ARW01
PORTFOLIO: WRITING 01 FINAL COPY
N°: 03 Name: Bernal, Enzo Date: September 2023
Savant Syndrome: Early Studies
The savant syndrome describes people who have extraordinary memory
abilities although these savants have other problems associated with autism and
autistic spectrum disorder ASD. This syndrome gave scientists interesting facts in
the early times of the studies. Obviously, the scientific community couldn't!get much
more information about this disorder!from the first time!of studies, but scientists
must study!this disorder nowadays more than it was done in the past because of the
extraordinary!mental abilities that!savants (b)-have can be activated in normal
people. Some scientists believe that common people!don't need to suffer
(07)!brain damage of the left!hemisphere to have savant!abilities because the right
hemisphere is activated to!compensate (a)!this brain damage in the left
hemisphere. As a result, there can be away to activate these savants’ abilities in
common people’s brains without suffering any brain damage. Consequently,!the
studies about the savant syndrome showed how scientists discovered very
interesting facts about this condition during the time this investigation
was developed.
In this section,!I am focusing on the main discoveries of the savant
syndrome in the early studies. It all begins with the description of a case that
was published in the German psychology magazine Gnothi Sauton in 1783. The case
of Jedediah Baxton was mentioned. Jedediah was known as a lightning calculator.
One of his abilities was to retain information. The second time when another savant
case was presented happened in 1789. It was the case of Thomas Fuller, who was
investigated by Benjamin Rush, whose expertise (d) discovered that Fuller could
perform very fast calculations. The third event occurred in 1887, Dr. J. Langdon
Down said that all people with an IQ less than 25 must be “idiots savants.” (01)
These savants were said that they are characterized by being disabled (e) when
speaking with other people for which they should not be judged, but they had and
extraordinary ability to calculate and retain (c) information in large amounts. In
