The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions
May 1, 2022
A professor of animal science best known as an advocate for the autism community, Grandin first reconfigured our understanding of how the brain functions with her New York Times best-selling memoir, Thinking in Pictures. Here she suggests new ways of educating, parenting, employing, and working with visual thinkers.
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August 29, 2022
Animal behaviorist Grandin (Navigating Autism) advocates for visual thinkers in this illuminating survey. Drawing on scientific studies, news articles, and her own experiences, Grandin makes a case that those who think visually have underutilized talents. She begins by describing two types of visual thinkers: object visualizers like her, who “see the world in photo-realistic images” and easily grasp how mechanical devices work, and mathematical spatial visualizers, who see the world in patterns and abstractions. In a “one-size-fits-all” education system geared mainly toward verbal thinkers, the visualizers, Grandin argues, are being neglected and subsequently passed over in the workplace, resulting in a loss of skilled manufacturing workers— “tinkerers”— who don’t have an engineering degree but can “build all the mechanically intricate specialized equipment.” Grandin highlights how visual thinkers can “home in on design flaws and systems failures” as she analyses the failure at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan and the two Boeing 737 MAX airplane crashes, and shows how they might have been averted were more types of thinkers involved: “Verbal thinkers can overthink things,” she writes, “to my mind, as a visual thinker and a designer, it’s not that complicated.” The result is a resonant testament to thinking one’s own way.
September 1, 2022
An exploration of the richness of neurodiversity. In her memoir Thinking in Pictures, Grandin, who was not formally diagnosed with autism until she was an adult, defined herself as a visual thinker, a concept she expands in her latest examination of neurodiverse minds. "The world," she writes, "comes to me in a series of associated visual images, like scrolling through Google images or watching the short videos on Instagram or TikTok." Drawing on her own experiences and research as well as the findings of psychologists, neuroscientists, animal behaviorists, and educators, the author argues persuasively for the need to encourage visual and spatial thinkers who can make crucial contributions to engineering, problem-solving, inventing, and creating. Because education privileges verbal thinkers by assessing learning through written tests, and because curricula have dropped "hands-on" classes such as shop, mechanics, and home economics, Grandin asserts that visual thinkers are neither identified nor given adequate resources to develop their talents and skills. In fact, their difficulty with verbal thinking often relegates them to remedial classes. Grandin reveals, however, that many innovators in the arts and sciences and in technology were visual and spatial thinkers--and likely also on the autism spectrum-- including Thomas Edison, Michelangelo, Alan Turing, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Albert Einstein. "Genius," she writes, "requires not only intelligence and creativity but divergent thinking as well." Grandin cites research to support the idea that combining people with different neurological strengths makes a team more successful than one composed of homogeneous thinkers. Some famous collaborators, such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, serve as evidence of the brilliance that results when "a verbal thinker and a spatial thinker" work together. This book itself serves as another example of a fruitful collaboration: The author submits her work to her editor and co-author, Lerner, a verbal thinker and "the master organizer of information," who "teases out the stories behind my technical writing" and gives it shape and coherence. A thoughtful examination of how minds work.
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September 1, 2022
Animal scientist, best-selling author, and advocate for the autism community, Grandin considers "different kinds of minds" in her appealing assessment of the ways we perceive and process information. A spectrum of how we think emerges, word-based (linear and sequential) and visual (rapid and associative). There are two types of visual thinking, one focused on objects (pictures), the other on space (patterns). Grandin acknowledges, "For me, pictures come first, words next." A similar grasp of how some minds work was conveyed in her autobiography, Thinking in Pictures. Grandin covers lots of ground here, including lessons about grit, perseverance, collaboration, public safety, and problem-solving. She worries about our current educational system and the loss of vital technical skills. She warns about the danger of getting trapped in "a disability mindset." One chapter investigates the intriguing intersection of neurodiversity and genius. An expert on human origins postulates that occurrences of autism and ADHD "may confer evolutionary advantages." Another insightful and sympathetic section focuses on the "inner lives" of nonhuman creatures, their consciousness and emotions. There is much to like about and learn from Grandin's thoughtful book. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Readers will seek out the latest from Grandin, a leader in illuminating the meaning and value of neurodiversity.
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