Do you have Savant-like Abilities?

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Well, your Aspie-related mode of thinking has a lot to do with it. I write fiction and am able to think in complete scenes (with 'actors' I invent in my head) and examine it from all angles. Like you described, ideas will seemingly come to me of nowhere. But they do, in fact, come from somewhere - the right side of your brain, the part that controls all creative/spatial functions. Writers and artists tend to be more right-brained than most people and they can often be such visionaries that people come to revere them for having the ability to communicate their unique view of the world around them.

I can't say I'll ever be a respected/revered visionary, but I do know I view life a lot differently than most people and I'm able to write it down in terms others can understand. If you want to know where inspiration comes from, look to the right side of your brain, which is probably more dominant than your left side. Are you good at math? Most right-brained people (AS or NT) are not great at it. I'm downright lousy at math concepts. Mathematics is more of a left-brained function (as is speech and verbal expression). A good writer is strongly right-brained but also able to draw heavily on the left side to articulate the imagery that the right side gives them. Artists have the same ability.



I also love the sound of words. It's hard to explain, but I've always seen words more as shapes/symbols that induce vivid imagery in my mind rather than a string of letters that are spoken inside my head. This can be a savant-like talent. I'd vernture a guess that many or all of the great writers were savants in some way. Truman Capote, John Steinbeck, Franz Kafka, Somerset Maugham (just to name a few) had great vision and were able to convey their unique worldview to others through the written word. Contrazry to popular belief, this isn't a 'learned' ability. anyon can 'write,' but writing well is another thing altogether. Writing well isn't an acquired skill - you either have talent or you don't. If you make good money doing what you love to do, then chances are you definitely have a talent you were born with. You're also lucky, because there are a lot of people out there who wish they could have the same ability.

Best wishes,

J

This is me too. I only learn quickly at things I'm really interested in though. I don't think I've ever had a job even that I've learned quickly in because I wasn't really interested. It was just something I had to do to survive. If I could go back to school I think I would thrive in Computer Programming but I've missed the boat on that one, but I've thought about going back but at my age I just don't know if it's worth it.

I have some savant abilities. I can learn incredibly fast. Hearing/reading/seeing something once is usually enough for me to remember it and know how to do it. I can easily learn 100 new foreign words per hour. I can do complicated things after watching someone else do them once. When I was a student new teachers used to ask me all the time whether I had studied the subject before, because they saw how easy it was for me.

I can do many things really fast, especially on the computer. I used to work closely with the bosses of a large IT company and they were amazed with how fast I could get things done in their new, ground breaking system that I had only had a short time to learn how to use (and I was one of very few employees who had no education or prior experience in the IT field). I finished something in 1 hour that another much more experienced person usually needed 8 hours to do.

I can occasionally make a living playing skill games for cash. I don't know how much of this could have been learned otherwise though, since I have played games all my life. But after I'm into a game I've always been able to see the mechanics that others fail to recognize. On my favorite cash game right now, I actually visualize part of the gameboard that's not revealed yet. I also get banned from Quake III and Counterstrike servers because my twitch style looks like a bot people use to cheat.

I get banned on cash sites too, either for making too much or for suspected cheating.

I just watched Rainman for the first time a few days ago. Even though there was a lot of fiction, the casino scenes had me smiling.

I'm also inventive. I will wake up with an idea, and sit in bed and expand it in my head. Sometimes I build stuff, most times I start to and never finish. Too bad we have accumulated years worth of inventions and there's really no place for my ideas. But it's still fun. If only I was a few hundred years younger.

I can learn a subject fast. If someone mentions something I know nothing about, I will read and read and read, and the next time I see them I'll have information above their level. Out of habit.

I beat portal in the first try under 30 minutes ( without assistance), and alot of people on the forums spend 30 min on each one if that counts.
I can find typos and grammatical errors in already published books, and I randomly know what colors to mix in order to create the right one

I'm a supertaster too. And I do the thing with math in my head. Teachers always thought I was cheating.

If Doug Savant does something silly do they call him Idiot Savant (pun intended)

I have a rather savant-like gift with stastics/probability.

If there's no pressure on me, I can predict soccer scores with unerring accuracy.

But the slightest bit of pressure (like someone placing bets based on my prediction) throws it out completely.

For instance, in the last soccer World Cup, I watched the first six games with friends and correctly predicted the scores of every single one (and a lot of the games were high scorers).

I have to watch the game for two to ten minutes - but that's all it requires.

I can do it for any game, league or cup.

Weird, huh ?

Greetings, I'm from the useless facts department. I remember all kinds of stupid little things in the world around me that no one else notices/cares about or will ever benefit from knowing.

There are approximately 1128 ceiling tiles in the main floor atrium of my high school
106 in the student council office
107 in my doctor's office
20 large orange ceiling tiles in the conference room of the University I go to
12 visible slanted lights behind Gilbert Grissom's desk in his office (CSI reference)
353000 is the population shown on the welcome board into London Ontario
118 ridges on a dime
117 on a quarter
Lions are colour-blind
The people who discovered the platypus checked to see if it were sewn together
Platypus and the echidna are the only two mammals on God's green earth that lay eggs (their babies drink milk once they hatch)
Digos are not indigenous to Australia, they are dogs that were brought over by settlers/explorers likewise with rabbits, mice and goats
The orca is not a whale, but the largest breed of dolphin (you would not believe how many people get absolutely indignant when you tell them that -like their whole world hinges on orcas being whales)
Only five breeds of sharks are actually reputable man-eaters (great white, tiger, bull and whit-tip -though I think hammerheads are also quite dangerous too)
The actor who plays Danny Messer (CSI New York) is the only person to have a roll in all the CSI series (Once as a gangster in CSI Las Vegas, Danny Messer in New York and in a crossover episode with Miami.)
In the desert it can rain, but the water sometimes evaporates before it hits the ground -this is called Virga

No.

No. I have a better memory than most people, but definitely not at the "memorize an encyclopedia" savant level.

I'm mildly gifted with computers, but it's nowhere near savant level abilities.

Well I achieved a grade A* in GCSE Statistics in year 8 so thats 3 years early, then grade A* in GCSE Maths in year 9 (2 years ealry), and a grade A in A-level Maths (A2, not just AS) in year 11 (2 years early).

I'm also good at physics and anything to do with computers. I have an intuitive understanding of comptuers and I have made many computers before.

I'm 17 at the moment, and eagerly awaiting my AS-Level results, which are coming out tomorrow!

EDIT: Just got my results! 4 grade A's, with full UMS marks for Physics and Chemistry.

Last edited by m91 on 14 Aug 2008, 8:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have an amazing ability to write fluently and beautifully I've been told. I can also understand languages after only a limited exposure.

Yes, if that matters. I am cognitively gifted and a HFA. Savant abilities are supposedly rare, however, I suspect under-reported is the case. I flash count, math/science oriented (comes in flashes), draw as if there's a camera in my head, eidetic memory. I suppose that counts, yes?

Yes I think so