Characteristics

According to Treffert, something that almost all savants have in common is a prodigious memory of a special type, a memory that he describes as "very deep, but exceedingly narrow". It is wide in the sense that they can recall but have a hard time putting it to use. Also, many savants are found to have superior artistic or musical ability. In layman's terms, a person with Savant syndrome has "islands of genius" within his or her intellectual abilities, where a specific ability or subject is understood to a near perfect level, while other abilities seem to be impaired.