The savant syndrome:: A review

Background: The term savant-syndrome describes a condition of general intellectual impairment, mental or sensory disorder, appearing with an extraordinary performance within a limited area of cognitive function. Objective: To give a contemporary view on the description, prevalence, neuropsychology, and theories of the syndrome. Methods: On the basis of historical reports and current empirical data, the state of the art regarding the phenomenon is summarized and discussed. Results: The savant phenomenon includes talents in the areas of memory, drawing, music, calculation and reading, and still lacks adequate definition. Cases showing truly spectacular islets of abilities are scarce. More often subjects exhibit splinter skills. These competencies are only outstanding because they emerge in parallel with a dominating psychopathology. It seems that the prevalence of savants is elevated in autism. In the past, various attempts were undertaken to explain the savant condition, mostly based on case-studies. Among others, rote memory, cognitive strategies, low-level information processing, extensive rehearsal, genetic factors and cerebral characteristics have been suggested to be involved in the development of the savant-syndrome. Conclusions: Due to the heterogeneity of the phenomenon a non-uniform etiology of the condition is likely.