B19 wrote:
I would do better with roadmaps if they were clearly marked with North, South, East and West. When I look at maps that don't, I can't tell in which direction the roads lead (as I noticed recently when I got lost in an unfamiliar area at night). The street signs here don't indicate that information either, so even people with good directional ability get lost sometimes.
After my experience, I discovered an article and comments about "directional dyslexia" in The Guardian which astonished me - so many people described difficulties that they have struggled with for years when driving.
I thought when you hold the maps right side up, N is always towards the top and South is down towards the bottom of the map. They would not make the map of London and have the north facing down.
It used to puzzle me how some people didn't know how to read maps so I thought they never bothered learning it in school. I thought it was stupidity until I started joining autism forums. Now it seems more common than I think because even allistics have that same trouble. People have told me in real life I am good at reading maps and it would always puzzle me because that is like telling someone, "you're good at getting a drink of water." What? lol.
I already explained that above. That you can assume that north is at the top of the map.
It sounds ridiculous to me too when folks say "I cant read maps", but it is a common thing (at least as common among NTs as ASDers).
11 Jun 2016, 4:03 pm
