And as it’s from 2003, uses “savant” as the basic reference term, and deals explicitly with “idiot savant” and more recent explicit terminology choices, it seems like there’s a pretty good argument that the statement about “savant” being insensitive in the Seattle Times aregument may just be flawed, however it got there.

Of course, fashions can change in five years, and there could be a conflict between the dry language of an academic paper and what parents et al favor or dislike in practical usage. I have a feeling I could short-circuit this search if I could just do a small survey of folks who are parents of or who work with autistic folks.

“The savant syndrome is a condition wherein a person is mentally retarded for most areas of intelligence that are commonly measured, but demonstrates an outstanding ability in a specific topic.

Of ‘idiot savant’, also from E2: “Although still in common usage, the term has been replaced amongst psychologists by autistic savant.”

This is interesting:

“Given the inappropriateness of the term as a whole and the pejorative connotation of the first part of it, Treffert (1989) proposed “savant syndrome”-or just “savant”-as a more desirable name for the phenomenon.”

“And he may not be smart at all; not every autistic child is a savant.”

But otherwise a lot of noise (brand names, unrelated topics, a couple of references to savantism collocated with “insensitive” but not in the desire context).

That’s one idea down.