Can visual tools & diagrams improve Aspie-NT communicati

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Professionally I do a lot of cross-disciplinary work, facilitating workshops with experts from different silos within an organisation to reach a shared understanding of some aspect of their business.

I have found that whiteboards and software drawing tools in combination with a small set of techniques for asking questions and for validating understanding can bring the communication of NTs down to the concrete level that Aspies can relate to. Ironically, these tools and techniques are also essential to enable NTs to better understand each other. Now, whenever I attend a business meeting, I make sure I bring my favourite tools.

This raises the interesting question to what extent visual tools and diagrams are the key ingredient (perhaps only for visual thinkers and mathematical/abstract thinkers, but perhaps not for verbal thinkers), and to what extent the use of a visual tool simply shifts the focus away from body language and eye contact (participants are looking at the whiteboard most of the time), thereby levelling the playing field between NTs and those who live somewhere on the Autistic spectrum.

Has anyone made similar observations?

Is a picture worth a thousand words, or does a visual tool simply de-emphasize body language and eye contact?