At a glance, Raymond sees how many matches have fallen to the ground (and there are more than a hundred). He also surprises a waitress by reciting her phone number, which he just happened to read in the phone book. I am now talking about the film ‘Rainman’ in which Dustin Hofmann plays the role of the idiot savant Raymond beautifully. The film is based on a real person: Kim Peek is the idiot savant who was the model for the film. Kim was born with brain damage, but at the same time had wonderful gifts that made a great impression. For example, he says he reads the left page of a book with his left eye and the right page with his right eye. This means he can read a book in an hour on average. Moreover, he stores all the books in his memory. He plays music he heard years ago on the piano. All the more reason to make a film about it.
What is an idiot savant?
An idiot savant is a person who is mentally disabled but is a genius in some area. Sometimes it is accompanied by blindness, deafness or autism. It is also referred to as savant syndrome or simply ‘savant’. The omission of the word ‘idiot’ makes it sound a bit friendlier.
The word idiot refers to its scientific meaning. It defines an idiot as a person with an IQ of less than 25, comparable to the IQ of a three-year-old child. This is a somewhat exaggerated term because the average IQ of an idiot savant is between 50 and 70 and therefore above 25. However, this still scores far below the average IQ of 100.
The word savant , on the other hand, means genius. This seems like a huge contradiction, but idiot savants are geniuses in one or more areas while in others they can be considered mentally retarded. Hence the combination of these two words. In some cases, they were considered mentally handicapped in their youth and their genius only came to light later.
The phenomenon occurs six times more often in boys than in girls. It often, but not always, occurs in combination with autism: a condition that is also more common in boys.
What do you mean, genius?
There are several areas in which genius can emerge. Often every idiot savant has his own specialty(s). Some people know entire encyclopedias by heart. Others can perform the most difficult mathematical calculations by heart, sometimes surpassing the computer in the number of decimal places. Still others know entire musical compositions by heart after hearing them once. Their brains can be compared to a computer and all information seems to be automatically stored on the hard drive. Kim Peek even got the nickname ‘the Kimputer’ because of this. Normal people filter incoming information based on relevance. They cannot possibly remember all the information. Idiot savants do not filter information and remember everything. They don’t consciously try to remember things: it happens naturally. Their genius is also generally more passive than that of famous scientists. For example, savants are more likely to memorize an encyclopedia than to write one themselves.
Idiot savants often have brain damage and their genius can be explained by that. This damage is usually present from birth, but there is also a case of someone who became an idiot savant after being hit on the head with a baseball bat.
Mediagenic
Idiot savants often appeal to the imagination. It is often used in films and books. It is often wrongly believed that, just like in the movie Rainman, idiot savants are always autistic (or that all autistics are also geniuses). However, this is not the case. The combination of autism and savant is common, but not all savants are autistic. For example, Kim Peek is not autistic and the film does not correspond to reality in that area.
Being a savant idiot isn’t all roses and moonshine. Many savants are welcome guests on TV shows and among scientists. Everyone finds a person who calculates like a computer fascinating. Or a person who knows how to tell the correct day for every date. However?
Unfortunately, it’s not all roses and moonshine for the savants themselves. The intellectual disability is the other side of the coin. It is possible that an idiot savant can recite entire encyclopedias, but cannot travel by bus. They also often have problems with their motor skills. For example, Kim Peek only learned to walk when he was four and his father had to help him button his blouse.