Rain Man Essay

The movie Rain Man explores the developmental disability known as savant syndrome on autism spectrum. More Intro…

The psychological issue portrayed in this film is savant syndrome on autism spectrum. Savant syndrome is a rare condition in people who have a developmental disability, such as autism, that affects the central nervous system (CNS), which is the brain and spinal cord (Treffert, 2014). Savants have some form of genius ability (2014). Savant skills generally occur in five areas: music, art, calendar calculating, mathematics, or mechanical/visual-spatial skills (2014). Some other skills that less frequently occur are language, unusual sensory discrimination, athletics, or outstanding knowledge in specific fields (2014). No matter what

the skill is, it is always associated with massive memory of a habit or procedure (2014). Savant syndrome can be present at birth or develop later in life after a CNS injury or disease (2014). Males are affected 4-6 times more than females (2014). There are many theories that try to explain savant syndrome. Treffert explains that in the case of both congenital and acquired savants, there is brain damage in one area that causes another area of the brain to take over for the part that no longer functions correctly (2014). This rewires that area of the brain and releases “dormant capacity,” “of information and skills that were already stored in that newly recruited area” (2014, p. 566).
According to L.

Gross, very little was known about autism outside of medical circles until the actors’ “humane” portrayal of an autistic savant in the film Rain Man in 1988 (2016, p. 1). It challenged many people to reconsider their definitions of normalcy and to accommodate people with special needs (Gross. 2016). The first time savant syndrome appeared in a scientific journal was over 200 years ago (Treffert, 2014). 126 years ago, Dr. J. Down described savant syndrome as a distinct condition (2014). Down labeled the term for this condition “idiot savant,” because at that time it was an accepted scientific term that referred to people with an IQ below 25 (2014). Then in 1988, a paper suggested that the term be substituted with “savant syndrome” because of its degrading nature (2014). In 1998, Andrew Wakefield “unleashed a panic” by releasing a paper that linked the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine to autism (2016). After that, now highly discredited and retracted paper, autism was widely feared. According to Treffert, Rain Man was “accurately and sensitively done” (2014, p. 565). However, many people got the impression from the movie that like Raymond Babbitt, all savants are autistic (2014). About one in ten people with autism have savant skills (2014). Also, not all savants are

autistic.