A Case Review of a Male Chinese Savant Adult with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex and Syndromic Low-Functioning/Non-verbal Autism

Abstract

This is a case review of a male Chinese adult, BK, who has been previously diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis complex, syndromic low-functioning/non-verbal autistic savantism and intellectual disability. He has the gift of painting and has since produced many works that show he has an eye for detail, color, texture, and stroke application (Camulli, Goh and Chia, 2018). This paper adopts a different perspective to study the case by re-examining BK’s systemizing ability, i.e., his innate drive to analyze or construct any kind of system, and in his case, painting. Systemizing is defined as the ability to follow a certain set of implicit rules that is governing the system in order to predict how that system will behave (Baron-Cohen 2006). In BK’s case, the focus is on his gift of systemizing ability in the cognitive process of acrylic painting using the following cognitive formulation: [input]->[operation]->[output].