Psychologist Laurent Mottron of Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Montreal is quoted in a recent Science News article on a coming paper on analogic thinking autistic children. He notes studies that the autistic display intuition regarding geometric pattern rules. This is important in the context of the autistic often displaying difficulties with sociality (theory of mind), compulsive behavior and commitment to routine, and difficulties thinking symbolically or using analogy.
Mottron notes circumstances where the autistic do seem capable of parsing out relationships displaying an understanding of how one thing can represent another.
Thinking evolutionarily, consider our species just before, during and after the transition to spoken language from non speech communication, and consider each individual wrestling with the an ability to think in a fashion that suggests being two places at once, two times at once, with an ability to think of something’s opposite. This is an ability to exercise a “conscious” mind contrasted with thinking like an “unconscious” mind. One time, one place, no opposites is Freud’s definition of primary process or the way that a small child, an unconscious, a dreaming conscious, or an animal thinks.
Mottron may be teasing out the capabilities of the autistic to think is fashions familiar to most of us. The autistic may not be impaired as much as they are anachronistic, neurologies appearing in an unfamiliar time. Time will tell.
