Introduction
The human mind is a critical component of human life because it is the control unit of not only the physiological processes of an individual’s body but also the social-psychological procedures. Social-psychological capacities are key to formation of meaningful and genuine relationships with others at the family level and the wider society. In spite of our inheritance of intellectual abilities our academic growth and development largely depends on our mental conditions and well being.
Unfortunately, some children are born with incapacitating mental conditions which adversely affects their growth and development either physically, academically and/or social-psychologically. One such condition is autism. This task is a presentation of my agreement with Dr.Temple Grandin’s assertion that there are individuals who think in vivid pictures but most of us think in a combination of words and blurred, indiscriminate pictures.
Autism and Visual Thinking
According to Baron-Cohen and Bolton “autism is a condition that affects some children from either their birth or infancy and leaves them unable to form normal social relationships or to develop normal communication.”(1).Autistic children are normally cut off from social contact and always engaged in monotonous activities and interests that are fascinating to him or her alone.
They may have hearing problems which differ in severity in different cases.Bogdashina provides that there are autistic children who suffer from severe hearing processing problems who may either be late speakers or never speak throughout their lives while others may live with speech difficulties their whole lives (118).
Bogdashina explains that variations in perception between and among individuals including those born of the same parents lead to different abilities and thinking style (118). Visual thinking and verbal thinking are two of the main thinking styles recognized by psychologists. According to Bogdashina, autistic thinking is more often than not perceptual in dissimilarity to the verbal thinking of ordinary individuals (118).
Autistic individuals if put under remedial procedures in good time may have a normal life. However, they are usually visual thinkers. Bogdashina points out that the most common type of insightful thinking in autism is visual (118).O’Neill as cited in Bogdashina elucidates that visual thinkers express ideas as images that offers them a real basis for understanding (118).The world as well all that is around them tends to be fathomed in terms of what the psychological experts call visual images.
Visual thinkers experience problems understanding something that does not have an object or an image they can associate with and that is why some words are totally meaningless to them. In fact, the most meaningful words to a visual thinker are nouns while majority of adjectives and verbs may have no concrete meaning.
Different Ways of Thinking
There is overwhelming evidence that people have dissimilar thinking styles. As a already noted earlier, psychologists have established that autistic and non-autistic individuals have different thinking patterns On one hand non-autistic individuals are largely verbal thinkers while on the other hand have been confirmed to be mainly visual thinkers.Visuial thinkers as opposed to verbal thinkers have an associational kind of thought processes.
That is why they may talk of two things in manner that sound of context in their attempt one thing to another in a manner may not be articulate to verbal thinkers. For example, an autistic person may associate his or her lack of fear for heights with height at which aeroplanes fly and think that airplanes fly high because her she does not fear them.
Variations among Autistics and Visual thinkers
Autistics and visual thinkers vary depending on their where they fall in the Autistic Spectrum (AS). So that it is not all individuals who are autistic in real life who are highly visual thinkers or who process information in the same manner.
Those with cases of severe autism as noted earlier take longer time before they can begin talking verbally or they may never speak the rest of their lives or have speech difficulties the rest of their lives.Diiferences in growth, development of the auditorial and verbal capacities eventually bears on the way individuals thinks visually.
Bogdashina argues that visualized thinking models vary from one individual to another (118).on one hand there is a category of visual thinkers who are able retrieve memory pictorial images in manner similar to searching through slides and are also able to manage the speed at which the pictorial images pass through their imagination.
On the other hand, others are unable to control the speed at which the images are retrieved and may end up filled to full capacity of his or her mind with too many pictorial images being retrieved at the same time Bogdashina (118).
There are o0ther autistics who have serious difficulties in terms of interpretation of written or spoken information into a visual form. Still others are unable to hold in their minds visual images together Bogdashina (118).Meaning that there are autistics who have speed problems in terms of converting a piece of information into pictorial images while others have mental challenges of putting together visual images in their minds.
Suprisingly the quality of visual thinking according to Bogdashina is dependent on other factors like time and the state the autistic person is in (118). Example is given of Dr.Temple Grandin world’s moist popular visual thinker whose mind pictures are said to be more vivid and to have the most comprehensive visual images when she is drifting off to sleep (118).
It is important to note that visual thinking is not exclusively the only possible type of thought process in autism. In other words autistic individuals are not automatically visual thinkers.Likewise; there are visual thinkers who can not be categorized as autistic per se even though they may show signs of autism. However, research studies have shown that in most instances the greatest majority of autistic individuals are naturally visual thinkers but not absolutely all the time.
This fact owes largely to their auditorial and verbal challenges which if it is allowed to go unchecked in good time makes their autistic condition to worsen thereby making their communication the rest of their lives worse. Bogdashina points out that a relatively good number of people at the working end of the autistic continuum and a considerably big percentage of people at the more intellectually challenged autistic end of the scale may not necessary think in pictures oat all (119).
Bogdashina asserts that majority may not in reality be able to think in visual images and may in the end be denied what could work better for them and in such circumstances their intelligence is wrongly judged by their ability to link visual images with words [or even sounds (119).
The above line of argument is a stern warning to all especially teachers and parents dealing or handling autistics from rushing to assume and conclude that the individual should be able think visually at a given point of their lives. This is a call for unshakeable patience so that you may understand fully his or her thought patterns and be in a perfect position to decide the best help that befits their special condition. Bogdashina cautions that “…not all autistic individuals are visual in their thought-production process.”(119) see also Gray (56).
He points out that some autistic individuals think in kinaesthetic images that can not be converted into mental images and more often than not have problems learning nonfigurative things that can not easily be visualized through perceptual form Bogdashina (119).This sentiment is in a perfect harmony with Dr.Temple Grandin’s assertion that not all people with autism are necessarily highly visual thinkers and that not all process information in the same way.
Visualization skills are important but when coupled with mental conditions they pose a threat to the development of the communication abilities of the autistic individuals who are more often than not visual thinkers. Consequently there is need to understand autistic children as early as possible so that the necessary help may be accorded.
If helped at the right time those who are intellectually able like in the case of Dr.Temple Grandin can learn to appreciate their condition and be helped towards improving their verbal or articulation skills. Also they can be helped to nurture their visualization skills which can be utilized for the common good of the individual and the wider society Lichtenstein Creative Media (13).
Bogdashina explains that children with autistic condition are actual thinkers and that therefore there is need to understand their associative and spatial thought patterns (119).
A spatial thinker understands things in his or her mind in a multi pattern which is usually the case with visual thinkers like Dr. Temple Grandin who has a unique ability to design live stock structures and equipments in her imaginations long before it is made in real life. She is also able to sense structural and design mistakes with many structures and equipments because her ability to represent them in multidimensional pattern in a manner that many verbal thinkers can visualize.
This argument is supported by Bogdashina’s assertion that spatial way of thinking brings both pros and cons in that on one hand it is easier to see certain patterns of the world and infer images from those patterns (119). On the other hand, he argues that spatial thinkers may have problems to things that are largely one dimensional particularly when that comprises taking a mono-dimensional line out of multi-dimensional alternatives Bogdashina (119).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that even though majority of autistic individuals are usually visual thinkers not all of them are able to think visually. And as argued by Dr.Temple Grandin and other quoted in this essay, autistic individuals who are visual thinkers exhibit identifiable differences in terms of their visual thinking abilities. This is determined by factors like time as well the state that the individual is in.
Works Cited
Baron-Cohen, Simon and Bolton, Patrick. Autism: the facts. Oxfor Lichtenstein Creative Media d University Press, 1993.Print.
Bogdashina, Olga. Theory of mind and the triad of perspectives on autism and Asperger syndrome: a view from the bridge. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006.Print.
Grandin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures. Grandin.com.Web.2011.15th April 2011.
Gray, Carol (FRW). Learners on the Autism Spectrum: Preparing Highly Qualified Educators. Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2008.Print.
Lichtenstein Creative Media. Autism: Beyond the Silence. Lichtenstein Creative Media,2001. Print.