Gizem Şamdan 05052014 Outline Savant Syndrome is a remarkable condition in which pe ople with autism mental handicaps or major mental illness have exceptional abilities ID: 395357
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Slide1
SAVANT SYNDROME
Gizem Şamdan05.05.2014Slide2
OutlineSlide3
Savant Syndrome
... is a remarkable condition in which
people with autism, mental handicaps or major mental illness, have exceptional abilities in a specific area in contrast to their overall disability
.
Savant
:
«
wise
human
» in French
At
first
:
t
he
term
‘
idiot-savant’
by
Down (1887)
to describe intellectually impaired individuals with
contrasting outstanding abilities.
More recently
:
the terms
‘
monosavant
’
(
Charness
, Clifton, & MacDonald,
1988) and
‘savant syndrome’
(
Treffert
, 1989) have
come into general usage
.Slide4
Savant Syndrome
cont.
Rare condition:- 1 in 1000 in an institutionalized population with a dignosis
of
mental
retardation
.
- But
1
in 10 autistic
pe
ople
show
some
savant
skills
.
A
bout
50% of
pe
ople
with
savant syndrome have autistic disorder and
the
other
50% have other forms of developmental
disability,
mental
retardation or other CNS injury or disease
Males
outnumber females
in
an approximate ratio of 6 to 1
.
Congenital
or
Acquired
:
-
Savant
syndrome can be
congenital
-
from
birth
-
,
or it can be
acquired
following
brain injury or disease later in
lifeSlide5
Two Types:
Talented Savants
: the most common type- the individual displays a high level of ability that is in contrast to their disability and overall
functioning
.
-
These
abilities
are
called
:
«Splinter
Skills
»
Prodigious Savants
:
the
rarest
type
-
the
ability or brilliance is not only spectacular in contrast to the disability, but would be spectacular even
for
a
non-disabled person
.Slide6
Savant Skills
The abilities are usually in art, music, calendar calculation, mathematics or spatial skills.
Memorization - superior memory is a common feature of savant syndromeLightening calculation - instantaneous calculation of multiplications, square roots, etc.Calender calculating
-
the
ability to identify the day of the week upon which a particular date
fallsSlide7
Savant Skills
Musical ability - great skill in playing instruments or singing
; the piano is the most popular instrument. (Ex:the ability to play the piano without being taught.)Artistic ability - exceptional painting, sculpture and especially drawing skillsLanguage ability - fairly rare - the person may be unusually gifted in languages.Mechanical or spatial skills:
the capacity
to measure distances precisely without benefit of instruments, the mastery
of mapmaking and direction
finding
.Slide8
Savant Skills
cont.
The skills tend to be right hemisphere oriented: - These skills can be characterized as non-symbolic, artistic, concrete, and directly perceived, in contrast to left hemisphere skills that are more sequential, logical, and symbolic.Generally a single special skill exists, but in some instances several skills exist simultaneously.
Whatever the particular savant skill, it is always linked to massive memory.
Savant
skills characteristically continue, rather than
disappear, and with continued use, the special abilities
either persist at the same level or actually
increase
.Slide9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TarUCbKWeXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anzYFC8gYY0Slide10
Theories
No single theory has emerged that can explain all savants
:Biological-Developmental - genetic, neurochemical, left hemisphere dysfunction, frontal and temporal lobe damage Cognitive - deficits in executive function and abstract thinking may
cause
highly
developed procedural memory and
photographic
imagery
(
Happé
, 1994;
Schopler
&
Mesibov, 1995)Deficit in theory of mind (Frith, 1989
)
M
odularity
of mind
-
when
executive cognitive functions are disrupted the mind exhibits a striking modular organization (Smith & Tsimpli, 1995)Slide11
How
do they do it?
Increasingly plausible explanation for savant abilities in many cases is left brain injury with right brain compensation. Slide12
Genes?
It is possible that a gene, or genes, in the chromosome 15q11-13
region may be responsible for the savant skills.Nurmi and colleagues (2003) identified (among 94 families) 21 families as “savant
skills positive” and 73 families as “savant skill negative.”
Slide13
Kim Peek, the R
eal «Rain Man»
a prodigious savantthe inspiration for the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie.born with severe brain damage. His childhood doctor told Kim's father to put him in an institution and forget about the boy. Kim's father disregarded the doctor's advice.
Kim is
severely disabled, has difficulty walking
and
cannot
even
button his
shirt
. His IQ tests are well below average.His deficits result from corpus callosum
disorder
.Slide14
Nickname:
"Kimputer"
What Kim can do is astounding: He has read 12,000 books and remembers everything about them. Reads two pages at once - his left eye reads the left page, and his right eye reads the right page. It takes him about 3 seconds to read through two pages - and he
can
remember everything
.
Kim
can recall facts and trivia from 15 subject areas from history to geography to sports.
He
also remembers every music he has ever
heard
Tell him a date, and Kim can tell you what day of the week it is
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhcQG_KItZMSlide15
References
Better Health Channel. (2014).
Autism Spectrum Disorder and Savant Syndrome
.
Accessed
April,
24,
2014.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Autism_spectrum_disorder_and_savant_syndrome
Families
Affected
By Autism. (2013).
Autistic Savants – Kim
Peek
http
://www.familiesaffectedbyautism.co.uk/autistic-savants-kim-peek
/
Accessed
May, 1, 2014.Heaton, P., & Wallace, G. L. (2004). Annotation: the savant syndrome.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45
(5), 899-911.Hiles, D. (2002). Savant Syndrome. http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm
Accessed
April, 26,
2014.
Treffert
, D. A. (2009). The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
,
364
(1522), 1351-1357
.
Wisconsin
Medical
Society
. (2013).
Savant Syndrome 2013— Myths and
Realities
.
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/resources/articles/savant-syndrome-2013-myths-and-realities/
Accessed
April,
26,
2014
.Slide16
QUESTIONS?