The combination of blindness, mental handicap and musical genius is conspicuously over-represented throughout the reports of savant syndrome from earliest times. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows the absence of the corpus callosum along with other substantial central nervous system (CNS) damage. Of unique interest is his ability to read extremely rapidly, simultaneously scanning one page with the left eye and the other page with the right eye. He also has calendar-calculating abilities and, more recently, rather advanced musical talent has surfaced. He has also memorized the maps in the front of telephone books and can tell you precisely how to get from one US city to another, and then how to get around in that city street by street. He can name all the US area codes and major city zip codes. However, the original inspiration for the savant portrayed in Rain man was a now 57-year-old male who has memorized over 6000 books and has encyclopedic knowledge of geography, music, literature, history, sports and nine other areas of expertise ( Peek & Hanson 2008).
Without doubt, the best-known autistic savant is a fictional one, Raymond Babbitt, as portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 1988 movie Rain man.
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