Morelock and Feldman’s article on Extreme Precocity included in the Handbook on Gifted Education (Colangelo and Davis (ed), 2003) considered savant syndrome as a type of extreme precocity in individuals. Some characteristics cited were extraordinary high IQ, being a prodigy, and the savant syndrome. According to the article, savant is described as an exceedingly rare condition in which persons with serious mental handicaps, either from mental retardation, early infant autism or major mental illness such as schizophrenia, have spectacular islands of ability or brilliance which stand in stark, markedly incongruous contrast to the handicap (Treffert, 2000). Such brilliance are observed in very few areas such as calendar calculating, music, chiefly limited to the piano, lightning calculating, art, mechanical ability, prodigious memory, or in rare case, unusual sensory discrimination or ESP.
The movie displayed a sample situation where savant autism is demonstrated in the life of Raymond Babbit. During his early years, and due to fear of hurting his younger brother, he was sent out to stay under the care of a trusted doctor. He stayed in this institution until such time that his younger brother came to investigate on the father’s will. Without the younger brother’s full knowledge of Raymond’s existence and identity, Charles noticed a lot of unusual traits in Raymond. He reads a lot and he knows about what he read. However, when asked about them, he would repeatedly answer, “I don’t know.”
The movie revealed that Raymond is very much capable of calculating rapidly through mental process only. He displayed this by counting, in a split second, the number of toothpicks that have fallen on the floor. He was also able to compute for mathematical operation as quickly as he was able to. He is also dependent on a routine schedule and that according to the movie, “getting away from the routine would be terrifying for him.” Like Peek’s (1996) characterization of savants, Raymond does not use language in a symbolic or conceptual manner. His thought processes were constrained by a concrete, fact-oriented mindset dominated primarily by associations. This was displayed in his fear of riding an airplane, and not wanting to go out on a rainy day. Moreover, he established the difference in wetting that happens in the bathroom to that when someone is rained upon as that the former is in a bathroom and the latter is outside.
Raymond’s dependence on routine is pretty much demonstrated in his schedule and organization skills. He would rather that his bed be by the window, and neatly fold his clothes to one side of the bed. His slippers have to stay at the end of the bed and that his undergarments have to be that from Kmart in Oak and Burnett, Cincinnati, Ohio. His food had to be routinary as well and that certain rules had to be followed otherwise this disintegrates his conceptual processes. He knows that a “hotel is not his home” and that “maple syrup has to come before the pancakes are served.”
Raymond’s special intellectual-processing problems maintain an extraordinary high general potential (Gallagher, 1988) which qualified him to be an individual with dual labels. The book Best Practices in Gifted Education suggests that family support should be understood as a valuable substance in sustaining the individual identified. Talent development should also be a focus in the design of curriculum specific for their needs.
Class instruction done by Julia Watson also recommended provision of visual supports. Language training for fluency and avoidance of literalness can also be established and trained in order to develop use and facility of language in processing and communication. Processing social skills is also an integral component in the training and education of individuals with savant syndrome through recognition and expression of emotions appropriately, regulation of emotions and behavior, empathy and perspective taking, flexibility, and training of optimism and motivation. These goals and objectives could be achieved through peer tutoring, friends group, lunch bunch, social stories, direct skills training, and relationship development intervention.
The movie made it clear that emotions are not the only way in which support for the needs for individuals with savant syndrome. Charles Babbit may have realized at a later time the affection and happiness of a family, but training and proper accommodation are also significant components of supporting their social emotional needs. Charles emotions were easily challenged when he is engaged with a conversation with Raymond, resulting to physical and verbal abuse. Without the metacognitive capability of processing messages and language, people surrounding individuals with the savant syndrome needs to understand their personality in order to achieve success in supporting their needs and gifts.
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