Memory characteristics in individuals with savant skills

In this chapter it is argued that memory performance provides a coherent picture of savant abilities, even though the talents displayed make different demands on memory and learning. The chapter opens with an introduction to savant talent, to issues in relation to domain-specificity and modularity, as well as the role of practice and implicit memory. These topics have been picked out because of their relevance to memory and also because of associations with autism. Three sections then follow which focus on savant memory performance amongst numerical and calendar calculators, musicians and artists, where the evidence from empirical studies is placed in the context of the issues raised in the Introduction. Finally, a theoretical interpretation is presented which, it is argued, provides a convincing account of the development of savant abilities

Numbers and letters: Exploring an autistic savant's unpractised ability

This paper describes an individual with autism and high-level calendar calculation ability who could perform a set of unpractised letter/number association tasks. The savant's performance was compared with that of two control participants, one a departmental secretary and the other a professor of mathematics. The facility with which the savant could master the rules governing the relationships between the series of items suggests that he possessed a flexibility of mental processing transcending his ability of calendar calculation. Furthermore, he could recalibrate previous knowledge to solve new hitherto unpractised tasks. When presented with novel problems, the savant, unlike the mathematician, made no initial errors at all on any of the presented tasks, thereby indicating his fast and spontaneous recognition of new rules and of new relationships between items. It is concluded that a cognitive style of 'weak central coherence' as adopted by autistic savants may protect single representations from being retained in the form of stable enduring wholes, and that such a segmentation strategy may allow for the transformation, reorganization and reconstruction of the relationship between single items of information

Mapping Arts, Health and Higher Education Collaborative Projects in London

This publication is based on a report commissioned by The London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise (LCACE) and Arts Council England (ACE) who are committed, along with other partners to building and analysing evidence of the impact of arts activity in the health arena. It seeks to map collaborative projects which have taken place in London since 2002 between the arts, health and higher education institutions. The remit for the research defines arts and health as arts-based activities that aim to improve individual or community health and healthcare delivery, using arts-based approaches which seek to enhance the healthcare environment through provision of artworks, performances or interaction between patients, staff and arts practitioner

Children with septo-optic dysplasia - musical interests, abilities and provision: The results of a parental survey.

This paper reports the results of an exploratory survey of 32 families of children with septo-optic dysplasia and 32 families of children without visual impairment or any specific health problems (who served as a comparison group). The focus of the research was to explore the children’s musical interests and abilities, the musical provision that was made for them, and the ways in which music might impact upon their wider development and education. The reports of the parents and carers provided a substantial amount of information and while the data may have been subject to certain biases, the findings nevertheless serve as an important signpost for future research. The main conclusions relate to the fact that, despite reportedly high levels of musical interest and ability among children with septo-optic dysplasia – consistently higher than in the case of their fully-sighted counterparts – few had access to appropriate music-educational or therapeutic support, compared to many of the comparison group who were able to take advantage of a wide range of musical opportunities. Within the group with septo-optic dysplasia, the educationally blind children often displayed significantly different characteristics from those who were partially sighted, and level of vision seemed to be a more important factor in influencing musical development than the presence of the septo-optic dysplasia syndrome itself. It was evident that further research is needed to explore the levels of musical interest and ability in visually impaired children with a range of other eye conditions and syndromes, and to investigate in more detail the important role that music may play in the promoting their wider development

Psychological characteristics of children with visual impairments: learning, memory and imagery

The performance of children (and sometimes adults) with visual impairments (VI) on a range of tasks that reflect learning, memory and mental imagery is considered in this article. Sometimes the evidence suggests that there are impairments in performance in comparison with typically developing children with vision and sometimes some advantages emerge. The author’s aim is to describe some of her own and others’ findings and explore what they tell us about the cognitive characteristics of such children, so that progress with practical interventions can be advanced through understanding. The article starts by focusing on social-cognitive development and in particular considers the potential benefits of language in that development. This is followed by a review of some studies of learning and memory performance which provide a coherent picture of development without vision and finally ends with a consideration of spatial mental imagery

Generating inferences from written and spoken language: a comparison of children with visual impairment and children with sight

The two experiments reported here investigated the ability of sighted children and children with visual impairment to comprehend text and, in particular, to draw inferences both while reading and while listening. Children were assigned into `comprehension skill' groups, depending on the degree to which their reading comprehension skill was in line with that predicted by their decoding skill. They then read (either print or Braille) and listened to a series of novel short stories. These were followed by a series of questions, which required either the generation of inferences, or an answer that could be taken literally from the text. The results suggest that children with and without sight are comparable in their ability to draw inferences, and that children with visual impairment show an advantage for literal questions under auditory presentation