# 'Agricultural specialisterne': rural employment revolution for those with Autism **URL:** \ **Category:** Lounge\ **Created:** [June 5, 2011, 5:40am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/agricultural-specialisterne-rural-employment-revolution-for-those-with-autism/50615 "2011-06-05T05:40:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 269
**Author:** ![Visionary7903](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/45deac/32.png) [@Visionary7903](https://pheromonetalk.com/u/Visionary7903)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 9:57am UTC](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/agricultural-specialisterne-rural-employment-revolution-for-those-with-autism/50615/269 "2012-04-03T09:57:27Z")
The thing regarding writing about savants is that you are writing about a very small segment of the population. Prodigous savants are very rare (see quote below) - prodigous savants are those individuals whose abilities are spectacular in contrast with their disability and would be spectacular even if they occurred in normal persons. In contrast, ‘talented savants’ are far more common as you might expect -where the skills are remarkable simply in contrast with the disability… > [@](#): > > … **Savants are rare.** > This ‘myth’] is true. Indeed, prodigious savants are extremely rare, with fewer than one hundred noted in more than a century of literature on the subject. (A prodigious savant is someone whose skill level would qualify him or her as a ‘prodigy,’ or exceptional talent, even in the absence of a cognitive disability.) Fewer than fifty or so such individuals are believed to be alive in the world today. About half of them are prodigious musical savants. > > However, savant skills are best understood as part of a broad spectrum. Some 10% of autistic people are known to have some area of competence which is in contrast to their overall disability; this is termed a ‘splinter’ savant skill. When these ‘splinter’ skills are more organized and coherent, it is appropriate to call the people who possess them ‘talented savants,’ according to a definition proposed by Darold Treffert M.D. and which is now gaining wide acceptance. Thousands of ‘talented savants’ are alive in the world today… (source: [The Savant Academy](http://www.savantacademy.org/myths.php)) --- _[View the full topic](https://pheromonetalk.com/t/agricultural-specialisterne-rural-employment-revolution-for-those-with-autism/50615)._