I'm starting a new topic brancing out of Zen Scanner's"

"If you follow the neuroscience research that the Eides have identified, this range tends to have ASD on end and Dyslexia on the other end. On the ASD side is a tendency towards focus, serial reasoning, literal thinking which can be mischaracterized as an "auditory learning style" on the Dyslexia side is a tendency towards abstract, wide range system thinking mischaracterized as the "visual-spatial style."

Not to put you on the spot, ZS, but I'm very curious about this.

Have you any knowledge of the Woodcock-Johnson III? It has a subscore of Visual-Auditory learning. While I read from your reply that it sounds like the visual and auditory are sort of in different categories/ends (which is logical) what about this subtest that sort of clusters?

I'm personally interested because my DD has the stong literal-thinking (often presented as more of a problem), serial reasoning, and she can be very focused when interested. However her visual learning is pretty astounding also and seems to catch on to the abstract well and she has dyslexic tendencies for sure, though seem to be managed (with effort and frustration though). Maybe she's middle of the scale? Her WJ-III age equivilant score for that category when she was age 4.5 (and NOT settling in to pre-K) was ">19".

I recently went the Eides website and saw they are not taking any new people right now. I just can't ever seem to find anyone to really help us with her profile.

I am curious too. My son is clearly dyslexic and has those tendencies but also has focus, serial reasoning and literal thinking.

Do you have any links to their research on this?

Here is the link to the Eides dyslexic research blog

http://research.dyslexicadvantage.com/


DS5 has an assessment scheduled with them in Oct./Nov. We scheduled it back in Nov. so I am guessing they are booked out about a year.

Completely missed this thread.

I've been through the last five or six years of the Eides blog at:
http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/

I'm not familiar with the WJ-III. With a quick read of that test description, they are talking about a long term data retrieval for their visual auditory learning test. It looks to be using picture sequences and word queues and testing recall.

The problem is people have fixated on Howard Gardner's notion of multiple intelligences and responded to that in thinking that people specialized in an area would do better with material presented in a certain style. For example: If you test high on visual preference, then you should be presented materials to learn through a visual medium... that isn't necessarily true.

To contemplate the difference between the literal sense and a mode of thinking characterized by that sense, think about what is meant by each of these phrases:
"That sounds right."
"Do you see what I mean?"
"Something smells odd about the situation."
"This doesn't feel right."

There are compounding factors behind dyslexia and ASD over and above the brain organization. i.e. the minicolumn structures may be a necessary factor, but are an insufficient factor in those conditions.

With the caveats above, I'd characterize myself as an extreme visual spatial thinker. I have to have a top level perspective to understand facts and those need to fit within that larger structure to make sense. At the other end people seem to populate from details and build upwards. I doodle constantly during meetings or on the phone. I can't remember the words to songs, actor's names, etc. I also don't have depth perception, except in my head where I can design anything in 3D.

I'm at an extreme, and I'm not dyslexic. But I solidly match all of the VS characteristics here: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm
However I don't think in pictures.

Diagnostic criteria take a pretty high hit rate to become true. There isn't exactly a sliding scale on enumerating characteristics. A gifted introvert could be armchair self-diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.