What this about visual aids?

Behold Mr. Pat, the illiterate American!

How do you order from a menu you cannot read to a waiter who cannot speak English? Years ago, while on a visit to Japan, I discovered how the Japanese do it. Many international customers have a common problem—they can't read or speak Japanese! But the Japanese solve it by displaying very lifelike plastic replicas of their dishes—along with the prices—right in the front window. If necessary, the waiter will follow you from your table to the window, so you can point to what you want!

We found the same idea to be true in Taiwan, although it was done on a lesser scale. More than once, we found a McDonald’s and pointed our way to a good breakfast from the English-Chinese picture menu.

So what's my point?

The point is that we begin life thinking in pictures. We recognize things that are visual even when we don't know or can't remember the words that describe them. Later on, we learn to use words to describe things. But some of us have difficulty with language and learn to think in pictures.

What's wrong with that?

Nothing. Ask Temple Grandin. She has Aspergers Autism. In 2010 she was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. A movie about her life, Temple Grandin, released in 2010, was nominated for 15 Emmys and received five awards, including "Outstanding Made for Television Movie". Read about it here.

In the opening of her book, THINKING IN PICTURES, she says, "Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand…"

We four-year-olds at the Frankie Lemmon School think in pictures a LOT. (I never grew up!) Some of us are learning sign-language, some of us know a few words, but all of us, to some degree, are visual learners.



Want to know more? There's a great article on the web by Gavin Bollard called "Using Visual Aids to Take Advantage of Your Child’s Visual Learning Style."