Kim Peek Research Paper

Kim Peek was born November 11, 1951. The doctors told his parents he was mentally retarded at birth and wouldn’t live past the age of fourteen. They were told to just put him in an institution and forget about him but luckily they did not. By the age of three, Peek taught himself the alphabet and how to read. Unfortunately, in 1975 his mother past away and that left Peek with his father, Fran. Peek was so unique that he could memorize as many as eight books a day and read each page within 8 seconds. One page with his left eye, and one with his right. Over time he eventually memorized over six thousand books. Being a Mega Savant, Peek often had out bursts and it would take nearly fifteen minutes for him to change subjects and calm down. “A
2.008 study concluded that Peek probably had FG syndrome, a rare genetic syndrome linked to the X chromosome which causes physical anomalies such as hypotonia (low muscle tone) and macrocephaly (abnormally large head),” said blogger Berny Polania. Unfortunately, Peek died December 19th, 2009. In Peeks situation, he was missing what connects both halves of the brain, the Corpus Callosum. A savant is someone with extraordinary skills in different areas, such as music, mathematics, and visual arts. Still no one knows why people get this syndrome, and therefore have no way to prevent it. There is also an “acquired savant” meaning the syndrome doesn’t have to begin at birth, it could start later in life. Also, savants are more likely to be male than female.