Not everyone who has a savant skill I would equate with a genius.

When you first try to learn to ride a bike, you work very carefully at keeping your balance, and trying to keep one pedal in front of the other, and all that, and all of a sudden, ah, you know, I got it. And that's true of skiing, or it's true of all kinds of things.

There are some cases that have come to my attention where there's been a head injury, or getting struck by lightning and surviving, with really no disability or residual. So there are cases that I'm aware of where there's been some incident which triggered the acquired savant ability, but is not associated with long term disability, so that can occur. But I think that's probably the exception rather than the rule in that I think many of the acquired savants do end up with some residual disability.

What happens is most of us are so busy in our lives with our families and our vocation which we should be, but we tend not to look at what I call these parallel interests, and they develop along the way. And sometimes one can say, well, you know, why should I grow my own garden and spend all that time when I can buy carrots cheaper at the supermarket and just put aside that kind of an interest.

To some extent, we all have quirks or idiosyncrasies, and some geniuses, because of how bright they are and how focused they are, may have liberal eccentricities, but they're not at a disabling level.

The term syndrome generally appears to be a constellation, or collection, of similar traits or behaviors within an individual. So, savants do have sort of a constellation of symptoms, which is characterized by some spectacular skill, or skills, coupled with this massive memory which is grafted on to some underlying disability. So those three conditions quantify, in my mind, the term syndrome.

There is such a thing as genius, and these are people who do not have a formal disability, DSM-IV-type. They may have liberal eccentricities or quirks in their personality, but they don't rise to the level of a disability.