Savant skills

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I was just wondering...does anyone here at WP have any special savant memory skills? The reason I am asking is because I have a neat skill involving calendars and dates. I have a perpetual calendar inside my head, and I can name the day of the week a date fell on from as far back to 1750, until 2099. I know a lot of people might be skeptical of this ability, but I'd like to hear from anyone who has a talent similar to mine.

Actually, I have done the same. I don't think that ALONE is really a savant skill though.

Steve

I do. A lot of them.

Tim

Talented Music Savant, I have perfect pitch, can play a song perfectly if you let me look at the sheet music once. Music - Color synesthesia also.

Talented Grammar Savant, Very dramatic and metaphorical. Can easily understand unusual sentence structure.

Taleted Memory Savant, I never forget a fact. Even if I saw it once

I used to be able to do instantaneous sums in my head. But I lost that ability when I first started school.

I have a very good long-term memory. I still remember stuff I learned in school as far back as first grade. I don't mean stuff like the Three R's, but little details that most people don't pay attention to.

I can remember things that most people can't.

I don't feel I have any specialized skills. My abilities are more general, such as a good memory for factual material and a good vocabulary. I am only average at math, but people's ages and birth years are something I can come up with faster than most people can.

Yeah, calendar calculations are a classic savant skill. And for some reason, I think more due to tradition rather than logic, memory is always part of Savant Syndrome. It's one of the requirements, to either have an excellent or even eidetic memory. (Frankly, this is a criterion with which I disagree, but hey.)

My savant skills would fall into the areas of "art", "memory" (not eidetic, but excellent visual memory), and "facial recognition".

The most common savant skills, aside from random ones like facial recognition, are:

1. calendar calculations
2. mathematics and "human calculators"
3. music
4. art
5. foreign language acquisition (large memory component to this one usually)
6. writing
7. spatial reasoning
8. ***memory*** <-- this is a must for the dx

Savant Skills are also broken up into three level categories (ranked lowest to highest in skill):

1. splinter skill
2. talent
3. prodigious/prodigy

Usually to be labeled as "prodigious", according to Dr. Treffert, the skill should arise between ages 3-9 in the case of ASDs-- provided the opportunity to showcase the skill was available. If not, then a later development is acceptable.

Coincidently, mentally, 3-9 were probably my best years! Before 3 things start to blur, and things just kid of went down hill after 9. Maybe it is because I was in a major car accident or something, WHO KNOWS.

I may even have done some date stuff prior to 9! One thing, my memory was DEFINITELY a lot better.

Steve

One of the most amusing posts i have read.
At least you now have a talent for comedy.
If it's unintentional, then i'm sorry for laughing. But thanks.

I guess they teach how to do sums properly at school.

HEY, I READ better before I went to school! I LEARNED better before I went to school! BEFORE I went to school, I did everything in MY native language!(Call it HUMAN if you want) In school I started doing things in English! SO, for reading, school slowed it down a LOT! HOW much? Well, if I just disregard ENGLISH, and keep everything else, I read about 10 times as fast. If I try to read as fast as I can percieve the words, I read about 20 times as fast! As my memory gets better, I hope to acheive the 20 times with NO sacrifice.

IMAGINE if I did math without english!

BTW I learn most things(directions, tasks, talents, etc...) as CONCEPTS! In part, that means I would actually have to TRANSLATE to tell someone how I do it. At least English doesn't affect speed THERE.

Steve

Never learnt anything at school either.

Maths without English. Well, English is no help.
Maths has it's own language, you don't need English or Russian or whatever. Just logic and a bit of feel. Maybe that's why ping-machine can't do them sums no more. Been re(de)-programmed

I'm not sure about having savant skills, but I do have excellent LTM.

Ex: I remember most folk by the licence plate number of their cars. I'll associate who they are by what they drive..

I was already making multiplication tables for three-digit numbers before most people even learned how to multiply at all (i.e. I was doing mental calculation with multi-digit numbers by the time I was 5 or 6). I wonder if that would count as a savant skill.

I used to be able to do math in my head, but my teachers were all "you have to show your work!". So that ability has shriveled and died, maybe permanently. Oh well, when will I ever need to use math anyway?