Number of idiot savants in the world

Factual Questions
1

I just had a discussion with my girlfriend about how many “Rainman”-type idiot savants there are in the world, ie people with severely diminished mental capacities of one sort or another that also possess a genuinely stunning talent of some sort. You may have seen the guy who was taken on a helicopter ride over London and then could draw the city as seen from above after landing, or the guy who could be told any date and instantly tell you what day of the week that date was/will be.

My girlfriend says there are only about 25 of these in the world. I think there are vastly more. Anyone with the dope?

2

I don’t know the actual number but I think your GF is closer to the truth than you are. I think they are relatively rare.

3

[Rain Man voice]
246 total.
[/Rain Man voice]

4

25 total? Nah, I think you’re right. At Autism.org they mention that “autistic savants” make up an estimated 10% of those suffering from autism (and only about 1% in the non-autistic population). Still not a lot of people, but more than 25 in the world.

The skills just aren’t that fancy or useful

So, okay. Neat trick. But not something you’d hear much about because it’s not that big a deal.

5

I guess it’s all how you look at it, as to whether it is a big deal or not. I had the privilege of meeting a lady this summer who is gifted in this manner. I teach at a camp that is held in our state for those who are mentally and physically handicapped. It caught me by surprise. One of my assistants commented on his 15th wedding anniversary being on a particular day. She then told him what day of the week it was and what day of the week it was on the day he got married.

She may not remember your name, but, she will remember your birthday!! If you tell her a general area of where you live she can also tell you the major roads surrounding you. Somehow she “memorizes” maps!

It’s a big deal to her …and it’s a big deal to those who live in her group home. Eats_Crayons, I realize you didn’t mean to discount the “specialness” of those with these types of abilities; I just needed to share that it IS a big deal to some.

6

Oh, gosh, I didn’t mean to belittle the skills by any means. I meant simply that you don’t hear of many of the savants because the most common memory feats that are in themselves quite impressive, are not reported in a way that would make the savant “well known.” (Sort of media apathy.)

The media will occasionally do a human interest story on savants who have extraordinary musical or artistic abilities because there is the idea that the general public can marvel at the genuis when presented in that context.

But the more common mathematical and memory skills only show up in movies as a gimmick (like in The Cube) and often rather condescendingly.

So while autistic savants can have these incredible abilities, you generally only hear about a select few which gives the impression that savants are very, very rare.

I should have perhaps made it more clear that I was speaking in the context of media cynicism, not personal opinion.

I do actually appreciate the gifts they have. When I worked at the staff daycare of a children’s psychiatric instute, I met a young girl (probably only six years old) who could reproduce drawings she’d barely glimpsed at with uncanny accuracy. It was absolutely amazing (and watching her draw was incredible because of the way she strucutred the drawing itself – almost like layers). IIRC, when she went through periods where she was “communicating well,” she wouldn’t draw at all.

7

Wouldn’t most physicists fall into this category?
Did I spell it right?
Peace,
mangeorge

8

Easy way to calculate the numbers:

Take the number of idiots claiming to be savants and divide by 10,000.

9

Is the calendar thing(naming the day of the week) really anything more than a trick anyone can learn. I recall Marilu Henner (from Taxi) doing this quite easily on a talk show. She seems with the realm of the norm

10

mangeorge wrote:

I don’t think so. A common thing about savants, as I understand the concept, is that while they have some tremendous talent they are unable to link it to anything else. A physicist can and does.

Where you making a joke? Did I not get it? Look I’m laughing, ho-ho-ho.

Please don’t hurt me.

11

I think I got that speech once a week in high school. :smiley:

12

Some of the abilities are way beyond that though. Like asking, “what is the square root of 2375830329547?” and they can answer correctly in the blink of an eye as quickly as a calculator.

Mangeogre a physicist may have an excellent aptitude for mental calculations, but to figure out the above square root off the top of one’s head would be exceptional even for a gifted scholar. The other difference too, is that a scientist can apply the mathematical skills and can use them in a context.

The example they used (oh, and I loathe to use the movie as an example, but…) in Rainman was that they asked him for the square root of a HUGE number, he rattled it off without even thinking about it. Correct. When they asked him “how much does a chocolate bar cost?” He answered “a hundred dollars.”

Those suffering from autism processes stimuli in a very unusual way, depending on their autism and the severity of it. Their senses are not necessarily integrated and may be over-active or under-active.

Example/
We hear a motor, see a car, smell exhaust, feel the coolness of the car door – we understand it as features of a car idling int he driveway. An autistic may experience it as random, disparate stimuli. The smoothness of the door may be experienced as “painful” and the sund of the engine unbearably frightening.

Some are unable to process auditory information such as speech – they can not understand the ideas you are voicing, yet that same autistic person may also be able to hum back a tune heard only once and in perfect pitch.

This is what makes them “idiot” savants. They may be incapable of communicating and understanding things – which makes them seem “stupid” or “retarded”, but still be able to repeat an entire radio show verbatim that played once on the radio (thought they may be mimicking the words and not comprehending what the words are conveying.) It’s incredible.

Don’t forget, savants are still a minority amoung the autistic. Movies will have you think that all autistics are savants because they use them as plot devices.

Austism also has quite a range of severity, from minor developmental impairment to total disfunction (where they’ve shut ot the entire world.)

13

Yeah, and I totally agree with what you said about physicists and applying the skills to real life and using them in context.

But I also just thought of this: unless he memorized it from a table (which seems unlikely as there aren’t too many square root table, especially ones that go that high), he would have to know the formula for getting the square root. (For example, computers are programmed not to know that the square root of 4 is 2, but to pick numbers between 4 and 2, and then seeing how it works and [in this case] decreasing and approaching 2.) So that would mean that he is sort of applying some formula. I would say that multiplication, division, addition and subtraction are thought processes that a savant can be talented in, but taking the square root of a number could not be a natural talent.

14

As the mom of a kid with high functioning Autism…

I’ve never met a savant in all the time I’ve taken my son to doctors and classes and therapy and all that. So I’m fairly certain they aren’t common. Granted, my kid has a high functioning form of autism, and therefore has been in therapy and such with similar kids, but you know, parents talk while we sit and wait for the doctor, we talk in therapy sessions of our own (it’s mentally exhausting to deal with these kids sometimes, and we all need help). So if there were one in our geographic area, I’d probably know. Given this is a big (not huge, but big) city, you’d expect one or two if they were at all common. And I moved here from another city of a decent size across country, and never heard of one there, either. So I know they ARE out there, but I’d be surprised if it was terribly common. The 10% number sounds high, unless they are counting kids that have any level of unusual ability.

Many autistic kids have the ability to excel at a particular thing. My kid (he’s 7, he’s adoreable grin) is great at math. He’s no savant, by any stretch, but given his particular set of problems and his age and compared to his peers, he’s very, very good at math things. One of his little obsessions is change - and he can rattle off what change you need to make how much money very quickly. And not just up to a dollar, but if I were to ask him something like, “Using half dimes and half quarters, how many of each would I need to make 5 dollars?” and he could tell me very quickly - say, in less than two minutes. Not instantly, but fast and without visual aids at seven years old. But, like the earlier example of Rainman, he’s flummoxed by how much something should actually cost, and when he estimates, it’s absurdly off the scale. OTOH, he’s 7. So who knows?

But I have seen lots of kids like him - good at a particular thing, like math, horrible at nearly everything else. But not at a savant level - I’m under no delusion that my son is going to be a statistician or a mathematician or whatever, he’s just better than he should be at that one particular thing, but not genius level. And that’s common in my experience. YMMV.

If you want cites here, your outta luck, this is just personal experience. In a slight hijack, I should say that the film Rainman and the focus on savants has been a mixed blessing for those of us who have kids like this. On the one had, it made autism a less intimidating thing, something people have heard off and can relate to - so when my son is utterly incapable of getting along with his peers in a social setting, I can say the magic word autism and not have to explain it to death. On the other hand, the general public now thinks that ALL these kids have savant abilities, and it just ain’t so. And I DO have to explain that to death. Also, Rainman portrayed a character that is mid to lower -range autistic - able to function somewhat, can speak and interact with others, doesn’t like to be touched, has tantrums and the need for sameness, etc. So many autistic kids fall so far outside that - from my son’s end of it, the most high functioning of austitic kids don’t really show a LOT of symptoms, and therefore people who have seen Rainman don’t believe you when you say he has the disease, whereas the other end of the spectrum most likely has the same problem.

sigh I just love the kid to pieces and hope for the best.

Grace

15

Yeah, s’posed to be a joke. :stuck_out_tongue:
I saw Edward Teller on the tube the other night. That guy gives me headache, he’s so brilliant. But focused. Is he still alive? He’s almost 100.
Here, have a lollipop.

16

Slight hijack but I have a question:

Does that a mean that a person can be a little autistic (like a dislike of physical contact and nothing else) or would that just be called antisocial?

17

Yes. There’s varying degrees of regular autism, then you get into things like Aspberger’s Syndrome - it’s on the scale of autism, but isn’t. People with Aspberger’s (and Bill Gates, for example, has been suspected to have it) can be just anti-social seeming.

My son is autistic, but (luckily) on the highest end of that spectrum. He doesn’t mind being touched - and depending on who you are, will initiate contact. (He’ll hug me, but not other people, things like that.) He talks just fine. But he’s got the classic symptoms of the need for sameness, the tantrums when he’s disrupted, the rocking, the sensory overstimulation (normal noises seem FAR too loud and will cause rocking or tantrums, textures in food and clothing that we wouldn’t notice drive him nuts, things like that.)

It’s not possible to be “a little autistic.” It is possible to display more or fewer symptoms. It’s the difference between pneumonia and a slight cold - both might have been caused by the same virus, but different people react differently.

Someone who is merely anti-social, however, is more likely to have Aspberger’s.

Grace

18

Aspergers ;). And not everyone who is merely anti-social has Aspergers. You’d need some obsessions and sensory issues to go with the anti-social stuff. Plus not all Aspergers kids are anti-social. There’s nothing clear cut about diagnosis for Aspergers or HFA.

I know of one autistic savant in Australia and he’s only known in the media because his brother is a child prodigy. And I’m racking my brains to recall what the family name was so I could google it and supply cites. I did find the homepage of one high functioning person with autism who is an autistic savant

http://www.wawro.net/

Stephen Wiltshire is the autistic artist who has done such extraordinary paintings.

19

Thanks, Grace.

I also have a question that’s a bit more specific if you don’t mind:
If a person experiences anxiety in social situations (like parties, but not bus rides) and has trouble chatting/making small talk, but is otherwise normal (and is not averse to people, just anxious about talking to them), could be due to some sort of autism?

20

Ack, my spelling! Sorry.

I didn’t mean to imply that all anti-social people have Asperger’s. Just that if a person with a mental illness is thought to be just anti-social, that’s more likely the disease involved than autism.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. :slight_smile:

Grace