Different
Types of Thinking in Autism
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Recent
studies on the brain, and especially on the brains of people diagnosed with
autism spectrum disorders, are shedding light on the physiological
underpinnings of our thoughts and emotions. We are gaining a better
understanding of how neural pathways are formed and the extent to which biology
influences behavior,
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When
I was much younger, I assumed that everybody perceived the world the same way I
did, that is, that everybody thought in pictures. Early in my professional
career I got into a heated verbal argument with an engineer at a meat-packing
plant when I told him he was stupid. He had designed a piece of equipment that
had flaws that were obvious to me. My visual thinking gives me the ability to
do a "test-run" in my head on a piece of equipment I've designed,
just like a virtual reality computer system. Mistakes can be found prior to
construction when I do this. Now I realize his problem was not stupidity; it
was a lack of visual thinking. It took me years to learn that the majority of
people cannot do this, and that visualization skills in some people are almost
nonexistent.
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All
minds on the autism/ Asperger's spectrum are detail-oriented, but how they
specialize varies. By questioning many people, both on and off the spectrum, I
have learned that there are three different types of specialized thinking with
crossover among these specialized thinking patterns. Determining thinking types
in three-year-old children is often not possible. Dominant thinking styles
usually become more obvious when a child is seven to nine.
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Visual
thinking/thinking in photo realistic pictures, like mine
Music
and Math thinking in patterns
Verbal
thinking (not a visual thinker)
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Since
autism is so variable, there may be mixtures of the different types. For
instance, a child may have strong music/math patterned thinking, but also have
good visual thinking abilities. Or a verbal thinker may also have good math or
foreign-language skills. The importance of understanding these three ways of
thinking comes into play when trying to teach children with ASD. Strategies
that build on the child's area of strength and appeal to their thinking
patterns will be most effective. This is most likely to become evident between
the ages of five and eight. It is often difficult to identify the strengths of
children younger than five, unless savant skills are unfolding.
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Visual
Thinkers
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These
children often love art and building blocks, such as Legos, and they will often
produce beautiful drawings. They get easily immersed in projects that have a
tangible, hands-on opportunity for learning. Math concepts such as adding and
subtracting need to be taught starting with concrete objects the child can
touch. Drawing and other art skills should be encouraged. If a child only draws
one thing, such as airplanes, encourage him to draw other related objects, such
as the airport runways, or the hangars, or cars going to the airport.
Broadening a child's emerging skills helps him be more flexible in his thinking
patterns. Keep in mind that because the child's "native language" is
pictures, verbal responses can take longer to form, as each request has to be
translated from words to pictures before it can be processed, and then the
response needs to be translated from pictures into words before it is spoken.
Visual thinkers often have difficulty doing algebra because of its abstract wayside.
While impairments and challenges do exist, greater progress can be made
teaching these individuals when parents and teachers work on building the
child's strengths and teach in a manner aligned with their basic pattern of
thinking.
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Temple
Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's"
(2011)
