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Traumatic Brain injuries (TBI), which can range from a mild concussion to permanent brain damage or even death, frequently result in substantial long-term social and cognitive effects. Victims are often left to deal with a completely new normal full of serious changes and challenges. Other times, the brain responds to trauma in spectacular ways, resulting in talents the injured person never before expressed. 

Imagine a 10-year-old boy is seriously injured when he is hit in the head with a baseball and knocked unconscious. Rather than experiencing significant difficulty with speech or memory, he is suddenly able to compose brilliant scores on the piano. This is called acquired savant syndrome, often referred to as “prodigious savant” or “accidental genius.”

What is Acquired Savant Syndrome?

Acquired savant syndrome is the presentation of (often extraordinary) scholarly skills that can emerge after a non-disabled individual suffers a traumatic brain injury or illness. 

But even with such newfound skills, TBIs can prove utterly devastating. While few people may acquire new, wonderful abilities, many of those who suffer such a brain injury are faced with serious, often debilitating, challenges in the aftermath. 

If you or a loved one has suffered a TBI due to someone else’s negligence, you shouldn’t be left to deal with the consequences on your own. To speak with a qualified traumatic brain injury lawyer, please contact the Brain Injury Law Center at (757) 244-7000. We can help you to fight for the compensation that you deserve to ease your burdens and help you to successfully move forward with your life. 

Understanding Acquired Savant Syndrome

The astounding abilities of acquired savant syndrome often materialize following a traumatic injury to the left hemisphere of the brain, commonly a left anterior temporal lobe injury. In every case of savant syndrome, the right hemisphere of the brain compensates for the injured left hemisphere. In other words, acquired savant syndrome can present someone with new abilities after a TBI, where none of these abilities existed prior. 

It is widely believed that these newly surfaced skills are not newly created, but newly “released,” compensatory abilities. This has left many wondering if we are all capable of such miraculous skills. 

Symptoms and Manifestations

There are so many areas in which human beings may excel. That’s why it’s fascinating to know that most individuals who experience acquired savant syndrome can usually fit their newfound skills into one of just five categories:

1. Music (usually piano and performance);
2. Calendar calculating; 
3. Mathematics (such as lightning calculations or easy computation of prime numbers);
4. Art (usually painting, sculpting, or drawing); and
5. Spatial or mechanical skills (such as accurately measuring distances without any tools).

Less common skills that have been reported include:

• Perfect appreciation of time without a clock;
• Incredible knowledge in fields such as statistics or neurophysiology;
• Language (polyglot) facility; and
• Strange sensory discrimination in touch, vision, or smell. 

How Many People Have Acquired Savant Syndrome?

Savant skills are found in as many as one in 10 individuals with an autistic disorder, while less than 1% of non-autistic individuals have acquired savant syndrome. This includes individuals with a developmental or intellectual disability, or brain injury. Most of those with this syndrome are male, with relatively few reports of female savants. (This may be due to the fact that more boys are affected with autism than girls.)

Acquired Savant Syndrome Examples

Sometimes the damage is due to illness, such as dementia. Other times the trauma is external. 

Orlando Serrell is one example of genius-level skills unearthed by traumatic brain injury. At 10 years old, Serrell was hit on the head by a baseball while playing with friends. Serrell suffered intense headaches for some time afterward, but once they cleared, calendar calculation ability emerged. Suddenly Serrell could recall events in his life, down to that day’s weather, with incredible accuracy.

Futon salesman, Jason Padgett, cared little about anything besides partying and women prior to being attacked and robbed by two men outside of a karaoke bar. As a result of the beating, Padgett began developing a variety of negative consequences, such as OCD. However, he also became fascinated by the mathematical idea of fractals, later drawing in-depth patterns and geometric shapes. He eventually developed synaesthesia, a cross-wiring of the brain that mixes up one’s senses, and became a mathematical savant. 

Another example of acquired savant syndrome occurred with Derek Amato, who gained remarkable skills after he was knocked senseless on the shallow cement bottom of a Jacuzzi. The TBI left him with 35% hearing loss in one ear, memory loss, and headaches. However, four days later, another symptom emerged: an intuitive, complex understanding of how to arrange and play melodies, harmonies, and arpeggios. Despite little to no previous musical training, Derek was now a full-fledged composer. Of course, the downside is he still must contend with the very real, very painful additional symptoms of his injury. 

Being able to share artistic, mathematical, and musical talent with the world is often the brightest spot in the otherwise dismal reality of living with a traumatic brain injury. TBI too often only results in loss — loss of memory, social skills, cognitive abilities, and sometimes loss of one’s identity. To be able to work through these symptoms with creative or mathematical genius can be a gift to both the person afflicted and to the world at large.

The Future of Acquired Savant Syndrome

Acquired savant syndrome and the idea of “released” compensatory abilities (“disinhibition”) raise interesting questions regarding whether or not this dormant capacity might exist in each of us. However, it still seems impossible to determine this without each of us first experiencing some type of TBI or catastrophic head injury. To purposefully risk one’s brain health for the mere possibility of discovering new abilities would be ethically questionable at best and downright criminal at worst. 

Luckily, the work necessary to find out how to access these skills is ongoing. Hopefully one day we will fully understand how to enable those who have already suffered a TBI to gain these savant benefits as well. Still, scientists hope to discover whether it may be possible to bring out this potential without first experiencing an injury to the central nervous system. 

But whether we figure this out any time soon, it’s difficult to argue with just how special those with acquired savant syndrome truly are. They are just one example of the power of the human brain in all its intricacies and grandeur. The fact that acquired savants gain their remarkable skills after injury give clues to the untapped potential in all of us.

Contact a Hampton Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyer

While there are some incredible positives that can result from a TBI, there’s no doubt that these “gifts” come at a cost. Negative consequences of TBI, such as memory loss, delayed functioning, headaches, and confusion, are often part of the trade-off. 

The Brain Injury Law Center, in Hampton, VA, is the only law firm in the United States dedicated exclusively to representing brain injury victims, survivors, and their families. Brain Injury Law Center’s attorneys have not only been recognized for their contributions to the practice of law, but proudly practice law with the utmost compassion and care. 

Founded by Stephen M. Smith, Esq., a graduate of Marquette University’s Neuroanatomical Dissection of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord program, the Brain Injury Law Center brings an unmatched level of knowledge. With more than four decades of experience, Mr. Smith has dedicated his life to helping survivors of brain injuries and their families. 

In addition to his many other accolades, he is the only Virginia attorney ever to be awarded Diplomate status by the American Board of Trial Advocates. Mr. Smith has also won the largest mild traumatic brain injury verdict in the world, and his groundbreaking work in the field of TBI has garnered him international recognition. 

When you are already dealing with so much, gathering evidence and filing the proper documentation to build your case is often the last thing on your mind. At the Brain Injury Law Center, we leverage our deep understanding of the laws surrounding traumatic brain injuries and our experience assisting brain injury survivors to build a strong case on your behalf. 

If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury, contact our team right away. Let us help you to fight for the compensation that you deserve so that you can move forward with your life. To learn more or to schedule a free consultation, call us at (757) 244-7000 today.

What to Do After a TBI: FAQs

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While traumatic brain injury affects more than 1.7 million people each year, it is nevertheless easy for victims and their loved ones to feel alone.

The reason for this is simple: the changes taking place in your life make you feel like a stranger to yourself.

The mental and physical abilities you counted on most are now altered, limited, even impossible. The goals you set for yourself have been swept away and replaced by new challenges that are at once rudimentary and incredibly daunting. And the triumphs you experience in each stage of your recovery and rehabilitation bring exhilaration of a kind that you may never have experienced in your previous life.

When it comes to dealing with traumatic brain injury, each person’s story is undeniably unique.

But the uniqueness of these individual stories is precisely what makes them powerful.

This has been our motivation in bringing you stories that feature TBI survivors, as well as friends and families of TBI victims, who are tackling incredible odds with persistence, ingenuity and faith in themselves.

You can read these stories every month here on the BILC website. But if you’re craving more than the brief snapshots provided here, there is a wealth of personal narratives beyond this blog that will offer you even more insight, hope and inspiration.

We’ve put together a list of some of the best books on traumatic brain injury below. (more…)

Many spouses find themselves in a frightening position after their husband or wife suffers a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

First, of course, is the question of life or death. But once they know their spouse will survive, they must then wait to find out how much of their former selves will be retained. Becoming a caregiver for a TBI survivor is a life-changing process. Putting together the pieces of the bond that once existed between husband and wife and creating a new fulfilling relationship can be very difficult and can take years. But there are ways to get help.

A Question of Survival

Rosemary Rawlins knows the difficulties of this process first hand. In 2002, her husband Hugh was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. He sustained a TBI and was given less than a one percent chance of survival. Doctors had to remove part of his skull to allow for his brain to swell.

Rosemary recalls the frightening time when he woke up from his coma, unable to speak and looking different from his former self:

“People would say, ‘It’s such a miracle he survived the accident.’ And I would say, ‘I don’t know if he did.’”

(more…)