Is this whats meant by visual learning?

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J is 9 and I have discovered reads very very fast. I wasnt sure if he was fully comprehending what he was reading until I asked him to tell me about the book he had just read. Yep he got it right. My issue is I am discovering if I just talk thru some things with him he continually asks what do I mean, however if I give him the same information or words in writing these questions don't come up and he appears to understand.

Is this a visual learning thing?

It sounds like it - or even like a visually thinking thing.
My son is the same. I can give him verbal instructions 5 times, and he doesn't get it. Visually, he gets a 20 line list in literally 1/2 second - and can remember it. It's astonishing!
Have you read any Temple Grandin on visual thinking? It's really, really interesting, and it helped me understand my son. He literally thinks in pictures, remembers in pictures - like a film.
I sometimes wonder whether it is he core of the problem - that pictures are his first language, hence all the communication problems.

Try writing it down exactly word for word how you speak and see if he stills knows what you're trying to say.

or does that mean that maybe he is auditorially challenged in terms of intaking information; does he learn better by processing it through reading (eyes) than listening (ears)?

I think Mel Levine (All Kinds of Minds) talked about this; also, when Temple Grandin in Thinking in Pictures discusses her thinking...it's like she's seeing it/mapping it out in her mind (like a movie)...

I, too, find it difficult to know how I am thinking in relation to how someone else learns a lot of the time. So, I try to stay positive mostly and have a sense of humor. We're each our own planet sometimes. [I can still hear my Aspie-high-school -English-teacher who knew sooooooooooooooo much about Shakespeare quoting John Donne, "No Man is an Island..."] javascript:emoticon
Wink

track down the

brain.exe program

on the Internet, and try it.

print the results

It will give you an idea of what your auditory/visual learning ratio is.

Yes, I was told visual learning is a trait of AS. My son is often not good with verbal instructions, but can handle them if written down. In particular it is multiple instructions. He also hesitates to ask for help, so I have had to work on him that it is ok to ask if you're not sure, otherwise he just sits at his desk at school and can't remember the auditory instruction and doesn't speak up.

I think what you are talking also extends into the area of taking language literally. Often an AS child can't cope with our metaphors and idioms, or they can't pick up our speech intonation that indicates what we mean depending on the different emphasis of the words. Awhile back I was telling my son off for not going to sleep and said that he'd be "shot in the morning" (meaning sleep deprived, of course!), only to come back five minutes later to find him sobbing, and when I asked why he said, "'Cos I thought I was going to get killed!" (poor little kid!).

ha ha ha

I can cover a great deal of reading material in a short time, with complete comprehension. It is interesting how they always question people who read extremely fast if they know what they're reading.

Maybe it's also an own-pace thing. Perhaps when you talk he feels he has to keep up with you, but he can take his time when reading. Maybe an ADD thing.