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Ask Betty Maxwell

Betty Maxwell, M.A., is Director of the Visual-Spatial Resource and co-founder of its parent company, the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development (ISAD). With a degree in gifted education, 20-plus years of teaching experience, and certification within the field of psychosynthesis as counselor and educator, her curiosity about how the mind works has only grown. She now brings this background, including her work with Dr. Linda Silverman on visual-spatial learners, to bear on discovering more about this exciting right-brain orientation.

Contact Betty with any questions you may have about VSLs throughout their lifespan using our contact form, and selecting “Ask Betty.”  Questions submitted may be edited for length or clarity.

 Photo of Betty Maxwell

Betty Maxwell
Director of the Visual-Spatial Resource

Your Letters

Hi Betty,

I homeschool my 11-year old son who is a VSL. I just had him tested at a diagnostic center for dyslexia and related learning disorders. My main purpose for doing this was to create a paper trail in case he needs extra time for taking tests later on (like the SAT and ACT). The test administrator did not give him a diagnosis, but felt some of the scores were likely skewed because he speeds through things (which made his score superior in rate) but made many errors. She made several recommendations for intervention, including "multisensory language retraining", saying that he "has not learned the structure of the English language...which impairs his ability to read fluently, gain information from the connected text, write fluently, or express himself adequately through the written word." Of course, that means "strengthening his phonological processing skills and remediate decoding, fluency, comprehension, and spelling. Instruction should be explicit, direct, systematic, sequential (me: yikes!), cumulative, intensive, meaning-based, and multisensory..."

Well, we've been working on his spelling. He will spell a word perfectly on a spelling test (and for study we use the methods described in "Upside-Down Brilliance" and "Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World"), but when he free-writes (writes a first draft), his spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and penmanship fly out the window.

I am perplexed as to what my next step is. I don't want to restrain from doing something that would truly help him, but TRULY--will going back to square one with the phonics really help him as a VSL? I am letting him use a Franklin Speller (that really helps!) and he does a lot of his writing on the computer, but I still have him hand-write one page a week. I am also having him read aloud to me every day, slowing him down, having him enunciate every word (he skips over words and even adds his own, which changes the meaning of the text).

So do I pay big bucks to hire a remedial "private Certified Academic Language Therapist" or is this a matter of accepting his VSL way of learning and work in that direction?

Thank you!
Lisa

Dear Lisa,

My apologies for this late reply to your important question. I found it hard to set aside the time needed for a thorough reply during the two days a week I actually work at the Visual-Spatial Resource.

I think your intuition is on target. Since the early days of Orton-Gillingham remediation of dyslexia, a multi-sensory relearning of phonemic awareness, bit by bit, [reprogramming brain synapses, it appears], has been the major method used to aid dyslexics. Ron Davis, Ph.D. founder of the Davis Dyslexia Correction Program and author of the interesting book, The Gift of Dyslexia, says that this produces, at best, a slow, pedestrian kind of reading. You may be interested in searching his website or reading his book to look at a different way of dealing with dyslexia.

Jeff Freed, major author of Right Brain Children in a Left Brain World, also has a different way of working with VSLs/dyslexics (not all VSLs are dyslexic but most dyslexics are VSLs). You are probably familiar with his suggestion to scan rapidly a given amount of text, state what you learned from it (or do some kind of idea-trap), scan a second time to pick up more info, and scan a third time, each time gaining additional information. This is really the speed reading method, which is a natural fit for many VSLs, especially the impatient kind. British psychologist Tony Buzon, author of Use Both Sides of Your Brain, which made a big splash in England, Europe, and the US back in the 70's, specialized in the area of memory and developed mind mapping as a way to trap info gained through speedy reading. He has a lot to say about why speed reading engages the brain more fully. I think he is very much laying the groundwork for success for VSLs. His book is still pertinent and really helpful in my estimation, although written for adults.

It is also possible to use well-above-level complex reading material (although this may be hard to find at your son's age; at a younger age a reading lab setup with questions to answer about what was read works). Anyway, difficult material slows down the reading process and forces hemisphere integration. Trying to decipher something like, "the dissimilarity between them was not unlike that detected by the older of the two at the approximate age of the younger..." can give pause and can be a fun activity, if approached as detective work. Learning Latin could also work and would be easier to implement. Latin IS language detection work.

Incidentally, Jeff Freed, after his scanning exercise would require students he tutored to thoroughly prepare a passage from the material read to read aloud perfectly. He felt that one paragraph was the right amount, in comparison to all that was scanned for this kind of intensive work.

The problem of your son's perfect spelling disintegrating when he is writing a first draft is quite common. His attention is to his idea flow, and this is as it should be. That is why first drafts were invented. Some more sequential students may spell correctly in the first draft but also may not. What would be helpful is to have him compose on the computer using Spell Check, and then to go back and be an editor. He may need practice editing, perhaps using the Editor-in-Chief program at The Critical Thinking Co. This is because it is often really difficult to find one's own errors. While most spelling errors will be caught by Spell Check, punctuation errors may be elusive. A VSL mind will see the prose as the way he meant to write, not the actual words written. Still, editing is an area, like writing itself, that requires much attention and practice to develop to full potential.

I am with you on this. I would be wary of bit-by-bit mental retraining for a VSL.

Do, at some point, check his vision. Use a behavioral optometrist to evaluate the possibility that tracking or convergence problems may be playing a part in all this. If so, vision therapy may be quite helpful. We have seen that to be true for many of the children we work with.

I would love, also at some point, to receive feedback from you if you follow any of these suggestions.

Best wishes,
Betty

Hi Betty,

Have you ever done a study on how many visual learners have synesthesia?

I have spatial-sequence synesthesia and I visualize anything sequential (days of the week, months of the year, years, shoes sizes, body temperature, outside temperatures, the alphabet, etc.) occupying a specific space and shape in my minds eye. Most of these sequences I see in color. I've visualized sequences this way since childhood and it's completely involuntary. For example, I hear or read about a date and I immediately see it and can view it from any angle.

I am definitely a visual learner and like so many synesthetes, I work in a creative field--I'm a graphic designer. I also have eidetic memory.

Kathy

Dear Kathy,

This is a very interesting question, indeed! Synesthesia is such a fascinating area to explore. I wish I knew much more about it than I do, but I love hearing how sequences arrange themselves in (mostly) color in your inner space. How handy! And how great to be able to look at them from all angles! I would love permission to refer to this information in writing I may do (articles, advice to others, etc). Would you be willing to permit this? Perhaps others will write in about their experiences with synesthesia. If so, we will certainly post their info.

I do have some associations. My artist aunt kept a mental record of all the various colors, hues, tints, etc. that she used by assigning them each their own number, which she always remembered and could easily call up and replicate. The son of an associate stores information in drawers in his mind. He knows where everything is stored, just slides the drawer open and "pulls out" what he needs. I just learned of another person, a graphic artist, who tastes colors. Yum! I, myself "see" solutions to little problems as a movie. There I am carrying out whatever action is needed. I think, "Oh, what a good idea!" But I don't have to bother with words.

I know several of these instances aren't true synesthesia, but you can see that you started a train of thought going.

I would love to hear more from you about how this all works for you!

Warmly,
Betty

Dear Betty,

My son is 7. His recent WISC-IV test results indicate significant differences between his PRI and all other indexes:

What is your advice? Can you recommend any specific steps we should take to make sure that his needs are fulfilled properly? He is a good student. He likes computer games, math and chess. He is very competitive.

Thank you.

Regards,
Ana

Dear Ana,

Your son likes computer games, math, and chess, which makes him sound like a visual-spatial learner. However, these are not typical scores of a VSL. Please realize that I do not have all the information administering an ability test would give, so what I say may not be correct in all areas. However, a discrepancy of 30 points between his VCI and PRI equals two standard deviations--a big difference. This is not usual for a VSL and points to a problem in the auditory area. He may have auditory processing problems (possibly the result of many ear infections when young) or he may be extremely distractible. Either way, he focuses and thinks better when visual prompts are used with him. This may be why he loves computer games. He would probably do well learning through computer software programs.

Within the Perceptual Reasoning Index, his Block Design score is quite a bit lower. Block Design is timed and requires good visual-motor integration as well as visual-perception (which seems to be good in MR). This difficulty with speed and visual-motor integration shows up again in his Processing Speed Index. Both subtests in PSI require the same strengths as BD. Your son may need vision therapy with a developmental optometrist or visual-motor integration work with a pediatric occupational therapist (or both). How well does he read? Does he just read when assigned to or does he read for pleasure? I would expect an avid reader to have a higher VCI score because his Vocabulary score would be higher. If he is a reluctant reader, that would indicate to me a need for a good vision evaluation.

This is the best I can do without the usual information that we collect for our consultation service. (That is available for a fee of $150 per hour, which can be prorated. Contact gifted@gifteddevelopment.com for more information.) I hope this is helpful to you even so.

Best of luck with your son!
Betty

Hi Betty,

I am curious to know what university programs and careers are my best bet being that my preferred method of learning is Visual-Spatial.

Thanks
Sorae

Dear Sorae,

I will give you some career areas in which visual-spatial learners have found success. Some require college; some do not. There is quite a wide variety, and most of the most promising careers have probably not been invented yet. Here are some possibilities to set you thinking:

VSLs excel as artists, musicians, actors, inventors, architects, computer programmers, pilots, designers of all sorts, engineers (all sorts), entrepreneurs, surgeons, stage directors, physicists (all sorts, including astro & quantum), theorists (in fields like mathematics, chaos, and complexity theory), explorers, and those who have invented careers for themselves no one had thought of before.

This is not a definitive list. I would not attempt that. VSLs are always discovering new ways to do old jobs or how to synthesize existing career choices into new and challenging career areas.

Good luck with your decision!

Betty

Hi Betty,

Though I haven't been assessed by anyone professional, I'm about 99.9% sure I'm a VSL and also have an eidetic memory. I think in pictures, both still and moving, and can capture spatial organizations or visual images almost instantaneously although I do have some limitations, like difficulty capturing numbers or spellings of words.

I think my eidetic memory has resulted in my never having problems in school even though I grew up learning from teachers who emphasized left-brained, sequential lessons. I was able to perform well on exams that tested fact memorization or sequential thinking because I could remember what the word looked like or on what part of a page in the book or in my notes the answer was at. If I looked at my notes and my books enough times before the test, I could remember what they looked like and be able to regurgitate that information almost exactly. Because I got good grades and did well on tests, no one thought anything of my intelligence. The problem now is that if I think back to a class or a test that I aced, even within a short time frame (weeks or months ago) I can't tell anyone anything about that class or the material I just learned. When it comes to learning things in sequential format my photographic memory is short term, so I lose a lot of things almost as fast as I can capture them.

I'm now a senior in college and it wasn't until about a year ago that I recognized I MUST learn visually if I want to retain information. In the past year I've worked really hard to translate the lessons I'm being taught in school into a form that I can learn them in rather than relying on my photographic memory. But I'm finding I have to relearn a lot of things people thought I already knew (because I previously aced the material). They usually look at my dumbfounded that I can't recall simple, fundamental things and at times, I think the same thing about myself. I've re-learned a lot of things and while I can't always explain why I know something or be able to tell someone the logic behind my answer I still know somehow that I'm thinking the same thing as everyone else. It's frustrating, but not as shameful as it used to feel.

Anyway, I guess my question is: have you come across this issue with other people before, having to re-learn everything they've ever been taught so that they'll actually remember it? Do you recommend things they can do to relearn or access information that they might still have hidden in some stored pile within their brain? There may not be an answer to this question, but if you have any advice I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Lindsay

Dear Lindsay,

I read your inquiry with great interest. I agree that you are very likely a visual-spatial learner, but one with an unusual problem. Eidetic imagery usually disappears in a child around or before age 9. This phenomenon is almost instantaneous and certainly would lead you to rely on short-term (visual) memory to quickly memorize many sequential bits of information (dates, math facts, undigested concept statements).

This problem doesn't happen very often, because most VSLs take extra time to input a created image of the idea they just heard. (Or the spelling word they want to learn.) They don't have a tantalizing ready made image at hand. They have to translate what they heard into some kind of picture.

My first question to you is: Do you know that recovery of visual memory is obtained by "looking upward"? If you ask anyone a visual memory question, such as "What hangs over your bed headboard?" you will see their eyes turn up as they draw on that memory. Perhaps remembering is as simple as that, giving you access to what you have already learned.

I suspect this is not the answer, or you would already have found it. I think you need to begin to create visual schematics of subjects you study. While a big undertaking at first, this will get to be much easier as you flesh out your understanding of how systems work. I recommend two books that can help you with this project.

1. Tony Buzan: Use Both Sides of Your Brain (the granddad of mind mapping books (1974) Tony is a British psychologist whose specialty is memory, speed reading, and mind mapping. He has a great section in his book on "organic study method," which builds on picture notes that are later synthesized into a visual replica of whatever system you are studying. The mind maps stay with you, and make for dynamic review. The more you do this, the better you will get at it.

2. Nancy Margulies: Mapping Inner Space. Nancy took Tony's work and adapted it for US school children, adding many images and symbols as well as including Buzan's color coding. She has also written Visual Thinking, with still more pictures and symbols.

3. In the book I am writing about teaching VSL's I call such pictorial representation, "Drawups," as opposed to the more common "Write-ups." They are an excellent way of synthesizing concepts and facts on any given subject. The rules are quite loose, and you can adapt them in any way that works for you. They are the visual-spatial counterpart to written notes and outlines.

I'd love to hear how this works out for you.

Betty

Dear Betty,

I recently came across your website and I feel like I discovered what my son has been dealing with. He has all the gifted qualities and we discovered this last year. He is a very creative and bright 8 year old.

In school he has always been labeled by the teachers as "different" in the way he learns. Everyone knows he is so smart but can't understand him; they always said that it was as if he had his own sense of time. He draws very well and his ideas are always sketched out. In writing class he doesn't get started right away unless he can verbally express his ideas before he starts. The teachers label that as not liking to write.

He was tested last year for auditory processing because his teacher said that he never followed instructions and seemed unfocused when she would lecture. His results were negative for auditory processing disorders. They also said that he didn't follow instructions to assignments but got to an end result with a better way of doing it.

We then had his IQ tested and she was surprised the scores weren't higher because of his behavior and history of being a gifted child. When I looked at the scores, the block design, verbal, and similarities scores were very high and but the timed arithmetic and digit span were low. He still scored a high IQ but those made his score lower than what they expected. They also said that on his IQ test that he tackled the hard problems with ease and the easy problems he struggled with. They found that odd.

He has always been very visual and his math teachers always found him peculiar because when he does math because he grasps the difficult concepts but when he is timed for basic math arithmetic he scores very poorly. After reading your website and some articles I feel that he fits every description (other than poor handwriting) spot on.

What is your advice? Should I call the person who tested his IQ and have him reevaluated? Should I tell his teachers that there is an explanation to his "bizarre" learning style? Please advise!

Sincerely,
Carla

Dear Carla,

I'm so glad you happened across our website! Yes, your 8-year-old son sounds like a real visual-spatial learner. That has enormous promise for life and some school difficulties to overcome simply because most traditional teaching stresses left-brain strengths. Time is one of those. VSLs have great awareness of space and directionality but almost no sense of time passing.

You don't give his IQ scores, but there is a possibility that a General Ability Index (GAI) score may be available, if on the WISC-IV:

His tester should be able to help you out with this information.

You son is already meeting his own spatial needs by sketching his ideas out. Good for him. He can use his sketching ability to keep his focus during lectures. Go to Allie Golon's article, "Staying Awake During Lectures" for details. He may also find sketching his ideas in a web helpful (see Margulies: Mind Mapping or Ingenuity.com for more about this). It really works.

Read about time and the VSL in Linda Silverman's article, "All About Time." Linda also has a great one-pager to share with teachers, "Guidelines for Teaching Visual-spatial Learners."

The idea that hard things are easy and easy things are hard generally relates to your son's gifted reasoning ability. His abstract thinking gets ideas and concepts right away. He is probably weak in the area of rote memory because he usually relies on reasoning his way through things. I recommend that you look into "Mister Numbers" who "takes the numb out of numbers," to find out his great ways of learning math facts through geometric and other patterns. This is dynamite!

Thank you so much for writing. Your letter is lighting a fire under me to finish my book, which I am co-writing, about how to teach visual-spatial learners. I must get it done!!!

Warmly,
Betty

Hi Betty!

I've just started reading about VSLs, and the information is just so exactly descriptive of me! I'm speechless. I am well aware of the strengths that my learning style brings and have managed to make good use of these. I have even managed to develop nice handwriting and have worked hard to develop my writing skills (although writing remains a time consuming task for me). I am just starting to link all the areas of life that I find challenging to my learning style: I have no rote memory, difficulty remembering instructions and short lists, I'm hopelessly disorganized and have no 'internal clock, calendar or timetable'. I'm just wondering if you could point me in the direction of any resources to help with disorganization, procrastinating or time management. I have read a little on each of these topics but have found that no suggestions work for me...I think I need suggestions that are aimed at my learning style!

Thanks!
Aideen

Dear Aideen,

Socrates urged "Know Thyself," and it sounds as if you really do! Congrats! By the way, rote memorization is hard for spatials because it deals with isolated units of information, where they see everything as interwoven. If you can mentally plug the fact into its background system so that you can link it with its neighbors, you will remember it. Or if you can create a silly picture that stands for that fact, you will also remember it. That takes time and work, so the fact needs to be worth remembering in the first place.

Your basic question was about organization. There are at least two kinds of organization: files and piles. Sequentials use filing systems and can locate things alphabetically. Spatials organize in piles and know where in which pile some piece of information is located, but it leads to what looks like a messy room, rather than a neat wall of file cabinets. If you have floor space or a big desk top to devote to your piles, that will probably work well for you.

Time is more difficult. Space is the domain of spatial learners, and time the domain of sequentials. They have internal clocks that work for them. Spatials have to learn to develop at least a rudimentary sense of time. Here are some ideas about how to do that:

1. There is something called a Time Timer, which is like an analog clock face with a control that covers the face with a swath of color for a given period of time--say 25 minutes. As the minutes tick by, the colored section recedes like a piece of pie growing smaller. This is nice to use because as you carry out some task, you can easily see, even out of the corner of your eye, how time is moving and being used up. This is helpful.

2. Work directly on your sense of time. Try to get a sense of just how long a minute is, or 10 minutes. Set a timer and carry out a task, planning to stop at one minute (or 10 minutes or 30 minutes. When you think one minute is up, stop and check. This take a lot of practice, but if you do it, you will improve in your sense of just how long a minutes takes--even though the circumstances will vary.

3. If you have a task to do, allot a reasonable amount of time in which to complete it, which will be an estimate. Then add at least 10% more time. There will always be something that comes up that you haven't planned on that will take more time than your "time planner" has allowed for.

4. If possible, try doing something from the end backwards. Often this is easier to do, and there is a growing sense that things are becoming easier as you work, so that momentum gathers, and you are at the beginning in almost no time. This is possible once in a while!

Good luck with this project! I'd love to have some feedback from you.

Betty

Hi Betty,

Is there a book or paper out about how to help the VSL and Auditory thinker to collaborate and get along in the work place? I work at a public high school and there is no funding for consultations or a resource team to come out and help.

Thank you for the information!
Kind regards,
Kim

Dear Kim,

Yours is such a huge question that I have avoided writing you, but I feel I owe you an answer of some sort.

"Attention is just beginning to be paid to the visual-spatial learning style. The best book about it is Linda Silverman's Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner, which, unfortunately, is out of print. It is available from Australia. However, there are many downloadable articles on the subject available at the website of the Gifted Development Center and also at Visual-Spatial Resource. I am working on a book for teachers to show how to integrate both styles in the classroom. This is mainly addressed to elementary and middle school teachers, but if changes are made there, they will affect the high school situation, and ideas can also be extrapolated. That book is not even ready to submit for publication yet. There is a long way to go.

Yet, VSLs just represent our right brain hemisphere, which most of us use along with our sequential left-brain hemisphere all the time So collaboration should be quite achievable. It is similar to the extroverted and the introverted getting along.

Watch our visual-spatial website for word of the new book's publication. It will have much more information, if I ever get it done!

Warm best wishes,
Betty

Dear Betty,

I think I am a visual-spatial learner and I purchased the VSL book. However, I want to be certain. I possess other qualities than those mentioned on this website, and I would definitely like confirmation. Is there anyway I can find out whether I truly am a VSL? Also, is this learning style considered a learning disability? I was diagnosed with one. I scored very high on visual and low on long-term retrieval.

Kenchunn

Dear Kenchunn,

There are VSLs who are not exclusively visual-spatial. We have noted many who also have many auditory-sequential skills as well. Such individuals tend to be quite intelligent, so that they grasp the big picture easily but also pay attention to details. They pay attention to significance but also spell well. They like leading with their visual-spatial right brain but have very large vocabularies, may enjoy public speaking, and are at ease with creating outlines. You may be one of these fortunate ones.

Betty

Hi Betty,

My son is a college freshman, VSL/ADHD. Now that his first semester is coming to an end, it's really evident that the heavy writing load is way too much for him. However, it's required. He gets testing accommodations due to his ADHD (more time), but we didn't anticipate the amount of research papers he'd have to do in his 1st semester. Although he actually can write well, it's the reading/writing combo that does him in. Hard to explain, but I assume I don't really have to.

So the question is, how do we help him be successful in such an environment? Thanks!

Cynthia

P.S. He is majoring in New Media, which is more hands-on than most. His school is very arts-oriented, too, but still a state college.

 

Dear Cynthia,

Bright people with some kind of learning difference such as your son can usually handle the academic load up to a point. That point of too much to do depends on the individual. It can come as early as third grade or as late as graduate school. I do have some suggestions for your son, who has hit that wall of frustration.

First, if at all possible, he might take one fewer course next semester. Lightening his load could make all the difference. Sometimes it is possible to make up a course via distance learning, a medium pretty compatible for VSLs.

Another help may be the work of British psychologist Tony Buzan (author of Use Both Sides of Your Brain), who suggests both speed reading and mind mapping to place new knowledge in a visual system. Both notes and final "outlining" of a paper can be done in this format and even color-coded. Mind maps are also great when review of a subject is needed for a test. Your son can experiment with these ideas over his break and adjust the method to his own needs. It is very open to creative individualization.

Hope this helps!
Betty