Autism and enhanced visuospatial skills
Are you autistic and also really good at puzzles and games like Tetris... or really good at organizing small spaces to fit more than what seems like is physically possible?
I have an explanation for this...
So, according to research, autistic people have enhanced visuospatial skills... which is the ability to identify visual and spatial relationships between objects...
The study, which I'll link to below, found that autistic people showed "superior attention, scanning, reaction time, and discrimination of stimuli" as compared to their nonautistic peers.
Ok, so what exactly does this mean?
Well, for me, it looks like...
- Being exceptionally good at finding things
- Being an actual expert at loading the dishwasher and packing the car for my family of 5 when going on long trips...
- Being extremely good at basically any puzzle game (but not under pressure or when there's a competitive element, because in that case my anxiety will absolutely cripple me )...
- And being really good at optimizing my physical environments for peak efficiency (but only when my executive dysfunction lets me, which only seems to happen at completely random and inconvenient times )...
(The article refers to autism as a "debilitating illness." Clearly we have more work to do to spread awareness even within the field of autism research (autism is not an illness). But as far as I'm concerned, this doesn't invalidate the research, which is why I'm sharing it.)
Here's a link to the study for those interested...