While autistic individuals are known to suffer from deficits in social communication, it is less often recognized that they possess specific strengths in other areas. One strength relates to their ability to see details. In fact, they can pick out details in a more complex visual design better than so-called “neuro-typical (e.g. “normal”) people (see examples at left). In studies of the Embedded Figures Task, people with autism (and “normal” males) are faster and perform better than control subjects. In a sense, one can say that they have difficulty seeing the forest for the trees, but they are much better than average at seeing individual trees in the forest.
For more information about the strengths of individuals on the spectrum and with other brain differences, see my book The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain (published in hardcover as Neurodiversity)
This article was brought to you by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. and www.institute4learning.com.
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