How do you tell if someone is a savant?

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How can you tell for sure? I was interested about them, and found out there is an artistic savant type. I really don't want to sound full of myself or anything, I'm just genuinly curious. I don't have the ability to focus one one thing for too long, so I've never drawn or painted anything too elaborate. But I can if I want to, and I've always been the person everyone is constantly amazed at her artistic skills. I can draw very fast, and even at age 5 I was drawing better than some adults. I had really developed fine motor skills. (Isn't that an anti-aspie trait?) And I can draw from my mind very well, and get 3D and stuff.
But don't savants have to be DAMN good? Like virtually real looking. I really don't know. Hell, I don't even know if I have asperger's syndrome.

I think to be a savant you need to be exceptional? I'm an okay drawer for example but I'm not even close to what I would consider a savant ability, here let me show you some drawings:




See, in all honesty I think my drawings are good, not great. I have a similar ability in music, I can play along with any tune and can play you anything from my memory, but I can only play the melody 9/10 I can't give you a full replica of a piece after hearing it just once, so I've got a slight talent but again not a savant.

Still, talent is something above and beyond 'normal' ability, just not really amazing abilities like someone being able to do a realistic-looking picture entirely from memory.

you're great!
yeah though. what is the threshold between talent and savantism?

A savant is a person who has an talent in one area (such as art, music or mathmatics) but otherwise is severely mentaly handicapped and could never function on their own.

Scan and post some art, Spazz.. I wanna see. I wanna see ! ! Show me, Show me

Is it above average or actually abnormal?

I don't think abilities in graphic art are anti-Aspergian (remember the DSM is for diagnosing children), though I have always told people I am a skilled hack - in that I learned to draw because I was obsessed with it and wanted to and spent years with teachers and tutors, not because I have any innate natural talent. I've known artists whose abilities seem to literally flow directly down the arm and out their fingertips and everything comes out straight onto the paper nearly perfect the first time. I don't have that - I'm far too critical of every detail of my own work and often will continue to tweak and change things for weeks after the initial sketch. That's why I would never freehand a tattoo (though some do) - I have to be 100% satisfied with the drawing first and transfer that to a stencil, so everything is 'just so'.

Actually since, as Temple Grandin points out, many of us tend to think in pictures, it seems only natural that we'd want to draw things.

But I always understood savantism to be an exceptional ability that occurs without any formal training whatsoever, in spite of being extremely low functioning in every other aspect.

Having some training, but a facile ability which rapidly surpasses that training - that's a prodigy, right?

A savant is normally exceptionally gifted at one thing, but severely impaired in other areas of life. A savant skill is picked up immediatly, without training. Someone who has never played a guitar before and just picks it up and is able to play would be considered a savant. You can be extremely talented without being a savant. A lot of talented people with disabilities have splinter skills. A splinter skill is being really good at some areas such as math or science but being horrible at other things. I think a lot of people with AS have splinter skills. Most NTs seem to have a middle area for all things, while we seem to be more on one side of the extreme. If that makes sense...

I consider myself a linguistic savant, I think... I probably have a high IQ anyways, but while I'm just "good" at maths and not that special, at least in comparison to other "gifted" people, I always got languages immediately. Let's say I learnt English before studying in school, for example, just by watching TV shows with translation when I was about 8 years old, and then reading stuff and using a dictionary, with no tutor. Whenever I travel to a foreign country I also "absorb" linguistic information without trying.

People always tell me they're jealous of this, but it's practically useless, to say the truth...

No.
There exist prodigious savants, with no impairments.
Savant syndrome

Magicfly, those are beautiful. I draw as well. Now I feel the need to share. ^^





I don't think they're as good as yours by any means but it impresses a lot of people who aren't artists. The AP Art class at my high school was very selective. Only 12 people get in each year. I applied but was on the wait list, which normally means you're doomed but someone had to drop it to take another class. I walked in the first day thinking I was hot s*** and the teacher looked at me and said, "I thought you weren't going to be here this year!" I probably needed my ego deflated anyway. I think I'm pretty good--not excellent, especially since I use grids--but I was the least impressive out of the school's art program that year.

Daniel Tammet is a savant in both languages and mathematics.

He is also a genius, with an IQ of 150.

He has Asperger's, lives completely independently and is self-made financially independent.

This is quite accurate in my opinion. There are three types of savants---prodigious (Rainman type, Daniel Tammet type---like only 50 in the world), talent type (me), and splinter skill type (not real familiar with it). If I am fascinated by a musical instrument I can play it without training/lessons and very quickly---sometimes immediately. I don't understand it. I just say to audiences who ask how I learned to play, "The music just happens." I can't tell you what notes I am playing. And to think about it ahead of time, I often can't tell you what fret or key I hit first---it just happens. When I am playing, it is like a transparent shield encases me and I am alone in it. The audience is zoned out, but yet I am aware they are there---I just lose a lot of senses to them and I am so absorbed into the trance-like state of playing that I am like alone. When I finish playing a song, the senses return and it's like, "There is the audience again."

It is like an intense focus beam into the music for me as the focus of other things sort of vanish. I should note that I have seen the statistic of there being like 10% of autistics that are savants. And of course, not all savants are autistic.

You have to draw what you see. A savant's artwork has unmistakable 3-dimensional qualities that makes it look real. If the artwork is more of a 2-dimensional quality, likely is not a savant's artwork.

About 50 more.

I went back and looked and found the 100 number for the number of prodigious savants. They say it is 100 listed in the past century. As for the number alive today---any idea?