The Strengths of the Autistic Mind

In this important article in Time, Temple Grandin and Richard Penek say that “intelligence” varies depending on how it’s measured. If the test measures something that could be learned only through social interaction – what to do with an sealed, addressed, stamped envelope found on the street – people with autism usually do poorly. But if the test depends only on nonverbal information – arranging blocks into designs – only 5 percent of people with autism are labeled low-functioning and one-third score very well. 

Grandin and Penek list three strengths that people with autism generally have. They aren’t saying that autism is a great thing – just that “if we can recognize, realistically and on a case-by-case basis, what an individual’s strengths are, we can better determine the future of the individual – a concern now more than ever, as the rate of autism diagnoses reaches record levels.” Here’s their list of positive attributes:

• Bottom-up thinking – “People with autism are really good at seeing details,” say Grandin and Penek – for example, seeing something that’s hidden in a picture or, in Grandin’s case, seeing the paper cup or hanging chain that will spook a herd of cattle. The other side of the coin is that people with autism aren’t good at seeing the forest for the trees. They have “local bias” and “weak central coherence.” 

• Associative thinking – Walking through the United Airlines terminal in Chicago, Grandin looked up at the glass roof and immediately thought of the greenhouse at her university, the Crystal Palace from the 1851 World’s Fair in London, a botanical garden, Biosphere 2, and then the turrets of the Hoover Dam. She says that her brain works like a search engine: “If you ask me to think about a certain topic, my brain will generate a lot of hits. It can also easily make connections that will get off the original topic pretty fast and go pretty far afield.” 

• Creative thinking – Creativity has been defined as “a sudden, unexpected recognition of concepts or facts in a new relation not previously seen.” Grandin and Penek say that being autistic “makes a certain kind of creativity more likely to arise. See enough trees and you’ll eventually make out the forest. But the forest that the autistic brain winds up seeing might not look the same as the forest that the neuro-typical brain sees.”

“I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t work on deficits,” concludes Grandin. “But the focus on deficits is so intense and so automatic that people lose sight of the strengths… For me, autism is secondary. My primary identity is as an expert on livestock. Autism is part of who I am, but I won’t allow it to define me. Some people’s difficulties are simply too severe for them to ever have the opportunities I have. But for so many people on the spectrum, identifying their strengths can change their lives. Instead of only accommodating their deficits, they can cultivate their dreams.” 

“What’s Right with the Autistic Mind” by Temple Grandin and Richard Penek in Time, Oct. 7, 2013, no free e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #506