Types of Thinkers
This Ted Talk by Temple Grandin is so inspiring. Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University. She is also diagnosed with autism. In her Ted Talk she inspires people to step away from verbal speaking and use visuals in order to communicate effectively with someone with autism. Grandin talks about how her brain works in associations. In fact, she compares it to Google Images. If you say one word she digs through her catalog and pulls up pictures that she associates with that word.
Everyone’s brain is different. Learning how people with ASD think is so important. Grandin talks about three different types of thinkers: visual, music and math, and verbal logical.
Unfortunately, sometimes people focus on what a person with autism can’t do. Learning the strengths of the different types of thinkers allows one to focus on what an individual can excel in. Using visual supports for visual thinkers is so important because they pull up those “Google Images” in order to process something. Understanding how people think is important so we can pull out their strengths and see how they work together.
-Rachel
