Visual vs. Non-Visual Autistics

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1. Why it is easier to be a visual autistic than a non-visual autistic
2. A working hypothesis regarding diagnoses of visual vs. non-visual autistics

For the purpose of this post I define visual autistics as those autistics (normal IQ) with good spatial ability and non-visual autistics as those autistics (normal IQ) with poor spatial ability but good verbal ability. I have divided this post into two parts; one dealing with why it is better to be a visual autistic, and one discussing the diagnoses of visual and non-visual autistics.

1. Why it is easier to be a visual autistic than a non-visual autistic

I believe it is easier to be a visual autistic than a non-visual autistic because of the inherent nature of visual activities vs. verbal activities. Success at most verbal activities requires one to be socially adept, while success at most visual activities requires little social skills.

Look at the all the jobs that a visual person (with poor verbal ability) who is socially inept can do. Artist, sculptor, engineer, physics professor, landscaper, jobs in the computer industry, bricklayer, working in the trades, truck driver, cab driver, mechanic. A computer programmer would need good spatial and verbal skills. The nature of jobs requiring high spatial abilities is such that it is only important that you can do your job, social networking is not a requirement. Now try to name jobs that a socially inept, verbal person with poor visual abilities can do. I bet you can't name many. The only activity I can think of that a socially inept verbal person can do is poetry, but you can't make much money doing that. The two most common types of jobs that a person with high verbal ability can be successful at are jobs that are based on talking to people (social worker, counselor, radio dj, orator, business leader) or writing. Now obviously jobs that are based on talking to people or socializing are not an option for the socially inept, but neither is writing. The reason is the inherent nature of writing jobs, a nature which requires a writer to be a social butterfly. Almost all forms of writing except technical writing (which requires spatial abilities) require social contact or understanding of social situations. A journalist has to conduct interviews and understand the social complexities of the stories he writes. A fiction writer can write without social contact but has to understand the social interaction in his stories. A writer of informative material must take part social networking to further his career, and must make social contacts to obtain information.

The point is, there really isn't much use for having high verbal abilities if you can't use them for socializing.

Having high verbal abilities doesn't give you much of an advantage in everyday life, high spatial abilities do. I have high verbal abilities and probably only use 70% of my vocabulary for everyday interaction. The other thirty percent is a collection of relatively obscure words designed for efficient and economical discussion of intellectual topics. So a person could have only 70% of my vocabulary but still function in everyday interaction as well as me.

Having high spatial abilities does give you an advantage in everyday life. Being able to drive to new places with ease, being able to fix your car, having a vast knowledge of your surroundings (knowing the roads, where all the businesses in your city are.) If a person with poor spatial skills had to go on a business trip to a new city, they would probably have to get around in a cab, while one with high spatial ability could look at a map for a few minutes and be ready to drive anywhere in the city.

So high verbal skills are useless if your socially inept and do not give you an advantage in everyday life. High spatial ability allows one to do jobs in which social networking is not a factor, and gives advantage in everyday life.

There isn't much point to having good verbal skills if one does not socialize.

2. A working hypothesis regarding diagnoses of visual vs. non-visual autistics

I question whether normal-IQ autistics with very high and very low spatial abilities should be grouped into the same category. A Yale study found that up to 80% of children diagnosed with Asperger's meet the criteria for NLD. Some psychologists claim Asperger's and NLD are the same. This doesn't seem to agree with what I have seen in the people I have met on this forum and in my autism social group. It seems to me a large percentage of normal-IQ autistic people rely very heavily on spatial skills. The reasons for this can be explained with my previous discussion on why it is better to be a visual autistic. Since verbal skills aren't much good if one is socially inept, it would be logical to assume that even autistic with normal spatial abilities and normal verbal abilities would favor spatial abilities. For example, becoming a mechanical engineer, so that they can use their spatial abilities in an environment which requires little social competency.

I wonder if visual and non-visual autistics shouldn't be grouped into the same diagnostic category.

My working hypothesis is this; either; 1. Normal-IQ non-visual autistics have Asperger's and normal IQ visual autistics have a form of very high-functioning HFA (where IQ is average or above average instead of the average HFA IQ of 80) or 2. Normal IQ visual autistics have Asperger's and normal IQ non-visual autistics have an autistic disorder which has yet to be defined or NLD (which may or may not lie on the autistic spectrum).

For personal expereince and my own person, I beg to differ.

I have good spatial ability. I can't drive yet though. I also cannot easily navigate through new surroundings. That's because I have the sensory integration deficit part of ASDs too.

I knew two guys on the spectrum (one probably, was diagnosed before AS) who are very highly verbal and who succeed in school and and were amongst the best (while I failed totally) and one gets along just fine also in his job though he's downright eccentric, annoying and a bully.

Seems to me that high verbal would be useful in discoursing, and heaven only knows there's plenty of scientists that can discourse eloquently and can't manage a friendly hello on the social plane.

Is math a visual field... so much of todays work is coded, formulaic and that may be processed by the language centers rather than spacially.

Marketing and sales seem to me to be high verbal skills fields... and I've met my share of sales people who don't appear to read body language...

I think I'd probably be considered high visual and high language... I'll have to go back and read the part about differentiating the two.

I have as ASD.
I am an artist with a movie screen that runs in my brain - literally. I watch movie there all the time. I am highly visual. My visual memory is excellent.
I am also a super super verbal aspie who motor mouths on about my special interest which is art and painting and gets paid to do so at times - publicly or on tv or the radio.

Your dichotomy makes no sense to me and is inapplicable in my case.
I live and work and make money as a painter and use my verbal skills in the same career field.


But I loved how deeply you thought about the issues.

I'm on board with you, millie. It seems an artificial, simplistic distinction, based more on cerebration than actual living breathing beings.

But some interesting stuff on VIQ, PIQ, etc.

Nice try, but like Millie I am an aspie which thinks in pictures and can on some subjects be a motor mouth.

I think in terms of pictures and patterns (I think much of the time in terms of pictures), but I do sometimes in the course of my job have to be a motor mouth talking about some subjects within science which interest me. I suspect that the motor mouth state is working in a FORTRAN style, it has a series of library commands which are used as needed.

I am glad to read that you are making attempts to make sense of it all, but if you follow the reasoning of Karl Popper then me and Millie may well have rendered your hypothesis false. Whe a hypothesis is shown to be incorrect then it is a chance to make some progress by making a new hypothesis.

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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

To the people who said my hypothesis doesn't apply to them, well personal experience is hardly scientific. Just because your personal experience doesn't agree with a theory doesn't make it false. I admit, my hypothesis was based mostly on my personal experience - the fact the highly-visual autistics are not like me - the research I have seen that states that most Aspies have poor spatial abilities (NLD) contrasted with the fact that most Aspies I know have good spatial skills. A hypothesis can be based on personal experience, it is in proving or disproving the hypothesis that research is king.

This is why I called it a working hypothesis. That means an supposition, a hypothesis not based on fact. I didn't try to provide research to back it up because this type of hypothesis has never been researched before. So due to lack of research, it is neither proven nor disproved. Again only research matters not subjective experience. I don't have the ability to do original research right now, I could look at existing research on autism and try to extrapolate relevant information to prove my hypothesis. This would take a great deal of time, right now I just wanted to get the theory out there.

By the way, I clearly stated that an autistic person could be highly-visual and highly-verbal or average at both abilities. Some people did not realize I said this.

Anyhow, maybe I'll do research on this supposition in the future... and take it from supposition to a more valid hypothesis (or invalid hypothesis) and then prove it invalid or valid.