SAVANTS A mix of ability and disability

The savants are people who have extraordinary abilities that a normal person can not understand. Savantism is a kind of autism whose symptoms appears in childhood.Unfortunately there is no diagnosis for it.This mental ability became well known in the film ‘’The Rain Man’’ where Dustin Hoffman played successfully the role of an autistic man. The savants have remarkable social problems such as difficulty in relationships and they also do not understand people thoughts and feelings. But these are the problems that a savant faces. Their abilities are much more outstanding than their disabilities.

A savant can be a genius in different things. The most well known ability of the savants is that they can calculate huge numbers in short time and be very good in mathematical things. But savants can do more things which are also impressive. For example Stephen Wiltshire is a living camera as the most people call him as he drew a big part of Rome on a huge paper in an amazing detail after a helicopter flight. A similar savant example with extraordinary abilities is Daniel Tammet who is a mathematical genius who can do massive calculations. His special abilities appeared when he was four. He knows 9 languages and can learn a new one in a week. Also important to mention is that he calculated numbers of π in 5

hours and 9 minutes without a mistake. As he said he did not calculate those numbers but they were like shapes In front of his eyes. He does extraordinary mathematics but he does not even know it. Up to now we have not totally understood how the brilliant brain of those “miracles” work. The savants syndrome will help us to understand what intelligence is and how it works. The fact is that the human brain remains the biggest mystery on earth.

All information was found in in videos: Beautiful minds: Stephen Wiltshire The boy with the incredible brain Daniel Tammet-The boy with the incredible brain prt1 Daniel Tammet-The boy with the incredible brain prt2 Daniel Tammet-The boy with the incredible brain prt3 Daniel Tammet-The boy with the incredible brain prt4 Daniel Tammet-The boy with the incredible brain prt5

Thank you for your interest Moschatos Christos