have implications when they go on to graduate school.

Another piece to this answer has to do with the way that people are taught in graduate school. Most grad students in chemistry start working on an established research project under a professor who guides them on doing the work. They then put their twist on the project, publish a few papers and then defend it to graduate. Unfortunately, I did not have that luxury, as my advisor was a new professor who had no established research projects to work from. So, when I started there, I had to work with what was out in the chemical literature to develop one. It was this that allowed me to think more creatively than most on my research projects. The first three that we developed failed, but the one I developed alone worked. The real reason why I created that project was that I saw a missing piece in the scientific literature and wanted to fix the knowledge gap. It just so happens that it does have certain applications that are potentially useful to others. I was happy that it got published in my dissertation that others can potentially see and use for those applications.

I got a lot of flak from other graduate students that my project was not a "money maker" for the department or "grant funded" by a big government department. I told them that some of the greatest advances in science never involved money, but a need to fix a problem. They seemed to be clueless about that.

Would I want money, fame, etc from my work? No, I would be happy to have just enough to pay my bills (especially my student loans) and to exist as I am. I have no need to be famous. It would be good if some of my work would get exposure though, as I would like to see what others can develop from it and push the knowledge base further for everyone. I am happy if one of my students goes on and becomes rich/famous though in science. That means that I did my job well in transferring knowledge to them.

As for most of the other scientists that I graduated with, some of them are in it for the money and fame. While teaching does not usually pay well until you get to the ivy league level, it can pay in industry and certain national lab positions. I know of quite a few scientists that only brag about how many papers they publish per year and how many times they get cited by others as a means to measure their work. It seems to be a $%^# measuring contest sometimes. I never have felt the need to do so, whether or not I had my research published. This group tends to be ones who try to keep up with the literature only enough for them to do what they need to for their job. They tend to feel that they are at the top of the chemical world and can already see what everyone else is doing.

Question two: I do not know the full answer to this question. For that, I would have to know more people. Maybe would be my best guess. It could be possible that what you propose is the true case.

^^@ QuantumChemist. What I see you describing, especially when you're talking fame and economics, is the common social disconnect between NT and autistic, regardless of savantism or not. In an intellectual realm the autistic will focus in on where the problem resides and work from there, the NT will see where the social gratification lies and work from there. In essence, the two groups are working towards completely different goals even if they're in the same industry/profession, etc. If you were to ask NTs why they're studying chemistry the likely reply is: to get a good job. That's the primary motivation, if not the sole motivation. If you were to ask an autistic that question the answer would most likely be a variation of finding truth vs untruth (our black and white thinking), honing their knowledge base, or a derivative of 'special interest' fascination and the 'good job' would be a secondary motivator, if mentioned at all.

^^@Aristophanes. Yes, that is how I perceive the issue.

"Publish or Perish" may arise because there are so many people in academia who only have time and comprehension for raw statistics. I too had trouble because my work was not a "money maker" for corporations, but more of an opportunity for local independence. I think that the world is badly hobbled by generally implementing the ideas of the best promoters, rather than the best innovators. Success in most creative fields is 10% merit, 90% timing, and also requires a competent ad-hoc team with a common goal.

I really wish some of those "experts" trying to get Aspies to imitate NTs would instead try teaching NTs how to spot real talent and how to partner up with it. To me, a "good job" is one where I can make a contribution to something I believe in, without having to worry about other stuff, like food and shelter, and is more interesting than any available entertainment. The rest of the company should help select projects that fit the current economy, and deal with the paperwork.

I think it would be immensely interesting - though obviously impossible to know - how many "hidden savants" there are, the ones who know (as I and others here knew) but are very anxious that others don't know.

I had various reasons for hiding. I feared that I would be labelled a freak in music, a cheat in maths, and attract nasty expressions of envy generally, claims that I didn't deserve the high marks because I wasn't normal (granted, I wasn't "normal"). I experienced anger and envy from other students "she doesn't attend lectures often, she doesn't study, it's not fair that she wins the prizes".

Music caused me the most approbation. Because I played music in both savant mode (these were the performances deemed "absolutely flawless" that I performed in a kind of flow state trance of which I was unaware) or 'normal' mode - conscious attention to the sheet music and keyboard, the mixed outcomes of the latter affected by mood, energy, emotional discomfort eg often forced to perform for visitors I didn't like and didn't want to play for, so that my parent figures could take credit for it -and during the latter I would make 'normal' mistakes which were perceived by the parent musician as wilful episodes of noncompliance (they weren't, but he didn't know that).

I did try once to explain to him that there were two different states of consciousness that I played music in, and that I had no choice about which would be available to me on any day. I couldn't "choose" to be in or out of savant mode, I couldn't always perform to the standard of absolute flawlesslessness. His response was terrifying anger, (and complete misunderstanding) - I was lazy, I didn't practice consistently, I did it to hurt and disappoint him, I was breaking his heart on purpose. The wounds of those words are still with me, buried inside. Tension grew between us until I was 15 years old, and at that point I made a decision to never touch a keyboard again, and never have. At his death many decades later he apparently said that I had broken his heart because of that. It broke mine too. Or perhaps it just cracked it, like a crazed piece of porcelain. I visualise my heart like that, riddled with a million cracks from misunderstandings, painful solitary hurt that became so entwined with my savant ability that I wanted those faculties to go away. I wanted to be ordinary. I wasn't thankful for my gifts, I came to hate them and wrapped them up in secret shame.

PS Very briefly, at 12 and 13, I was suddenly able to draw buildings very quickly and accurately, without trying, during art lessons at school. The teacher was impressed, encouraging, affirming, but did not pressure me in any way. For some reason I could never do it again, in later years, whether I tried or not.

So for me the savantist episodes were set apart, they were a different state of operating consciousness. I often wonder about Hawking, Turing and others, did they too know they have access to to different states, and hid the savant mode from sight, because they were already outsiders and did not want this negativity around them to increase. I have a thousand thoughts and questions and feelings, because I have hidden and bottled them up for so long, and now they are surfacing. It is a painful process though a healing one too, as I rip the covers off old unhealed wounds and expose them to daylight.

In reading through Treffert's writings (and paying close attention to his statistical evidence of savants), it appears that most savants in the world enjoy little to no public attention. For example, the Wikipedia.org category titled Autistic savants lists just 20 individuals while the Wikipedia.org article titled Savant syndrome mentions Treffert's 2010 registry of "319 known savants." I understand that there are valid reasons why 299 of Treffert's "known savants" might not be included among the various Wikipedia.org articles. But, it might also suggest an underlying intentional absence from public attention.

So, I wonder: Do savants suffer professional and social burnout at higher rates? Or, like many popular "one trick ponies" who end up fading away from memory, are they simply supplanted by others willing to attempt becoming the next iconic representation of prodigious skills?

AspieUtah, this may seem churlish on my part, but I don't want my experience of savantism to be defined by an NT psychiatrist, no matter how long he has observed savants, no matter how many theories he has devised. This means very little to me, as an observer knows nothing of lived experience in any real sense. To use a crude analogy, there was a time when gayness was subject to definitions imposed on gay people by heterosexual psychiatrists, as well all know - they were characterised as "inverts", mentally ill, their sexuality was marginalised out from who they were ("splinter sexuality"), as a deviancy, as an inferiority, as an abnormality, as a stigma, and the othering in society was driven and reinforced by the failure of psychiatrists to understand that gayness was not deviance, but a natural human variation. Psychiatrists emphasise that savants are "freaks" just as they once stigmatised gays as freaks. It caused pain and damage and enabled horrific treatments to occur, which were unhelpful and intensely harmful.

The way savants have been stigmatised by psychiatrists is an analogue to the way that all ASD people have been stigmatised by psychiatrists.

So my view is that the dimensions of savantism will only emerge when savants take control of the narrative and challenge the dominant discourses. I am interested in the dominant discourses posted here in links only because of their failure to account for the diversity in savantism, just as the dominant discourses of ASD fail to account for the diversity in AS spectrum people.

I want to generate our own theories, and it is going to need some big imaginative leaps in the first instance, which I hope will occur.

Another issue that concerns me with the dominant discourse is that it is uses tautology as explanation, and there are huge flaws in that, which perhaps Aristophanes can enlighten us on, as he is skilled in that area of analysis. Furthermore, the dominant narrative of the "experts" is corrupted by reductionism to an extreme degree. That's the kind of scientific practice that doesn't let much light in, but it is useful for reputation builders, the kind that QuantumChemist was referring to.

B19, thanks for many interesting posts and a new word - autodidactic. That would be me all through life - read it, know it, use it, expand it. I agree with the worrisome trend of "narrowing" of everything from defining ASD in the DSM manuals to life in general. That's why I never joined MENSA - lack of diversity in general (although at age 17 I described it as "a lousy place to meet women.") I've consciously tried to steer my interests into areas that would strengthen my social skills as well as satisfy my own technological needs since I was 13, knowing that something was different about me but not knowing what it was until I was 40. I had the narrow focus to obsess with a single subject, but the awareness to know when to diversify and when to quit. It's probably the only thing that saved me from a life of aloneness and misery.