3 Neurodiversity
Dr Jay Seitz
Dr. Temple Grandin on Visual Thinking in an Autistic Child or Adult
Dr. Grandin is one of the first autistic individuals to document the insights she gained from her personal experience of autism. She is a Professor of Animal Sciences at the College of Agricultural Sciences at Colorado State University: Dr. Temple Grandin.
She believes that there are three major kinds of thinking in humans: Photo-realistic visual thinking, pattern thinking, and word-fact thought.
Of the first kind, “I can see everything in my head and then draw it on paper,” but such individuals are often poor in algebra but much better at geometry and trigonometry. Of the second kind, “pattern thinkers see patterns and relationships between numbers,” but reading and written composition are poor. Of the third kind, such “individuals have a huge memory for verbal facts” but are poor at visual thinking such as drawing.
While small, compact circuits may explain savant-like abilities including remembering detailed information in autistic adults, fewer long-distance connections between distant brain regions that facilitate complex social behaviors may be compromised. That is, while the frontal lobes are poorly connected the exact opposite occurs in the visual and auditory areas of the brain.
We might thus ask, do autistic individuals have an intellective disability or are they simply neurodivergent?
Original article: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2009) 364, 1437–1442, How Autists Think.
New York Times article: Dr. Temple Grandin on Autism.