A genius explains (autistic savant)

Interesting man, I’ll have to read it all later this evening. Here’s another person who can describe how she thinks.

www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html

“Chapter 1: Autism and Visual Thought

Dr. Temple Grandin

I THINK IN PICTURES. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand, but in my job as an equipment designer for the livestock industry, visual thinking is a tremendous advantage.

Visual thinking has enabled me to build entire systems in my imagination. During my career I have designed all kinds of equipment, ranging from corrals for handling cattle on ranches to systems for handling cattle and hogs during veterinary procedures and slaughter. I have worked for many major livestock companies. In fact, one third of the cattle and hogs in the United States are handled in equipment I have designed. Some of the people I’ve worked for don’t even know that their systems were designed by someone with autism. I value my ability to think visually, and I would never want to lose it.”

My 11 year old son is serverly dysgraphic (accievement at the 1% level per the school :( ) and dx’ed as PDD-NOS. He reads, however, at the high school level. One time, in what sounds like a fit of frustration, his special ed teacher asked how he could read so well yet have such difficultly with writing. He answered that he saw words as pictures and books and reports as movies. He “thought” in pictures but so much was lost when he tried to tranlate the pictures into words.

It was just really interesting to hear and think about. I look forward to reading the links you all provided.

Thanks
Barb

I am beginning to think that thinking in pictures is NOT as uncomon as we tend to think’

I try very hard to look at every difficult situation in ds3’s life and relate it to his picture thinking but, wow, BGB-the writing connection never occured to me and makes such perfect sense

Im thinking how hard it would be for me to QUICKLY translate a movie I had just seen into words. I mean, do I start with the ending which is freshest in my mind? Do I try to do a sequential list of events? Do I start with the high speed chase in the middle that got my adrenaline going?

Makes me realize how hard it can be for ds to even find the words to share his thoughts and why they often seem “unorganized”

FWIW, Dr. Grandin is fairly typical of autistic folks in thinking that all autistics think like she does. It isn’t true. Some autistics (I mean of the high functioning variety) are fairly strictly auditory. I’ve heard that complaint on autism lists. I think some of the skills she describes though are more typical, peripherial vision skill or being adept at focusing on detail.

—des

I am going to go out on a limb again and suggest that what Des has just descibed (some autists mistakenly assuming ALL autists are like themselves) can be broadenend greatly to the genreal population. When working with autists in whatever field (education, medicine, social rehab, etc.) a great many people fail to appreciate that autismn is a collection of unrelated bio-medical, neurological, behavioral and genetic conditions that have been lumped together for convenience of diagnostic pigeonholing because they manifest a similar collection of observable behaviors. Even people who may think they understand that intellectually very often fail to apply that when the offer servioces of some kind to these often wonderous people.

That is why I feel the emphasis on research needs to be shifted away from broad population studies designed with pre-determined outcomes to protect specific industry concerns or the hunt for the elusive autism gene which I feel does not exist (it too will be Legion for it will be Many) and begin condutcing specific clinical research directly examining the cause and concerns for individuals with autism to better understand etiology and consequently specific treatment options. Why does the Diet help between 25 and 40% of autists but completely fail the other? How many autists are suffering from elevated metal burdens and how best to reduce those levels? How many autists have auditory processing difficulties that are being ignored? Why don’t autists respond to commonly used medications in anticipated ways so often?

I do not beileve autism can be “cured”. But I do believe autism in many cases (if not most or all) can be remediated to the point these people can niche in society with minimal support services. Hey, if only 1 in 10 kids can be saved from a life of complete dependancy in a 24 hr care residential society I figure society will break even (the cost of recovering autists using intensive 1:1 can be as much as $300K between medical and educational therapies; the lifetime cost of residencial is estimated to be about $3M in 1999 dollars).

This country is supposed to value individualism, and yet so much of our lives has been reduced to “mass production” arrangements. Funny, no?

Well I don’t think it is much of a limb, Dad! :-) Of course, everybody generalizes (which I don’t think in itself is a generalization. YIKES!).
Anyway I think it is quite possible that autism is not one disorder but several, and perhaps there are distinct causes of some and no particular causes of others. Perhaps there *are* cures or treatments for some of these in the future, while others will be handled thru educational methods, and still others, perhpas the higher functioning forms, dealt with thru teaching coping and “get around” strategies. I’m sure it would be cheaper than what we are now doing, or not doing.

>This country is supposed to value individualism, and yet so much of our lives has been reduced to “mass production” arrangements. Funny, no?

yeah but not quite so difficult to understand, I think it is done with everybody else too. We have a one size fits all school system and even the special needs kids are responded to in quite a limited no. of ways.

—des

Dad- Your description of autism is one of most articulatley defined I’ve seen. Few of the people who have been entrusted with my son’s education have understood what autism is. I wish I’d had the words to so prescicely explain it the way you have here.

I thank you for your kind words, but I have to tell you I haven’t really written a great deal of what I post. By that I mean, I have read the wrods of a number of people, some great (Attwood, Grandin, etc.) and some small (the postings on the myriad forums I subscribe to by parents and adults on Spectrum). I may string the words together to reply to a specific question or statement, but the underlying concepts have been developed over time by a cadre of people whose interest in the topic of all things autistic is a driving force in their lives. For me it has been easy - I live with a beautiful little redheaded autist (and yes, he is absolutely beautiful) whom I have observed at close range and applied what I have read that day/week/month to what I see him doing.

The shame of it is, ANYONE could do this, provided they have the “intrinsic motivation” to do so. The fact that your child’s teachers have not is less inportant than why they have not. Is it too much bother for them to educate themselves? Is your child unworthy of them going that extra mile? Do they just not give a fig about the kids they have been entrusted with?

NCLB may help some of them see the light. You cannot solve a problem until you understand the parameters of it. You might try getting the ball rolling just a bit. Here are a pair of links to two Most Excellent Sites filled with all the information a person could possibly want about autism and Asperger’s.

www.danasview.net

www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/

You might also enjoy autism picture page:
http://www.picturepage.net

Written and website built by people (I know) on the spectrum. (I’m also on it.) Very nice and not too radical. Deals with some myths.

—des