Idiot Savant Syndrome In The Movie Rain Man

People have a better understanding of a person with savant syndrome after the movie “Rain Man” in 1988 in which Raymond Babbitt (played by Destin Hoffman). There is a scene in the movie that Raymond tells the waitress her phone number, address, and other related information. Raymond memorized the entire phonebook and immediately recognized her by her name tag. Moreover, savant people beside their mental and physical disabilities have remarkable talent. Savant syndrome is one of the most interesting phenomenons in study of human differences and cognitive psychology. In1887, Dr. J. Langdon Down was first to recognized savant syndrome. He coined the term “Idiot Savant” _ meaning low intelligent and from French, savior, Knowing or Wise

to explain someone who had extraordinary memory, but with a great defect in reasoning power (Hiles 2011). Savant syndrome is extraordinary in which people with autism or other serious handicaps condition can be diagnosed. Furthermore, autism to some extent is a rare condition appears from a complex developmental disability that commonly develops during the first three years of life. It is a neurological disorder that disturbs the activity of the developing brain, resulting in communicative, social and cognitive shortfall. Autism is estimated to take a place in as many as 1 in 500 individuals, and it’s more common in boys than girls and does not relate to any demographic features, such as economic, class, racial, ethnic. The necessary factors of the savant syndrome are remarkable ability not only to memorize, record detail, and repeat an operation endlessly, but also musical, language, and calendar calculating abilities. Here are some psychological, biological, and socio-cultural effects of savant syndrome.

Psychological effect of savant syndrome is varying among savants; however, what all savants have in common is prodigious, these abilities divided into 5 major categories: music, art, lighting calculation, and calendar calculation.

To begin with, Derek Paravicini was born extremely prematurely, at 25 weeks. His blindness was caused by oxygen therapy given during his time in a neonatal intensive care unit. This also affected his developing brain, resulting in his severe learning disability. He also has autism. He is able to play piano only by listening to a piece of music once; his brain is perfectly programed musical computer (Extraordinary People, 2013).Moreover, although Tommy McHugh 51 was criminal and drug addict, he had a brain hemorrhage which underwent a serious surgery because both sides of his brain bleeding. But he made it. Suddenly, he began to write poetry out of his control as he put it, “The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, it was like a drug.” McHugh spent every moment painting for 19 hours a day, he painted every surface such as wall, ceiling, and floor of his home .According to a neuroscientist who has studied McHugh, the brain hemorrhage flooded his frontal lobe with blood, which is responsible for creativity. In addition, Daniel Tammet was born with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. His brain is able to reciting the number pi up to the 22,514th digit. He is also diagnosed with synesthesia that curious crossing of the senses that causes him to “hear” colors, “smell” sounds, in different shapes, and textures. Synesthesia is incredibly rare (Tammet,

2007).
The biological effects of savant syndrome are not known yet, however, there are some hypothesize that tries explain linkage between autism and savant syndrome; left brain injury with right brain compensation, and genetics. In a survey of 5400 children with autism 531 were reported by parents to have special abilities, and a 10% incidence of savant syndrome has become the generally accepted number in autistic disorder (Rimland, 1978).Moreover, autism is
¬¬a mental condition that appears from early childhood which characterized by difficulty in communication, forming relationships with others in using language and abstract concepts, so not all savants are autistic because of their astonishing abilities in contrast with their overall disability, but also only 50% of the cases of savant syndrome are from the autistic population, and the rest are developmental disabilities and CNS injuries, and also it occurs in males more frequently than in females in an approximate ratio of 6 to 1 (Hiles, 2001).In addition to autism, left hemisphere dysfunction with right brain compensation is another biological influence in savant syndrome. Rimland 1987, point out that the simultaneous nature of right brain function in savants with autism is in contrast to sequence of left brain activities generally. Equally important that, In autistic disorder itself, left brain disabilities , compared to right brain activity, has been demonstrated left hemisphere abnormalities even before CT scans and MRI (particularly in the temporal lobe areas) in 15 of 17 patients with autism of whom had savant skills. Researchers concluded that motor and language abilities were taking over by the right hemisphere because of deficit in left brain (Darold Treffert, n.d.). Doctor Erika Nurmi and co-workers at Vanderbilt University recently stated that as many as 20 genes may added to autism risk. Since savant abilities are seen in autism, but also happens in different conditions that their results shows savant abilities and autism may be genetically related, but not exclusively (Darold Treffert, 2003).
Life itself is difficult with its advantages and disadvantages; however, being autistic just makes it more difficult and challenging not only for the person with autism disorder , but also for people who live with them as parent, partner, or sibling. Here are two case of autistic people who bravely trying to communicate to outside of their world with all their disabilities.
Amanda Baggs who is 27 years old and not able to speak because of her inability to consistently speech; however, she uses a machine that has a speech synthesizer built in to it. The way she found to communicate to outside of her world is to put out videos on her YouTube channel to show people how she lives. Moreover, she explains that she doesn’t want to be seen as less than other people and the main time that she wants to be non-autistic is when people want to fix her.
(Positively Autistic, 2008). Beside Amanda, Alonzo Clemons who is being savant for his entire life after his accident when he was a child. He is not able to write, red, and drive, but one thing he can do that no one else can do and that is sculpting things in less than hour even without of glancing at them, also his ability to create any phot to 3D shape . Furthermore, his gallery of animal sculpture is the way he can communicate to other people ( Darold Treffert, 7-15).

In short, people with savant syndrome considered as a disable people who cannot perform daily activities independently; however, their remarkable skills helped them to found different side of themselves such as memorization, lightening calculation, calendar calculating, musical ability, artistic ability, and language ability which rooted to the biological, psychological, and socio-cultural influences. It is important that people as the member of a larger group which called society understand that there are people who needs their support, services, and education in order to experience the same life quality as we do.