Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Visual-Spatial Learners

I read a book by this author and found this page interesting as a condensed version. Do your kids fit neatly in one column or the other? Both of mine seem to be on the right, but both are also extremely good with phonics and decoding, which seems to be more of a left-column thing.
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm

I have never had testing done with DD (other than the awful CogAT which is invalid since she didn't answer half the questions on the non-verbal sections), but DS scored 27 points higher in non-verbal IQ than verbal. He also scored 99+ percentile on a visual perception test. He memorizes maps and obviously sees shapes and patterns in everything.

DD and I are very much alike-- she and I both fit very strongly into one side or the other on most measures...

BUT-- we also don't tick the boxes neatly down one side or the other, so it's mixed. I also tend to think that the parsing of some categories is completely bogus, fwiw-- because my DH and I are both HG, and there are several categories in which there IS no good answer because we are VERY strongly both things.

I'm not sure that this is two ends of the same spectrum, in other words.

Well, it does say that the highly gifted visual spatial learners also tend to be good at auditory sequential (hence, my two are good at phonics despite the fact that they are very visual). So i guess the question is whether one side fits better than the other and whether the characteristics tend to go together or is it all random. Is he onto something here?

That was a very interesting read. Both of my kids are visual-spatial learners down to a t. But... my younger DS7 is the one who has been tested. He is verbally gifted 99.8 percentile, with everything else high average/average. There were several problems on the testing day and even the tester said that my son who is a self proclaimed math hater refused to even try anything to do with numbers and math and it took a lot of coaxing from her part to get him through the test.
I think she did do a separate visual and auditory memory testing because we noticed he's not able to follow multi step instructions or sometimes even any kind of oral instructions. His auditory memory came back pretty high, but visual memory was only at a 13th percentile. Now this is a kid who skipped the whole sounding out and phonics part when he started to read. He just kind of knew how to read out of nowhere at a young age. So why the low visual memory score?

Because the concept of visual-spatial learner confounds a heavy abstract thinking with visual talents or auditory deficits.

From the visual-spatial list, I think most of these don't fit the abstract thinker model I propose (or are too one size fits all to be meaningful):
- Thinks primarily in pictures
- Has visual strengths
- Has good long-term visual memory
- Is a late bloomer
- Is creatively, mechanically, emotionally, or technologically gifted
- Is very sensitive to teachers’ attitudes
- Must visualize words to spell them
- Reads maps well
- Relates well to space
- Creates unique methods of organization
- Enjoys geometry and physics

Well, my ds checks off every single box under the visual-spatial list, the key word (jmo) being "thinks in pictures". He also checks off a few boxes on the auditory-sequential too - such as, he loves chemistry and did very well in Algebra (and thinks he likes it better than geometry - although he does like geometry). I would say he learned phonics easily, but I'm not sure he ever actually *used* phonics - which is a difference in learning style. He learned phonics because school taught it to him. If he'd been left in a cave by himself with a ton of books I think he would have learned how to read and it wouldn't have had anything to do with phonics.

There are also quite a few things under auditory-sequential that ds is the *polar* opposite of - he is not well organized, does not work neatly and quickly and does not enjoy rote memorization (but is good at it).

Personally I am not a huge fan of lists and generalizations like this - while my ds clearly without a doubt fits under one of the two lists, my dds both have traits mixed between the two, and I would categorize either as strongly auditory-sequential *or* visual-spatial, even though they are both very bright capable children

polarbear

Hmmm...

Zen Scanner,
My son has several if not all from that list. F.e. he is a kind of a late bloomer. Did not speak sentences until almost 3, really late walking and a lot of other things. He is absolutely technologically and emotionally gifted and is super sensitive to his teacher (unfortunately he got a really bad one this year). He's reading and spelling at middle school level and when I ask him to spell something, he would spell it faster than I could follow it. I asked him once how he knows how to spell all these words, he's answer was pretty much "duhhh, I've read that word before". My daughter has said the same thing that she sees the image of the word when she's asked to spell something. But boy does he struggle with focus and simple tasks. He also has no concept of time, he's really confused even what happened yesterday vs what happened last week. I'm not sure what's going on, but he is just not doing well in a classroom setting.

And the other side of it, is everyone is an individual and tests are fallible.

Has he had any/many ear infections?

I read this the other day as well and found it very interesting. I am very much a visual person. DD7 and DH are as well. We all have more of the visual traits but do have a few on the auditory side too.

Est1215, my DD7 gets a little confused with time especially yesterday and last week as well. Very intelligent but sometimes can not get simple tasks.

Zen Scanner: What is the connection with ear infections? DD has struggled with them for many years and will most likely be having another set of tubes placed in the next few months. She is also asymptomatic and doesn't even flinch at infections that peds say she should be screaming in pain. This happened last year with pneumonia as well, asymptomatic.

This is VERY interesting to me - I also stumbled upon this same page myself after getting DD8's CoGAT scores (and trying to make sense of them) because they highlighted something I'd suspected about her. She always has seemed like more of a "visual-spatial" learner than a "sequential learner." Her verbal was very high, but so was her nonverbal - I was trying to understand just what this means. She is actually VERY creative, but, oh my - not in an organized way.

DS5, on the other hand, is the opposite. He also seems very bright, but in a very organized way. He attends to details sometimes in a scary-sort of way (I've stopped and looked at him, and asked "HOW do you remember THAT????"), because I probably would not even notice some of what he remembers. We have had to read Magic Treehouse books IN ORDER...DD had no problem reading only what interested her and then moving on to something else. DS's bookshelf is tidy and organized (he LOVES "organizing his bookshelf"!). DD's room is full of creative, ongoing projects, but if left to her own devices, it generally looks like a bomb went off in there - soooo messy!

So I have one in each column - both very bright. Both are fantastic decoders, but DD is my superior book-eater at the moment. DS reads for information. This really helps me better put into words how they are SO DIFFERENT than each other, though!

I do think that there is something to this...I suspect DH is more like DS on this spectrum. I suspect I am more like DD, as I believe I am very visual (but also quite verbal ). In college and law school, I often drew elaborate pictures for myself to memorize/solidify concepts when studying. I am definitely a "concept learner." Then again, I definitely see that I fit in the other column in certain areas. So yes, something to this, but each individual is different, of course. Food for thought, but few probably are COMPLETELY in one column.