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1. Visual thinkers, like me, think in photographically specific images. There are degrees of specificity of visual thinking. I can test run a machine in my head with full motion. Interviews with nonautistic visual thinkers indicated that they can only visualize still images. These images may range in specificity from images of specific places to more vague conceptual images. Learning algebra was impossible and a foreign language was difficult. Highly specific visual thinkers should skip algebra and study more visual forms of math such as trigonometry or geometry. Children who are visual thinkers will often be good at drawing, other arts, and building things with building toys such as Lego's. Many children who are visual thinkers like maps, flags, and photographs. Visual thinkers are well suited to jobs in drafting, graphic design, training animals, auto mechanics, jewelry making, construction, and factory automation.

 

2. Music and math thinkers think in patterns. These people often excel at math, chess, and computer programming. Some of these individuals have explained to me that they see patterns and relationships between patterns and numbers instead of photographic images. As children they may play music by ear and be interested in music. Music and math minds often have careers in computer programming, chemistry, statistics, engineering, music, and physics. Written language is not required for pattern thinking. The pre-literate Incas used complex bundles of knotted cords to keep track of taxes, labor, and trading among a thousand people.

 

3. Verbal logic thinkers think in word details. They often love history, foreign languages, weather statistics, and stock market reports. As children they often have a vast knowledge of sports scores. They are not visual thinkers and they are often poor at drawing. Children with speech delays are more likely to become visual or music and math thinkers. Many of these individuals had no speech delays, and they became word specialists. These individuals have found successful careers in language translation, journalism, accounting, speech therapy, special education, library work, or financial analysis" (Grandin, 2006).

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Why do you ask the same questions over and over?

 

“So i do understand things, but my way of remembering them worlds differently from everyone else’s.  I imagine a normal person’s memory is arranged continuously, like a line.  My memory, however, is more like a pool of dots.  I’m always ‘picking up’ these dots - by asking my questions - so I can arrive back at the memory that the dots represent.”

(Higashida, 2016, p. 10)

 

“I had been so swamped in sound that I could not bring short-term memory and language together.” - (Blackman, 2005, p. 166)

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“I find it really difficult to understand why other people are more interested in the process of what I produce than the content.”

(Blackman, 2005, p. 151)

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Why are you too sensitive or insensitive to pain?

 

“...the thing is, the memory of a person with autism isn’t like a number-scale from which you pick out the recollection you’re after: it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle, where if even just one piece is misinserted, the entire puzzle becomes impossible to complete. ...So it’s not necessarily physical pain that’s making us cry at all - quite possibly, it’s memory.”

(Higashida, 2016, p. 55-56)

 

“I think it’s very difficult for you to properly get your heads around just how hard it is for us to express what we’re feeling.  For us, dealing with the pain by treating it as if it’s already gone is actually easier than letting other people know we are in pain.”

(Higashida, 2016, p. 56)