Music
and Math Thinkers
Patterns
instead of pictures dominate the thinking processes of these children. Both
music and math are a world of patterns, and children who think this way can
have strong associative abilities. They like finding relationships between
numbers or musical notes; some children may have savant-type calculation skills
or be able to play a piece of music after hearing it just once. Musical talent
often emerges without formal instruction. Many of these children can teach
themselves if keyboards and other instruments are available. When they grow up,
pattern thinkers are often very good at computer programming, engineering, or
music. Some of these children should be advanced several grades ahead in math,
depending on their abilities, but they may need special education in reading,
which may lag behind.
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Verbal
Thinkers
These
children love lists and numbers. Often they will memorize bus timetables and
events in history. Interest areas often include history, geography, weather,
and sports statistics. They are not visual thinkers. Parents and teachers can
use these interests and talents as motivation for learning less-interesting
parts of academics. Some verbal thinkers are whizzes at learning many different
foreign languages. I know individuals with verbal thinking skills who have been
successfully employed in sales, stage acting, accounting, factual/technical
writing, and pharmacology.
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The
thinking patterns of individuals with ASD are markedly different from the way
"normal" people think. Because of this, too much emphasis is placed
on what they "can't do" and opportunities to capitalize on their
different, but often creative and novel, ways of thinking fall by the 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)
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