Our brains work in complex and strange ways. There are some people who can calculate the day of the week for any given date in 40,000 years, but who cannot add two plus two. Others can perform complex classical piano pieces after hearing them once, but they cannot read or write.

Dr. J. Langdon Down first described this condition in 1887. He called these people idiot savants. An idiot savant is a person who has significant mental injury, such as in autism or retardation. At the same time, the person also exhibits some extraordinary skills, which are unusual for most people. The skills of the savant may vary from being exceptionally gifted in music or in mathematics, or having a photographic memory.

One of the first descriptions of a human who could calculate quickly was written in 1789 by Dr. Benjamin Rush, an American doctor. His patient, Thomas Fuller, was brought to Virginia as a slave in 1724. It took Thomas only 90 seconds to work out that a man who has lived 70 years, 17 days, and 12 hours has lived 2,210,500,800 seconds. Despite this ability, he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write.

Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s. Blind Tom had a vocabulary of only 100 words, but he played 5,000 musical pieces beautifully.

In the excellent movie Rain Man, made in 1988 and available on video cassette, Dustin Hoffman plays an idiot savant who amazes his brother played by Tom Cruise, with his ability to perform complex calculations very rapidly.

Today we more clearly recognize that the idiot savant is special because of brain impairment. Yet not all brain injury leads to savant skills. Some studies have shown that people who have purposeful interruption of the left side of the brain can develop idiot savant skills. However few people wish to participate in such experiments. There are many excellent reasons for not undergoing unnecessary experimentation on one's brain. The term idiot savant is outdated and inappropriate. Virtually all savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots.

Answer the following questions:
1. What are idiot savants?
2. What type of skills?
3. Anything else?
4. And?
5. Who wrote about a human that could calculate fast?
6. What was his profession?
7. Where was he from?
8. What year did he write about this person?
9. What was his patient's name?
10. Was he a free man?
11. Was he literate?
12. Who became famous as a pianist?
13. How many words did he know?
14. How many music pieces could he play?
15. What actor played Rain Man?
16. What was his amazing skill?
17. Does all brain injury leads to savant skills?
18. Do many people wish to participate in experiments to determine idiot savant?
19. Does the author like the term idiot savant?
20. Why not?

Numbered answers:
1. a person who has significant mental injury but has extraordinary skills
2. gifted in music
3. mathematics
4. having a photographic memory
5. Dr. Benjamin Rush
6. doctor
7. America
8. 1789
9. Thomas Fuller
10. no
11. no
12. Blind Tom
13. 100
14. 5,000
15. Dustin Hoffman
16. he performed complex calculations very rapidly
17. no
18. No
19. no
20. savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots