Bob the Square and Cate the Parallelogram

I sure hope this little's girl's teacher knew about object personification synesthesia or she probably got sent to the Principal's office!

The Color Four - A Mini-Documentary

Last year, Meredith was the subject of a mini-documentary film challenge.  A group of three university students were looking for a topic and had recently read an article about how Meredith's school had created an innovative environment for students with learning disabilities.  They came to the school and asked to interview some students, thinking that their film was going to be about this unique school.

After they learned about Meredith's unique learning and thinking style during her interview, they changed the focus of their film a bit and focused more on Meredith.  In the beginning of the film, Meredith is drawing and describing her number 4's personality.  It's a bit hard to hear, but she talks about how her number four likes snails and in the drawing, you can faintly see the girl holding a snail with the number four on it.  This is an example of her ordinal-linguistic personification (OLP) and how she personifies numbers.

Getting Your Numbers Out of the Way for Math Class

As I discussed in previous posts (here and here), Meredith's numbers are characters.  This is a form of synesthesia called Ordinal Linguistic Personification, or OLP.  From what I've heard from other synesthetes, OLP can sometimes make math harder in the sense that the numbers are distracting to the task at hand.  For example, some numbers might not get along, so it is uncomfortable to add them together. Or maybe the numbers are in the middle of a cooking competition and are divided up into teams (as once was the case for Meredith); so when two numbers who are on different teams need to be added together, it doesn't make sense.

Recently, however, we've noticed that Meredith seems to be having a much easier time in math. When asking Meredith about this, she said that she finally figured a way to get her number characters out of the way so that they don't distract her anymore.  Before she goes into math class, Merebith and Dogot line up all the numbers on one of those "hold-a-ring walking ropes" used in preschools and walk the numbers into a closet, where they remain until class is over!  Apparently the numbers are pretty gullible and easy to manipulate.  When math class is over, all the numbers pile out of the closet and usually most of them are gasping for fresh air since one of the numbers has a little problem with gas...    

Use the "Kariokie-Dokie" to Remember Song Lyrics

I've written before about how Meredith loves music and has an uncanny memory for song lyrics. Today, Meredith explained that she is able to do this because she designed a system in her mind to help her remember the lyrics. All she has to do is head on over to the "Kariokie-Dokie!" 

The Kariokie-Dokie is a karaoke place where Merebith loves to go sing. The Kariokie-Dokie is a bit like a theatre with a big screen and seating. Songs play on the screen with the lyrics, just like you see at any typical karaoke bar. The background visuals on the screen are the synesthetic colors and patterns that Meredith sees when she hears that particular song.

Merebith and her friends love to have karaoke competitions. Merebith has won three karaoke trophies already! Of course, Dogot always loses competitions because he sings in his robot-like voice. The security ants like to participate as well.   

Meredith explained that it takes about three times listening to a song to get the lyrics down--the first time to get the tune and two more times to get all the lyrics. Once she's got them, they are permanently in the Kariokie-Dokie system and she can refer to them anytime she wants to. Pretty soon, however, she has the lyrics committed to memory and doesn't need to look at the karaoke screen anymore.

Meredith and I always talk about the irony that she can remember all the lyrics to songs even when words are not her friend in other settings. Now, however, it makes sense because when she is singing, she is accessing a dynamic, mental visual system to "see" the words.  And the fact that after a period of time she no longer needs to refer to the karaoke screen is testament that processing information (even words) through a visual thinking circuit is what ultimately solidifies information into knowledge and long-term memory for her and other highly visual thinkers

Do Your Planets Have Papparazzi, Too?

One day, Meredith and I were laying in my bed talking and one of those incredible conversations unfolded little by little.

She started by saying, "You know what the weirdest thing to me is? Gravity." We talked about it for a few minutes and the conversation took a predictable course into the topic of space in general. Meredith shared with me that she always thought of the planets as different colors. Pluto, for example, was purple. At one point, I asked her what color Saturn was and she said, "Whoops, Mrs. Toler forgot Saturn in that picture. Let me get another picture." What she was saying was that during our conversation, she was looking at a mental picture she had of the Solar System from Mrs. Toler. Mrs. Toler was her third grade teacher. Meredith must have been looking at a picture her teacher had drawn on the board of the Solar System in which Saturn was missing. Fortunately, Meredith has multiple mental pictures of the Solar System.  She said it's hard to count, but she estimates maybe she has about 100 pictures in her mind.

So, as Meredith buried her head in the pillow, pausing the conversation while she was looking for a more complete mental picture of the Solar System, I asked her where exactly she was looking for this new picture. She explained to me that she has three places to look for space. There is "space" as in a physical area like a person's bedroom or a museum room. Then there is "space" like in your personal space (or your "space bubble" she explained). Lastly, there is a file on "space" as in outer space.

I asked her if she remembered when one day she told me that she had gone to her mental pictures of the Solar System and started labeling it with words for the first time. It was about two weeks after we started our therapy with Dr. Florance to improve her verbal thinking system. It was one of the obvious signs that the therapy was really working.  It was so remarkable. Now instead of just thinking of the Solar System in pictures, she was thinking of it in pictures AND words.

Then, of course, Meredith started telling me all about each planet and how they were each different personalities.  (I didn't know this at the time, but this is another example of her object-personification synesthesia.)

First, there is Sunphie, the Sun. She is bossy and talks like a California teenager.  For example, she tells Vestean (Venus), "You should really get some life on your planet."  Vestean answers back, "Why don't YOU have life?"  Sunphie replies, "Because I'M smokin' hot!"

Mercury and Mars are brothers--Max and Mark Murcer.  Mark is always mad at Max because he copies him.

Earth is the Peacemaker and his name is Earthen.  He is SO happy all the time since he is the only planet with life.  Earth's Moon is kind of boring.  He says, "Hello...thank you for landing on my face."  He is sort of like a butler for Earthen.  But as he circles Earth, he moves close to Vestean who is always asking him for things when he passes by.

The funniest and most clever thing of all, to me, is that she said the stars are the paparazzi taking pictures of all the planets.  The stars' twinkling, of course, is the flash going off on their cameras.

Next comes sophisticated Jupiter whose name is SJ.  He says, "Hello, fellow citizens!"  The hurricane is his birthmark. Saturn is very mature, and Neptune is hyper, constantly saying, "Hi star, hi star, hi star..."

Poor Uranus is named Urinater and he always has to pee, as you can tell from the expression on his face.  Lastly, shy little Pluto is named Penelope Purple.  Everyone else calls her "Penelope P."

Meredith said she could talk about the Solar System for hours and hours, but of course that would bore everyone!

Music is the "Go-To"

I recently read this great post by a teen with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), "Music is my 'Easy' Button." Through that post, she enlightened me to three main reasons why music is so much more appealing than talking for people with APD:

1.  Talking (for those with APD) is monotone.  Music is the antithesis to monotone.
2.  Talking is fast.  Music has long pauses, which makes processing the words much easier.
3.  Talking is random.  Music has a beat or pattern, which helps in processing and remembering the words.

What a smart young lady to analyze why music is so helpful to her. I asked Meredith if this was the case for her as well and she definitely agreed. She expanded on the fact that music has long pauses by saying that each word itself is drawn out, and as a result, easier to process.

One thing I have always been curious about is why it is that Meredith struggles with repeating conversations that she has had, yet can remember all the words to almost every song she hears.

I suspect that synesthesia has something to do with how easy it is for Meredith to remember song lyrics. I know that Meredith sees colors when she hears music. When I asked her how she remembers the words, she said that along with the seeing colors from the music, she sees the words as well--kind of like you would see on a karaoke screen I imagine.  (This sounds like what some people describe as "ticker-tape synesthesia.") Each song has different colors and lyrics. For example, one song might elicit blue and purple and the words would be green. I would think that in some form or another, this must help her in remembering the lyrics.

One other interesting thing Meredith told me was that she can listen to music in her mind.  Not imagining the music, but actually hearing it.  Here is a story that explains this a little bit...

Meredith and one of her good friends like to send videos to each other. Meredith told me that this morning, she was singing a song (into a hairbrush microphone) and recorded it for her friend. When she played it back to herself, she was surprised because she didn't hear the music playing in the background along with her singing.  She then realized that the music she thought was playing out loud was actually just in her head!

The Trees Have Outgrown Their Season

I recently joined a few Facebook groups where people discuss synesthesia. Shortly after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, someone in one of these groups asked whether anyone else was feeling badly for the trees that had fallen down during the storm. Many people agreed that they did. (Sorry for posting the photo for any sympathetic synesthetes out there!) People who personify objects like this may have Object Personification, a subtype of synesthesia.

Seeing that post prompted me to ask Meredith whether she felt bad for trees when they were chopped down. She said definitely yes. Since the trees are now losing their leaves here in the South, it got me to thinking about how that made her feel. When I asked, she said that no, that doesn't make her feel bad. The trees have just "outgrown their season," she explained. How poetic. I love that!

Elaborating on what she meant, she explained that the trees were excited to be moving on to a new set of leaves. Those leaves were like, SO 2012, anyway! I finally understood that she saw leaves as the tree's clothing and really as a fashion statement. She explained that the trees with bright, bold leaves in the Fall were the true "fashionistas." Then there are the scraggly oak trees with a few leaves holding on. She explained that these were like old ladies trying desperately to hold to the last bit of their clothing, afraid of being naked. They are waving their dry and crooked branches around like canes yelling at people in old, crackling voices, "Don't you take away my leaves there, young man!"

As we approached our house in the car later that day, I asked her what she thought about our great big Ash tree in the front yard. At that time, it was at it's peak color--a very bright yellow. For some reason, there have been a whole bunch of butterflies fluttering around this tree lately. Because of the tree's bright leaves and all the butterflies, she said that she sees our tree as a gay man. We had a good laugh at that.

While finding photographs for this post, I ran across this photo and thought that Meredith and other synesthetes like her would probably get a big kick out of it. I wonder if these sweaters are also like, SO last year?

Numbers as People

I recently wrote a post about Math as Characters.  As a follow-up, I wanted to post a picture that Meredith drew me a few months ago...I just found it.  It shows her numbers zero through nine as she thinks of them, including their color.  Perceiving numbers, days or the week, or other sequential items as people is called Ordinal-Linguistic Personification, or OLP.  It is a subtype of synesthesia.

I will try to describe her numbers' personalities the best I can here.  She could probably write pages about each number since they have many independent stories.  For one example, once they had a cooking competition among themselves that lasted for a few weeks.  They divided up into groups and they each had one type of food to work with.  Merebith and Dogot were the judges...

Perceiving numbers, days or the week, or other sequential items as people is called Ordinal-Linguistic Personification, or OLP.  It is a subtype of synesthesia.

1 - God Boy  Since he is "number one" or "numero uno" as they say, he is pretty full of himself.  He has a halo and wings.

2 - Confused Girl  She is confused because she is made up of both curves and straight lines.  She's kind of dumb.

3 - Partyboy Boy  Since he's made of curves, he's really fun and hyper.

4 - Normal Girl  She is holding a snail that is branded with the number four.  All of her snails are branded with the number four because they are like her "herd."  She's pretty average because she is made of straight lines.

5 - Cool Boy  He's cool because he has a "cool" curve.

6 - Lonely Girl  She is lonely without her number 1 because she likes to be with other people and her favorite number is 16.  She is in a wheelchair because she is clumsy without her partner (number 1).

7 - Innocent Boy You can tell he is innocent from his little propeller hat and ice cream cone.

8 - Twin Boys  They are named twin boys because they are conjoined twins. The smaller brother sits on top of the bigger brother. Their symbol is Gemini.

9 - Alien Girl Alien Girl is a tom-boy. She is always CRAZY!!!* She annoys everybody.

0 - Fun Boy He is hyper and likes being happy.


*Meredith wrote that as you can tell by the use of color!

Math in Characters

I finally got around to reading Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet.  Daniel is a well-known autistic savant and synesthete--a savant unique in his abilities to describe to others how he thinks.  In his book, he describes how numbers have always been a very important part of his life.  He explains that he experiences each number as having shape, color, emotion, and personality.  He also explained that he found algebra difficult because for him, letters do not elicit the synesthetic response as numbers. 

Because I know Meredith's numbers are characters (see this post), I asked her if they caused her any difficulty with math problems.  She told me, chuckling, that when doing subtraction one of the numbers is "taken away" to "juvie" (i.e., juvenile jail).

I know that algebra tends to be difficult for visual thinkers and asked her what happens when letters are introduced to math problems.  She said that her letters are characters, too.  The letter a, for instance, is a girl (in the shape of "A") wearing a fancy A-line dress.  The letter x is a criminal. 

She said that actually, Merebith is doing diagnostics on an algebra equation at the moment.  She is trying to figure out how Meredith solved a really long algebra equation when she had trouble solving a very short one.  Chuckling again, Meredith said that Merebith and Dogot are playing good cop, bad cop with the numbers in the equation.  She said it's like an old black and white detective movie where the police question the suspects: "Where were you at 12:00 yesterday..."

Merebith is shining a bright light on the suspects.  They first questioned number two, who is actually a cloud.  But because he could only sputter out thunder and lightening trying to answer their questions, they let him go.  Dogot is wearing the police hat he took out from his extensive hat collection and is using this really funny, deep robot talk, trying hard to act like a bad cop.

So I suppose it is safe to say that because Meredith's numbers are characters and each equation has a storyline factors into why Meredith often finds learning math frustrating, despite her teacher's response that she has a lot of potential in math.  I imagine that Meredith is trying to reconcile how math is "supposed to work" with how Merebith diagnoses how math works.

I'm really looking forward to reading Daniel Tammet's newest book: Embracing the Wide Sky.

A "Place" in My Heart

Meredith's new friendship is still going strong with her new friend (who I'll call Sarah) who is so similar to her in thinking style.  One night while I was tucking her in, I asked Meredith if Sarah was still as special as she was a few months ago when they really got to know each other.  Meredith responded, "Mom, she has a special place in my heart.  No, really...she literally has an apartment in my heart!" 

Meredith explained that when she and Sarah found out that they were so similar and really enjoyed each other as friends, Merebith got two new things: a pot of gold (since she hit the jackpot) and a little Sarah who could play with Merebith.  Sarah got a new apartment in Meredith's heart that has a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom.  Apparently, Sarah doesn't need a big place because she is mostly busy playing with Merebith!

Musical Paint Chips and Purple Textures

The most wonderful thing has happened.  Meredith has found a new friend who shares the same style of thinking as she does!  Her new friend also experiences a lot of synesthesia just like Meredith.  They are so happy together and are a wonderful support system for another.  How wonderful it must be for them.

It does make for some funny happenings, though.  For example, the two girls and I decided to start a small little business making crafts out of paint sample strips.  (I had thought the two girls would love this idea since they are crazy about color, probably due to their synesthesia.)  We went to Home Depot to collect some materials and spent a good amount of time looking at all the colors. 

It occurred to me while were were collecting our samples to ask Meredith whether she was hearing a lot of music because of all the color on the wall.  (I asked her about whether she heard music because one time she made a collage of paint chips and hung it up in her room.  She told me that she looked at it to hear the music when she wanted to relax.)  So, yes, Meredith said that she was indeed hearing lots of music.  We continued gathering our paint chips and then we came across the paint chip samples that were textured.  I saw Meredith's friend rubbing her fingers over a sample of textured beige paint and I asked her as well, "Are you hearing anything, seeing any color or anything with that texture?"  She responded, "It's purple." 

What Do People in Your Life Taste Like?

It all started when we were running late for school this morning.  Meredith didn't have time to have breakfast at home, so we were going to get her breakfast at a local coffee shop near her school.  We were near a McDonalds and I asked her whether she would rather have that instead.  Meredith told me she hates McDonalds because she is learning in science class about all the chemicals McDonalds puts in it's food.  Then she said, "Mom, I've memorized all the tastes, and McDonalds hamburgers taste a lot different than TerraBurger hamburgers."  (TerraBurger is a local "fast-food" alternative that serves organic food.)  "Let me taste it...first the McDonalds hamburger...[she tastes it]...then the TerraBurger hamburger...[she tastes it]," she went on.  "Wow, they taste so different!" 

I've heard that some synesthetes get specific tastes in their mouths when they hear a particular name or word.  So, I asked Meredith if she tastes anything with certain words.  She told me that she can think of anything and get the taste in her mouth--getting the pleasure of the taste without actually eating.  But I asked her again about whether specific names gives her specific tastes without her trying.  Then she went on to tell me the tastes that she has for some specific people.  We started with one person who she didn't get along with when they first met.  "First, she tasted like a sour green apple.  But now she is a brownie," Meredith explained. 

Hearing this, I'm a little confused, because it doesn't sound like a synesthetic experience, because those don't generally change over time (that I'm aware of).  And I was hearing Meredith really  describing associations, which makes sense with a lot of other things she has told me.  For example, she has a (mental) file on important people in her life and in the file, she sees words that describe that person, in a font that she associates with that person. 

I asked Meredith what her taste for me was, and she didn't answer right away.  Then she told me that Dogot had messed up the computer because sometimes the magnet inside him does that if he is too close to the computer.  Because Dogot was no longer able to type in the name of the person she was thinking of to get the taste, she had to go to the backup paper files.  She looked in the files for about a minute, and finally found the file and told me that I was a 20-layer, double fudge chocolate cake.  Phew!  I thought I might taste like dirt or something!!!  Meredith's Dad and brother also taste like a 20-layer cake, which is nice to hear.  What this told me, however, is that her "tastes" for people are not synesthetic; they are associations that she is making.

Associations.  Making associations is the absolute strength of a visual thinker.  Dr. Cheri Florance calls the engine of the visual thinking pathway the "Associator," as compared to the engine of the verbal thinking pathway, which is the "Sequencer."  Visual thinkers make associations, connecting information to something they already know.  My husband has explained to me that if he or Meredith don't have any context, there is nowhere to put new information.  That is why it is important to provide context up front to a visual thinker.  Provide the big picture so they know where to make the connections.

All in the Family

Although the focus of the blog is on my daughter Meredith, I wanted to tell you about my son Tyler as well.  Although (so far) Tyler does not seem to possess the same visual processing style as Meredith and my husband with the filing cabinets and assistants, he certainly shows signs of having pretty exceptional visual skills.

When Tyler was six, we walked into the living room to see him quietly drawing away on a piece of paper.  He had been watching Star Wars, but paused it on a frame of Yoda.  When I looked at what Tyler was drawing, I was shocked.  This is what he drew:

Now, I realize I'm Tyler's Mama and as such, I'm hugely biased.  But even trying to keep my objective hat on, I think this drawing is pretty remarkable for a six-year old.  I'm not sure too many adults could draw that off the tv with such symetry.

Here is another example of a Pokemon character the Tyler copied from a book at the same age:

And just today, Tyler told me that he does in fact have some colors for letters and days of the week, indicating that he is also a synesthete (i.e., someone who experiences synesthesia) like Meredith (see this earlier post on Meredith's synesthesia).  Just for the record, Tyler said his days of the week are colored as follows: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  He described his letter "a" as illustrated below.  Tyler spent time with me on the computer to get the turquoise background, the font for the letter "a", and shadow on the letter just right.  I find it interesting that it is three-dimensional.  As with most synesthetes, the colors and details are very, very specific.  That's usually how I know that someone is actually "seeing" the color and not just making it up. 

I'm going to keep this as a record and see if it remains stable over time.  If you are a synesthete, you too can record your synesthetic experience for a large study called the Synesthesia Battery that Dr. David Eagleman is conducting at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. 

I once corresponded with a doctural student in England who studied at what age synesthesia emerges in children.  She found that it seems to emerge in the early elementary years.  This could be why Tyler never said he had colored letters before, but now he does--he's now in Second Grade.

This discussion about Tyler illustrates two points that I want to share with you:

     (1) Visual thinking is genetic, and
     (2) Sibling IQs are closer than you think.

Dr. Cheri Florance says that brainprints -- or basically the way you think -- is genetic to some degree.  It is very commonplace that if there is one predominantly visual thinker in a family, there will be many more. Take my family, for example. My father was an electrical engineer and designed nuclear plants. My mother was an English teacher, but also is a talented watercolor painter. My oldest brother is a brilliant engineer and mathemetician as well, and my second oldest brother is a talented architect (hello visual-spatial talent!). I have had various positions and interests, but have been drawn to the visual arts as well with photography (www.angelaeatonphotography.com). My youngest sister has found her niche in nature study and also has various visual arts as hobbies (www.montanapulpworks.com).  Those weren't shameless plugs--just wanted to give you something to look at!

Doctors, engineers, mechanics, artists, hair stylists, graphic designers, computer programers, first responders--these are all examples of highly visual career paths.  It is interesting to look at people's hobbies as well.  If you have a highly visual person in your family, look at a little closer at the family picture to see if you see this trait more often than not.

To my second point, Dr. Linda Silverman (the person who coined the original term "visual-spatial") explains that siblings generally are within 5 - 10 points of each other's IQ scores (go here for more information).  I mention this because I think it is very common for parents to say that one of their children is gifted and the other is not.  Dr. Silverman discusses how often the second child will have very similar traits, but because they compete with the first-born child to some degree, their gifted traits may manifest themselves differently.  It is worth giving your "non-gifted"children a second look!

A note on "gifted."  Who really knows what gifted means.  There are many different definitions by many different institutions.  I don't like to toss that word around and proclaim to the world that I have "gifted kids."  What I have found, however, is a pretty high correlation with what I'm reading on the "overexcitabilities" and high-intensity nature of gifted kids and my own kids.  I have found the literature on the emotional needs of the gifted to be extremely helpful in dealing with my kids.  It is really in this context that I talk about gifted.

Synesthesia...the OTHER Big Discovery

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

When I discovered Meredith's filing system of pictures, I went to Facebook to tap into my friends to see if anyone knew about this or had similar systems.  My friend Brad responded by saying that it sounds like Meredith might have some synesthesia.  Synesthesia?  

Like most people, I had no idea what synesthesia was.  Through Brad and Google, I learned that synesthesia is when a person has a sort of cross wiring of their senses so that when they experience one sense, another sense is triggered.  Examples include seeing colors when you hear music, seeing letters and numbers as colors, or getting a particular taste in your mouth when you hear a particular name.  The synesthestic experience is involuntary and automatic and doesn't seem to change over time.

There are two theories about how or why synesthesia occurs.  The first theory is that people who experience synesthesia (synesthetes) have more cross-wiring between sections in their brain.  The second theory is that everyone has the same wiring, but some people have overexcitability or less inhibition in these areas. 

The most common form is called grapheme-color synesthesia where people see written letters as colors.  For some reason, it is really common for people to have their color for letter a as red.  Therefore, whenever I suspect someone has synesthesia and they tell me that their letter a is red, I'm pretty sure they're a synesthete.  Of course, letter a doesn't have to be red.  In fact, synesthetes colors are very individualized and very specific.  People won't just say their letter b is blue; they will say it is a light blue with a little turquoise tint to it. 

 A quick test with Meredith and I find out that yes, indeed, she has different colors for her letters.  But something was strange.  I discovered that if I wrote a word in color and none of the letters were in the colors that she "sees" them as in her mind, she was unable to see them. I had discovered this when we were on a camping trip in our RV.  After digesting this for a day or two, I tried another experiment with her that I won't ever forget.  We were driving on the highway and I saw something written on my McDonald's soda cup: "Keep [Texas] Litter Free." (The word "Texas" was red and the other words were black in case you can't see the color on your screen.) I showed it to Meredith in the back seat and asked her to read it.  She said, "Keep Litter Free."  You don't see this word Texas?  She responded, "Well, I see a letter 'a' floating there, but that's it."  Wow.  She only saw the letter a because the letter a is red to her.  She explained that she has always seen these extra letters floating around, but she never understood why.

The questions were running through my mind. What about school? Teachers use color all the time.  Dry erase markers on the board, vis-a-vis markers on the overhead, and textbooks are full of colored text as well.  I thought about the fact that in her class, they had a small dry erase board where the lunch choices were written every day...with a red dry erase marker.  Ha!  I thought I found a hole in her explanation because she went up and made her lunch choice just fine every day. But no, she explained that there was one boy who always talked out loud and when he would go up and read the lunch choices, she would go follow him so that she could hear what they were and make her choice. Holy cow.  She had found all sorts of ways to compensate.

Then Meredith tells me that if she happens to see a letter written on the board in the color that she sees it as in her mind, she also hears a sound.  Like a dog barking, an alarm, and a slide whistle.  That information almost put me over the edge.  I mean, that's a little crazy to imagine about your child.  

In researching synesthesia, I learned that one of the foremost experts on the subject is at Baylor in Houston--Dr. David Eagleman.  I contacted him and we had a conversation about these peculiar issues that Meredith was experiencing.  He said that he hadn't heard of the kind of word blindness that she was experiencing, nor had he heard of the letter-color-sound connection before.  Great...you never want to be the exception in science!

We made some immediate accomodations for her in her classroom.  We made sure the teachers only used black markers and she was given a black and white copy of any colored handouts.  Fortunately, after the issue came to light, Meredith was able to somehow figure things out on her own and now she doesn't experience the word blindness anymore.  As for the barking dogs and slide whistles?  I bet those are still there.

I saw a video with Dr. Eagleman today and he had a really good example of what it is like to experience synesthesia.  He showed a photo similar to the above picture.  He said that more than likely, you had an automatic thought in your mind, "Barack Obama."  That is how the synesthestic response works, except maybe you experience colors, tastes, feelings, or sounds instead of the word, "Barack Obama."

Do your letters have colors?  What about your days of the week?  If they do, chances are that someone else in your family has a red letter "a" as well!  For a family of synesthetes, it's fun to start arguments over what the correct color is for Monday or Tuesday.  Sometimes I have to pinch myself and realize that if anyone else would be listening in on our conversations, they would probably think that we had all lost it!