Customer Reviews

Extraordinary People: Understanding "Idiot Savants"

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FINALLY, someone wrote a book about "idiot savants", those paradoxical folks who are autistic, mentally retarded, yet profoundly gifted in one area such as art, mathematics, or music. Treffert has pulled together the isolated reports about the 100 or so people over the past century who have had this Savant Syndrome and engagingly discusses both their case histories and the theories about why they are who they are. Whether talking about Charles and George - who can tell you what day of the week Easter will fall on over an 80,000 year time span or what the weather was like every single day of their lives after age 4, despite the fact they are both retarded and cannot do simple arithmetic - to Leslie who is blind, mentally retarded, and has cerebral palsy, but who without any formal musical training can play a piece like Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 perfectly after only one hearing, these people are as fascinating as they are limited.

Darold A. Treffert, M.D. is a psychiatrist whose first hand dealings with several savants and interest in the matter have helped him produce a fine book. It is 291 pages long and if you are willing to patiently work your way through it (it's not the kind of book that lends itself to being read in one sitting), I hope you will feel as amply rewarded as I did by this book.