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Thinking in pictures

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NewportBeachDude
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29 Dec 2007, 4:08 pm

This thread is fascinating especially when you consider PECS. Once upon a time, my child used PECS. PECS are tools used to teach more severe Autistics to communicate and even read. PECS are picture tools and used in every Early Intervention program by teachers, ABA Specialists, Occupational and Speech Therapists. Sometimes even the most profound Autistics can't communicate until PECS are put into use. A written or spoken word may be meaningless, but a picture allows them to express themselves and communicate. Why? Maybe it's because of the Thinking In Pictures thing. I'm just hypothesizing. But, pictures do allow some to open up to others and be able to relate. Maybe many, but not every, Autistic thinks in this way. So, when they're presented with pictures, instead of words, it's a language they can use.

http://www.pecs.com/WhatsPECS.htm

My child is very visual. He may think in pictures, too. We don't know yet. He does have a photographic memory.



serenity
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29 Dec 2007, 4:24 pm

NewportBeachDude wrote:
This thread is fascinating especially when you consider PECS. Once upon a time, my child used PECS. PECS are tools used to teach more severe Autistics to communicate and even read. PECS are picture tools and used in every Early Intervention program by teachers, ABA Specialists, Occupational and Speech Therapists. Sometimes even the most profound Autistics can't communicate until PECS are put into use. A written or spoken word may be meaningless, but a picture allows them to express themselves and communicate. Why? Maybe it's because of the Thinking In Pictures thing. I'm just hypothesizing. But, pictures do allow some to open up to others and be able to relate. Maybe many, but not every, Autistic thinks in this way. So, when they're presented with pictures, instead of words, it's a language they can use.

http://www.pecs.com/WhatsPECS.htm

My child is very visual. He may think in pictures, too. We don't know yet. He does have a photographic memory.


We're trying to teach my youngest son to use PECS, and both of my sons utilize a picture schedule. I think you're right about thinking in pictures being the reason why those without verbal language can use picture cards to communicate. Has anyone ever noticed that most highway signs are in pictures? There's also picture symbols on most electronics, and clothing labels, too.



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14 Jul 2009, 11:33 am

nobodyzdream wrote:
kclark wrote:
I think that this picture thinking is part of what makes it hard to explain things verbally to other people. It can be very hard to translate the mental images into words when the we work the other way around. We end up gathering a large compilation of images but then distilling that down to describable words is frustratingly hard at times.


oh geez, that happens all the time to me. "I can SEE it! I just can't tell you what I 'see'!"

Oh yikes, that happens to me too all the time. >.<


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OddDuckNash99
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14 Jul 2009, 12:45 pm

I think in both pictures and words, but even the words are in a "picture form," since I "see" words spelled out whenever I think or hear somebody else speak. When I think, I both mentally hear and see the words at the same time, as if I were reading them out of a book. Images just naturally come to me, and I never realized that I "think in pictures" until recently, when I figured out that few people think the way I do. I'm the type of person who will have a "movie" in their head whenever somebody is telling a story to me, or when I'm relaying a story to somebody else. It's actually very fun and is a way to keep away boredom. If I'm bored, I just re-live a scene from a movie or TV show that I like, and it's like I'm really watching it.
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Rain_Bird
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15 Jul 2009, 7:50 am

Mostly I think in sounds, in fact, there's like a distinctive voice that I "hear" my thoughts in (no, not like auditory hallucinations or "hearing voices" or anything like that), but sometimes I think in pictures and like "printed" words and numbers. It depends what I'm thinking about.