Autistic Savants

The autistic savant phenomenon is sometimes seen in autistic people. The term is used to describe a person who is autistic and has extreme talent in a certain area of study. Although there is a common association between savants and autism (an association created by the 1988 film Rain Man), most autistic people are not savants. Calendar calculators and fast programming skills are the most common form. The famous example is Daniel Tammet, the subject of the documentary film The Brain Man (Kim Peek, one of the inspirations for Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man, is not autistic). "Bright Splinters of the Mind" is a book that explores this issue further.