Psychometric Characteristics of Verbal Working Memory Scale among Savant Syndrome Children

The study aimed to construct a test for the behavioral implications of verbal working memory among Savant syndrome and Verify the factor structure of the test using factor analysis. The study relied on the Geweke & Singleton (1980) approach to select the participants. The study sample consisted of a targeted sample with Savant syndrome. 32 Savant syndrome cases had selected. The verbal working memory test was applied electronically with the help of four colleagues in the field of special education. The applying procedure lasted nine months. The Exploratory Factor Analysis results reached a fitted general factor model. The confirmatory analysis results revealed the fitted construct of the first-order three-factor model structure. The results indicated the possibility of the three-factors loading on a second-order general factor structure.

Histrionics of Autism in the Media and the Dangers of False Balance and False Identity on Neurotypical Viewers

Contemporary US media increasingly portray autism “positively.” Based on critical realism and guided by the Disability Studies in Education (dse) framework, three television shows—Atypical, Touch, and The Good Doctor—with fictitious Autism Spectrum Disorder (asd) character(s) are qualitatively analyzed to understand the impact of the media’s portrayal of autism on the perceptions of neurotypical educators from the perspective of a disabled teacher educator. Autism in the three comedydrama series is portrayed as a savant syndrome of White heterosexual male experience affecting middle-class families. These portrayals of asd are less representative of the autism community and therefore lead to two prominent television strategies of misleading information—false balance and false identity. Since media are not neutral informers, entertainers, educators, and persuaders, it is vital for consumers especially educators to engage in dse informed critical literacy to ensure the consumption of meaningful information about autism.

Shereshevsky’s Case: A Reflection on the Peculiarities of Human Memory

The article deals with the problem of hyper-memory and two main mechanisms of its development: the mechanism of the ultimate development of analogization, schematization and algorithmization and the mechanism of escape from reality to the sphere of the imaginary by rejecting logical generalization and increasing the imaginative component of thinking. Based on the understanding of the effecti­veness of memory according to Korsakov, the author compares the features of mechanical memorization, characteristic of artificial devices and systems, and the cases of hyper-memory development in humans, especially highlighting the case of Shereshevsky as a case of the most pronounced and comprehensive hypermnesia. The article highlights the features of the memory of a phenomenal mnemonist distinguishing it from the memory of an ordinary person, and from the “memory” of external storage devices. The author analyzes the features of the mechanisms of information fixation and reproduction in the case of Shere­shevsky, presented in the works of Luria and Leontiev, as well as the areas and features of the manifestation of phenomenal memory in other cases of “regional hyper-memory” (genius, hyperthymnesia, Savant syndrome). The author con­cludes that in the case of general hypermnesia, characteristic of Shereshevsky, the memorization procedure is associated with the obligatory “separation from real­ity” and the replacement of the plan of the real with the plan of the imaginary, but the condition for the possibility of such replacement is the maximum reduction of the “higher type” memory associated with logical operations and abstraction, as well as the rejection of the principle of arbitrariness of the sign. The author comes to the conclusion that the direction of development of human hyper-memory, characteristic of the case of Shereshevsky and based on imaginative-emotional perception, is directly opposite to the artificial type of memory mechanism.

Dysregulation of neuron differentiation in an autistic savant with exceptional memory

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous group of complex neurodevelopmental disorders without a unique or definite underlying pathogenesis. Although savant syndrome is common in ASD, few models are available for studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms of this syndrome. In this study, we generated urinary induced pluripotent stem cells (UiPSCs) from a 13-year-old male autistic savant with exceptional memory. The UiPSC-derived neurons of the autistic savant exhibited upregulated expression levels of ASD genes/learning difficulty-related genes, namely PAX6, TBR1 and FOXP2, accompanied by hypertrophic neural somas, enlarged spines, reduced spine density, and an increased frequency of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents. Although this study involved only a single patient and a single control because of the rarity of such cases, it provides the first autistic savant UiPSC model that elucidates the potential cellular mechanisms underlying the condition.