Ever since the beginning of humanity, history has revealed that human beings can never be equal in terms of brain power, individuality, nature e.t.c

In every country, there are several people with either psychological, neurological disorders whose people look down on, think low of and condemned to be totally useless to the society but have in them talents such as numerical, musical and artistical begging to be explored.

Our ability to identify these people with individual difficulties in our society and integrating them into the society will so much help us in harnessing hidden talents in these individuals and also enable them live a meaningful life and contribute their own quota to the development of the human race.


You will be wondering what the essence of this write-up is, well, the focus of this write-up is on the misconceptions in differentiating between lunatics, savants, and imbeciles.

For starters, according to Wikipedia, Savant syndrome is a condition in which a person with a developmental difference demonstrates profound and prodigious capacities or abilities far in excess of what would be considered normal. People with savant syndrome may have neurodevelopmental disorders , notably autism spectrum disorders, or brain injuries.

Lunatic is an informal term referring to a person who is considered mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable, conditions once attributed to lunacy.

While, an idiot , dolt , dullard or (archaically) mome is a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way. Along with the similar terms slowpoke , slowpoke , and cretin , the word archaically referred to the intellectually disabled , but have all since gained specialized meanings in modern times. An idiot is said to be idiotic, and to suffer from idiocy.

You may wonder why categorizing them together, they all suffer apparently some form of intellectual disability, in a typical African setting, these set of people are rarely differentiated, and most times seen, felt, perceived as un-educatable and as such condemned to illiteracy and seclusion.

While imbeciles, morons, and idiots are mentally handicapped/ incapacitated, lunatics are mentally ill and savants are people with neurological disorder and profound abundant intellectual capabilities.

It is worthy to stress that while some categories are of intellectual disability, savants are of abundant intellectual capabilities, but the African community have been failing to identify these individuals with rare talents in our societies, thereby adjudging them as an individual of intellectual disability without giving them a trial in other facets of life.

Yes, subjecting savants to intelligence quotient tests will actually portray them as idiots but over the years many savants have proved that as savants, I.Q tests do not really measure their level of intelligence both for people with savant syndrome and acquired savant syndrome.

The difference between people with savant syndrome and acquired savant syndrome is that the former is in-born while the latter is as a result of head injury or dementia.
The association of African medical practitioners should take this as a wake up call and take it upon themselves identifying these categories of people, harnessing their talents and more importantly integrating them into the society.


Below are some notable savants in the world and their contributions:


1. Kim Peek, the Real Rain Man
Kim Peek was born with severe brain damage. His childhood doctor told Kim's father to put him in an institution and forget about the boy. Kim's severe developmental disabilities, according to the doctor, would not let him walk let alone learn. Kim's father disregarded the doctor's advice.


Till this day, Kim struggles with ordinary motor skills and has difficulty walking. He is severely disabled, cannot button his shirt and tests well below average on a general IQ test.


But what Kim can do is astounding: he has read some 12,000 books and remembers everything about them. "Kimputer," as he is lovingly known to many, reads two pages at once - his left eye reads the left page, and his right eye reads the right page. It takes him about 3 5.

seconds to read through two pages - and he remember everything on 'em. Kim can recall facts and trivia from 15 subject areas from history to geography to sports. Tell him a date, and Kim can tell you what day of the week it is. He also remembers every music he has ever heard. 


2. Leslie Lemke 
Leslie Lemke didn't have a great start in life. He was born with severe birth defects that required doctors to remove his eyes. His own mother gave him up for adoption, and a nurse named May Lemke (who at the time was 52 and was raising 5 children of her own) adopted him when he was six months old.

As a young child, Leslie had to be force-fed to teach him how to swallow. He could not stand until he was 12. At 15, Leslie finally learned how to walk (May had to strap his fragile body to hers to teach him, step by step, how to walk).

At 16 years of age, Leslie Lemke bloomed. In the middle of one night, May woke up to find Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Leslie, who has no classical music training, was playing the piece flawlessly after hearing it just once earlier on the television.


From then on, Leslie began playing all styles of music from ragtime to classical. Like the Tchaikovsky piece, he only has to hear the music once in order to play it again perfectly. He became famous after being portrayed in national television shows. Before his health started to deteriorate, Leslie gave many concerts around the world.

3. Ellen Boudreaux
Like Leslie Lemke, Ellen Boudreaux is a blind autistic savant with exceptional musical abilities. She can play music perfectly after hearing it just once, and has a such a huge repertoire of songs in her head that a newspaper reporter once tried to "stump Ellen" by requesting that she played some obscure songs - and failed. Ellen knew them all.


Ellen has two other savant skills that are unusual. First, despite her blindness, she is able to walk around without ever running into things. As she walks, Ellen makes little chirping sounds that seems to act like a human sonar. 


Second, Ellen has an extremely precise digital clock ticking in her mind. To help overcome her fear of the telephone, Ellen's mom coaxed her to listen to the automatic time recording (the "time lady" when she was 8. From then on, Ellen knows the exact hour and minute, any time of the day without ever having seen a clock nor have the concept of the passing of time explained to her.


4. Daniel Tammet: Brainman
At first glance, you won't be able to tell that Daniel Tammet is anything but normal. Daniel, 29, is a highly functioning autistic savant with exceptional mathematical and language abilities.


Daniel first became famous when he recited from memory Pi to 22,514 decimal places (on 3/14, the International Pi Day, of course) to raise funds for the National Society for Epilepsy.

Numbers, according to Daniel, are special to him. He has a rare form of synesthesia and sees each integers up to 10,000 as having their own unique shapes, color, texture and feel. He can "see" the result of a math calculation, and he can "sense" whether a number is prime. Daniel has since drawn what pi looks like: a rolling landscape full of different shapes and colors.


Daniel speaks 11 languages, one of which is Icelandic. In 2007, Channel Five documentary challenged him to learn the language in a week. Seven days later, Daniel was successfully interviewed on Icelandic television (in Icelandic, of course!).


When he was four years old, Daniel had bouts of epilepsy that, along with his autism, seemed to have brought about his savant abilities. Though he appears normal, Daniel contends that he actually had to will himself to learn how to talk to and behave around people.


What do you feel with this write-up?  Please drop your comment as it is a major source of motivation for us. 

Cheers!!! 

Source: http://bud-ol..com/2017/01/savants-imbeciles-and-lunatics-mis.html