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Perhaps just like opinions regarding what constitutes giftedness, opinions regarding what constitutes savant abilities vary widely as well. It would never occur to me to consider memorization of a table or even a map as a savant ability. While not common, these kinds of memorization feats are not rare in very young children.

I don't really know how rare it is, but I think it's more rare than you are assuming here. I agree that it's hard to define what savantism is, though. I did not consider DD's map abilities all that amazing--cool. but not crazy weird--when she was doing it. First baby, etc. As she got older I began to see that it was kinda out there. Then somehow I saw this video:
which has 5 million views. That could have been my DD. Eerie, actually, how much it is like her. My DH's jaw dropped when I showed it to him and pointed out the view count. There is another video with a child reciting a long poem which is also very like both my kids in toddlerhood--that one got a ton of attention as well.

She is still really good at learning stuff like geography, it must be said, but definitely knew more countries at two than she does now, which is kind of odd.

There is, of course, the question of "Can you intensively drill a child in this stuff at an early age," which is different. But at two, I don't think you could? Maybe?

Last edited by ultramarina; 04/15/14 05:08 PM.