Last week, the Discovery Science Channel featured Alonzo Clemons (who receives support services from Imagine!, that’s him in the picture to the right) on the show "Ingenious Minds." You can see clips from the show here. If you attended our recent Imagine! Celebration Dinner and Auction, you may have seen Alonzo demonstrate his artistic skills. Alonzo is a gifted sculptor. According to his website:As a toddler, Clemons suffered a head injury in an accident; this changed the way he thinks, learns and communicates. While much was lost due to the injury, something miraculous also occurred. He began showing a fascination with modeling materials and a tremendous inner drive to make sculpture. Even in situations where he did not have access to modeling clay, his determination to make models of animals was so great that he found materials in his environment that he could use for sculpting.
For over twenty years he continued to practice his art in obscurity until the early 1980's, when the movie Rain Man, which featured Dustin Hoffman in the role of a disabled man with remarkable skills of memory, brought international media attention to a phenomenon known as the Savant Syndrome.
Savant Syndrome is a descriptive term applied to individuals who have both a developmental disability and a spectacular, genius-level skill in a specific area. Clemons is recognized as one of the world's prodigious savants.
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