On Visual, Pattern or Verbal Thinking (Temple Grandin)

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I had a language delay but I ended up becoming a "word specialist", funny that. My visual/spatial IQ is only just above average (disappointing) but my verbal IQ is very high. I'm HFA too, not true aspergers, and those types are usually visual focused. I do have a tendency to think in pictures and I can create images in my held quite well and when it comes to drawing I have lots of great ideas and visions and I go into extreme detail but my actual skill with the pen/pencil is lacking, that might be due to dyspraxia or maybe because my visual IQ isn't that high. I can also make up my own music quite well but I absolutely suck at reading it, I do it all by ear. I'm okay at math, I'm extremely good at memorizing but that might be my only strong point in math, rote memory/practicing the same thing over and over again until its glued into my memory.

It's all just a bit confusing.

I use a combination of the visual and pattern methods when I think. It may seem strange to some, but I can do both at the same time when I am processing something within my special interest areas. However, verbal thinking has always been a weak point for me. Most of my close family members are mainly verbal thinkers, so they do not understand many things that I can do. My late father was a very visual thinker (self-taught architect).

Both pattern and visual thinker.
I doubt I am a verbal thinker, though this doesn't mean that I am not.

I'm strong in both music/math and verbal thinking. I might be better in visual processing than I realize. I have really good spatial ability. But I tend to think of it as a mathematical ability for geometry rather than something visual.

I have a strong interest in word etymology and the deeper historical and cultural implications of how people use language. Language reminds me of images that symbolize cultural concepts or historical events. I also notice the melodic inflections in the way people speak, and the phrases people use often remind me of song lyrics, which in turns reminds me of images that I might associate with that music. Musical phrases and verbal phrases also remind me of movie scenes, which again are symbols of culture and history for me. So words, music, and images are all strongly connected for me. I have highly associative thinking that looks for patterns and connections between things, like flipping through a rolodex or encyclopedia inside my head for things that can be cross-referenced.

I'm defiantly a verbal thinker. I s#ck with patterns due to my dyslexia, I was born with a rare low vision disorder & my brain sometimes has problems processing things I can see well; like I could be looking rite at something I can see & not notice it's there.

I'm a visual thinker. Hands down. I don't have Temple Grandin's amazing memory, but other than that, my brain works the same way as hers - I see things in movies, specific images, and I can visualize objects and rotate them in my mind much like one would in Google SketchUp or similar. Which means I can build things in my head first, and then just go and do it (I built an elaborate wooden planter with four levels this way). I remember when watching the Temple Grandin movie and how they had visualized her way of thinking, especially the bit when she as a child lay in her doctor's office watching the wallpaper and "completing" the pattern in her mind, I was just like I DO THAT STUFF TOO!

I had an interesting conversation about this with my husband once, where we compared ways of thinking about things - he is a verbal thinker. He is a lawyer, I'm a trained artist. It fits ...