Visual learning and autistic information processing

Being a "visual learner" is not actually about the visuals, it's about the quick context you get from them.

It's like seeing the picture on the puzzle box before being handed the puzzle pieces.

And there's actually a name for this.

It's called whole-to-part learning.

Where the whole (context) is provided before the parts (details).

Your learning struggles were likely due to the vast majority of education being structured part-to-whole.

Because this is how educators are taught to teach.

But that doesn't mean it's the best way.

And I would argue it's not the best way for anyone (being a learning expert, with 20 years in the field of adult learning).

Also, "learning styles" don't exist. (Research below).

Processing differences do.

But those differences are not about preference, and they are also not fundamentally different in terms of comprehending new information.

The difference is in how certain brains organize and integrate new information.

Which is not about the modality of the learning (visual vs auditory vs tactile vs olfactory).

It's about how the information is structured and organized.

Which is why so many of you are able to consume my (extremely lengthy) written content, even though you often struggle with written content.

20 years as a learning expert has taught me how to structure my content whole-to-part.

Which, I firmly believe is a universal design.

Meaning, it's universally better for all minds, no matter the neurotype.

All this to say, your learning struggles were never your fault.

It was the system's.

You. are. not. broken.

The system is. ❤️

There's also an amazing Ted Talk discussing the research.

Highly recommend for those who don't do well with dense research papers. ❤️