Trying To Get Into My Child's Mind

Since my oldest son, The Artist (going to call him this from now on in these posts), was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and dysgraphia, I catch myself looking at him and just wondering what is going on in that brain of his.

I've started reading Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. Temple is an adult woman diagnosed with high-functioning autism as a child. In short, she says that she sees life in pictures, that her thoughts are like a running DVD of pictures. It has been very enlightening to try to put The Artist into her place. He definitely sees things in pictures, now that I know what that is.

He is currently reading and spelling and we are working on handwriting as well. So, one activity he does is sit down at the white-board on his exercise ball and I give him words to write. On his own, he came up with this followup. After writing the word (they are usually nouns), he draws a picture of the word. Sometimes he does it WordWorld (kids' TV show) style--making a picture out of the word itself. Imagine the word "bug" with antennae and a tail and you get the idea.

I started paying more attention to what he notices. His memory is excellent and I've realized that the things he remembers the best are ones that have strong visual cues. For instance, we went into an Austin art store a couple of years ago. It's a very neat store if you draw or paint. The store is right next to I-35 in Austin which is the main thoroughfare through Austin. Outside the store is a huge male figure that is their icon. Very noticeable. Well, he and I don't travel into Austin much together anymore (we live in a small town and tend to do most of our shopping and errands in the suburbs) but had occasion to do so a couple of weeks ago. As we passed the store (Jerry's Artarama for those of you in the Austin area), he said without hesitation, "There's the art store!" This is only one example, but I'm noticing it more and more.

What I'm trying to figure out is how to use this thought process to enable him to learn. We've been looking things up on the internet more so that he can see pictures of the topic we're discussing. But it is just an interesting process to try to put myself in his brain and figure out how he thinks. Books like Temple's make it an easier process. I have many of the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome and one of those is to think in very black-and-white terms. I have difficulty thinking broadly so this is a challenge for me.

Have you ever really tried to get inside someone else's body and think like they do? I think it's a common struggle with men and women because we think so differently, but I don't believe we go into a concerted effort to get inside their minds like I'm trying to with The Artist. I do think this is common for parents of special-needs kids, but probably in other situations I'm not thinking of as well. (I did say I think in black and white, remember?)