A Grandmothers question
My name is ***********; I am grandmother to ********, age *, who has autism and I would like to know more about the pictures that David uses in his thinking.
A personal response from Rich Shull, Author Autism Pre Rain Man Autism, Inventor of the Turing Motor, Host of the web blog of the same name and the yahoo group as well.
Pre Rain Man Autism = http://prerainmanautism.blogspot.com
This is a copy from my personal corrspondance, shared here for the beneifit of all!
Dear ***********:
Your Grandson may or may NOT be a picture thinker. There are many of us in autism spectrum that are picture thinkers and most of us do far more than you might have read about in Temple Grandin's acclaimed book, Thinking in Pictures. Autism still refuses to study our anthropology and thus all I can offer you is "advise" from within our anthropology. My gut feeling is about only about 1/3 of ALL autism people (past and present) are picture thinkers. That means our NATURALLY programmed thought process is different from traditional.
When we think our Optic vision is canceled out and 'replaced' with a daydream-thought picture that takes the place of our optic vision. Our sight is turned OFF (as is hearing). We take that "daydream" brain generated thought and read it, analyze it and then convert it into words and actions. ALL of this invisible to anyone else. Perhaps you might see your grandson looking up and to the right or the general lack of eye contact that is a good indication he might be a picture thinker. IF the experts knew what we were trying to do when our eyes "tell them" we are picture thinking they might let us finish our thoughts and let us improve them. Picture thoughts are VERY intense and complicated and most of the trouble an autistic person has (or CAPD?) in communicating IS simply converting those brain generated thoughts into words. We find we have to water down our thoughts so they might be understood by others. If you have ever tried to explain a sleep dream you have some idea what we do to communicate. Now try doing that really quick and keeping pace with a conversation. You can see how quick a Picture Thinker can get left in the dust. Us older guys and gals have learned a few tricks over time as we figure out the human condition that help us 'survive' in the real world. Obviously, our thought process has never been in print before, and the "expert's" have never studied it in their text books as it is NOT there to study.
Generally, those that find us online that picture think relate easily and instantly to our picture thought insights and experience. We have the autism Pain Tolerance, and we have keen senses and a preference to be alone. Many times we are the lower functioning people of modern Autism. Our anthropology spans the globe and ranges from teenagers to 80 something's. We all learned picture thoughts on our own by trial and error in a double-blind autism experiment. As we compare notes we find we all had the same milestones in development and today do pretty much the same types of picture thoughts.
EVEN IF autism ever admitted to us it will be years before any of our knowledge filters into the autism spectrum. In the mean time If you think your Grandson is a picture thinker look for the lack of eye of contact, If he gives really ODD answers or laughs at something that isn't funny or out-of -the=blue stuns you with knowledge you thought he might not know, those are good signs he is a picture thinker. All you can do (all you need to do) is to slow down put your conversation in slow motion and watch his eye contact when it returns to 'normal' he is done with a picture thought. Typically we only use Picture Thought for the deeper thoughts and traditional thoughts for the more common things. Give him time to finish an answer. At first for a few years possibly he will not make much sense to you and you might think it is hopeless but, in reality all the times he misses out on a conversation or does it incorrectly he is learning by trial and error like we did what part of picture thoughts to use and how to convert Pictures to words. He will shock you overnight (like many of us did our parents) and simply become social and carry on a conversation. In reality we figured out a few milestones in picture thought when that event happens.
All that we really would like to happen is, that our anthropology be studied, a few basics of our thought process be presented to everyone in the spectrum and those with the natural ability to Picture Think will at least for the first time ever have their thought process presented to them.
Our hero in Autism is Alan Turing Alan Turing - Home Page 1912-1954 He was father of the computer and his life has autism written all over it and like many of us grew up before Autism was a buzzword.
Another Great Autistic author is Bill Stillman he mentions Picture Thoughts in his books as well.
I bid you peace and wish you well on your autism journey ,Please write if you have more questions .
Sincrely Rich Shull. Ohio usa.
PS. Look at my blog for a series of posts entitled Picture in Picture thoughts in the 1950's to see "Copies" of our thoughts.
A personal response from Rich Shull, Author Autism Pre Rain Man Autism, Inventor of the Turing Motor, Host of the web blog of the same name and the yahoo group as well.
Pre Rain Man Autism = http://prerainmanautism.blogspot.com
This is a copy from my personal corrspondance, shared here for the beneifit of all!
Dear ***********:
Your Grandson may or may NOT be a picture thinker. There are many of us in autism spectrum that are picture thinkers and most of us do far more than you might have read about in Temple Grandin's acclaimed book, Thinking in Pictures. Autism still refuses to study our anthropology and thus all I can offer you is "advise" from within our anthropology. My gut feeling is about only about 1/3 of ALL autism people (past and present) are picture thinkers. That means our NATURALLY programmed thought process is different from traditional.
When we think our Optic vision is canceled out and 'replaced' with a daydream-thought picture that takes the place of our optic vision. Our sight is turned OFF (as is hearing). We take that "daydream" brain generated thought and read it, analyze it and then convert it into words and actions. ALL of this invisible to anyone else. Perhaps you might see your grandson looking up and to the right or the general lack of eye contact that is a good indication he might be a picture thinker. IF the experts knew what we were trying to do when our eyes "tell them" we are picture thinking they might let us finish our thoughts and let us improve them. Picture thoughts are VERY intense and complicated and most of the trouble an autistic person has (or CAPD?) in communicating IS simply converting those brain generated thoughts into words. We find we have to water down our thoughts so they might be understood by others. If you have ever tried to explain a sleep dream you have some idea what we do to communicate. Now try doing that really quick and keeping pace with a conversation. You can see how quick a Picture Thinker can get left in the dust. Us older guys and gals have learned a few tricks over time as we figure out the human condition that help us 'survive' in the real world. Obviously, our thought process has never been in print before, and the "expert's" have never studied it in their text books as it is NOT there to study.
Generally, those that find us online that picture think relate easily and instantly to our picture thought insights and experience. We have the autism Pain Tolerance, and we have keen senses and a preference to be alone. Many times we are the lower functioning people of modern Autism. Our anthropology spans the globe and ranges from teenagers to 80 something's. We all learned picture thoughts on our own by trial and error in a double-blind autism experiment. As we compare notes we find we all had the same milestones in development and today do pretty much the same types of picture thoughts.
EVEN IF autism ever admitted to us it will be years before any of our knowledge filters into the autism spectrum. In the mean time If you think your Grandson is a picture thinker look for the lack of eye of contact, If he gives really ODD answers or laughs at something that isn't funny or out-of -the=blue stuns you with knowledge you thought he might not know, those are good signs he is a picture thinker. All you can do (all you need to do) is to slow down put your conversation in slow motion and watch his eye contact when it returns to 'normal' he is done with a picture thought. Typically we only use Picture Thought for the deeper thoughts and traditional thoughts for the more common things. Give him time to finish an answer. At first for a few years possibly he will not make much sense to you and you might think it is hopeless but, in reality all the times he misses out on a conversation or does it incorrectly he is learning by trial and error like we did what part of picture thoughts to use and how to convert Pictures to words. He will shock you overnight (like many of us did our parents) and simply become social and carry on a conversation. In reality we figured out a few milestones in picture thought when that event happens.
All that we really would like to happen is, that our anthropology be studied, a few basics of our thought process be presented to everyone in the spectrum and those with the natural ability to Picture Think will at least for the first time ever have their thought process presented to them.
Our hero in Autism is Alan Turing Alan Turing - Home Page 1912-1954 He was father of the computer and his life has autism written all over it and like many of us grew up before Autism was a buzzword.
Another Great Autistic author is Bill Stillman he mentions Picture Thoughts in his books as well.
I bid you peace and wish you well on your autism journey ,Please write if you have more questions .
Sincrely Rich Shull. Ohio usa.
PS. Look at my blog for a series of posts entitled Picture in Picture thoughts in the 1950's to see "Copies" of our thoughts.
posted by Pre Rain Man Autism | 7:55 PM
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