Thinking in pictures

Μ. Kokkalidou

When autistic children are thirsty, they will grab whatever they find to drink. It might be their own bottle or the volunteer's glass. The mother usually prevents this immediately, saying: "No, that is not your water!"

When the child is yelling and makes a lot of noise, someone will shout: “stop yelling!”"

When a child feels like eating chocolate and the parent doesn't want to give that this moment, what will the child hear? "No, no chocolate now!"

When the children want to get out of the play room before the time is up, often they will hear: "You are not going out yet."

It is important to understand that most autistic children think in pictures. That means that they don't have words in their head, but pictures. This might also be a reason why speech is so hard for them.

Let's look at the above examples in pictures.

What picture will the visual mind see, when it hears this: "No, that is not your water." Water is what the mind's eye will see, is'n't it? The words 'no' and 'not' are not in the picture!

That is what happens with every example.

"Don't yell" gives us the picture of a child yelling.

The phrase "No chocolate now" gives you appetite for chocolate! The same happens with "You are not going out yet." If the child wants to get out of the room and hears that, he will assume that the door will open now. Words like 'later' or 'tomorrow' don't occur in the picture at all. "I will give you chocolate later" only brings the picture of chocolate in the mind's eye. That is why autistic children get upset so 'easily'. We say things so confusing to them! How not to get upset?

We have to learn to talk in a positive way, to get the message through! Let's translate the examples in this manner.

Instead of saying "No, this is not your water!", we can say: "The blue bottle is your water."

"Don't yell." will become: "quiet!" or "ssssst".

"No chocolate" becomes: "I will give you a biscuit now (or your meal)". We can also say that he is getting nothing now.

"You are not going out" becomes "we are in the room now, we are playing."

Think of how you can explain things to your child and make the world understandable for him! Notice the way he reacts then. We have to adjust our way of communicating to what the child can understand, instead of trying to change the child!