Low Intelligence and Special Abilities

Abstract

In summary, our research enables us to conclude that specific talents are found in people who differ widely in general intelligence levels and such talents should therefore be regarded as at least partly intelligence-independent. However, between normal and mentally handicapped populations and even within the idiot savant group, general cognitive capacity plays some part in determining the manner in which talents manifest themselves. Idiot savant special abilities can neither be regarded as the sole consequence of practice and training, nor are such skills based only on an efficient rote memory. Instead, idiots savants use strategies which are founded on the deduction and application of rules governing the material upon which their special ability operates. They also generate novel or new examples of such rule based structures just as we do in our use of language. Because of the much greater prevalence of idiots savants in the autistic than in the mentally handicapped population, some characteristic common to both autism and specific giftedness might be assumed. An obsessional pre-occupation with a limited section of the environment might be a common factor to both. It may be this rather than autism itself which is relevant to the idiot savant phenomenon.

Children’s human figure drawings do not measure intellectual ability

“…The current study was conducted with an unselected group of children from normal classrooms, but the outcome of the research is highly consistent with prior research with children with special populations, including children who have been diagnosed with autism (Heaton & Wallace, 2004;O'Connor and Hermelin, 1987;O'Connor and Hermelin, 1988;Prewett et al, 1989;Selfe, 1983). In terms of autism in particular, there are several well-known case studies of children with severe cognitive deficits who exhibit superior drawing talent (O'Connor and Hermelin, 1987;Selfe, 1983).…”

Unexpected development of artistic talents

“…O'Connor and Hermelin 26 found that calendrical calculators can use the rules and regularities in the calendar, and that those with special musical skills use the rules and structures that govern traditional tonal music, which helped them to remember music composed in accordance with these rules, but atonal music proved much more difficult to perform. Then, in the case of unexpected artistic skills, as has been stated, the child is able to extract the essential qualities of common objects in the visual world and memorise their essential features.…”

“…So all these children use strategies that are founded on the deduction and application of rules governing the material on which their special ability operates; and they may also generate new examples of such rule based structures. 26 It is interesting to speculate on the reasons for the loss and gain of artistic skills. Is it a question of the brain only being able to cope with a certain number of skills at one time?…”

Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Individuals with ASD often display excellent memory in certain areas (e.g. cued-recall, factual information and rote-memory; Bennetto et al 1996;O'Connor and Hermelin 1988), whilst profound weaknesses exist in other domains (e.g. free-recall, source memory and temporal order memory; Bennetto et al 1996).…”