I had no idea that my thought processes were different. When I was a child and a teenager, I thought everybody thought in pictures. One of the most profound mysteries of autism has been the remarkable ability of most autistic people to excel at visual spatial skills while performing so poorly at verbal skills. I value my ability to think visually, and I would never want to lose it. Some of the people I've worked for don't even know that their systems were designed by someone with autism. In fact, one third of the cattle and hogs in the United States are handled in equipment I have designed. I have worked for many major livestock companies. During my career I have designed all kinds of equipment, ranging from corrals for handling cattle on ranches to systems for handling cattle and hogs during veterinary procedures and slaughter. Visual thinking has enabled me to build entire systems in my imagination. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand, but in my job as an equipment designer for the livestock industry, visual thinking is a tremendous advantage. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head.

With 2006 Updates from the Expanded Edition Guest host Dessa sits down with Grandin to discuss the gift of thinking in pictures.THINKING IN PICTURES: Autism and Visual Thought THINKING IN PICTURES “It’s possible that the most important thing my mother did for me was to not see herself primarily as the mom of a disabled child,” she writes. She also writes that many kids diagnosed with autism today are not appreciated for their unique talents but rather stymied by their diagnoses. She says that non-visual thinkers can learn from people who see and interpret the world as she does. Grandin argues that the world undervalues visual thinkers who have a lot to offer. The man whose name has become synonymous with genius was a bad student and didn’t speak until he was 3- or 4-years-old. She adds it’s like “scrolling through Google Images or watching the short videos on Instagram or TikTok.”Īlbert Einstein was a visual thinker, too. In her new book, “ Visual Thinking,” Grandin writes that she sees the world “in a series of associated visual images.” Like many people with autism, Temple Grandin thinks in pictures.

Temple grandin book visual thinking