Do you think visually or verbally?

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Most of the time, when I'm thinking, I'll be thinking in words, but I don't think that's necessarily what comes most naturally to me. I think images come most naturally, but there are a lot of times when I can't "see" them. I think this may be related to something else entirely. I can feel that they're there, though. I understand what the images are, but I just can't see them.

Sometimes, I'll be able to see them, though.

Oh yeah, I have those dreams too! Sometimes they seem to take all night. I often have the feeling that I´m in an ancient library, reading long lost, archaic texts. It´s pretty cool.

I think visually and written. i have difficulty with the whole verbal part. That is why I do not do well with verbal instructions, unless they are accompanied by any visual instructions. So I can not be told or asked to do something. It has to be written down and/or shown to me.

I'm glad I am not the only one to sometimes dream in text.

Sometimes it's like reading a newspaper, there are some pictures, too.

Wow, Morgana and Oddfin! I had always thought I was pretty much alone in dreaming about reading so much... What a relief to hear that's not the case.

Morgana, a lot of my dreams of reading have been set in a libary too, and I'm not always reading books. Sometimes it's scrolls. When I was younger I wondered if it was the library at Alexandria... then I started keeping notes of the fragments I remembered, and realised that it was gibberish, not ancient wisdom.

But I still like the dreams. Even if I do wake up exhausted with my head cluttered up with words.

Hi Absquatulate - welcome to WP! (Love your avatar, BTW)

In the expanded edition of Thinking in Pictures (copyright 2006), Grandin corrects herself & revises her concept of the way people on the spectrum think. She uses the term "specialized brains" - in which she contends that "all people on the spectrum think in details, but there are three basic categories of specialized brains. Some individuals may be combinations of these categories."

The three categories she lists are:
1. Visual thinkers (photographically specific images)
2. Music & math thinkers (patterns)
3. Verbal logic thinkers (word details)

Personally, concepts appear in my mind first as patterns (not specifically visual) - and I almost immediately begin the process of translating those patterns into words. This process of translation takes the form of an internal monologue, in which I try to come up with the best combination of words to communicate the patterns to others.

The translation process wouldn't be necessary, except that I need to deal with other people & they always seem to want verbal explanations for my conceptual reasoning. Sometimes I'm stumped at translating my thought patterns into words. Connections that seem self-evident as patterns often can't be explained verbally. At these times, I borrow a joke from the "Car Talk" guys & say that my reasoning is "unencumbered by the thought process."

For me too. The way I think is the way you described it zeichner. My thinking utilizes numbers, frequencies, tones, patterns, cycles, pulses, levels and their interconnections. I'm certain my native "language" is non-linear. A great deal of it won't translate adequately into either words or pictures. In part because language is linear based. It generally doesn't translate well into pictures either-- for the reason that it is more associated with tones, pulses, and frequencies than with visuals. Both my parents think in patterns as well, so it was probably genetically passed on to me.

This thinking in terms of connections between numbers, patterns, and tones is more likely to translate [for me] directly into a feeling and then the feeling can be described with words, but it's not a very accurate rendering of the original thought. I believe some autistics who think in patterns are only capable of translating both thought and feeling into movement. It is my contention that many autistics thinking in patterns-- are not aware they do, nor are their caregivers and professional support team aware of it. This, IMO, is the underlying cause of at least some of the communication failure, if not most of it.

Translating pattern type thinking into movement is considerably easier than translating it into words, pictures or feelings. When I was much younger, movement and dance was really my only outlet of genuine-accurate-articulate expression. Little did I realize at the time I was actually finding an expression for my basic thought pattern through movement. It may also be noted that frequently I can describe a thought through metaphor, when nothing else proves adequate. So first movement, then metaphor when translating pattern type autistic thinking into communication techniques. This is an original thought. I have not done research to arrive at these conclusions. They just seem self evident to me.

Rodolf Steiner developed a moving communication/dance technique called eurythmy based on this belief. It is my understanding that he did so in order to facilitate communication between the individual and all other lifeforms, including human, as well as to connect up with the entire universe. I don't know much about eurythmy, but I think it should be evaluated as a therapeutic technique with LFAs--before some of the more severe therapies, which tend to restrict movement, are utilized. Frankly, humanity remains ignorant as to how autistics translate their thoughts into communication. NTs may get the sense we are expressing something personal in a unique way. But the NTs, and we ourselves, remain clueless how to get it across in a way that can be easily understood. And of course, whatever method we are using is vital to our ability to communicate with the rest of the world. Stimming, and various forms of apparently bizarre movement, may be--for LFAs and others on the spectrum-- the only way we have of expressing how we think and feel and respond to our environment.


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Last edited by alba on 06 Jul 2009, 8:53 pm, edited 9 times in total.

Wow, thanks for that explanation! That sounds quite like the way I think- definitely "conceptual" in nature.

I mostly think in patterns and symbols as well as pictures.

Last edited by Odin on 07 Jul 2009, 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Moving pictures.

movie screen - 3 d and technicolour. lots of pictures. but strange shapes as well that have a weird feeling to them. cannot put this into words. it is an abstracted way of being that exists outside of language perameters.

Both. I pronounce the words of my thoughts in my head. But I also visualize especially when I'm trying to recall the past or when I'm trying to solve a problem.

my mode of thought changes often so it would be both.

How do autistics translate their thoughts into communication, and why is it so hard for NTs to get where we're coming from, without taking offense at our very existence?

Those of us on the spectrum may intuitively, naturally, and unconsciously think one way (non-linear)... and consciously-- with effort and socialization-- another way (linear). I feel that most, if not all, autistics process information (and therefore think) through CATEGORIES, PATTERNS, and VISUALIZATIONS independent of space-time, i.e., non-linear. Perhaps most on the spectrum are immensely more comfortable dealing with patterns and energy fluctuations unbound by space-time orientation---and this, generally, on an unconscious level. It may be due to the autistic neurological wiring (predisposing us to non-linear thinking) that we 1)fail to develop effective communication techniques, 2)fail to achieve meaningful relationships, and 3)lack proper social skills. Human-to-human interaction is undoubtedly rooted in space-time categories of linear information processing, which may be foreign to the way most autistics think.

Autistic problems with executive function, as well as communication, may arise as a result of difficulties with linear type processing, because the predominant NT thinking style is VERBALLY and VISUALLY linear. Low functioning autistics may be labeled that way precisely because of their inability to interface with linear type thinking. Therapies and invasive interventions, which make LFAs conform to social expectations through behavior modification--with little or no concern and respect for the autistic's core identity naturally deriving from neurological wiring adapted to function non-linearly--may be responsible for permanently disconnecting them from their real selves. If so, it would constitute severe psychological damage, mental and emotional torture. The trend is to intervene as early as possible, thereby fixing the autistic. It is arguably and possibly true, that the earlier this coercive intervention takes place, the more damaging it will be to the autistic's sense of self, and to their neurological wiring.

If NTs often find our existence offensive and intolerable, it may be due to the fact that they are simply unable to comprehend how we think and process information. Even the experts are challenged to understand precisely why autistics have so much difficulty with communication and socially fitting in. And those of us at WP have frequently found it very perplexing how we can be causing offense to others, almost before we say or do anything.

I can think visually. This is great when I want to draw something, because I can get the image of how I want the picture to look even before starting. I then simply draw what is already in my thoughts.

But then I can think verbally, as well.

I do this as a silent alternative of the talking-to-oneself thing I do a lot of the time. I think entire phrases, and, strangely enough, I almost always do it in English.

My mother tongue is Spanish, but from late childhood/ early teens most of my "social training" has been done through comic books. I guess that is why sometimes I have trouble thinking slang in my own language, when the first one to come to mind is in English. Then I say nothing because people would think I'm a snob for not speaking Spanish. Even if I do come with phrases in Spanish, they may follow English grammar sometimes, as my ex (who studied Letras Hispánicas in college) told me.

I did not vote for any option because I can do both. And I do both most of the time, or in turns.

Hard poll to answer. I'm neither a visual thinker, nor a verbal.