"Thinking in Pictures"

I had the pleasure of watching HBO's movie, "Temple Grandin". This is a story of an amazing woman who walked through many difficult doors, literally and figuratively, to gain great respect in her life and chosen field. I had read her book "Thinking in Pictures" several years ago to try and understand my own son, who is also a great visual thinker. I would recommend reading her books to understand more about Autism, to realize that it is not a disease, just a different way of thinking. Visual people need more processing time to go through their "rolodex" of pictures in their mind. The best analogy I read (from the book "Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World") was that most of us take in information verbally, or thinking of the way information loads on a computer, the written words load very quickly, but pictures (for those with dial-up connections especially) may take much longer to load. For Visual thinkers it is just the opposite. The pictures load lightening fast, but the words that go with the pictures may take terribly longer to appear on their "mind screen". Temple describes this in great detail in many of her books.

Everyone should read at least one book about visual thinkers. With a skyrocketing autism rate we may have more shared experiences with someone affected by this phenomenon. They may be quirky and thus get tormented in school and life but my brother ( a visual thinker who runs a successful business) told me once that the "A" students who basically cake walked through school are being hired by the "C" and "D" students who run the businesses. This overgeneralization loosely translated means that many students who felt like failures in school are critical thinkers with a history of problem solving which can help guide them through the maze of the adult world of jobs. School is a good place for verbal learners. In my perfect world, children would be placed in a classroom suited for their learning styles early on, thus nurturing their given talents from the time they start school. But that subject is for another day. Peace.