Savant Syndrome refers to what are called Islands of Ability, but are usually exceptional skills which seem to come out of nowhere with no previous learning or experience. Savant skills can cover everything from exceptional memorisation skills, to outstanding mathematical skills, calendar calculation, astounding special skills, unaccountable ability to acquire foreign languages, exceptional artistic or musical abilities and, some people have added, exceptional sensing abilities.. Savant skills generally occur in around 1% of folks with autism and many of these same people are considered 'mentally retarded' or otherwise unable to show or express their functional skills. Around the same percentage of folks with Asperger's Syndrome are also thought to have Savant skills. So that still leaves 99% of each group who don't. In other words, whilst very interesting, it's not common. Nor are Savant skills specific to folks on the autistic spectrum. Savants are found in all kinds of 'disability' groups, including those with the loss of sight or hearing, those with acquired brain injury, some people with bipolar or mental health conditions and I would say that if severe Cerebral Palsy didn't so often severely effect motor ability to the degree that expression can be very severely impaired, we'd likely find a fair share of Savants in that population too. Let's not forget that there are some so called Neurotypical's with Savant skills too.

As a child, I could map pattern exceptionally and was known to store two hours of conversation and regurgitate it in the voices it was originally spoken in.

I can shadow speak as those speaking to me and sing in the voices of most singers (the struggle was finding my own voice to sing with).

I could remember the feel of the number of steps taken to cross the room and my path through a house whether it was a week ago or 20 years ago.

As a child I couldn't understand three sentences in a row until I was about nine years old and struggled to use my albeit extensive repertoire of language (huge repertoire of jingles, advertisements and stored phrases) with interpretive meaning.

As an adult I came to learn four languages, one of them picked up in four weeks.

As a child I had basically two drawings which I did over and over, one of a ballerina, the other, which took over later, of a cow.

As an adult, I emerged as a painter with no previous teaching in the skill.

As a child I loved statues but could not dare make anything for others to see.

As an adult, after four hours in my first sculpture class I produced a life sized replica of myself.

As a child I began typing letter strings on a typewriter when I was nine. It took me four years to dare type a poem.

As an adult, although I could do academic work, I was terrified of personal exposure and connection but wrote my autobiography, which went on to become a number one international bestseller, in four weeks.

As a child I didn't have a piano but played musical intervals on the air with my fingers.

As an adult, as soon as I touched the piano, I could play one of Tchaikovsky's Ballet Waltzes. Though I couldn't show my music to people until my twenties, I had by then composed over a hundred pieces of work, two of which are now sold to a Japanese TV show and the CD of some of these is now played on some radio stations.

As a child I couldn't read with meaning when I was nine and in testing at the age of 26 I was found to have little ability to process the meaning of what was read to me.

As an adult I was able to scan volumes of literature and regurgitate it when triggered by the responses around me to the extent I managed to get a university degree.

As an adult, at the age of 26 and in spite of an honours degree at university level, when subject to IQ testing, I had exceptional memory abilities but my interpretive abilities with what I saw and heard was quite poor. The combined score of the IQ test was less than 70- essentially the basis of being mildly 'mentally retarded'.

The thing is, I am not alone in this. Many folks diagnosed with autism, many of them non-verbal and often with severe behavioural and communication challenges, have become prolific writers, poets, artists, musicians and some just exceptional at those most overlooked and undervalued skills- the capacity to be oneself and the ability to use the system of sensing.

In Autism And Sensing; The Unlost Instinct, I talked about the role of the unconscious mind, about 'mapping' and taking in unprocessed information in pattern, theme and feel. I talked about 'unknown knowing'. One thing I am very glad of, is that in my strange world in which I imagine pretty much anything is possible (for I can't imagine what is impossible), I almost never think 'I can't'. It's amazing, once we undo the knots, just how much we might be able to sometimes surprise ourselves if we are fortunate to be stupid enough to not realise 'we can't' long enough to be shocked to discover 'we can'. I think there is a bit of a Savant lurking in all of us. Some of us will never see it. Perhaps it is a wonderful thing if we can always imagine the potentiality. Perhaps some of us are afraid of the enormity, passion and depth of who might be in there. In however small a dose, may it one day surprise you.