The Artwork of an Autistic Mind

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Sometimes my 10 year old autistic son spends time with me in my office at work. There is a whiteboard that he just loves to scrawl on. I don't really use the whiteboard, so I leave whatever he draws up; it is a common topic of discussion for people who visit my office. I thought I'd share his latest "art" with the community here, as I find it interesting.

He draws what he sees in his head, and he's always seeing something. It is often hard to tell what things are, but if I ask him, he'll usually tell me. The filled in black shapes are "black donuts", for example. The green things towards the top with boxes on either side are tie fighters. Some are just shapes; "green circle" and what not. He's mostly non-verbal; he talks, but cannot communicate verbally.



This is what he does when you say "smile" for the camera; he manages a better fake smile than I can, I think.



Does anyone else have examples of "autistic art" they'd care to share?

Good fortune,

- Icarus sees many interesting things in his head, also...

Whilst I have no examples - when I tend to doodle I am very much similar. I'll just fill a space with circles and lines and try and make pretty patterns. If that's due to AS or just the fact I can't draw - only science will tell

Beautiful

It's fascinating that what appears to be faces on the right side of the picture have absolutely no expression whatsoever.

It's really cool that you keep that up for your co-workers to see.

His drawing is very rythmic...patterned! He's really talented. You do realize you now cannot erase your whiteboard ever.

Tell him great job. You know, there are other whiteboard marker colors now too.

It IS interesting that the whole mosaic is made up of less than about 40 different patterns, and they are scattered in a seemingly random fashion. I wish I even knew if labpet was serious about what she is saying.

in one corner there are green kisses and in one there is stupid blackness...
C? C? C? C?


See? No Si but may Be yes. What is his favorite color?

That is very interesting Incas. When I was in about 3-4th grade, or 9-10 I was still in special ed prior to being mainstreamed in 5th grade. Anyways, I tended to be a little better at school work then others in the class, and I was the youngest ironicly. As a result I got plenty of free time, my work was done but had to wait to go home, and for others to catch up. I got on the chalkboard and filled the entire space with squares and lines. The squares would be on the edge and lines would connect them in a pattern usually. I would draw this same thing day in and out for the entire year. I drew other things also, but on the chalkboard at that particular time it would be only that. I think your son and I are quite the artists!! HEHE. But to be honest, I like your sons work better, he used more color, more time, more creative, words.

I draw too, but I draw realism, not patterns, despite being a mostly pattern oriented thinker, but I also have been told that I draw mostly without expression or that the characters or certain things in my drawings are too stiff.

I like what he drew on that board because I can look at it a long time and still don't see everything, but only ever parts next to other parts next to other parts. It's like my eyes get never bored looking at the shapes. Thanks for showing this, it's awesome.

Thank you all for your kind praise and insightful comments. Would that I could share this with Wolf (my son), but alas, he is beyond the reach of such things just now.

Indeed; for a while I had a second whiteboard that I kept out in the hall propped up on a chair (though that board has since been re-purposed). Just some of the small ways in which I try to support the awareness cause.


Well, he insists on erasing it himself sometimes. It is something of a loss, I know, but he replaces it with new stuff so quickly and furiously that there's always something like that up. And that is an interesting aspect of his art in this particular medium; it is both transient and dynamic. Those are the standard work colours, yes; he has a whiteboard easel at home with a wider variety of colours, and he uses them all.


I believe LabPet was being serious; she has a gift for rhythms and patterns. And if there is a pattern or what the pattern is is a common subject for discussion for people who ask; most look at it and see only random nonsense at first; but is there something more than that? In truth, I do not know; but I have wondered often.


Oh, of course YOU focus on the letters. I am inclined to give you 3 out of 4, 75%, a C on the standard grading scale, a passing grade; and this is good because most fail. Wolf does know colours, most of the basic ones anyway. He cannot read and write in the traditional sense, but he does know and recognize certain words. And colours are amongst these. He was blocking this in the shots above, but behind him is also scrawled the word "RED". And "kiss" is a word he knows and understands also; he get's and give lots of hugs and kisses, is every expressive in this vein, if not so much verbally.

But STUP for stupid? That one I'm not so sure about. It may be occurring outside the purview of my observance, but Wolf is generally not called stupid or hears the word stupid often enough to want to write it. And "stupid" is a conceptually abstract notion, beyond Wolf's reckoning at this time. But who knows, you may be right; you may have earned an A but only been granted a C; stupid overly strict teachers... And as for the C's; he obsesses about letters quite a bit; beyond that, I know not.

"Favourite" is also conceptually beyond Wolf at this point, but I'd guess his favorite colour is orange. He seems greatly to enjoy dressing up like Kenny from South Park. Ironically, orange is one of my most hated colours; it is almost painful for me to look at; but, as a nice side effect, when I take him hiking, I encourage him to wear his orange clothes so as to keep him very visible (he's slippery). I'm more of a forest green and charcoal grey kinda guy, cool colours and earth tones; I dress like a ranger when I hike.

I have a fascinating example of his trying to write something and his cleverness that I'll post as soon as I get access to a scanner.

Take care,

- Icarus has an Elven cloak…

As something to contrast with the notion of patterns in the artwork pictured above, and how Wolf's particular autistic mind sees and approaches such things, consider this DVD, which he wrote on. Try to read it, and figure out what it says.



I had been backing up my Red Dwarf DVDs (Wolf is very rough on DVDs), but I got side-tracked and only made it up through series 3. Wolf became impatient and really wanted series 4. The process of backing up a DVD is rather beyond him, but he was clever enough to notice that I'd write out "Red Dwarf, Series 3" or whatever on a blank DVD, and slide it into the computer, and eventually pop it back out with the backup on it. When I went to do the next one, I was surprised to find a disk already in the drive, pictured above.

All of the letters are there, "Red Dwarf, Series 4" They start out in standard order and placement, but when Wolf ran out of room, he scrawled "Series" off to the left in a way that curls in on itself like a snail shell. Once again, at first glance this looks like random gibberish; but it is not.

I invite you all to consider this when looking at his art above. And I find it to be a fascinating example of how his mind works, how he perceives things.

Good fortune,

- Icarus loves puzzles…

I didnt read it as stup(id) i saw "stop"

Areyou SURE about that? How then do you know what he is trying to draw?



Oh, I wasn't trying to insult, etc... Only saying that labpets words imply she sees something there I perhaps never will.

People like Labpet make me want to go 100 miles out of my way just out of curiousity. Alas, she is farther away than that, and winters can be rough in alaska. The lowest temperature I have ever knowingly been in is -17F(about-27C) And that INCLUDED the windchill. Maybe -5F (without the windchill).

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What is on the white board is a kind of language it seems to me.

Not everyone sees things in their heads/see things well in their heads.

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Constructional apraxia (the inability to copy, draw, or construct simple figures):

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/apraxia/apraxia.htm

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script