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warface
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28 Mar 2009, 4:14 am

Temple Grandin identifies three categories of non linguistic thought

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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.

http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html

Is non linguistic thinking at the core of autism?? Is it possible to develop your inner language function??


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ZakFiend
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28 Mar 2009, 5:05 am

warface wrote:
Temple Grandin identifies three categories of non linguistic thought

Quote:
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.

http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html

Is non linguistic thinking at the core of autism?? Is it possible to develop your inner language function??


We all use different modes, visual thinkers are not exclusively visual thinkers, I sometimes think in terms of sounds / words (hearing word in my head, etc), it depends on what I'm doing. When I'm writing and getting ideas out of my head I'm using all 3 modes of thought.

Trying to pin autism to a specific way of thinking betrays an understanding of neurology and the multi-modal nature of thought itself. Most thought is unconscious, the aspects of thought people are aware of is a TINY fraction of what is actually happening that they can perceive and articulate. So no I would say certain kinds of thinking are not the "core" of autism, because lets face it, "autism" is diagnostic category, ther are not scientific or molecular biological tests yet for autism. The data is years away from being fully understood.



Wombat
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28 Mar 2009, 5:47 am

I often think in words but just as often with just flashes of pictures or ideas.

Here's a question for you. How does a person who is born deaf think? Obviously they aren't going to have that "inner voice" thinking in words.

Another thought. Where do the words come from? Someone asks you a question and you start talking. When you begin a sentence you have no idea what words are going to come next. They just come. You don't plan out a whole sentence before you start to speak.



melissa17b
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28 Mar 2009, 6:04 am

Some people have strong tendencies for all three modes of thinking, often mixing them for maximum effectiveness. It is no surprise that my working life has been almost exclusively developing software for the financial analysis industry. I learn foreign languages fairly easily, and this is a recurring special interest of mine. My more persistent special interests have been maps of all varieties, and I am drawn as if magnetically to (and easily remember) tables of facts, particularly numbers (love the World Almanac). Another persistent special interest has been meteorology, both the statistical orientation of climatology and the visual and systemic nature of synoptic modelling and forecasting. When designing software, I visualise the abstract components as moving parts, with intricate and changing connections. I can always see this moving picture in precise detail, so I can remember exactly how things fit together, and why they were designed as they are, even if I last looked at them 15 years ago. My limited and purely anecdotal experience with autistic people is that they in general tend to have more unusual combinations or intensities of thinking types rather than a distinct clustering within any single one.



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28 Mar 2009, 6:51 am

warface wrote:
...Is non linguistic thinking at the core of autism?? Is it possible to develop your inner language function??

I think Dr. Grandin's definition of "Verbal Logic" thinkers is given in terms of people on the autistic spectrum, so by her standards, it seems the answer to your question is "not necessarily."

Personally, I have always (long before I had ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome) felt that I think in patterns. But I also spend a considerable amount of time translating my thoughts into English. I think I am actually rehearsing how I would explain my thoughts to someone else. So while most thoughts come to me as patterns or relationships, I almost immediately begin a process of translation - and I keep reworking that translation until I'm satisfied that I would be able to express the thought precisely.

I think the translation process that I experience is how I go about developing my "inner language function."


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cyberscan
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28 Mar 2009, 10:05 am

I think in pictures much like Temple Grandin. I tried for years to learn electronics and the only way I was finally able to do so was to visualize electrons moving in a circuit. Once I was able to come up with a method to visualize such, I was able to easily remember the concepts I also do a little bit of music and math thinking as well. I can and do write programs for computers. So far, verbal logic thinking totally eludes me. I am trying to learn verbal logic thinking because I'm terrible at learning languages.


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zeichner
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28 Mar 2009, 10:25 am

cyberscan wrote:
...So far, verbal logic thinking totally eludes me. I am trying to learn verbal logic thinking because I'm terrible at learning languages.

As I understand it, we are born wired to think in a certain manner. If you think in pictures, you can't just decide to switch & learn to think in verbal logic. But you CAN learn to translate your thought pictures into words (as you obviously have done - or you wouldn't be able to write so well.)


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warface
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28 Mar 2009, 11:05 am

Thanks for all the replies


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28 Mar 2009, 1:42 pm

I don't think in patterns, words, or pictures, so my thought process does not fit in her three categories. My thinking can best be described as concept logic. Everything is related to everything else. But it all has to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. If I have have an exception to the rule, I have to figure out how it makes sense.


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