What Have You

If you have seen people afflicted with Down’s Syndrome, a.k.a. mongoloids, (thanks, Marlene) and other special children, you might want to read this before jumping to a conclusion that they are pityful in their present state of mind.

Dr. Treffert, a Wisconsin psychiatrist, is the author of Extraordinary People. It was the first work to comprehensively summarize what is known about this fascinating condition, originally described a century ago, and to introduce the reader to a number of present day prodigious savants such as Leslie, Alonzo and George. Many persons remember these three remarkable persons from the 1980 60 Minutes program about them. Dr. Treffert was also a consultant to the movie Rain Man, in which Dustin Hoffman portrayed an autistic savant. Savant Syndrome is a rare, but spectacular, condition in which persons with various developmental disabilities have astonishing islands of ability or brilliance that stand in stark, markedly incongruous, contrast to the handicap (talented savants).

In others, with a much rarer form of the condition, the ability is not only spectacular in contrast to the handicap, but would be spectacular even if viewed in a normal person (prodigious savant).

There are fewer than 100 reported cases of prodigious savants in world literature. There a probably fewer than 25 prodigious savants living at the present time. Some of those include Leslie Lemke (music), Alonzo Clemons (sculpting), Richard Wawro (painting), Stephen Wilshire (drawing) and Tony DeBlois (music).

Studying how the mind and brain work sounds like it ought to be about as futile as trying to grab handfuls of air. Yet psychology, neuroscience and related fields have made amazing progress. This special issue introducing Scientific American Mind reviews just a sliver of the discoveries that investigators from around the globe have made about the workings of our inner lives.

The breadth of subjects tracks the vastness of thought. Several authors grapple with supremely tough questions: How does the gray matter in our skulls give rise to self-awareness? How can we have free will if our brains are bound by predictable mechanisms? How does memory work? Other articles describe how new genetic and biochemical findings elucidate causes of mental illness but also pose ethical quandaries. They illuminate mysteries of sensory perception. They explore how understanding of mental function can help us deal with mundane issues, such as solving problems creatively or making our arguments more persuasive. And a few celebrate the strange, unexpected beauties of the human condition.

In my 12 years of involvement in the field of Nursing, I had the most gratifying experience of meeting a Filipino savant in person for a couple of times. He’s a male, 16-17 years of age at present and residing in Cagayan Valley. He’s a friend’s son who is actually viewed by family members as a gift, never a liability. He has been studied by famous Filipino psychiatrists in Manila and our meeting was in no way meant to be a clinical session. It was a friendly visit and I was actually speechless knowing his abilities – he can memorize this article by simply looking at it in seconds!

This is not to impress anyone reading this article right now. I myself was skeptical at first when his Dad told me his child’s abilities which his wife accidentally discovered inside a grocery. The child was about 12 (I think) when one day they went to the grocery and the cashier noticed that the boy was reciting ALL the bar codes of the products they purchased that day. The mother wasn’t even aware what her kid was doing and considered it as mumbling random numbers (which he usually does even at home). The cashier began to notice that the boy got every sequence of number right since she was sweeping the items with a handheld barcode reader to determine the price of the commodity.

To cut the long story short, here comes the moment of truth. In our first meeting, I showed him the barcode of a canned softdrink and the challenge was to let him look at the code in only 1 second. So I did show him the barcode after saying, “no, that can’t be done”. Twenty trials later, I can no longer speak with awe and disbelief. He got all the barcodes right (13 digits each). But this didn’t keep me from wanting to go on with an unscheduled and unstructured test. The cellphone test came next. This time, I’m holding four cellphones owned by his family members (having some 900+ unique entries combined). The numbers were no longer shown to him. The procedure was: I give him the name of a person in a phonebook and he recites the number (11 digits). I said “maybe this time you’ll commit an error”. Fifty random cell numbers later (from four cellphones), I gave up.

His Dad also said he can memorize everything he reads. However, with a slightly obvious “abnormality”, the principal wouldn’t allow him to enroll during high school enrollment. The father challenged the principal if he can beat the child in memory. This time, they will memorize a book together and recite the texts. The principal wasn’t even able to memorize the first page after an hour but the child recited the texts verbatim. He’s most probably in college today but I haven’t heard from them since they went to the US. But what is truly amzing is how a person considered by many as “handicapped” can inspire me in a very unusual way.

The experience of simply holding his hand was so gratifying and such a humbling one knowing that he has something very special I can never have even if I live for a hundred years more.

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Tags: Nursing, savant, Savant Syndrome

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