Bright Splinters of the Mind: A Personal Story of Research with Autistic Savants

Little is understood about the nature of the extraordinary talents of some people with autism. Drawing on 20 years research, Beate Hermelin describes what autistic savants do and how they do it. During her studies s he and other researchers examined savants alongside neurotypical individuals talented in the same domain, as well as people with the same level of intelligence as the savants but who had no special abilities. Hermelin describes her investigations and explores the gifts of autistic savants, in the areas of poetry, foreign language acquisition, the visual arts, music and mathematics, and reaches radical conclusions on the very nature of talent and its relationship to intelligence.