J Korean Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry.  2011 Sep;22(3):192-197.

Relationship between Savant Skills and Autistic Symptoms in Korean Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Kim YM
• Cho SC
• Yoo HJ
• Chung US
• Park TW
• Sohn JW
• Shin MS
• Kim BN
• Kim JW
• Cho IH

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study was conducted to examine the prevalence and characteristics of savant skills and the relationship between the savant skills and autistic symptoms in Korean ASD children.
METHODS
141 ASD subjects participated in this study and they were divided in to two groups based on the presence or lack of savant skills. The domain scores and total scores of the K-ADI-R, K-ASDS and SRS were used for evaluating the ASD symptoms between the groups.
RESULTS
Memory (n=47) was the most prevalent savant skill in the savant ASD group (n=60). The savant ASD group had a statistically higher mean age and IQ score than did the nonsavant ASD group. Despite their high IQ profile, the savant ASD group showed a higher restricted, repetitive and stereotype behavior score on the K-ADI-R and higher language and cognitive scores on the K-ASDS than did the nonsavant ASD group.
CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest savant syndrome in ASD might be related to the severity of some subdomain of autistic symptoms even though their IQ scores were higher than nonsavant ASD patients.

Keyword

Autism Spectrum Disorder; Savant Skill; Memory; Autistic Symptoms

MeSH Terms

Autistic Disorder
Child
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Humans
Memory
Prevalence