Anti-Savant Skills?
Now, lets take a set of skills so that theoretically everyone has these skills and people's expertise in these skills can be numerically compared with eachother (ex. The IQ test subtest scores can define such a skill set). Each skill can then be compared with how others perform and shown how many standards of deviation they defer from the population average. That number of standards of deviation can then be assigned as number associated with the skill for that person. A persons skills can also be compared with each by comparing how many standards of deviations they defer from the population average with each other. Now, we can define a savant skill for a person in this given skill set as a skill that has the following properties: its at least one deviation above the population average (showing above average talent in that skill) and it must be two standards of deviations above the average of all the numbers in the skill set (showing that it's exceptional compared to the person's other skills). Now, we all no savantism has been researched to death, but what about the other half? With such a clean definition of a savant skill, we can easily describe an anti-savant skill as being the opposite of a savant skill: It must fall one standard of deviation below the population average, and two bellow the average of the persons other skills. Now, just because a savant skill is the opposite of an antisavant skill does not mean savantism is the opposite of anti-savantism, infact I believe the presence of savant skills increases the probability of anti-savant skills if I'm visualizing the statistics correctly, and theoritically its possible for all of someone's skills in a skill set to be either savant or anti-savant skills if such a set can have such skills. I'm going to erroneously refer to such people as Schizophrenics, as schizophrenia literally means split mind, and people lacking a corpus cavernosum or whatever that thing separating the two hemispheres of the brain is called are also now to be refered to as Schizophrenics. Anyway, I believe anti-savants describes me and a lot of other autistic people better than savantism, and I'm wondering if any research or anything has been done on this subject.
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Last edited by Ganondox on 03 Apr 2012, 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
That is not the definition of savant skills. Those were the criteria that were used for determining "Exceptional Cognitive Skills" in Howlin's study.
(i) Definition
An exceptional cognitive skill was defined as any
subtest score greater than or equal to 1 standard
deviation above the population mean on the Wechsler
IQ test and greater than or equal to 2 standard
deviations (based on population norms) above the
participant’s mean subtest score. (Mean score for
each subtestZ10, s.d.Zapprox. 3.0, depending on the
specific subtest.)
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1522/1359.full.pdf+html
What you are describing would be an 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' otherwise known as brain damage.
Let me give you an example of an 'anti-savant'---> "Dude, I can't do math for s**t!"
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Symbol Search: 7
Block Design & Visual Puzzles: 17
Average: 13.8
(standard deviation is 3, afaik)
All right, probably one subtest taken only once isn't reliable enough.
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Symbol Search: 7
Block Design & Visual Puzzles: 17
Average: 13.8
(standard deviation is 3, afaik)
All right, probably one subtest taken only once isn't reliable enough.
You would need to take an average of ALL the subtests to establish a baseline, not an avg of your best and worst scores. Sorry Ojani I don't think you qualify for 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill'. You might have qualified for the exceptional cognitive skills in this study though with your two 17s.
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Symbol Search: 7
Block Design & Visual Puzzles: 17
Average: 13.8
(standard deviation is 3, afaik)
All right, probably one subtest taken only once isn't reliable enough.
You would need to take an average of ALL the subtests to establish a baseline, not an avg of your best and worst scores. Sorry Ojani I don't think you qualify for 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill'. You might have qualified for the exceptional cognitive skills in this study though with your two 17s.
I wasn't only referring to specific sets of tests, for the purposes here I defined savant skills as being relative to some set of skills, so depending on what the skill set is defined as it may be a savant skill or not. However, what I defined as the average of the skills is not the average scores, it's the average of the divergence from population average in standards of deviation for each skill.
_________________
Cinnamon and sugary
Softly Spoken lies
You never know just how you look
Through other people's eyes
Autism FAQs http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt186115.html
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Symbol Search: 7
Block Design & Visual Puzzles: 17
Average: 13.8
(standard deviation is 3, afaik)
All right, probably one subtest taken only once isn't reliable enough.
You would need to take an average of ALL the subtests to establish a baseline, not an avg of your best and worst scores. Sorry Ojani I don't think you qualify for 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill'. You might have qualified for the exceptional cognitive skills in this study though with your two 17s.
I wasn't only referring to specific sets of tests, for the purposes here I defined savant skills as being relative to some set of skills, so depending on what the skill set is defined as it may be a savant skill or not. However, what I defined as the average of the skills is not the average scores, it's the average of the divergence from population average in standards of deviation for each skill.
The only way you have to measure skills vs. population means is with standardized tests.
So, if a calendar savant can tell you the day for any date in 5 sec and a non-savant can't what would a 'anti-savant' be? Someone who can't read a calendar at all?
Then I would have a brain damage, as I fit in the definition of 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill' as described... I guess I don't have one.
If your FSIQ were 100 you would have to score 4 or lower on a subtest to meet the criteria that the OP mentions. You sure you fit?
Symbol Search: 7
Block Design & Visual Puzzles: 17
Average: 13.8
(standard deviation is 3, afaik)
All right, probably one subtest taken only once isn't reliable enough.
You would need to take an average of ALL the subtests to establish a baseline, not an avg of your best and worst scores. Sorry Ojani I don't think you qualify for 'anti-exceptional cognitive skill'. You might have qualified for the exceptional cognitive skills in this study though with your two 17s.
'Average' is the average of all the subtests that have been administered. The number of subtests was enough to reliably measure FSIQ.
checked
checked
According to what I've read so far, low PSI (both relative and absolute) seems to be the best indicator of ASDs on IQ tests. Second to it is relatively low WMI, third is high PRI(POI).
I don't see why. I might have made some language related mistakes, though.
I wasn't only referring to specific sets of tests, for the purposes here I defined savant skills as being relative to some set of skills, so depending on what the skill set is defined as it may be a savant skill or not. However, what I defined as the average of the skills is not the average scores, it's the average of the divergence from population average in standards of deviation for each skill.
Could you elaborate on this, please?
I couldn't read it... and I debated on if I should say this but I think its an interesting topic so I will...
in Standard Deviation, the primary focus is not the standard, with the deviation being the set that the standard belongs to.
Instead the deviation is the primary focus, and standard is simply the adjective describing what sort of deviation... So you could say that the deviation of a single item with a value of 4 in a sample or population with an average of 5 has a deviation of -1, or an absolute deviation of 1.
The reason you have to explain that it is the standard deviation is because it could also be the average deviation or absolute average deviation (my personal favorite cause it's easier to explain to non-math people)
Somehow, simply by using these terms and being on the spectrum I bet you already know how to calculate it by hand :p (me too) so I am not critisizing, just explaining why I have to quote it with the proper terminology: so that I can read it...
aaaah... now I can read...
Anti-Savant huh? I guess maybe I could see that... of course you would have to rely on the testing method to really get good results but you might have something there. For me I probably fall outside of some of the definitions that you mention above for both savantism and anti savantism... so does that make me anti schizophrenic?
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Very high systematizing, low empathy, but moderate to high sympathy.
I do not experience cognitive dissonance reduction the way that other people do.
Professionally diagnosed in March 2018
WAIS subtests are scored (normed) the way an average person would score 10 (I'm not sure if it's average, maybe it's median) and the 'standard deviation' would be 3 for the (statistical) population. When you refer to the 'standard deviation' as a measuring unit, you are referring to a scale that is relative to the deviations from the mean within a statistical population. The higher this number is (absolute), the more outstanding or extraordinary an item is in that population.
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Another non-English speaking - DX'd at age 38
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam." (Hannibal) - Latin for "I'll either find a way or make one."
I am blind to dates, in one ear and out the other. No matter how hard I try to memorize or remember them, they fade away in minutes. Even now I don't know what todays date is unless I double check, and I've seen it a dozen times already today...I know it is early april because april fool's day was very recent, but not what day...I'm going to say between the 3rd and 5th. And that only probably close because of a very recent "day" landmark...
I would describe that as an anti-savant "skill". Pretty much the opposite of the calendar savant. I'm blind to it. And no amount of training or therapy has done anything to improve it whatsoever.
I find it rather curious, myself. It has an effect on my life, although not a huge one. And I am generally quite gifted, intellectually. Even my lowest WAIS areas are 2 standard deviations above average. But in this one skill, remembering dates, I am completely hopeless and beyond helping.
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