Dealing With A Mentally and Socially Challenged Kid?See Our List of Fascinating Savants that Would Make You Think Differently

Savantism is a neurological condition derived from autism – with a twist. “Savants” were formerly coined “Idiot-Savants”, as in the past, those born with the condition were condemned to mental institutions for their atypical social behavior. As the years progressed, acting “abnormally” became less taboo, and it was realized that these extraordinary individuals made up for their social inadequacies by excelling in a particular area – be it art, math or music. For example, they could possess mental abilities that could only be characterized as superhuman (like having photographic memory, playing music perfectly after hearing it just once, or doing complex mathematical calculations in one's head) but otherwise severely disabled in every day cognitive functions and social interaction.Here’s a list of exceptional people whose unique skills border the paranormal…

 Kim Peek, the Real Rain Man

Even though you've never heard of Kim Peek, chances are you've heard of the movie Rain Man. Kim was the inspiration for the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie.
Kim Peek was born with severe brain damage. His childhood doctor told Kim's father to put him in an institution and forget about the boy. Kim's severe developmental disabilities, according to the doctor, would not let him walk let alone learn. Kim's father disregarded the doctor's advice.
Till this day, Kim struggles with ordinary motor skills and has difficulty walking. He is severely disabled, cannot button his shirt and tests well below average on a general IQ test.
But what Kim can do is astounding: he has read some 12,000 books and remembers everything about them. "Kimputer," as he is lovingly known to many, reads two pages at once - his left eye reads the left page, and his right eye reads the right page. It takes him about 3 seconds to read through two pages - and he remember everything on 'em. Kim can recall facts and trivia from 15 subject areas from history to geography to sports. Tell him a date, and Kim can tell you what day of the week it is. He also remembers every music he has ever heard.
Since the movie Rain Man came out, Kim and his father have been traveling across the country for appearances. The interaction turns out to be beneficial for him, as he becomes less shy and more confident.

Leslie Lemke

Leslie Lemke didn't have a great start in life. He was born with severe birth defects that required doctors to remove his eyes. His own mother gave him up for adoption, and a nurse named May Lemke (who at the time was 52 and was raising 5 children of her own) adopted him when he was six months old.
As a young child, Leslie had to be force-fed to teach him how to swallow. He could not stand until he was 12. At 15, Leslie finally learned how to walk (May had to strap his fragile body to hers to teach him, step by step, how to walk).
At 16 years of age, Leslie Lemke bloomed. In the middle of one night, May woke up to find Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leslie, who has no classical music training, was playing the piece flawlessly after hearing it just once earlier on the television.
From then on, Leslie began playing all styles of music from ragtime to classical. Like the Tchaikovsky piece, he only has to hear the music once in order to play it again perfectly. He became famous after being portrayed in national television shows. Before his health started to deteriorate, Leslie gave many concerts around the world.

 Alonzo Clemons

As a toddler, Alonzo suffered a head injury in an accident that changed his life. He can't feed himself or tie his shoelaces, but he can sculpt.
And boy, can he sculpt: after seeing only a fleeting image of an animal on a TV screen, Alonzo could sculpt a perfect 3D figure of it, correct in each and every detail right down to the muscle fibers.

 Gottfried Mind: Cat's Raphael

Gottfried Mind's cats 

Gottfried Mind was one of the earliest savants in history. In 1776, the eight-year-old Gottfried was placed in an art academy, where his teachers noted that he was "very weak, incapable of hard work, full of talent for drawing, a strange creature, full of artist-caprices, along with a certain roguishness."
One day, Gottfried's mentor, a painter named Sigmund Hendenberger, was drawing a cat when Gottfried exclaimed "That is no cat!" The teacher asked whether he could do better and sent the child to a corner to draw. The cat that Gottfried drew was so lifelike that since then he became known as the Cat's Raphael:

In the course of his narrow, indoors life, he had worked himself into an almost paternal relation with domestic animals, especially with cats. While he sat painting, a cat might generally be seen sitting on his back or on his shoulder; many times he kept, for hours, the most awkward postures, that he might not disturb it. Frequently there was a second cat sitting by him on the table, watching how the work went on; sometimes a kitten or two lay in his lap under the table. Frogs (in bottle) floated beside his easel; and with all these creatures he kept up a most playful, loving style of conversation; though, often enough, any human beings about him, or such even as came to see him, were growled or grunted at in no social fashion. 

Gilles Tréhin

Gilles Tréhin lives part-time in the city of Urville, in an island off the Côte d'Azur, between Cannes and St. Tropez. Never heard of it? That's because Urville exists only in his mind.
Since he was 5, Gilles taught himself to draw three dimensional objects. By 12, he started building a city he called "Urville" (after Dumont d'Urville, a French scientific base in the Antarctic). At first he used LEGO, but shortly thereafter, he realized that he could expand his imaginary city much easier with drawings.

              

      Abbaye Sainte Marguerite des Tégartines, in Urville

Urville isn't just an idle idea - Gilles has 250 detailed drawings, complete "history" of the founding the the city, and has even published a book detailing it (Sneak peak at Google Books).

 Jedediah Buxton

Jedediah Buxton, born in Derbyshire, England, in 1707, couldn't write. By all accounts, he has no knowledge of science or history or anything else for that matter except for numbers. Jedediah, as it turned out, was one of the world's earliest mental calculators and savants.
Everything was numbers to Jedediah - in fact, he associated everything he saw or experienced with numbers. He measured the area of the village he was born in simply by walking around it. When he saw a dance, his whole attention was to count the number of steps of the dancers. At a play, Jedediah was consumed with counting the number of words uttered by the actors.
The mental feat of Jedediah Buxton was tested by the Royal Society in 1754 - his mathematical brain was able to calculate numbers up to 39 figures.

 Orlando Serrell

Orlando Serrell wasn't born autistic - indeed, his savant skills only came about after a brain injury. In 1979, then ten-year-old Orlando was playing baseball when the ball struck him hard on the left side of his head. He fell to the ground but eventually got up to continue playing.
For a while, Orlando had headaches. When they went away, he realized he had new abilities: he could perform complex calendar calculations and remember the weather every day from the day of the accident.
From Orlando's official website:

What makes Orlando Serrell so unique is that he may indeed hold the key that unlocks the genius in us all. Orlando Serrell did not possess any special skills until he was struck in the head by a baseball when he was 10. And his extraordinary gifts seem to be his only side effect. Could this mean once a key hemisphere in the brain is stimulated, we can all attain the level of genius Orlando posses and beyond? Only time and research will tell. Until then we will do well to keep our eyes on Orlando and learn what we can from his experience.

 Ellen Boudreaux

Like Leslie Lemke, Ellen Boudreaux is a blind autistic savant with exceptional musical abilities. She can play music perfectly after hearing it just once, and has a such a huge repertoire of songs in her head that a newspaper reporter once tried to "stump Ellen" by requesting that she played some obscure songs - and failed. Ellen knew them all.
Ellen has two other savant skills that are unusual. First, despite her blindness, she is able to walk around without ever running into things. As she walks, Ellen makes little chirping sounds that seems to act like a human sonar.
Second, Ellen has an extremely precise digital clock ticking in her mind. To help overcome her fear of the telephone, Ellen's mom coaxed her to listen to the automatic time recording (the "time lady") when she was 8. From then on, Ellen knows the exact hour and minute, any time of the day without ever having seen a clock nor have the concept of the passing of time explained to her.

 Daniel Tammet: Brainman

 

At first glance, you won't be able to tell that Daniel Tammet is anything but normal. Daniel, 29, is a highly functioning autistic savant with exceptional mathematical and language abilities.
Daniel first became famous when he recited from memory Pi to 22,514 decimal places (on 3/14, the International Pi Day, of course) to raise funds for the National Society for Epilepsy.
Numbers, according to Daniel, are special to him. He has a rare form of synesthesia and sees each integers up to 10,000 as having their own unique shapes, color, texture and feel. He can "see" the result of a math calculation, and he can "sense" whether a number is prime. Daniel has since drawn what pi looks like: a rolling landscape full of different shapes and colors.
Daniel speaks 11 languages, one of which is Icelandic. In 2007, Channel Five documentary challenged him to learn the language in a week. Seven days later, Daniel was successfully interviewed on Icelandic television (in Icelandic, of course!).
When he was four years old, Daniel had bouts of epilepsy that, along with his autism, seemed to have brought about his savant abilities. Though he appears normal, Daniel contends that he actually had to will himself to learn how to talk to and behave around people:

As he describes in his newly published memoir, “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant” (Free Press), he has willed himself to learn what to do. Offer a visitor a drink; look her in the eye; don’t stand in someone else’s space. These are all conscious decisions.
Recently, some friends warned him that in his eagerness to make eye contact, he tended to stare too intently. “It’s like being on a tightrope,” he said. “If you try too hard, you’ll come off. But you have to try.” 

There is a big difference between Daniel Tammet and all the other prodigious savants in the world: Daniel can tell you how he does it and that makes him invaluable to scientists trying to understand the savant syndrome:

Professor Allan Snyder, from the Centre for the Mind at the Australian National University in Canberra, explains why Tammet is of particular, and international, scientific interest. "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do," says Snyder. "It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the Rosetta Stone." 

The boy with Down syndrome who became a brilliant conductor

Zhou Zhou is mentally handicapped, but his extraordinary talent has opened a new world for him.

He was born with Down syndrome on April Fool's Day, 1979 in Wuhan, Huhei province. His IQ is just 30% that of a normal person. He does not know his age or recognize currency, yet he knows all the parts of the instruments in a symphony. Zhou Zhou is the only conductor in the world who does not read music, yet a special talent enables him to memorize the melodies of all the sections in a piece soon after he hears it.

As a boy, Zhou Zhou went to rehearsals with his father, a cellist in the Wuhan Symphony Orchestra. He was always quiet in the rehearsal hall, listening to the music. When the orchestra rested, he would go to the podium to practice conducting. 

"His pure heart enables him to concentrate on the music and convey its beauty," said well-known conductor Jiang Xiebin.
Zhou Zhou has toured the world, bringing people joy with his special skills. In 2006, his mother died of cancer, and he remained out of public view until 2014, when he returned to the limelight with an interview on China's Central Television.

The autistic man who can paint detailed landscapes from his photographic memory

Stephen Wiltshire has the uncanny ability to draw and paint detailed landscapes and cityscapes entirely from memory.  Wiltshire was mute when he was diagnosed with severe autism at the age of three. He began communicating through his drawings after being sent to school in London. With the support of his teachers, he slowly learned to speak.

It was during those years that Stephen's special talent was discovered. Following a class field trip, he drew the ornate Albert Hall in detail without the aid of a photograph. He can look at the subject of his drawing once and reproduce it accurately, down to the exact number of columns or windows on a building.  He drew a 10 meter (~33 ft) long panorama of Tokyo following a short helicopter ride. 

He has tackled the iconic cities of Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem, London, Singapore and New York. Stephen went from a silent, withdrawn child to a revered artist whose videos go viral on YouTube and whose works sell for six-figure sums. 

The boy with Asperger's syndrome who is the world's youngest astrophysics researcher

When Jacob Barnett was 2-years-old, he was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism. Doctors told his parents that he would likely never talk or read and would probably be unable to manage basic daily activities. His mother, following her instinct, pulled her son out of a state-run special education facility to homeschool him. By the age of 11, Jacob entered college to study for his degree—condensed matter physics at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Now 17, Jacob studies at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and is one of the world's most promising physicists. Said to have a higher IQ than Einstein, he is working on a theory that would see him nominated for a Nobel Prize. According to an email by Professor Scott Tremaine, “The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics. Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.” 

Barnett, known the world's youngest astrophysics researcher, is already giving lectures to his peers. He has also appeared in several news interviews on 60 Minutes, CBS, and the Time magazine website.

The autistic woman who became one of the top scientists in the humane livestock handling industry

Temple Grandin is perhaps the world's most famous person with autism. She has exceptional nonverbal intelligence and spatial memory. 

A professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University, Grandin is an outspoken advocate for autism research and awareness. She overcame speech problems early in life and went on to become an author and activist for causes tied to animal welfare. She has a Ph.D. in animal sciences and is an expert and consultant on animal behavior. She also invented the "Hug Box," a machine that helps people with autism-related disorders deal with anxiety. 

Grandin headlined a 2010 TED Talk in California on understanding autism, entitled "The world needs all kinds of minds," and Time magazine has listed her among the world's most influential people.

In her book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across The Spectrum, Grandin draws on her own experience and the latest research to broaden the public's understanding of the challenges faced by people on the autism spectrum, and how to make the most of their unique strengths and abilities.

The blind, autistic man who has played concerts for audiences worldwide

Derek Paravicini is 36, blind, has severe learning difficulties and cannot dress or feed himself, but play him a song once, and he will not only memorize it instantly, but he'll be able to reproduce it exactly on the piano.

He was born prematurely, at 25 weeks. His blindness was caused by oxygen therapy given during his time in a neonatal intensive care unit. The therapy also affected his developing brain, resulting in his severe learning disability. However, he is a musical prodigy. He has perfect pitch and the ability to play almost any piece of music after hearing it only once. Consequently, he has memorized countless musical compositions, and can play any of them on demand in any style.

Paravicini's obsession with music began when his nanny gave him a toy keyboard to play with when he was just a toddler. On his very first visit to The Linden Lodge School for the Blind, he heard music and followed the sound to a room where a teacher, Adam Ockelford, was playing the piano. He pushed Ockelford to one side and took over, playing with his fingers, the backs of his hands, his elbows, and even his nose. Ockelford encouraged his obvious musical interest and ability and started to give him lessons—first weekly and then daily—once he realized the boy's talent and hunger for music.

Since then, Paravicini has played live shows from Las Vegas to Buckingham Palace, thrilling audiences worldwide. He has been the subject of countless documentaries and an official biography, In the Key of Genius, written by his teacher, Adam Ockelford.

The autistic savant who has authored two books, written music and has theories on harnessing renewable energy

Vishal Anand is a 10-year-old autistic savant. He released a collection of devotional songs, titled Smaranam (written and composed by him) on Dec 25, 2014. The lyrics for the album have been penned in four languages—Tamil, Sanskrit, Braj Basha and Malayalam.

At 6-years-old, Vishal wrote his first book, Meadow of Moods. He followed it with another called Jumbo's Bag—Words & Phrases which has an emphasis on special needs children and their linguistic challenges.

Vishal attends Sankalp, a special school for children with learning disabilities. Although he has been placed in the intermediate group, his knowledge far exceeds that of his peers. School mainly serves the purpose of acquiring social interaction skills. “We have taken him to several occupational therapists to help him develop basic skills for independent living, and hone his motor skills,” his mother, Vidhya, said. 

Vishal's parents have started communicating with researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, who have shown interest in the boy's renewable energy theories. "My hero is Nobel laureate Albert Einstein. I am keen on doing research to create a device using radioactive renewable energy in columns of fuel cells which can be used in cars, homes and industry,” Vishal says. 

The severely autistic man who can play music he's heard only once

In 1995, Rex Lewis-Clack was born blind and severely autistic. However, by the time he was a toddler, it was clear that Rex had a special affinity for music. "When he was three, he started picking out the notes from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony," his mother, Cathleen Lewis, said. 

Rex displays an astonishing ability to play back piano pieces he has heard only once—he even transposes them into other keys. He also improvises musical variations based on a given theme.

Now 20-years-old, Rex has performed professionally since he was eight and has delighted audiences worldwide with his astounding musical ability. But away from the keyboard, he still has difficulty carrying on a basic conversation. Considered a prodigious musical savant, he ranks as one of about 30 people throughout history to combine blindness, intellectual disability, and prodigious musical ability.