Underdeveloped Communication, but Super-developed Talent!
While his socializing abilities were underdeveloped, Stephen’s natural artistic talent was rapidly developed from an extremely young age, which shows how the lack of his linguistic abilities do not influence other areas of the brain.
A study conducted by Joanne Ruthsatz, Kimberley Ruthsatz-Stephens, and Kyle Ruthsatz tested cognitive profiles of math, science, art, and musical child prodigies using various Stanford-Binet tests including knowledge, working memory, and visual spatial areas. The results of the experiment showed that art savants had a much higher visual spatial IQ score than the math and science child savants, and Joanne and her fellow researchers explained that the most probable reason for this was because art savants relied more on a “figurative process” to interpret different situations as opposed to more “operative processes”. These figurative processes allow for savants like Stephen to remember extremely detailed features, and this way of thinking also causes these children to see the world differently (Ruthsatz et. al 2014).
Sacks also provides a possible explanation for how savants have such advanced abilities in certain specialty areas by describing these talents as activated stimuli that "immediately start to operate at full blast" (225) when activated at the right time. This explanation takes into account how actions and interpretations are constantly regulated and controlled by external stimuli. Except the particular case for savants is that unique stimuli are activated in savants that create this extraordinary result.
Therefore, the figurative and memorial stimuli are still intact and are actually amplified on the behalf of the lacking linguistics and empathy.
