Brief Report: Two Day-Date Processing Methods in an Autistic Savant Calendar Calculator

• Published in: Journal of autism and developmental disorders Vol. 46; no. 3; pp. 1096 - 1102
• Main Authors: De Marco, Matteo, Iavarone, Alessandro, Santoro, Giovanna, Carlomagno, Sergio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-03-2016; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Algorithms; Asperger Syndrome; Asperger's syndrome; Autism; Autistic Disorder - diagnosis; Autistic Disorder - psychology; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Brief Report; Calculators; Calendars; Care and treatment; Child and School Psychology; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Processes; Cognitive science; Complications and side effects; Computation; Ethics; First time; Futures (of Society); Gifted; Humans; Imagery; Latency; Male; Males; Mathematics Skills; Memory; Memory - physiology; Mental Disorders; Mental Recall - physiology; Neurosciences; Pediatrics; Peer Relationship; Pregnancy; Psychological Patterns; Psychology; Public Health; Reaction time; Reaction Time - physiology; Recall (Psychology); Retrieval; Skills; Society; Students with Disabilities; Task Analysis; Thinking Skills; Time Perception - physiology; Italy; Calendrical calculation; Autism; Asperger; Algorithm; Memory
• ISSN: 0162-3257; 1573-3432
• DOI: 10.1007/s10803-015-2626-z

Special ability in computing the day of week for given dates was observed in a 24 year-old male (FB) diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. FB performed almost flawlessly (98.2 %) both with past and future dates, over a span of 40 years. Response latency was slower as temporal remoteness of future dates increased. Within the future timespan, FB’s performance was consistent with the active use of calendar regularities. On the contrary, within the past timespan (for which no remoteness effect was seen), his performance was mainly linked to memory retrieval of personal events. The case presented here complements the existent literature on calendar calculators, as, for first time, two distinct day-date processing styles are described in the same individual.