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

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

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)

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