Autistic Individuals Show Strengths in Embedded Figures Task

Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is the author of fourteen books including the forthcoming Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences. His other books include: In Their Own Way, 7 Kinds of Smart, Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, and The Radiant Child. His books have been translated into 25 languages including Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese, Danish, and Russian. He has taught at several San Francisco Bay Area graduate schools including the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has written for Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Parenting (where he was a regularly featured columnist), The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, and many other journals and periodicals. He has appeared on The Today Show, CBS This Morning, CNN, the BBC, and The Voice of America. Articles featuring his work have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and hundreds of other magazines and newspapers. He has given over 800 keynotes, workshops, and lectures in 42 states and 16 countries. His clients have included Sesame Street, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Republic of Singapore, Hasbro Toys, and the European Council of International Schools. He is currently working on a novel about the disappearance of childhood. For more information about his work, go to www.thomasarmstrong.com.

01/19/2010

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.

Posted at 07:08 PM in Autism | Permalink

Technorati Tags: autism, Embedded Figures Task, neurodiversity

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

Posted by: |

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Your comment could not be posted. Error type:

Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.