Still from the series “The Good Doctor”, based on the experiences of a “learned” doctor.
The term savant (wise) is used to refer to people who have severe cognitive difficulties, which is also a trait often found in many other people on the autism spectrum, but who also have exceptional talent. This wonderful talent usually resides in areas like math, visual memory, art, etc. It is associated with being on the autism spectrum because there is a percentage of people identified as scholars who have been diagnosed with autism.
It used to be considered very, very rare. How many people with autism are savants? It used to be said to be around one in ten, but recent research suggests it could be one in three. Although the truth is that it is not known.
And it’s not known, because in reality what do we consider an extraordinary talent? It’s a somewhat abstract notion, as there is no line from which we can say that something is undeniably exceptional.
Also, I think we also associate autism with savants because of what we’ve seen in the movies or in the series. There’s a current series that reflects that: The Good Doctor, whose protagonist is an autistic surgeon and a scholar who thinks in pictures. Or the 1988 film Rain Man, which also features an autistic person with exceptional math skills and communication and cognitive difficulties. Or Stephen Wiltshire, also known as the “human camera” because of his great visual memory and extraordinary talent for accurately drawing what he sees with just a single glance. They are people with those talents.
A large proportion of them are on the autistic spectrum, but do not have to be. There may be others who have a different type of developmental disability. Not all people on the autism spectrum are scholars, nor are all scholars on the autism spectrum.
Autism is a condition that encompasses many manifestations. It is a syndrome that has a very broad spectrum that includes people with a very high IQ but also people with a very severe intellectual disability. Or people who have many language difficulties and others who have none. But there are always similarities: such as communication and relationship difficulties and repetitive behaviors. These would be the characteristics most commonly associated with autism, although the most visible is that it is very heterogeneous.
The thing about autism is that it’s hard to diagnose. There is no blood test or other medical test that allows us to diagnose it, but it is diagnosed through questionnaires that assess development and behavior. So far, most autism diagnoses have been made in boys. But the fact is that the questionnaires used for these diagnoses were developed on the basis of men. It used to be thought that it is a disease that mainly affects children and that these are its characteristics. Now it has been shown that there are many girls with autism, but the syndrome is such a broad spectrum that it usually has different characteristics in girls. They are diagnosed much later because autistic girls also usually have a great ability to mimic behavior and when they are out in the schoolyard they are seen interacting with others even though they do so only through imitation. At first glance, they don’t seem to fit into what is associated with the main features of autism.
But back to the scholars, it is not known what causes it. There’s a hypothesis defending that part of the brain is affected, which is usually the left side, and then there’s compensation on the right side, and that’s what makes them these abilities. We know that this also happens with the senses. Blind people, for example, develop much more hearing. Well that would be the same but with the brain. And it happens with many other people on the autism spectrum who don’t become scholars but have special abilities. It is assumed that they could also be a compensation of the brain.
Alba Gutierrez Mesner is a doctor of biomedicine and researches autism at the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard University (USA).
Question emailed by Dayana Sanchez Leal
Coordination and editing: victory bull
we answer is a weekly scientific advisory session hosted by the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation and the L’Oréal-Unesco program “For Women in Science” and answers readers’ questions about science and technology. They are scientists and technologists, members of AMIT (Association of Women Researchers and Technologists) who answer these questions. Send us your questions to [email protected] or via Twitter #nosotrasrespondemos.
The advice in this office is of a general nature and does not replace medical advice. If you have any questions about your specific problem, ask your doctor or pharmacist.
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