What Is Scientist Syndrome? – Being Parents

Scientist Syndrome is an infrequent disease that occurs when different developmental disabilities coexist with exceptional talents and abilities. It is associated with disorders like Asperger’s syndrome and autism spectrum disorder.

Children with this syndrome generally have high abilities for music, art, math, or memory, among other things. The clinical diagnosis is usually made around the time of kindergarten.

Although these extraordinary abilities are good for the little ones, it is very important that  they undergo psychological, medical and neuropsychological treatment for the developmental disorder  they have.

What are the characteristics of scientist syndrome?

This syndrome is generally classified under childhood developmental disorders. It is characterized by its ability to  generate capacities greater than the average of the normal population  in certain areas, instead of creating deficits or pathological alterations.

Within developmental disorders, characterized by significant delays in developmental patterns, this syndrome appears more frequently in autism spectrum disorder or with Asperger’s syndrome. But that does not mean that all children with this syndrome are autistic, nor that all those with autism have this disorder.

The main characteristic of the scientist’s syndrome is that it has a low intellectual coefficient and, at the same time, great capacities in music, memory, art, calculation, spatial vision, sculpture, etc. These abilities combine, in turn,  with great social difficulties, language problems, and obsessive interests.

What Are the Outstanding Skills of Scientist Syndrome?

The talents of people with this syndrome may focus on one or more areas. We are now going to see some of the abilities that are most common with this syndrome.

Mechanical and spatial skills

The people here have skills that go beyond those of the general population. Here are a few :

• Control of the study of maps.
• Accuracy when measuring distances without tools or measuring instruments.
• Exceptional faculties to build spatial models and structures.

Capabilities for music

People with Scientist Syndrome have a  great talent for composing music and playing an instrument. Music is one of the most developed fields for them.

They may stand out in the practice of a particular instrument, such as the guitar or the piano, or they may have the ability to play several. They are able to reproduce music without learning or score,  just by listening to it, even if they have heard it only once.

Skills for mathematical calculation

Another of the skills in which people with scholar syndrome stand out is math. They are very fast in mental arithmetic and are able to find square roots or solve multiplications on the spot. They are also very good at doing date calculations, that is, they can identify a day of the week of a specific date.

Artistic faculties

In this field, these people  have a great ability to draw, paint or sculpt. They have the ability to faithfully transpose reality into their works, including a great deal of detail.

Language

Although the majority of those with scholar syndrome have difficulties with expressive and social language,  we have been able to identify cases of people with great ability to learn several languages.

Exceptional aptitudes for memorizing

Some of the people affected by this syndrome  have this amazing ability to memorize a large amount of information and data. They can remember a lot of data related to historical information, population figures, sports statistics, etc.

This ability can turn them into experts in many areas of knowledge. However, in the majority of cases, their interests are very narrow.

Scholar models

Regarding this syndrome, we can distinguish three types of “scientist”.

Prodigious scientist

These are the individuals  who stand out in extraordinary ways in terms of their abilities. One of the most glaring traits is that they can have a high IQ or cognitive impairment.

Scientist with talent

They are those who have great abilities in different fields, along with a high degree of intellectual disability.

Savvy retailer

Reference is made here to cases which  present very reduced features of the scientist’s syndrome. They may have great visual memory while having difficulty establishing social relationships; they are generally specialists in a certain area of ​​knowledge.

Regarding the scientist’s syndrome …

As a conclusion, we can say that people who suffer from this syndrome have extraordinary faculties combined with poor cognitive abilities, which make them  geniuses in some aspects, even if their impairments do not give this image of they.

As you may have seen, Scientist Syndrome  is not very common, but its characteristics are striking. Its diagnosis is relatively simple, in particular because of the peculiarities which characterize it.