Unravelling savant talents

Creative Commons Image .ygor via Flickr

Stephen Wiltshire and Derek Paravicini are two young men with profound forms of autism: they have a lot of difficulty in communicating and interacting socially, as well as intellectual difficulties. But this doesn’t stop them having outstanding talents.

Stephen can draw complex cityscapes, such as Canary Wharf, with astonishing accuracy after just a few minutes study. And Derek can play a huge repertoire of tunes from memory, is an accomplished jazz pianist and has played with Jools Holland among others.

People with special talents, coupled with fairly profound disabilities, are known as having savant syndrome, which occurs in a small minority of people on the autism spectrum. Savant skills are often in areas such as visual art or music, but others with savant autism have special numerical skills or can work out what day of the week it was on any named date, even 200 years ago.

Creative Commons Image Mistermundo via Flickr

[Image: Mister Mundo under CC A 2.0 Generic license]

Quite a few people on the autism spectrum have one moderately special skill amidst their disabilities; for instance, they can complete jigsaws upside down without seeing the picture. But the number of people with exceptional talents like Stephen’s or Derek’s is very small indeed.

Despite this, some people believe, wrongly, that everyone on the autism spectrum has savant-type skills. This can make life difficult for the many people on the autism spectrum who don’t have any notable special skills: they and their parents may feel that everyone expects them to do something exceptional.

Scientists seeking to find out how exceptional savant talents can come about believe that possible factors include exceptional memory and attention to detail. However, being able to reproduce real sights or sounds very accurately is probably not the whole story. For instance, one artist on the autism spectrum draws elaborate cityscapes, which look as if they might be towns in France. But actually, they all come from his imagination.

Savant talents are just one of many interesting and significant aspects of autism which scientists are trying to understand. It is important to recognise and celebrate the exceptional individuals, but equally important not to overlook the needs and difficulties of the majority with autism, who don’t have these extraordinary skills.

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Want to discover more about the subject of autism?

Why not study the Open University's Understanding the autism spectrum course which gives you an insight into the symptoms of conditions on the autism spectrum as well as how behaviour, mental functioning, family relationships and social adaptation is affected.