I recently had the opportunity to watch the movie Temple Grandin which is the amazing story of Temple growing up and living with Autism.
What I found most interesting about Temple was her ability to think in pictures.
My ah-ha moment was that over the last 18 months we have had several specialists tell us that Caleb our 10 year old son needed to be taught with visual aide. They would explain to us that in order for Caleb to learn to read, write, spell etc. he was going to need visuals. The more visual aides the better they would tell us.
Ah- ha does my puzzle boy think in pictures?
This explains why Caleb can give the answer to math problems but does not always know how to explain to you verbally or even in writing how he got the answer.
This explains why Caleb begins many of his conversations with telling me about a visual image, picture, landmark to explain to me a story.
This explains why Caleb can recall so many events and situations from when he was very little yet I have very little remembrance of them. He took a picture of it in his brain
This explains why Caleb can play video games without the ability to read the words on the screen because he has the ability to memorize ( take a picture) each area of the game and go back to it and know exactly where and how to accomplish what he needs to in the video game
This explains why at 3 years old Caleb could recite to me word for word his story books yet could not actually read a word
This explains why Caleb likes me to read a page to him out of his reading books then he read the same page back to me word for word - he is not reading it based on phonetics. He is reading it based on the picture he took of those words and memorized them.
AH -HA, I have a walking camera who takes pictures in his brain of everything. Thus he thinks in pictures.
Is this another piece to our puzzle boy ?
I can completely relate to this. We always thought Jayden may have a photographic memory. Now we know it is autism.
ReplyDeleteThis is my Taylor! I think this is probably more kids than we know of.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been such a great feeling to get an insight into the way your son thinks, that is great!
ReplyDeleteSO similar to Allison. She was tested for Autism. No diagnosis but 'under umbrella'. I still wonder though. Her cousin has autism. IF she does, she would be on one end of the scale and he would be on the other; her very mild, him pretty severe.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same exact thing. My son is 6 and has had to work harder than anyone should have too. That movie was fantastic! I have often wondered what the world looks like to him on many occasions and this gave me a little insight! Great movie.
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