Book Review
Fascinating World of the Savant
By
Jan 29, 2010 - 2:59:26 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man, memorized 12,000 books. Leslie Lenke is blind, cognitively impaired and has cerebral palsy, yet was able to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 after hearing it once. Stephen Wiltshire, diagnosed with autism at age 3, sketched seven square miles of London with amazing accuracy after a 15-minute helicopter ride.

These and dozens of other incredible individuals, who combine profound disabilities with spectacular cognitive skills, are the subjects of Darold A. Treffert’s intriguing new book, Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant [May 2010, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 328 pages, hardback, 978-1-84905-810-0, $29.95]. In this book, Treffert explores the fascinating world of the savant: individuals with exceptional ability in one or more fields that coexists with some form of disability. However, this book is not just about savants, but is also about the buried potential that savant syndrome suggests may reside within us all.

Islands of Genius explores the startling phenomena of genetic memory—instances in which individuals somehow “know” things they never learned—and sudden genius or acquired savantism—where a neuro-typical person unexpectedly and spectacularly develops savant-like abilities following a head injury or stroke. Treffert believes that these phenomena point convincingly toward a reservoir of untapped potential in the human mind. “These cases heighten the possibility,” Treffert writes, “that savant capabilities—a little Rain Man perhaps— might be buried, but dormant, within us all.” He looks both at how savant skills can be nurtured, and how they can help the person who has them, particularly if that person is on the autism spectrum.

To highlight these remarkable abilities, Islands of Genius contains an eight page color section displaying the extraordinary artwork of some of the savants who are featured in the book.

“I hope you find this journey into the mind and world of the savants exciting and revealing not only about them,” writes Treffert, “but also about each of us and our possibilities.” However, Islands of Genius is about more than the potentials of the human mind. It is also about the potential of the human heart. In writing Islands of Genius, Treffert has come to find a deep reverence and respect for the families of savants. “Witnessing the belief, unconditional love, patience, optimism and hard work of those who care for the savant, but who also care about the savant,” Treffert writes, “I have learned as much about matters of the heart as I have about circuits in the brain.”

Darold A. Treffert, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. He has worked with savants and researched this rare condition for nearly 50 years, and was a consultant on the award-winning movie Rain Man. Dr. Treffert is also the author of the bestseller Extraordinary People: Understanding Savant Syndrome.

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