There's No Such Thing As An Idiot Savant.

I was thinking recently. There really is no such thing as a true idiot savant. Is there? Because all that really means is that different people with different handicaps, that make them look different, might actually be very skilled in another area. Maybe most other areas. Some people like Kim Peek are said to have been outstanding example of this. But he was rare. And I think his story might have been exaggerated. (I saw him on TV once. And sounded reasonably intelligent and normal, I thought. His IQ was 87. Which actually is well in the normal range, though kind of low.)

As I've told people recently, people like Rosemary Kennedy and John Wayne Bobbitt appeared to be very normal, maybe even intelligent. But John Wayne Bobbitt has an IQ of 83. Below Peek's, and well into the borderline area. Rosemary Kennedy's parents told people she was going to be a kindergarten teacher. But her IQ seems to have been into the moderately intellectually impaired even.

Different mental and intellectual handicapped people just have different abilities. And also they have problems with things like social functioning and shyness that might make them seem to have problems they don't.

Thoughts?