Journeys with Autism

Last week, I found a used children’s book called How It Works: Funny Bones and Other Body Parts, written by Anita Ganeri, and illustrated by Steve Fricker and John Holder. The book is written for third or fourth graders. I was attracted to it because there are basic systems in the human body that I have never been able to understand. I wasn’t interested in complex, high-level information. I was interested in things like the difference between a muscle and a tendon. So I bought the book.

It’s wonderful. Each section consists of detailed drawings that cover two pages. The book presents each body system by using analogies to familiar objects. For example, in the section that illustrates how different parts of the brain function, a compass symbolizes the ability to orient oneself in space, and a megaphone denotes the ability to understand speech.

I began reading the book the night I bought it, and I sailed through the sections on hair and skin, bone and muscles, the five senses, the brain, and the respiratory system. I was enjoying myself immensely until I got a few minutes into the part on the circulatory system. Very soon, I began to feel very, very dense.

I will try to describe why. On the picture of a heart are the following easy-to-read chunks of text:

Arteries are the blood vessels that take oxygen from the heart to the rest of the body.

Veins are the blood vessels that bring carbon dioxide to the heart from the rest of the body.

So far, so good. Arteries take blood away from the heart, and veins bring blood to the heart. Very nice. I can grasp that. But then, there is another chunk of text, and this is what it says:

Arteries take carbon dioxide from the heart to the lungs. Veins bring oxygen to the heart from the lungs.

At this point, my poor brain began to twist itself into knots and lots of grey matter started dissolving. In a nutshell, here is the problem:

1) On the picture, the text says that arteries take oxygen away from the heart. But then, the other text says that arteries take carbon dioxide away from the heart. To the lungs. (How did the lungs get there, anyway?)

2) On the picture, the text says that veins bring carbon dioxide to the heart. But then, the other text says that veins bring oxygen to the heart. From the lungs. Help!

Don’t forget, I am looking at a very well-rendered picture in a children’s book, and I just couldn’t get it. I couldn’t see the relationship between the words and the pictures at all. I finally put the book down and felt really, really stupid for the rest of the night.

A day or two later, I picked up the book again, determined to understand. So I looked at the pictures. And I looked at the words. And then it dawned on me to draw the pictures out myself.

So I did. I drew the heart with its two chambers, and then the lungs to either side. I drew the aorta, and I labeled what it was for. I drew the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava, and I labeled what they were for. I drew veins from each lung to the heart, and arteries from the heart to each lung. Finally, I drew arrows to chart the blood flow from the body to the heart, from the heart to the lungs, from the lungs back to the heart, and from the heart to the rest of the body. I cannot draw to save my life, but at least I drew a picture that made sense to me.

Finally, and I know you will be shocked to hear this, I made a list. There is always a list somewhere, waiting to be born, and I will always find it. My list (which is now tucked safely inside the book for easy reference) looks like this:

1) Veins carry carbon dioxide from the body to the right chamber of the heart.

2) Arteries carry carbon dioxide from the right chamber of the heart to the lungs, where the blood picks up oxygen.

3) Veins carry the oxgen from the lungs to the left chamber of the heart.

4) Arteries carry the oxygen from the heart to the rest of the body.

I can understand this system as a linear sequence of events. I can conceptualize the difference between what arteries do and what veins do. But I cannot visualize it in my mind at all. I have the words, and I have the pictures in the book. The pictures help me grasp the meanings of the words. But I cannot hold the pictures in my mind.

Now, if I were in an operating room with a surgeon who was doing open heart surgery, and he or she explained all the different parts while showing me each one, and I could see the blood flowing and the valves of the heart opening and closing, I would hold that picture in my head for the rest of my life. I’m certain of it. I can visually remember things I see and touch. But I cannot visualize things I read, and I cannot hold a picture I see in a book in my head for very long.

So how did I get all those As in grammar school?

We had picture books to read, but tests and homework consisted solely of words. All I had to do was rote memorization, something that many Aspies are very good at. In those days, I had a nearly photographic memory. I could look at a word once and know how to spell it. All my life, I have seen spoken words and my own thoughts as word pictures in my mind. I literally see all the words spelled out across my mental screen.

So I could regurgitate information on a test without understanding it at all. I had lots of facts and lots of details, but no big picture—another Aspie trait. I could not have told you how the body parts fit together. I saw them as discrete objects. Had I gone to a school in which we were expected to synthesize information, I would have had a much more difficult time of it.

In any case, in these days of educational software with lots of blinking lights and moving images that endlessly distract and ultimately overload my senses, I’m glad to know that picture books have not gone the way of the wind. Where would I be without them?

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg