The savant syndrome: Intellectual impairment and exceptional skill

Occasionally, people with developmental disability display skills at a leve l inconsistent with their general intellectual functioning, so-called "sava nt" behavior. Studies of savant behavior are reviewed to determine their re levance to notions about the importance of general intellective functions i n the development of exceptional skill. It is concluded that (a) the skill exhibited by savants shares many characteristics with that in people withou t disability, (b) the skill is usually accompanied by normative levels of p erformance on at least some subtests of standardized measures of cognitive achievement, and (c) it is unclear whether savants have distinctive cogniti ve strengths or motivational dispositions, though their relative prevalence among people with certain kinds of disability suggests predisposing constr aints. The author proposes that these skills typically reflect highly elabo rated preconceptual representational systems.