Ask Allie

Have a question or situation you'd like advice on that involves visual-spatial adults?

Why is it the marketing teams and accounting personnel aren't communicating well? Ask Allie!

Introducing, Ask Allie! Our newest forum for obtaining answers to real-life issues in business and personal relationships -- for adult visual-spatial learners. Just post your situation or question to Allie. With your permission, your question/situation will be posted on this site (we are happy to remove any identifying information), on this page.

Wow, after years of wondering whether I was lazy or just a victim of bad brain genes, someone has finally given me some hope... and identity. This is incredibly encouraging as I ... still don't understand why I am the way I am, and still do the things I do. Here is my list (just a few actually):

1) I am incredibly discouraged about my handwriting. I write in block. I practice my signature over and over and even change it up a bit (this has risen some eybrows at the check out counter).

Handwriting complaints are common among visual-spatial learners of all ages. I’m going to recommend to you the same thing I do young students – calligraphy pens! You don’t have to have formal lessons, just practice holding the pen (which you can find at Michael’s or any craft store – in a variety of colors, too!) so that the beveled edge sits at a 1:00/7:00 or 2:00/8:00 position. Then write in whatever is comfortable, either print or manuscript. Most people choose a combination of print and cursive. Your skill at this will transfer to a regular pen or pencil.

Or, go ahead and purchase an inexpensive book on calligraphy. Art engages your right hemisphere – your strong suit! Have fun and take time to learn this art. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

2) I work in TV production and do incredibly well as a cameraman/editor. I have just been thrust into the role of video engineer and now I have to work overnight to accomplish anything. I love what I do and love what I am learning... but everyday someone from management asks me to do some special audio/video set up and I just say "sure" without really knowing I can do it. Then I work all night making it happen. Then they come to me they next day all happy and ask what I did to make it work... then I don't have an answer becuase I honestly have no idea.

Well, you are definitely a visual-spatial! First, try and set some boundaries for yourself by doubling your estimates of the amount of time it will take you to accomplish anything. VSLs have no concept of time and often make impossible commitments. Next, realize that your mental images that allowed you to create what you did may not be translatable into words and that’s why you can’t explain how or what you did! If it’s critical that you be able to explain yourself, jot notes (in picture form) as you work.

3) I'm frustrated as a professional because my dream is to direct movies (independent short films)... this is a very attainable dream becuase I have everything thing I need to make it happen. However it has taken me 5 years to come up with three pages of script and I have a very difficult time telling my actors what I expect from them. I wish I can just touch their hand and they would enter my mind in some magical way and see everything I am trying to tell them!!

You might try working in a collaborative effort with others, including writers, who can “see” your vision. Otherwise, know that downloading your mental images and translating them into words is a laborious process. Explore other ways of communicating, either through demonstration or some other form of imagery.

And, likely they are too numerous to mention. Set aside some time every day for doodling or jotting down the pictures in your mind. Sort of the equivalent of To Do Lists for auditory-sequentials, only yours are all your thoughts and ideas flooding out.

5) I am best at golf when i visualize hitting the ball very well.. i not only hit the ball well, but i actually imitate the exact shot i visualize!

In Linda Silverman’s book, Upside-Down Brilliance, she writes about a man taking flight lessons. Every evening, following the lesson, he visualized the whole flight pattern. He excelled in his class and outpaced all the other students – it was as though he’d had twice the flight time! Did you know that the same areas of the brain are fired up whether you are visualizing the activity or actually doing it? This was in Time magazine earlier this year in a study they did training people to play the piano. Use this skill!!

6) I remember when I was in third grade and being very upset during reading assignments. I remember other kids flipping pages well before I was finshed my first page. I also remember the teachers saying i should be finished a certain number of pages in a certain amount of time... this caused me to skip a lot when I read and flipped pages just to keep up with other kids. Unfortunately this became a habit and Ive been fighting it ever since.

Train yourself to speed read by skipping the “picture-less” words. No comprehension test ever asked how many times the word, “the” appeared in a passage (a picture-less word). You only need the words that paint the story, skip the rest.

7) Why do I have to read "one sentence" over and over again to understand it? Even when I read very interesting books about things I like (computers, video technology) why can't I retain what I read?? Even if I understand it!!??

Because you’re not simultaneously creating a mental movie as you read. It takes some training so start off slowly. Read until a punctuation, stop, and create in your mind the movie to match what you just read. In time, graduate from stopping at punctuation to reading whole sentences, then whole paragraphs, then pages, etc. When you have the movie to correspond to the reading, you’ll remember what you read.

10) I cant organize my work, my room or my thoughts. but when i do find the 12 hours I need to organize at least one of them... I know it is temporary.

Organization is highly overrated. If you can find what you need, when you need it, you’re organized!!

I'm trying to teach myself (X)HTML so I can create my own websites.. And I had to realize this (which happened to me in school/college ALL the time): I'm trying to read some text..then I realize I have no idea what it said in the text, I read it again..still don't really know anything about what I've read..read again..again...again..and finally I actually understood what it says in the text. This doesn't always happen (I wouldn't be able to read a book then ;-)), but it happens frequently...I mean it's not like I'm dumb (if I believe any IQ tests or my experiences in life), but sometimes I have to read a certain phrase/passage like 5-10 times until it finally makes 'click' and I actually UNDERSTAND what I just read.

I'm thinking this must be due to being mostly a visual learner and having problems with text...as in reading it - other people understand immediately WHAT they read, but to me reading is sometimes just reading without understanding, until I read again (sometimes a couple of times). I'm sure you're gonna agree this should be related to being mostly a visual-learner. However, I was wondering if this was a very common trait among VSP learners..I was thinking, this should be one of the main problems among people who have problems with processing language/text as opposed to images. Or is this just me and there aren't many VSPs who have this problem?

YES!! This is extremely common among visual-spatial learners. We see it in children's lower reading comprehension scores. It's because you don't think in words. When someone who thinks in pictures is only given words, as in a book or within instructions, it often takes more than one pass to get enough of the words to create mental images. When I work with kids, I tell them to stop, initially, at every sentence and make a movie in their mind of what they just read. Then continue. Eventually they move to whole paragraphs, making movies as they go, and then whole chapters, etc.

What you were reading did not immediately create a mental image for you, so you had to re-read it. Try taking it in smaller chunks and creating mental picturesas you go and see if that helps. Let me know!

Allie

Dear Allie-

My question is this: while "Upside-Down Brilliance" is a great resource for the child VSL, I'm anxious to know more about adult VSL folks such as myself, specifically how we might be able to thrive in the post-academic workplace.

The reason I actually picked up "Upside-Down Brilliance " is because I am just leaving a three week stint at a job that I hated, very small-picture, detail oriented, paper pushing nonsense. The feedback my former employer gave me
was that I was a slow learner, and kept asking the same questions over again. At first I was bewildered why I was let go, I'm a pretty bright guy and have never struggled with being slow to pick up things before.

Then I found the book and everything clicked into place, but I still never want to repeat the mistake I made before and end up in another job that focuses on the small details to the exclusion of the big picture. Are there resources out there for adult VSL's looking to explore careers that are better suited for them?

Your question is a good one and I wish I had an equally good answer. I am working on a book for visual-spatial adults but, until you brought this up, the primiary focus was to be on business and personal relationships (why doesn't the marketing department get along with accounting? Why doesn't my husband hear me? etc.). You've brought up an excellent point about making sure there is a match between job and self.

One's learning style as a child typically becomes thinking style as an adult. Many people learn to compensate and lose their strengths of the right hemisphere, which is terribly sad. It's just as though you were to break your dominant arm: you could learn to write and play sports with your weaker arm and, eventually, you would do just fine, but it would never be the most efficient means for you and never your best work.

So how does one determine, before accepting a position, that there will be a good match between the strengths of the individual and the demands of the job? I would guess that, as a potential employee, you would need to "see"
everything about the proposed position, talk to as many current employees as possible, really understand from the hiring supervisor what the job will entail. The only way to see if the match is a good one, is to thoroughly understand every aspect of what will be expected of you.

Most VSL adults pursue careers that are obvious fits: computer technology, architecture, art, music, surgery, aviation, invention, etc. Many are entrepreneurs and venture on their own in order to accommodate unique thinking styles, unusual business hours, etc. What career path can you follow that would allow you to best utilize your strengths? Can you be a part of a team effort where someone who is more step-by-step, or detail-oriented is the one that handles the "small picture" details?

I believe the reason your employer complained at having to repeat directions was because you were not ever shown, be it in actual images or mental images, what was expected of you. VSLs have to see what the anticipatedoutcome is in order to produce it. They must understand the resulting goal in order to perform the steps to achieve it.

Does this make sense? I hope this is helpful.