One of the most fascinating savants in the world who is a British writer whose bestselling 2006 memoir Born On A Blue Day, about his life with high-functioning autism and savant syndrome, was named a "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association:
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet
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10. Daniel Tammet: Brainman
10 Most Fascinating Savants in the World
By Alex in Health, Neatorama Exclusives on Sep 5, 2008
[source: http://www.neatorama.com/2008/09/05/10-most-fascinating-savants-in-the-world/]
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:
As he describes in his newly published memoir, “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant” (Free Press), he has willed himself to learn what to do. Offer a visitor a drink; look her in the eye; don’t stand in someone else’s space. These are all conscious decisions.
Recently, some friends warned him that in his eagerness to make eye contact, he tended to stare too intently. “It’s like being on a tightrope,” he said. “If you try too hard, you’ll come off. But you have to try.”
There is a big difference between Daniel Tammet and all the other prodigious savants in the world: Daniel can tell you how he does it and that makes him invaluable to scientists trying to understand the savant syndrome:
Professor Allan Snyder, from the Centre for the Mind at the Australian National University in Canberra, explains why Tammet is of particular, and international, scientific interest. "Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do," says Snyder. "It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the Rosetta Stone."
More info about Daniel Tammet:
Official website and blog
60 Minutes Interview
Born on a Blue Day, Daniel's autobiography (Daniel was born on a Wednesday, a day he perceived as blue).
Daniel Tammet - The Boy with the Incredible Brain (5 clips)
I'll be the first to admit that we have only scratched the surface of the fascinating topic of savant syndrome. If you are interested, here are some suggested websites by Darold A. Treffert, the world's foremost expert on savant syndrome, for further reading:
Savant Syndrome, Darold Treffert's website at the Wisconsin Medical Society
Islands of Genius [PDF], a Scientific American article by Darold Treffert and Gregory Wallace
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