Some of the amazing skills Savants have displayed include :
Kim Peeks memory abilities were astounding. During his life, he memorized over 12,000 books including the Bible, and was an expert on 15 subject areas including geography, music, literature, history, and sports. Amazingly, Kim could actually read two pages at once, his left eye read the left page, and his right eye read the right page. It only took him 8 seconds to read and memorize the two pages.
Stephen Wiltshire(AKA the human camera) can memorize and draw an entire city scape, including every window and door in every building, after seeing it one time.
Ellen Boudreaux can tell you the exact time, including hours, minutes and seconds at any time. She can also play and memorize any song she hears, after hearing it one time.
Savant skills are found in as many as one in 10 individuals with an autistic disorder, while less than 1% of non-autistic individuals have acquired savant syndrome. This includes individuals with a developmental or intellectual disability, or brain injury. Most of those with this syndrome are male, with relatively few reports of female savants. (This may be due to the fact that more boys are affected with autism than girls.)
In the congenital form the savant skill surfaces in childhood. This skill is always accompanied by an underlying developmental disability, often—but not always—autistic spectrum disorder.
Acquired savant syndrome occurs in previously neurotypical individuals who suffer head injury, stroke, dementia, or other central nervous system (CNS) event or disorder. After this event, savant skills surface unexpectedly, sometimes at a prodigious level. Both congenital and acquired savant syndrome are rare, with their documented case totals being 287 and 32, respectively.
There is another form of savant syndrome: sudden savant syndrome, in which savant-like abilities surface unexpectedly, sometimes at a prodigious level, in neurotypical persons with no prior interest or ability in the newfound skill, and with no apparent cause, injury, or underlying disability. Neurotypical persons with no particular art, music, or mathematical interests or abilities, for example, report an unanticipated, sudden, spontaneous burst of newfound abilities accompanied by an epiphany-like understanding of the “rules” and intricacies of the particular areas of specialization.
Notable savants include Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man; Daniel Tammet, a polyglot and author; Stephen Wiltshire, an architectural artist with a “human camera” memory; and Leslie Lemke, a blind musician who can play complex pieces after hearing them once. Other savants on the list are musical prodigies like Derek Paravicini and Kodi Lee, artists like Richard Wawro and Alonzo Clemons, and the scientist Temple Grandin.
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