Savant Skills Research Articles

Musical Savants: Exceptional Skill in the Mentally Retarded

Contents: Musical Savants of the Past. Evaluating Savant Skill. Absolute Pitch. Pitch Identification. Chord Analysis. Short Term Memory. Chords. Melodies. Rhythms. Musical Idioms. Conventional Diatonic Music. Unconventional Musical Forms 8 Long Term Memory. Correlates and Consequences of Savant Skill. On the Nature and Origin of Musical Savants. Epilogue. N. Newman, Appendices: A Music Teacher's Perspective on Savant Skill. Record of Participation. Note Duration Value and Rythms Task.

The savant syndrome

Idiot-savants are people of low intelligence who have one or two outstanding talents such as calendar calculation, drawing, or musical performance. The syndrome occurs with high frequency among autistic children (autism is about four times commoner in boys), and the male to female ratio is about 6:1 suggesting a sex linked disorder (Hill, 1977). It is estimated to occur in 0.06% of the mentally handicapped population or about 1 in 2,000 of those living in institutions (Treffert, 1988). The gift starts apparently spontaneously between age 5 and 8 years. Frequently the parents claim that they themselves do not have the talent and know of no one in the family who has, but there is a tendency for savant skills to run in families, suggesting that genetic factors play a role.

On hermetic reading abilities.

A review of the literature on hyperlexia suggests that the disorder is frequently associated with autism, that hermetic readers reach the lexicon via both the phonological and orthographic routes, and that the children derive meaning from print (notably, single words). In hyperlexia, as in other savant syndromes, the skills seemingly arise without a practice period and are not integrated with other areas of knowledge. A theory was advanced to account for the findings: Savants have dysfunctional procedural memory systems, though their declarative memories are relatively intact. The deficit in procedures is reflected in the difficulties savants have with routinized activities and in a dissociation of accessible knowledge from action. A disconnected declarative system manifests itself in the savant skill.