Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant

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An interesting article from New Scientist magazine:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126881.800-inside-the-mind-of-an-autistic-savant.html?full=true

An interview with David Tammet who has Pi memorized to 22514 decimal places.

I've kind of followed this tale for a few years and the last thing I saw was that he was not autistic so maybe something has changed in his evaluation that I'm not up to speed on.

Gary, I believe his official diagnosis is Aspergers?

Anyway, I've been meaning to pick up the books. But so many words to read. Stupid filler. I definitely relate to the way he understands mathematics, though I don't have the synesthesia like him.

The last I heard his official diagnosis was brain damage which is double speak for we don't have a fukin idea of what this guy is like.

Yeah but Aspergers is double speak for:
- Painful to deal with [most] people to the point he'd rather just keep to himself most of the time (he's a total homebody)
- Completely freaks out when things don't go as expected (he has said he meltdowns when friends stop by without calling ahead)
- Why, exactly, is he like this? We have no fukin idea.

Kims social function means nothing. His ability to memorize stuff is pretty great. If we could figure out how to do it we wouldn't need forty piles of books, magazines and stacks of paper in our 'project' rooms.

Kim? You are thinking of Kim Peak? No, he is not autistic. Though they are pretty sure what his condition is (FG syndrome). Only roughly 1/2 of those considered savant (and it's a pretty damn fuzzy label) are diagnosed PDD.

Kind of got off track about brain damage but by Daniels own account he did have this ability until after an accident.

He was born on the spectrum. His mathematical abilities aside, he claims extremely extensive, very early infant memories. Whether there was something else that happened later (I'm interested in anything you have on this accident) that triggered the math, and language, abilities is a different matter.

P.S. Autistic savant is just an updated name from the archaic term idiot savant. The "autistic" doesn't mean a PDD diagnosis is required, and is really history repeating since the original "idiot" wasn't even accurate in terms of the vocabulary at the time it was coined. Idiot was IQ <40, and besides a single initial person that wasn't the case with even the early cases reported.

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Last edited by DwightF on 09 Jan 2009, 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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I've read his book 'Born on a Blue Day'. It's interesting. Apparently he had an epileptic fit as a small child. Sometimes the onset of epileptic fits can cause new abilities to surface. I read about a guy who's doing a PhD on epilepsy and artistic talent, after he developed epilepsy and suddenly started making sculptures.

The epilepsy caused the synesthesia, so far as I can tell from the book; possibly it caused the savant syndrome as well. But he is also definitely autistic; his experiences match up nicely both with the official criteria and the common experiences of others also on the spectrum.

What percent of cases of epilepsy occur in autistic people?

I know that 30% or so of autistics have seizures; but that doesn't give me any data the other way around.

Maybe savant syndrome is associated with seizures, and associated with autism because autism is also associated with seizures? I know savant syndrome is associated with brain damage; and seizures would be one way to get brain damage.

Very interesting indeed.