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| Do you have Savant-like Abilities? |
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| Yes, I'm an Aspie. |
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[ 36 ] |
| Yes, I'm an Autie. |
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| Total Votes : 98 |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 3311
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 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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| 2ukenkerl wrote: | | anbuend wrote: | | When I was initially diagnosed I was described as having "idiot-savant features" (direct quote), but I don't have any savant skills that I know of. |
The term for savantism used to often be idiot-savant. They often have deficits elsewhere. NOW, by the way, the term is autistic savant, because they are almost always autistic. |
I thought the current neutral term was savant syndrome, because they're not always autistic, just often.
And, yes, my guess is that when he said idiot-savant he meant the juxtaposition of my skills with my deficits, which is apparently pretty striking if you're used to a non-autistic skill pattern. (And even among autistic people I seem to go further in both directions than many I know.) My mother says that idiot-savant was the first word he said to her after she gave him a developmental history. I don't know if it was the hyperlexia, the perfect pitch, the sense of direction, the musical-prodigy crap from when I was younger, the test he did on me of "the wisdom of the body" as he called it (I'm guessing he meant my intuitive/automatic/triggered abilities, which are very much higher than my conscious/voluntary/deliberate/self-started abilities), or what. I've sometimes been jokingly called a "writing savant", but I don't think you can measure that well enough to really call it a savant skill, the person was just making the point that I have all these massive deficits in various functional areas (scoring something like 47 on a test of adaptive skills, which only went down to 40 as the floor of the test -- and I think by now I'd score even lower) and at this point in my life appear very different from usual, but am good at writing.
But really I think when people call me a savant, they are really just saying that I have a very autistic pattern of abilities and difficulties. And if you take "normal" as your baseline, then autistic people will always have these weird patterns of very high ability versus very low ability. I do have some abilities that function like savant skills do and have probably been learned in the same manner, but are not sufficiently extreme or uncommon as to be considered savant skills. (Perfect pitch, for example, is not considered a savant skill, because it's too common -- even 1 in 10,000 is too common I guess -- but my guess is it's a less extreme version of a similar phenomenon, and is often learned through the same mechanisms as savant skills are.) But, again, it's just a matter of what's common and what isn't.
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ImMelody
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 10, 2008
Posts: 790
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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I thought by going by definitions posted earlier, you would be considered a savant, right? That your skills are so vastly different that it's considered savant. Maybe I misunderstood the definitions posted earlier.
I find a lot of this stuff intriguing. I wish I had perfect pitch, but I don't.. I know when things are off pitch, and in what direction.. But I just can't hear myself well enough to adjust my pitch. My brother on the other hand (who I believe is HFA) can play the piano from ear. That's still not that uncommon, but I think it's cool.
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Oh and I feel it's warranted to say. Earlier someone said that cooking wouldn't be considered because it's a passion. I actually prefer not to cook. I dislike doing it.. But I know I can do it well when it's called upon. And I usually can come up with recipes.. Though, it might be that I don't like cooking any more because I was forced to cook for so long because of the way I cook. My mom says I put ingredients in that she has never even thought of, and that she can't find any recipe that calls for it. I don't know.. I guess it will never be truly a savant skill because I don't want to cultivate it to be anything better. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 3311
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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Savant skills are more extreme than mine, I think. Mine are just the normal level of unevenness (compared to normal) in autistic people.
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Rainstorm5
Tornado Aficionado
Joined: Feb 20, 2008
Posts: 1103
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Sublyme wrote: | | Rainstorm5 wrote: | | Fuzzy wrote: | | Sublyme wrote: |
Another ability I have is to always know what time it is, almost to the minute. It's like I have a clock inside my head...this freaks people out. I don't know where that comes from.
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I was going to bring that up. When I wake up in the 'morning' I know what time it is, despite not having visible clocks(and my window is blocked off from light |
Actually, most people have this ability - even NTs. Humans have an internal clock and when asked, can usually guess what time it is to within a half hour. This 'sense of time' can be disturbed, though, by locking one's self in a room where there is no sunlight for several days at a stretch, or it can be messed up after taking a long flight (jet lag). When our internal clocks are 'off kilter' we often feel sick (headache/nauseous/sleepy) or just 'out of sorts' until we rest and expose ourselves to outdoor light for a day or two. It's an instinctual thing.
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I know it's normal to have an internal clocks of sorts, humans are supposed to have one. It's pretty normal to guess the time within a half hour or so....it's when you wake up in the morning and know it's 5:37am, or when you are on your hour long lunch break at a restaurant and you know the time is 1:21pm and you have to leave to get back to work on time.= that it becomes somewhat of an odd skill. It being almost to the exact minute is what freaks people out.....this may not be a savant skill at all, but still people can get freaked out my the accuracy of my sense of time....
Actually I'm very sensitive to my internal clock being disrupted. Daylight savings time really messes me up. It's not the lost or gained hour....it's that the clocks are lying.
That being said, although I always know what time it is, that doesn't mean I am never late. I often get so fixated on what I'm doing, I can't leave on time, even though I know I'm going to be late. |
Sounds like your abilities may be more psychic than savant. Interesting that you're able to do this. I periodically have flashes of insight, like when I'm suddenly thinking about someone I haven't heard from in a while and within an hour or so that person either calls or emails me. I always wake up one minute before the alarm clock goes off (and I hate it because I'm just laying there, minding my own business and suddenly the squawking sound erupts from the clock and scares the bejeezus out of me). I'm habitually late to work, too. My employer usually doesn't care, though, mainly because I put in a lot of overtime. What really messes up my internal clock in Daylight Savings Time, when the clocks roll forward one hour. It takes me almost a month to get used to it. I lived in Arizona for many years, which was nice because they didn't observe Daylight Savings Tme in that state.
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Terminal Outsider, rogue graphic designer & lunatic fringe. |
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Angnix
Velociraptor
Joined: Nov 02, 2007
Age: 26
Posts: 456
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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Eekkk my flash counting was failing a bit today, I'm gonna try to do it in front of my counselor on Tuesday, but now I'm nervous, does this often happen with these skills? And yesterdsy I increased my record to 131 coins!
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Strange mix of bird/Sonic obsession... I like the Flickies! |
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Fuzzy
Ack! Thbbbt!
Joined: Mar 31, 2006
Posts: 2115
Location: Alberta Canada
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Rainstorm5 wrote: | | Fuzzy wrote: | | Sublyme wrote: |
Another ability I have is to always know what time it is, almost to the minute. It's like I have a clock inside my head...this freaks people out. I don't know where that comes from.
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I was going to bring that up. When I wake up in the 'morning' I know what time it is, despite not having visible clocks(and my window is blocked off from light |
Actually, most people have this ability - even NTs. Humans have an internal clock and when asked, can usually guess what time it is to within a half hour. . |
Yeah, but I am not talking about within 1/2 hour. I'm talking about down to within 5 minutes, often less. Thats still not savantry, I know, and said as much in my first post. And if it were not for the vagarities of cooking(that chicken needs another minute), I'd eat at 11am and 4PM Exactly.
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qaliqo
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Apr 01, 2008
Posts: 181
Location: SW Ohio
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:13 am Post subject: Super-Powers |
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Some of these aren't related, maybe?
* the math thing, in head, "show your work!" leads to "not my fault you can't do it";
* holographic memories, not still image, way back into early childhood;
* great seek time in phone books, internet, etc.;
* supertasting aspartame, iodine, etc...
Pretty uncommon, especially given shortage of social and physical talent.
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SquishypuffDave
Blue Jay
Joined: Apr 16, 2008
Posts: 98
Location: Australia.
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:11 am Post subject: |
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| Savant-like? That's a little vague, but I recently discovered I had perfect pitch, which is why I can play piano by ear, and I also do equations in my head without knowing exactly how I'm doing it. I also have a talent for imitation... but that's not too uncommon. I'm definitely not a savant, but some of my brain workings are similar to savants. |
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lupin
Deinonychus
Joined: Jun 19, 2006
Posts: 348
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know if this is savantish, but I write. For publication I mean. I just write and, quite frankly, I don't exactly know how I do it or where all the thoughts and creativity come from. It just happens.
Last week, eg. one mag that commissioned me had given me a serious broad topic area. I read around it for an hour or so and forgot about it. Then all of a sudden the first line or paragraph pops into my head and I have to write it down. Once that's on screen, the rest just flows and flows...in the case of that article it was 5,000 words in about 4 hours, with a bit of addition the next day. Last year I wrote a book (72,000wds) in 11 days because I had the first lines all of a sudden. (I'll let y'all know when it's at the printers! It's about AS.)
Since the 5K wd piece I've written about 3 or 4 shorter articles in just the same way. Today, I've written another short publication piece whilst aware that I'm thinking (or maybe 'sensing') another completely different, more serious, one bubbling under - and whilst watching a movie. It's very rare that I have to edit anything. It's like somewhere in my head (inaccessible to my logical mind - although I am otherwise an intensely logical aspie) it's all just lying around just waiting to be transposed to screen.
I have always struggled with feeling like a fraud...if I believed in God, I'd say it was God-given. But I don't, so it's just my brain doing something rather wonderful that I don't understand and can't claim to expend any real effort at.
The point is that I really don't know how all this writing happens, except that a) it's earned me a good living and b) I love doing it. I love 'hearing' the sounds of the words as they come out, I love the way they fit together mellifluously and just flow, I love developing ideas and points that other people haven't thought about or seen in this way, I love the concluding denouments ('love' in this context means 'profound satisfaction beyond words': it's like it's something I was absolutely born to do).
Is this a savant-type talent? (It's certainly a talent, but does it count as an autisitic savant?) Do people like Daniel Tammett have to think about number operations as they do them? Don't the solutions 'just arrive'?
PS - Ishmael - yes, please do spill the beans about TOE/GUT. It's something that's actually kept me awake at nights... |
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Rainstorm5
Tornado Aficionado
Joined: Feb 20, 2008
Posts: 1103
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| lupin wrote: | I don't know if this is savantish, but I write. For publication I mean. I just write and, quite frankly, I don't exactly know how I do it or where all the thoughts and creativity come from. It just happens.
Last week, eg. one mag that commissioned me had given me a serious broad topic area. I read around it for an hour or so and forgot about it. Then all of a sudden the first line or paragraph pops into my head and I have to write it down. Once that's on screen, the rest just flows and flows...in the case of that article it was 5,000 words in about 4 hours, with a bit of addition the next day. Last year I wrote a book (72,000wds) in 11 days because I had the first lines all of a sudden. (I'll let y'all know when it's at the printers! It's about AS.)
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Well, your Aspie-related mode of thinking has a lot to do with it. I write fiction and am able to think in complete scenes (with 'actors' I invent in my head) and examine it from all angles. Like you described, ideas will seemingly come to me of nowhere. But they do, in fact, come from somewhere - the right side of your brain, the part that controls all creative/spatial functions. Writers and artists tend to be more right-brained than most people and they can often be such visionaries that people come to revere them for having the ability to communicate their unique view of the world around them.
I can't say I'll ever be a respected/revered visionary, but I do know I view life a lot differently than most people and I'm able to write it down in terms others can understand. If you want to know where inspiration comes from, look to the right side of your brain, which is probably more dominant than your left side. Are you good at math? Most right-brained people (AS or NT) are not great at it. I'm downright lousy at math concepts. Mathematics is more of a left-brained function (as is speech and verbal expression). A good writer is strongly right-brained but also able to draw heavily on the left side to articulate the imagery that the right side gives them. Artists have the same ability.
| Quote: |
The point is that I really don't know how all this writing happens, except that a) it's earned me a good living and b) I love doing it. I love 'hearing' the sounds of the words as they come out, I love the way they fit together mellifluously and just flow, I love developing ideas and points that other people haven't thought about or seen in this way, I love the concluding denouments ('love' in this context means 'profound satisfaction beyond words': it's like it's something I was absolutely born to do).
Is this a savant-type talent? (It's certainly a talent, but does it count as an autisitic savant?) Do people like Daniel Tammett have to think about number operations as they do them? Don't the solutions 'just arrive'? |
I also love the sound of words. It's hard to explain, but I've always seen words more as shapes/symbols that induce vivid imagery in my mind rather than a string of letters that are spoken inside my head. This can be a savant-like talent. I'd vernture a guess that many or all of the great writers were savants in some way. Truman Capote, John Steinbeck, Franz Kafka, Somerset Maugham (just to name a few) had great vision and were able to convey their unique worldview to others through the written word. Contrazry to popular belief, this isn't a 'learned' ability. anyon can 'write,' but writing well is another thing altogether. Writing well isn't an acquired skill - you either have talent or you don't. If you make good money doing what you love to do, then chances are you definitely have a talent you were born with. You're also lucky, because there are a lot of people out there who wish they could have the same ability.
Best wishes,
J
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Terminal Outsider, rogue graphic designer & lunatic fringe. |
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Droopy
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 29, 2006
Posts: 359
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| liloleme wrote: | No, nothing amazing...Im just your average run of the mill aspie  . I have an excellet memory for things that Im interested in and I learn very quickly but I think that is pretty typical. I kind of consider myself a big dork actually  |
This is me too. I only learn quickly at things I'm really interested in though. I don't think I've ever had a job even that I've learned quickly in because I wasn't really interested. It was just something I had to do to survive. If I could go back to school I think I would thrive in Computer Programming but I've missed the boat on that one, but I've thought about going back but at my age I just don't know if it's worth it. |
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Amik
Sea Gull
Joined: Feb 07, 2008
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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I have some savant abilities. I can learn incredibly fast. Hearing/reading/seeing something once is usually enough for me to remember it and know how to do it. I can easily learn 100 new foreign words per hour. I can do complicated things after watching someone else do them once. When I was a student new teachers used to ask me all the time whether I had studied the subject before, because they saw how easy it was for me.
I can do many things really fast, especially on the computer. I used to work closely with the bosses of a large IT company and they were amazed with how fast I could get things done in their new, ground breaking system that I had only had a short time to learn how to use (and I was one of very few employees who had no education or prior experience in the IT field). I finished something in 1 hour that another much more experienced person usually needed 8 hours to do. |
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BitsandWires
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
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Joined: Aug 15, 2007
Age: 26
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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I can occasionally make a living playing skill games for cash. I don't know how much of this could have been learned otherwise though, since I have played games all my life. But after I'm into a game I've always been able to see the mechanics that others fail to recognize. On my favorite cash game right now, I actually visualize part of the gameboard that's not revealed yet. I also get banned from Quake III and Counterstrike servers because my twitch style looks like a bot people use to cheat.
I get banned on cash sites too, either for making too much or for suspected cheating.
I just watched Rainman for the first time a few days ago. Even though there was a lot of fiction, the casino scenes had me smiling.
I'm also inventive. I will wake up with an idea, and sit in bed and expand it in my head. Sometimes I build stuff, most times I start to and never finish. Too bad we have accumulated years worth of inventions and there's really no place for my ideas. But it's still fun. If only I was a few hundred years younger.
I can learn a subject fast. If someone mentions something I know nothing about, I will read and read and read, and the next time I see them I'll have information above their level. Out of habit. |
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Roseduelist
Snowy Owl
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
Age: 20
Posts: 154
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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I beat portal in the first try under 30 minutes ( without assistance), and alot of people on the forums spend 30 min on each one if that counts.
I can find typos and grammatical errors in already published books, and I randomly know what colors to mix in order to create the right one |
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Aurore
Dingo Lycanthrope
Joined: Dec 07, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 1208
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:36 pm Post subject: Re: Super-Powers |
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| qaliqo wrote: | Some of these aren't related, maybe?
* the math thing, in head, "show your work!" leads to "not my fault you can't do it";
* holographic memories, not still image, way back into early childhood;
* great seek time in phone books, internet, etc.;
* supertasting aspartame, iodine, etc...
Pretty uncommon, especially given shortage of social and physical talent. |
I'm a supertaster too. And I do the thing with math in my head. Teachers always thought I was cheating.
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