We have medicalized a lot of things that I think are not really medical conditions. — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
The ways in which acquired savants show up are usually the same ways that congenital, or non-acquired, savant syndrome shows up. They tend to show up in the same areas: music, art, math, visual, spatial skills, and calendar calculating, although calendar calculating probably isn't quite as prominent in that group. They tend to show up quite quickly, or sort of… — Darold Treffert Copy Share
Not only when one does meditation one is getting into a different realm, cognitively, but if you look at the imaging that's done on… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
When I met my first savant in 1962, I was impressed by the abilities in these youngsters who had severe disabilities. They appeared to me to be islands of genius in the sea of disability. So I've maintained that word picture since that time, of these islands of genius that are so striking and so jarring when you see them,… — Darold Treffert Copy Share
I have a fairly strict definition of early infantile autism. That is not to say that people who don't meet that classic description don't… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
What happens is most of us are so busy in our lives with our families and our vocation which we should be, but we tend not to look at what I call these parallel interests, and they develop along the way. And sometimes one can say, well, you know, why should I grow my own garden and spend all that… — Darold Treffert Copy Share
With respect to why some acquired savants are musical, and some are good at the arts, and some are mathematical, why aren't they all… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
Savant syndrome and autism, I think, are not disorders of brain structure, but they're disorders of brain function. — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
Savant syndrome, characteristically, consists of left hemisphere dysfunction coupled with right hemisphere emergence, and what you see in the savant are basically right brain… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
I think one of the problems with the definition of autism is we keep expanding it. It started as "early infantile autism", and then… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names in research. — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
We should probably start searching around a little earlier in our lives for what I call parallel activities, because most of us get entrenched… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
Sometimes along the way, when people are actively working, they will start to do a search for their roots and maybe get really interested… — Darold Treffert Copy Share Image
