In this book, Temple Grandin, an animal behavioral scientist and activist with autism advocates for the often overlooked strengths of visual thinkers liker herself. In this book, she explains that visual thinkers constitute a much larger proportion of the population than previously thought. She also differentiates between object visualizers like herself, who she claims have an intuitive knack for design and problem solving, and visual spatial thinkers who have a knack for pattern recognition and systemic thinking. She argues that the world is increasingly becoming a place for verbal thinkers to thrive, and is marginalizing visual thinkers and making it harder for them to showcase and utilize their unique strengths. She proposes new strategies for working with and educating visual thinkers. “It is important to distinguish between a disability and valuable neurodiversity.”
Temple Grandin has autism and did not have language until she was four and could not read until she was eight. In contrast to the theories of prominent linguists like Noam Chomsky, Grandin reports that “even without language my thoughts are rich and vivid.” She works as a consultant in the food-supply business and is brought in to make sure plants are operating according to code. She claims that she is in high demand because “details, no matter how small, jump out at me.”
She notes that we have removed a lot of hands on hands on classes from school like home economics and shop sine the 1990s, Grandin claims as a consequence of “no child left behind”, which disadvantages visual thinkers because they could have excelled at things like welding, and auto mechanics. We are instead funneling them into a system designed for verbal thinkers, where they often appear impaired.
Visual Thinkers Among Us: “Imagine a world with no artists, industrial designers, or inventors. No electricians, mechanics, architects, plumbers, or builders. These are our visual thinkers, many hiding in plain sight.” One study by Silverman et al. (2005) found that of 750 elementary school children, 1/3 were strongly visual-spatial, ¼ were strongly auditory-sequential, and the rest were a mix.
What is Visual Thinking? Verbal thinkers tend to comprehend things in order, sequentially and linearly. They are good at understanding general concepts and have a good sense of time, though not necessarily a good sense of direction.
Visual thinkers on the other hand, see images that allow them to make rapid-fire associations. They tend to be able to navigate without maps. They tend to be late talkers and struggle in school.
Nishimura et al. (2015) found that when subjects imagined a visual scene, there was a significant correlation between am individual’s self-reported vividness and activity in the visual area.
“It is clear that most of the mechanical inventions over the centuries did not come about through abstract thinking. They were conceived of and executed by object visualizers.”
Types of Visual Thinkers: Object visualizers (like Grandin) see the world in photorealistic images. “We are graphic designers, artists, skilled tradespeople, architects, inventors, mechanical engineers.” They are poor at abstract thinking like algebra. Spatial visualizers on the other hand, see the world in patterns and abstractions. They are mathematicians, musicians, statisticians, scientists, electrical engineers, programmers, and physicists.
Grandin’s thoughts on the autism label: “I have observed that, more and more, even just slightly geeky kids are getting labelled.” “To me it is ridiculous that adults who cannot dress themselves have the same label as people with undiagnosed mild autism who work in Silicon Valley.”
What to do next: Grandin says that though the spirit of inclusivity is good, in her experience, it often leads to “disability silos” without the involvement of people from outside that group.
Geniuses and neurodiversity: Grandin presents evidence that prominent thinkers in history may have been autistic. For example, Thomas Edison had “a domed forehead…memorized every street corner in town, hammered people with questions” and has seemed lacking in empathy in a couple of documented social situations. Michelangelo had an aversion to social life and produced highly realistic drawings. She does indicate that “a savant has never created a masterpiece” and indicates they are skilled at exact copying. She claims that most geniuses are visual thinkers.
Animal Consciousness and Visual Thinking: Animals live and think through their senses. Without verbal language, they store memories of previous experiences as pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, or touch memories. In the 1960’s and before, both ethologists and behaviorists struggled to understand thought that did not rely on verbal language. Thus, it was thought that animals had no interior lives at all. That pattern of thought is now changing. We now know that animals display a wide range of complex and flexible behaviors and have individual personalities. Grandin claims that visual thinkers like herself connect with animals because words are not the primary means of communication.
Thought questions:
- Grandin advocates for closing the equity gap between visual and verbal thinkers by bringing back hands on classes like shop in school, and eliminating algebra requirements for students who are not on a STEM track. Do you think this is a good idea?
- Grandin states “To me it is ridiculous that adults who cannot dress themselves have the same label as people with undiagnosed mild autism who work in Silicon Valley.” What do you think of the more inclusive autism spectrum disorder guidelines that have been developed in recent years?
- Of her co-writer Betsy Lerner she said the she is a verbal thinker and “needs a sentence to be grammatically correct before she can understand it and move on to the next.” And that this relationship has helped Grandin “focus on how to explain scientific and engineering stuff to” verbal learners that is “super-obvious” to her. What do you think of this characterization of verbal learners?
- Grandin claims that most geniuses are visual thinkers. Do you think she presents good evidence for this in the book? Some of it backwards inference, such as Michelangelo made highly realistic and detailed drawings and sculptures, therefore he was a visual thinker. Do you think this is a valid inference? Why or why not?
- Grandin uses the term Visual Thinker throughout the book as a general grouping, but specifies that it includes both object and spatial visualizers, and thus includes people that are both impaired at abstraction (the former) and also especially skilled at abstraction (the latter). Did you find this confusing? Is there a better way of grouping these types of thinking styles?