Creativity for Non-Visual Thinkers, People with Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, Aspergers etc.

"A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words." - L.S. Vygotsky

Had an email last week from someone with a nonverbal learning disability - and he asked us a great question...that given that visual imagery seems to be so important in creative work, was there hope for NLDer's in the Conceptual Age? Of course! We apologize for not giving as much attention to non-visual thinking on this blog (part of the reason is our interest and large clinic population of dyslexics), so we'd like to correct this slight right now.

Verbal thinkers tend to have less trouble than visual thinkers in conventional K-12 school tasks... but if visual perceptual and organization problems also exist (e.g. nonverbal learning disabilities), more struggles await them in their adult years, driving and reading maps, reading the emotions of their co-workers, bosses, and family members, and keeping their home and work life organized.

The two most important factors we have seen in these individuals' success relate to metacognitive ability -an ability to reflect about their own thinking processes, recognizing their strengths and weaknesses (build on strengths, accommodate weaknesses) and external supports (helps when needed from loved ones - parents, siblings, spouses, professionals, business partners) if and when needed.

We know and have learned of many highly (and sometimes exclusively) verbal thinkers working in various diverse occupations - academia / research, law, business, education, writing, science, math, and computers and engineering. Many of the most successful verbal thinkers capitalize on their strong memories, pattern recognition, reasoning and analytical abilities, and eye for detail.

Verbal thinkers tend to wrestle with ideas through talk, debate, or writing. Brainstorming may take place through conscious chains of deductive thinking, word play or conscious manipulation of words (e.g. drawing verbal analogies),or even verbal brainstorms (e.g. freewriting)in which loosely associated words, digressions, phrases, etc. are written down to open ideas up about a problem or question. impression.

How common is it to not be able to make images? A number is hard to generate as a continuum seems to exist in individuals' image-making ability. At least when we have asked, there always seem to be at least a few people who report that they are unable to make images in non-selected groups of 100.

Some people who don't have pictoral visual images also tell us that although they never get "snapshot" pictures, they do have non-visual imagery (auditory, somatic/ kinesthetic) or strong associations (e.g. feelings emotions, spatial / symbolic representations)that are integral to their thinking style.

Interesting, there was once intense debate over whether visual imagery exists and has a functional importance in the brain(for more, see this). Presumably one the most strident advocates of the anti-imagery position, cognitive psychologist Zenon Pylyshyn, did not have pictoral imagery:

"It is argued that an adequate characterization of "what one knows" requires the use of abstract mental structures to which there is no conscious access and which are essentially conceptual and propositional, rather than sensory or pictorial, in nature. Such representations are more accurately referred to as symbolic descriptions than as images in the usual sense. Implications of using an imagery vocabulary are examined, and it is argued that the picture metaphor underlying recent theoretical discussions is seriously misleading, especially as it suggests that the image is an entity to be perceived." (from What the mind's eye tells the mind's brain)

fMRI of causal reasoning
Employment for people with Aspergers Syndrome
Book: How to find work that works for people with Aspergers Syndrome
Book: Choosing the right work for people with autism or aspgergers syndrome

Famous People with Dyslexia: William Butler Yeats

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” - William Butler Yeats, poet, Nobel Prize Winner in Literature

William Butler Yeats is one of the most famous poets of all time, but fewer people know of this quote from Yeats Autobiographies: "My father was angry and impatient teacher and flung the reading book at my head."

But lest you get a permanent wrong impression of WB Yeats' father, this was also said of him (from Eileen Simpson's wonderful book Reversals):

"When John Butler Yeats finally realized how useless it was to bully his son to rad aloud, when his son was clearly incapable of doing so, the father took over the reading himself. From the time the boy was nine until he was sixteen, father read to son from Macaulay, Scott, Shakespeare, Shelley, Rossetti, Blake- the narrative verse and prose a poet would need to know when he began to write his own verses."

WB Yeats' own recollection of his father's reading times:

"My father's influence upon my thoughts was at its height. We went to Dublin by train every morning, breakfasting in his studio. He had taken a large room with a beautiful eighteenth-century mantelpiece in a York Street tenement house, and at breakfast he read passages from the poets, and always from the play or poem at its most passionate moment."

Below is a video of Yeats reading some of his poems.



The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

For more stories and videos of famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage.

Strategic Reasoning = Super Theory of Mind?

Does super strategic reasoning sometimes mean super EQ (emotional intelligence) or theory of mind? Yes, but it depends on the game. In this recent fmri-game study, high strategic reasoning (winners) correlated with strong activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, an area important for 'mind reading' of other peoples' intents and behaviors or theory of mind.

Neuroeconomists are interested in studies such as this because many types of business and financial industry success depend upon accurate prediction of others' behaviors (e.g. customer, investor, competitor).

Well, there is a significant body of research to support the importance of emotional intelligence in business as well as classroom environments. And emotional intelligence appears to be much more 'trainable' than IQ...

In our dyslexic population, a surprising number of students we see do seem to have a strong EQ. They are the ones who are talking about the emotions and motivations of every character in the Cookie Thief picture from the Boston Aphasia battery, and exuding leadership qualities in school, and seem to take longer to assess because it is so enjoyable talking to them and listening to the stories. Some of these kids seem destined for future success in business

Strategic Reasoning
Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential pdf
Benefits of Emotional Intelligence pdf

Famous People with Dyslexia: Dinosaur Hunter Jack Horner

"If you do something no one else has done, you don't have to read very much, you can just write your own stuff." - Jack Horner, one the world's most famous paleontologists, inspiration for Jurassic Park

Many dyslexics excel in spatial problem solving, analytical ability, and science in general - talents well-suited to the field of paleontology.

"I found my first dinosaur bone at the age of eight during a fossil-hunting trip with my father...Kindergarten through eighth grade was extremely difficult for me because my progress in reading, writing, and mathematics was excruciatingly slow. I would never stand to read out loud in class, even if the teachers threatened to give me failing grades...Eventually, I managed to graduate high school, but just barely, having received Ds in all required classes, including English, in which my grade was a D minus, minus, minus. The teacher told me that this was essentially an F, but that he never wanted to see me again. That was indeed the last time I saw him, but I did send him a copy of my first book!

There was, however, one area of school besides P.E. in which I excelled: science projects."

Horner had an eclectic history before becoming a paleontologist - he was a recon Marine, dabbled in astrophysics at Cal Tech, tried college, but never graduated, worked for his father's gravel business, then "began writing letters to every museum in the English speaking world asking if they had any jobs open for anyone ranging from a technician to a director..."

The video below is more about spinosaurus, than Jack Horner's dyslexia, but we wanted to post for all those young dyslexics who love dinosaurs. Find more about Jack's early life and dyslexia here: http://mtprof.msun.edu/Spr2004/horner.html




For more stories and videos of famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the wonderful fathers out there who gift their children with their whimsy, passion, and thoughtfulness.

I lost my Dad 10 years ago, but I'm still enjoying his gifts ever day because he touched so many ways I look at things. My dad was Harry Chao-hung Fang, neurologist, teacher, family storyteller extraordinaire, and great friend. He entered neurology at a time when it was a new field, having trained under Ray Adams (Principles of Neurology, later chairman at Massachusetts General Hospital) when Adams was serving as missionary doctor in China. Dad left China with only "a violin, the Bible, and a copy of Longfellow's poems", intending just to pursue his clinical training in the US, but that move became lifelong when the Communists took power. He was fortunate to train under some of the giants and founding fathers of neurology - Ray Adams, Derek Denny-Brown, and C Miller Fisher.

There so many memories I have of my dad - he definitely inspired me to become a neurologist. I brought a plastic model of the brain to show-and-tell in kindergarten and remember practicing how to say "medulla oblongata", but I loved being able to follow him around on rounds in the hospital, to see how kind he was with patients, how he took time to listen, and solved patient cases like putting together pieces of a complex puzzle.

So a special salute today to the fathers out there who share so much of who they are to help their children become who they are meant to be. One of my favorite quotes about a dad is from Ansel Adams:

"I trace who I am and the direction of my development to those years of growing up in our house by the dunes, propelled especially by an internal spark tenderly kept alive and glowing by my father."

The Biology of Self Control

In an Cal Tech fMRI study of self-reported dieters, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) emerged as the important area for self-control. Subjects who exercised poor self-control in the study chose to eat fattening and non-nutritious foods and it correlated with a lack of activation in the DLPFC.

Excerpt: "The vmPFC works during every decision," says Hare. "The DLPFC, on the other hand, is more active when you're employing self-control."

"This, ultimately, is one reason why self-controllers can make better choices," Rangel adds.

Still, the DLPFC can only do so much. For instance, it can't override a truly negative reaction to a food, notes Hare. "We rarely got people to say they'd eat cauliflower if they didn't like cauliflower," he says. "But they would choose not to eat ice cream or candy bars, knowing they could eat the healthier index food instead..."Imagine how much better life could be if we knew how to flex the willpower muscles in the brain and strengthen them with exercises," says Camerer.

How does this all fit with what we know about the development of kids? From Bunge lab, not surprisingly this self control area usually takes quite a while to mature (colored in green at left). In fact in kids, control seems to much more subcortical (caudate) and direct-reward related. With maturity (not surprisingly), additional higher order types of information direct decisions.

Another interesting study that came out re: kid self-control is one from Opposite - Head-Shoulders-Knees-and-Toes task in which kids are supposed to do the opposite of what was asked (kind of like a Stroop interference). The kids who were able to do this task well had the highest achievement scores in reading, vocabulary, and math.

The next obvious question is, would training in self control result in greater achievement? The likely answer is yes. Another self regulation game involves practice doing the opposite game in a back-and-forth ball activity.
Science Daily: Self Control (original scientific article not yet free access)

Famous People with Dyslexia: Legendary Filmmaker David Lean

"I'm not a word man, I'm a picture man." - David Lean, filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, and editor of Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago, A Passage to India, and Ryan's Daughter.

From David Lean: A Biography: "David was sent to kindergarten...here it became apparent that brilliant families do not always produce brilliant children. By the standrads of the time, with their ruthless emphasis on the three Rs, David was dim. By comparison with his brother, who was still only four, he was alarmingly backward.

'I remember my mother coming back one afternoon from a visit to Miss Clayton. She said, 'Dave, Miss Clayton has told me a terrible thing about you. She's afraid you will never be able to read or write.' And she burst into tears...The kindest theory was that perhaps the boy had some brain disease...(his father) decided that the boy was being sluggish on purpose and began to bully him. As for David, he often sat glumly and silently - David Lean's silences would later become legendary in the film industry."

More from Lean's childhood: "David did not enjoy the pursuits he was expected to enjoy. Reading was an effort and he avoided it as much as he could...Boys of low academic ability were forgiven if they shone at sport, but David wasn't much good at this either...He would spend longer and longer gazing into space, actually deep in thought, but to his father, merely confirming his worst suspicions..."

Lean's family history was also a fairly common one for dyslexia - his father was an accountant, and his mother's family was "very artistic with a lot of gift in them. The Tangyes were artists, inventors and engineers."

Lean reminisced, "Horses and trams were an important part of my childhood; the clop-clop-cloop of horses' hooves on cobbles and the noise of tram bells and the tram wheels on the tracks...I can see the cart wheels, bright silver from friction, the metal lining in place of a tire, gleaming, highly polished silver, like a railway line...the exciting flash and crackle as the arm travelled along the wire - I used that in Doctor Zhivago!" One wonders whether today Lean whether someone would have been tempted to diagnose him with Aspergers..

Lean exemplifies many of the common talents seen in gifted dyslexics - strong visual thinking and storytelling, powerful personal memory and an ability to "get into the heads' of others.

More Lean: "I think slowly, and there is nothing unusual about my methods. I envy people who receive sudden flashes of genius, because I don't. I try to work out every possible way to do a scene, and then choose the way that will surprise audiences. I live with my scripts, I live with my characters, and if I seem to be in another world when friends and unit people speak to me, it's because I don't have the scene solved yet. I'm frequently thought to be rude when I'm really in a mental turmoil, struggling with some problem that seems insuperable at the moment."

In the video below watch some Steven Spielberg talk about David Lean and the making of Lawrence of Arabia (there are some great clips selected in the short video), but better yet, take time and watch all of Lean's greatests. We also loved Great Expectations.

For more stories and videos about famous dyslexics, visit Dyslexic Advantage

ADHD = Different Reward / Motivation Pathway?

More on the evolving story about ADHD biology and reward. Rather than ADHD appearing as a fixed deficit in executive function, increasing evidence suggests that children (and adults) with ADHD behaviors are showing impulsivity mainly in non-reward situations.

In this latest study from Germany, 8-13 year old boys diagnosed with ADHD showed a much greater ability to inhibit impulsive behavior on the go/no-go test if rewards- monetary or social were involved. The differences were striking between the two groups...whereas only 12.5% of the control group slowed down their behaviors and improved their responses in the control group, 43.8% of the ADHD group slowed down their behaviors and exhibited fewer false alarm rates. The implications for findings such as this are significant - if making external or situational changes to a task could eliminate or significantly reduce impulsivity, the impulsivity is not a disease or fixed deficiency, but rather a behavioral response to specific conditions implicit in the task.

The researchers are very careful to not overstate their findings: "given the heterogeneity within the ADHD population,it is arguable that dysregulated reward-seeking behavior alone can account for all cases of ADHD. Nevertheless, reinforcement theories are able to explain most of the ADHD symptoms [44]. ADHD possibly represents the final outcome of diverse and discrete neurodevelopmental
pathways with an 'extreme reward approach pathway' leading to impulsive and overactive behavior."

One might also argue whether the term "extreme" is unduly negative to describe what could be an alternative and not necessarily pathology reward pathway. Why locate the fault in the children? Why not say that 1/4 of the population of children don't respond well in an "understimulated" environment. Why should a child be motivated to perform a meaningless go/no-go task?

So what about the child diagnosed with ADHD whose symptoms are worst with uninteresting (at least to the child) classroom work? Perhaps the rewards of socializing, dodgeball at recess, doodling a design for game, or designing a space ship out of legos are more rewarding (and deserving of focus and care) than Mad Math Minutes? Our prior blog post on fMRI activation patterns for money-induced incentives and ADHD now seem more compelling...



p.s. Data such at this also lend positive support for the use of more extrinsic rewards when tasks are not completed by children with ADHD.

Greater Sensitivity to Social Rewards In Children with ADHD pdf
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Amphetamines Blunt Rewards in Normal Subjects
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Money, Motivation, ADHD, and the Brain

Gifts and Talents of Dyslexia: Dyslexic Journalist Richard Engel

NBC's leading foreign correspondent, Richard Engel was once "a frustrated child (who) got into frequent fistfights and struggled with dyslexia". From the Washington Post: "He was down in the mouth and low on self-confidence...He lived in the shadow of his older brother, Mr. Perfect," who is now a cardiologist. In fact, she had only "a very faint hope" that he would be able to go to college.

When he was 13, Engel asked his parents to send him to a wilderness survival program in Wyoming. Frustrated by his learning disabilities, he was eager to escape the comforts of Upper East Side life and try a tougher environment...When the teenager returned, he told his mother: "I learned a lot about myself...Engel says the experience began a transformation that largely enabled him to overcome his dyslexia and school problems. Despite his learning difficulties, he showed early promise in other ways.

'He was a great writer,' says Ross Peet, who was a classmate at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. "But he struggled with anything that had a number on it...' "

From Engel's recent book War Journal: "I have something of a map problem. Brian Williams ribs me about it all the time. Whenever I want to explain the situation in Iraq, I feel compelled to draw maps....I am dyslexic and I understand things better if they are visual. In middle school, my grades were so bad that one of the school administrators advised my parents to pull me out and enroll me in another school with a more developed 'special learning program.' They never did."

Engel's career highlights many of those other dyslexic talents that receive less attention: strong storytelling, vivid personal memory, and an ability to analyze and distill down a complex situation into a simpler form. We have had college dyslexics tell us that they struggled with research until they realized they were outstanding at projects that required field research - research that went beyond the books, but into the actual places where things were happening...

For more stories and videos about gifted dyslexics, join Dyslexic Advantage. The video below is brief of Richard Engel in the field

Visual Processing & "Fixing My Gaze"

Sue Barry's wonderful book Fixing My Gaze is now in stores, and it's a terrific read for all neurophiles, professionals in the neurorehabilitation field, as well as parents, educators, and other professionals working with children.

10% of children have vision problems and in our learning clinic, almost half have some difficulties that are vision-related. But vision problems are grossly under-recognized because conventional eye chart tests assess vision one eye at-a-time and without movement, and children (and even adults) have difficulty putting into words what problems they have with seeing (for more on this check out Check out Chapter 4 in our book The Mislabeled Child).

Dr. Barry had been "cross-eyed" and stereo-blind since early infancy. She had strabismus surgery to correct the alignment, but she still couldn't coordinate both eyes together for depth perception.

Excerpt: "When I looked down at the letters on the page, they didn't stay in one place. This problem grew worse as the print got smaller...When I was learning to read, my right eye saw letters located to the left of the letters I saw with my left eye. I didn't merge images from the two eyes but rapidly alternated between my left- and right-eye views. Although I am not dyslexic, I distinctly remember being in first grade and trying to figure out whether the word I was reading was 'saw' or 'was'." In fact - Dr. Barry's problem is essentially the same as what some dyslexic students experience - the slipping of gaze fixation - so at one minute it looks like saw, the next, was.

Like many with visual processing disorders, Dr. Barry heard the old saw that she was past the critical period for retraining her vision, and that nothing could be done to recover it, but frustrated by increasing vision problems in her 40's, she went to see a behavioral optometrist.

After some prism corrections and dutiful practice with visual therapy, suddenly one day something happened. Looking at the steering wheel of her car she realized it looked as if it were "popped out" from the dashbooard. Her stereoscopic vision was "delightful": "The leaves didn’t just overlap with each other as I used to see them. I could see the SPACE between the leaves. The same is true for twigs on trees, pebbles on the road, stones in a stone wall. Everything has more texture."

At right, a study showing that 'lazy brain' results from lazy eye. When light is shined into the amblyopic eye, much less fMRI signal is detected in the visual cortex.

p.s. We came across a recent review on visual crowding - a common problem for many students (dyslexics, visual problems of many types) in every classroom. It is a bit technical, but helpful to support the need for more spacing of worksheets or test items in the classroom.

NPR: Going Binocular: Susan's First Snowfall
The Different Ways We See pdf