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| Visual
Spatial Learners |
Books & Online Resources
Must
Have Books
Upside Down Brilliance by Linda
Kreger Silverman
Raising Topsy Turvey Kids:
Parenting your Visual-Spatial Child by Alexandra
Shires Golon
There are also books on dealing with Right Brain Dominate
children,
but many of them don't fit nearly as neatly into my experience as the
above books. A lot of the books seem to focus on problems
like
Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and other problems that aren't large issues for
Zach, Zane or I (who all fit into the VSL model very well).
Unicorns are Real
isn't as "right on" as the Upside-Down Brilliance, but still has
valuable information on helping to teach right brain dominant kids.
Einstein Syndrome
by Thomas Sowell is very good, but doesn't have the whole picture.
Upside Down Brilliance fills in the blanks where this one
falls
short. Worth reading though, especially if late verbal
development without other developmental delays (unless they relate
directly to verbal development) describes your child.
Online Resources
Upside-Down Brilliance
website is the most comprehensive site describing the VSL style kids.
Although it leans towards gifted VSL people, it is also
valuable
for those who's child doesn't score as 'gifted', but still has this
learning style.
Visual Spatial Resource
has a lot of great cartoons illustrating the different experience of
VSL folks through out the web site. (text is also very good,
but
a picture is worth a thousand words)
I think in pictures, you teach in words
describes identifying characteristics of VSL.
Hoagies' Gifted Education Page on
VSL
Written Output Suggestions is an
essay written by the parent of VSL children, with practical advise on
teaching VSL kids.
Writing Problems of Visual Thinkers
was rather revealing to me. It describes problems I have had
to work through. (I hope successfully. lol)
Visual=Spatial Thinking article
from Australia.
Some thoughts on finding info to help
our family.
The great irony I
have discovered with searching
for information on Visual Spatial Learners and Right Brain Dominate
Children (and adults, for that matter) is that everything seems to fall
under either "learning disabled" or "gifted". There doesn't
seem to be
anything out there in the 'middle of the road'.
Information on
Visual Spatial Learners tends to lean towards 'gifted'.
Although I
would not be a bit surprised if Zane (my son) is gifted, he is far too
young for me to feel comfortable putting a label on him.
(Honestly, I
don't think labels do anybody any favors, whether gifted or LD )
When
my dh was a child he had several IQ tests, all putting him solidly in
the 'genius' category. I was right at the cut-off to be
admitted into
the gifted program, but was not admitted because they didn't have
curriculum in place to handle exceptional visual/artistic/creative
talents. (they were geared towards gifted in math/science,
and I
hadn't bloomed yet in those subjects)
The other end of the
spectrum equates right brain dominance as a learning disability and
lists dyslexia, ADD, ADHD and Autism as the primary related
disabilities. This probably explains why people are quick to
jump to
an 'autism' diagnosis before getting to know ds. He is an
introvert
and VERY sensitive to others perceptions of him, often hides his
personality until he is quite comfortable around the person.
Because
he won't interact until he is comfortable, people get a skewed
impression of him, especially if he picks up any inkling of
judgementalness from the person.
About the only thing that is
agreed upon, no matter what angle they are exploring the issue, is that
Right Brain/VSL kids are at a distinct disadvantage in most modern
classrooms, especially once you get past the primary grades.
The
advent of "No Child Left Behind" and excessive step-by-step testing
exasperates the situation because VSL learners often have a more
difficult time demonstrating knowledge on standardized tests than a
left brain child.
How our Family Fits the VSL Profile.
When you read some
of the
characteristics, Zach & I fall very heavily in the VSL
category.
Several of the sources describing VSL traits talk about a
genetic
trait towards this way of thinking. In both of our families,
it
is easier to point out people who do not carry the traits than it is to
pick out those who share them with us. Zach doesn't know his
father's family well enough to know if they also fit this, but my
family, and Zach's mom's family all show at least some of the
attributes. (at least as far back as our grandparents)
Some of the traits are listed here, here and here.
When I started reading Upside Down Brilliance, I literally cried
through much of it. Sentence after sentence, example after
example, (even the fact that I seemed incapable of reading the book
from page 1 sequentially without flipping back and forth between
chapters) gave voice to our experience in life. I had never
really been able to verbalize how I thought differently, I just knew
that the world looked very different to me than it did to those around
me. This book explained it. I think Zach is even
more
strongly VSL than I am.
When reading the characteristics of VSL people, we would occasionally
come across something that either one or both of us don't really have
an issue with. However, once we started talking about them,
we
realized that in almost every case, we did have an issue with it at one
point, but have learned strategies to work around it so that it doesn't
interfere with our ability to function well in this world.
The book fit us so well that we really should have our pictures printed
on the cover. Amazing work. I am so glad it was
published
and I found it.
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