Look to Mental Pictures to Judge Emotional States

Yesterday, Meredith had a bad day and came home crying saying that she was depressed.  She even missed her soccer game because of it.  The problem was that I couldn't pinpoint the source of her emotions. It's not as simple as asking her what is wrong, because often she can't find a way to express her emotions and asking her sometimes just makes her that more upset. Usually she will show that there is a problem by crying, refusing to do anything I ask her to do, getting upset with any little inquiry or suggestion I make trying to help her, and being very over reactive to any minor stress. In these situations, the only thing that I have learned to do is to give her lots of space, remove any stresses, and provide opportunities to refuel her right brain like drawing, watching TV, listening to music, or playing with her dolls.

So, she watched lots of TV, drew me a picture, sang and danced in her room, and had lots of good snacks.  I didn't insist she go to her soccer game, do any chores, and made sure her little brother stayed far away.  After dinner, she came into my room and we were able to talk rationally about what was bothering her.  She had mentioned a few times last week that she was struggling with some math concepts--the relationships between fractions, decimals, and percents in particular--so I thought this could be it...especially since I knew these are generally difficult concepts for a visual thinker like Meredith to grasp.  And sure enough, that was it. 

Meredith said that she just doesn't get the concepts and can't process what her teaching is saying.  She has always struggled with these concepts in math.  She says that all she hears is "Blah, blah, blah."  Not in a disrespectful way at all--just that she literally can't process what she is hearing; it doesn't mean anything to her.

Over the last few months, I have learned a really good way to judge how Meredith is feeling or what problem she is experiencing by asking one simple question: "What's Merebith doing?"  Meredith told me that during math class last week, Merebith was in a coma being kept alive by a machine.  And because Merebith is Meredith's "Control Center," (according to Meredith) no learning was happening...the factory was closed essentially.  That gave me a pretty good idea about how math was going for her lately and what her emotional state was.  Merebith always displays an exaggerated version of how Meredith is feeling--she's like a cartoon character in that way.  This exaggeration is really helpful because it leaves me little doubt as to what Meredith is feeling!

I know that Meredith really enjoys geometry (hello again visual-spatial strength!) and so as a contrast, I asked her what Merebith does when she is doing geometry.  Meredith told me excitedly that Merebith wears a T-Shirt that has a lot of colorful shapes all over it and the words, "Math Rocks!"  She also wears a visor and has a pencil tucked behind her ear.  Usually, Merebith is furiously doing math on her paper because she loves it.

Continuing with this topic, I asked her if Merebith acts in any peculiar ways if she is having trouble or having a lot of success in other subjects at school.  The one thing she told me was that in Language Arts, a lot of the time Merebith has a frog stuck in her throat.  Merebith gets a frog stuck in her throat when Meredith is trying to figure out what a particular figure of speech means (Meredith understood the irony that Merebith is acting out a figure of speech during these times).  Until Meredith understands the figure of speech in question, Merebith continues to choke and Dogot uses the Heimlich Maneuver (in his robotic nature) to try to dislodge the frog.  Once Meredith understands what the figure of speech means, Dogot successfully dislodges the frog from Meredith's throat and it goes flying across the room and hits a wall--splat! 

At least I know that Meredith understands irony...

Mental Color Mixing

Meredith drew me this very simplified version of her "Colorator 3000x."  The Colorator 3000x is a color mixer that Meredith uses in her mind.  Apparently there are many, many more colors than the four that are shown in her picture, and they are "true" colors--not like how sometimes the color on a marker doesn't match the actual color it writes on paper, according to Meredith anyway.

The Colorator 3000x is pretty straightforward.  You press the colors that you want to mix, and then pull the lever.  The spoon will automatically stir the colors.

This is all good, but I couldn't figure out when Meredith would use this machine.  After asking her that question a couple of times, she told me that she uses it when she learns new words.  "Like 'important,'" she tells me.  "It's purple.  I have a color and a picture for every word."  This was news to me--I didn't know she had a color for every word.  (The picture for the word "important," by the way, is Benjamin Franklin signing the Declaration of Independence...she doesn't know why, but it makes sense to me!)

Then Meredith told me, "And there's a manual, too.  One day, I was so bored, I made all the possible color combinations and wrote them down in a manual for Merebith.  It will say 'fushia plus teal equals...'  It took forever." 

Who knows how many color combinations she must have made because colors are such a big part of her life.  She just told me there are 8-9,000 different combinations in the manual.  Could that really be possible?!?

Knock, Knock...It's Time To Breathe!

You may remember from my earlier post that Meredith is enjoying swimming on a team again.  Last week, we were talking in the car on the way home from practice once again about how you can really lose yourself in your thoughts when you're swimming.  Meredith told me that sometimes she gets so much into her own world when she's swimming that she forgets to take a breath.  No problem--Merebith always comes to her rescue!  When it's time for some oxygen, apparently Merebith will knock on Meredith's head (from the inside) all the while grabbing her throat looking like an exaggerated cartoon character who is gasping for air.  That just makes me giggle.

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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.

Love Taking Over This Visual Thinker

A young lady that I know very well, who will remain nameless for fear of embarrassing her, has been developing a crush on a boy for quite awhile.  When her mother picked her up from school, the young lady hesitated but then said, "I think I'm...I think...I think I'm in love," as if she finally succumbed to the illness.  The young lady said that when she looked at her name on her math paper earlier that day at school, she suddenly saw her name transform into the name of the boy she likes.  She said that now whenever she looks at a word, she sees the word transform into his name.  Not only that, his name is in the font and color of the word she is looking at.  The drive home from school is through an urban environment where there are lots of store signs, billboards, etc.  At one point, half giggling and half exhasperated, the young lady had to put her head down so she wouldn't have to see his name all over the place!

Then the young lady continued with her story and told her Mom that also during math class, she suddenly "woke up" from being in her own little world and found her paper filled with hearts that she didn't remember drawing. There was one giant heart with the boy's name written inside of it. She said that she was sort of talking to herself trying to figure out what had just happened. Her classmates were puzzled at what she was talking about.

I hope for the mother's sake that this phenomenom doesn't continue for it would sure be hard to explain why her daughter has been so distracted in class.  "Well, you see...when she looks at words, all she can see is this boy's name..."  I'm sure that will be a first!