Math Is Hard If Trees Can't Grow In Volcanos

As discussed in previous posts, some people experience a form of synesthesia called Ordinal-Linguistic Personification or OLP. From what I have read on Facebook pages where synesthetes share their experiences, people with OLP have very strong and specific experiences of numbers and other similar ordinal things--days of the week, for example--as personalities. Another thing that stands out reading about other OLP synesthetes' experiences is that this personification can cause some synesthetes problems in math.

Last summer, Meredith began to spend time with a new friend. As they spent more time together, I began to observe many traits in Meredith's friend that suggested she might have synesthesia. In asking her a few simple questions (I almost always start with, "Do your days of the week have a color?" as that seems to be one the most common forms of synesthesia), it became pretty obvious that she was very synesthetic.

As the three of us discussed the girls' similarities, we began talking about numbers and math. Both girls said that they had a terrible time with math facts. However, it was clear that both girls were intellectually advanced in other areas. I confirmed with the friend's mother that this was the case. On educational testing, both girls scored very poorly on math facts, but very high in math concepts. That seemed very peculiar to me and I was exploring with the girls why that might be.

I asked them how their OLP/synesthesia interfered with math facts. Meredith's friend quickly came up with an example. To her, number nine was a wise, old tree and zero was a volcano. She explained that if she has to add nine plus zero, she comes up with nothing, or zero, because she knows that trees don't grow in volcanoes. She told me in a very sincere manner and had a look on her face as if she was hoping I could shed some light on how she could get around this fact that was very real for her.

She offered a second example. When she would have to add two numbers together and the sum was a different color (in her mind) than the combination of the two numbers' individual color, she would be confused. For instance, if she saw 5 as blue and 6 as red, she would expect the answer (11) to be purple. But for her, 11 is yellow. She told me that once a teacher was helping her and she told the teacher, "...but the answer is yellow," and after her teacher gave her an odd look, she dropped it.

Bringing these examples to the fore and discussing them, I sensed that for the first time, Meredith's friend realized that this personification may be the reason why she has struggled with math facts. It was as if a lightbulb went off and she was able to look at her experiences from outside herself. We talked about ways she might be able to get around her issues with the wise, old tree and the volcano. Maybe she could figure out certain scenarios in which trees could grow in volcanoes. I brought this issue to the staff at their school which they now both attended. I was happy to hear that instead of trying to "cure" this issue, they worked with Meredith's friend's personal framework. Her friend began writing different story lines and scenarios for those math facts that confused her.

I asked Meredith if she remembered a time she said something to a teacher about some synesthetic experience and received an odd look. (It seems relatively common that synesthetes have some early negative encounter with a friend, parent, or teacher after sharing something about their unique synesthetic experiences and that may be one reason they keep it to themselves from that point on. For example, once I was at a party and a guy brought up the fact that his wife always makes fun of him because he says his letters and words have different colors. His wife jumped in and said something to the effect of, "I know! Isn't he just silly?!?" That was a fun moment for me to inform her that no, he was not!) Meredith told me that in second grade, her teacher was holding up flashcards with the different vowel sounds on them (e.g., short a, long a). The class was supposed to say the correct pronunciation of that particular vowel sound out loud when the teacher flashed the card. But when the teacher held up the "short a" flashcard, for example, Meredith would say, "Red," as she sees the letter A as red. Meredith laughed because she said her teacher would just keep holding the flashcard closer and closer to her face hoping to elicit the correct response from her.

It seems to be a surprise to most synesthetes that not everybody experiences the world like they do with different synesthetic experiences. After all, most people probably assume that everyone thinks more or less in a similar fashion and thus, never question it as being "different." In my experience with my family, friends, and other people I have met or read about online, learning that they experience the world a little differently than most due to their synesthesia allows them to bring their unique experiences to the foreground for the first time and perhaps gain some insights as to why they may have felt different at times or had some confusion. Many have expressed relief that they now really understand what is going on.

With child synesthestes who struggle in school, I believe that recognizing their synesthesia is very important in preventing any roadblocks to their school success and self-confidence. As I wrote in an earlier post, Meredith was finally able to figure out how to get around her number personalities distracting her in math class and as a result, her math scores have increased significantly. Perhaps she would have eventually figured it out on her own, but I believe if she can be an active participant in that process and make it happen sooner rather than later, she will be better off. She would experience less confusion, stress, and falling behind in school. That is why I am passionate about spreading the word about synesthesia and how it may impact a child's learning and school experience.

Watching T.V. Shows...In Your Mind

"Do you know what I do in school when I'm done with my work?" Meredith asked me.  "I watch SpongeBob."  Now, I had just learned about how Meredith thought in pictures and in movie snipets, so I had a feeling she didn't mean she actually got to watch a cartoon at school.  She explained that she can close her eyes and watch SpongeBob in her mind whenever she wants.  Hard to believe, for me anyway.  I later learned that she also has Merebith edit the cartoons to take the commercials out.  It really interests me to think that she can do this--that she can repackage her visual memories, let alone watch t.v. shows in her mind.

When I was working with Dr. Florance, she told me that she had a client who once told her that on Saturday nights, he would make some popcorn, settle down in an easy chair, and watch a movie...in his mind!  I wonder if those people who seem to remember every movie reference have this ability as well...I certainly don't!

It is hard for me to imagine how one does that so I had to take Meredith's word for it.  But one time not too long ago, I was able to witness for myself that she can do this.  Meredith had wanted to listen to some CDs in her room, so we got a CD player from Goodwill and found some old CDs from when she was younger.  The first CD we put in was a Disney Princess CD.  For some reason that I can't remember, Meredith was upset at that time and was rolling around the floor in distress, as happens when she is really stressed out about something.  Then suddenly, she stopped, closed her eyes, and started moving her finger in the air in concert with the music.  At the same time, I saw that her eyes were moving under her eyelids, like when you do when you're in the rapid eye movement phase of sleep.  It became very clear to me that she was watching the Disney movie that corresponded to the music.  After a few minutes, I asked her if she was watching the movie and she said yes.  I asked her to describe what was going on and she described it in great detail, including what each character was wearing.  Seeing it for myself was quite something. 

If you have a very visual child who is upset, maybe you could try to elicit some visual memories through music like the above example.  Using visuals is a very good way to recharge the Executive Functions of a visual thinker.  Sometimes, visual thinkers can get stuck in a loop of sorts, repeating the same thing over and over or simply getting in a place they can't find a way out of.  This is the verbal thinking pathway experiencing a glitch. 

I have had success bringing out puzzles and other visual-spatial games to help get Meredith unstuck.  One good thing to do (besides STOP talking!) is to start playing with the game you brought out and pretend like you don't know what to do with it (instead of ASKING your child for help).  For example, we have a magnetic mosaic game which comes with patterns to copy.  I started trying to make one of these patterns and purposely acted confused (without talking).  Meredith quickly jumped in to do it herself and within a few minutes, she was able to calm herself down. The hardest thing to remember is to keep quiet.  Talking just requires more energy of the child to listen, which is a function of the verbal thinking pathway.  In these situations, you want to bring the child back into her most comfortable environment--the visual environment. 

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

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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!

Mechanic at Work

Here is a photo of Meredith helping me make Tom's Christmas present this year. Many visual thinkers love hands-on activities...that's the best way to teach my Meredith for sure. I need to remember that she learns better through exploring than verbal instruction though--a repeated mistake that I make and a cause for sure-fire mother-daughter clashes. We take it for granted that everyone's verbal skills are equal...don't you?

Some visual thinkers have such a strong visual mind that it causes conflict with their verbal side (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). This can cause symptoms in any or all of these areas. If you would have asked me if Meredith had strong vernal skills, I would have said yes, because she always had a strong vocabulary. However, after we learned of her strong visual mind, we discovered that Meredith's listening skills were very weak--something she had learned to hide very well. We thought for many years that she was just oppositional...but we just didn't know that verbal instructions and directives were playing to her weakest side. Did you know that parental guidance is 98% VERBAL?!? That causes a problem if you have a highly visual child.

We began working with Dr. Cheri Florance (maverickmind.com...I'll talk more about her later) who suggested we give Meredith's teachers a questionnaire designed to identify any weaknesses in these verbal areas. Turned out that Meredith failed or had difficulty with listening skills about 80% of the time. No wonder she struggled in school--an environment where listening is the number one skill, making up 76% of time in elementary school. The further one progresses in the education system, the higher that percentage gets.

A visual thinker tends to forget what they hear and remember what they see. School--or "Verbal Land" as Dr. Florance refers to it--plays to the students with strong verbal skills. Throughout history, many of the most creative thinkers who changed the world in novel ways struggled in school.

No wonder Meredith is thriving in her new school environment. This year she is attending Odyssey School. It is a school for "Bright Kids Who Learn Differently." Meredith loves all the hands on activities and the focus on multiple intelligences. Now she is relearning things that she only "heard" before. Remember, visual thinkers forget what they hear and remember what they see!