After years of searching and using the best approaches in pubic, private schools and universities, I found the missing piece to serve, and save, smart frustrated learners through my DDAI and DAA training and certification.  Years before, in 1982, Ronald D Davis began training others to 'See what others cannot see - because of the advantage of their picture-thinking brains'.  In 1997, fifteen years later, Tom West wrote his first book:  In the Mind's Eye.  Tom's 2018 book digs further into practicality of this natural way of thinking from the past and into the future. 

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Book Review
Seeing What Others Cannot See – The Hidden Advantages of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains  
by Thomas G. West
Tom West’s 1997 In the Mind’s Eye connects strong visual spatial intelligence and verbal weaknesses from DaVinci to Patton in the past, with the realization that creative visual thinkers aided by computer technology will be at the forefront of today’s dramatically changing society.  In his 2018 publication Seeing What Others Cannot See he goes beyond countering the 'deficit-perspective' by offering stories from and about gifted thinkers that he gathers in eight chapters associating facets of picture thinkers.  ​

Each chapter offers a fresh perspective about picture-thinkers in word-thinking settings. 

• Ch 1 Seeing Whole – addresses how the academic system continues to rely on word and number symbols with education experts trained to believe what was taught decades ago using conventional tests measuring the wrong things.  As a result, the system continues to train and select strong test takers and traditional narrow specialists.  Among computer graphics persons word and number use equates to a ‘thin pipe to the brain’ while using picture thinking for information visualization is considered the ‘fat pipe to the brain’.  NASA James Lovelock’s intuitive leaps illustrate seeing from ‘top down’ what others cannot see coming from limitations of one scientific discipline or another. 
• Ch 2 Visual Perspectives shares that the more we understand deep brain resources for creativity and pattern recognition, the more we can realize and respect distant ancestors’ life and abilities prior to bookish education. 
• Ch 3 Seeing Along the Spectrum – though dyslexia was once thought as rare, today’s new attitude is beginning to recognize visual spatial  strengths of both autistic and dyslexic thinkers.  Here West shares that though  Tesla, John Elder Robinson of Raising Cubby, and Temple Grandin have many problems, they show us what is possible when you see and do things differently – by seeing what others do not see. 
• Ch 4 Power of Design touches on the frequency of dyslexia in design and computer graphics and addresses the argument that while some argue the move to images superficial, the move to visual literacy will be as important or more important than verbal literacy.  Forms of work change more rapidly than most are aware.  Considering that machines have taken over routine tasks such as ATM/bank clerk, deep-learning computer systems are soon to replicate other routine professional judgements like physicians and engineers. 
• Ch 5 Those who can see gives respect to the high level of sophistication of early non-literate peoples IE their use of stars and ocean currents.  He calls out the self-serving role of promotion by makers and users of books.  Here West, citing the writer Nigel Carter, illustrates the usefulness of trying to see the bigger picture by standing back to identify trends over time.  More ‘seeing’ is evidenced with physicist James Clerk Maxwell’s work in wet clay because “if you can visualize the shape, you can understand the system” and developer of thermodynamics study Willard Gibbs.  West relates scientists’ visual thinking strengths to the dyslexic writers’ strong observation powers going on in these larger than usual, slow moving, apparently overly connected brains that yield perspectives and insights often denied to non-dyslexics more likely to see what they’ve been taught to see, say, and move on. 
• Ch 6 Insiders/ Outsiders - West points again to the lack of balance between visual and verbal approaches.  New approaches manifest a trend in finding ways to return to visual thinking and learning in math by ‘doing’ instead of ‘watching’ math.  Mary Schweitzer’s persistence about her discovery connecting dinosaur to bird bones is one more example of someone who saw what others could not – or would not see.
• Ch 7 Seeing and Technology starts with Socrate’s misgivings of a new technology threatening to devalue human contact changing work, learning and communication – the book!  Now two millennia later we can ask our new technology to go beyond a book.  West shares how Benoit Mandelbrot of fractal dimensions fame experienced the trade-off between verbal, word/symbol difficulties that come with major visual proficiencies. By identifying patterns Mendelbrot  foretold 2007/2008 Wall Street financial mess.  As a consequence of fractal patterns in astonomy, Astronomer Nathan Cohen applied fractals discovering a single antenna able to do the multiple jobs required for cell phone use – without this intuition the need for multiple antennae replicating a porcupine would have made mobile phone less apt to have come to today’s necessity. 
• Ch 8 Visual Families and Nobel Prizes West observes Nobel Prize Committees’ shift to greater respect for ‘the practical’ when in prior times contributions of visual thinkers were considered primitive.  He relates Genius in the Genes conference speakers citing high level of science achievement linked to success in the arts; this tradeoff of early visual spatial proficiency comes with the cost of lack of proficiency with language systems.  West traces visual spatial talents of his clockmaker ancestors to artists and dyslexics in his family along with his own trouble with spelling and reading.  His abilities with higher level work and eventual success in can-do product oriented atmosphere show him working around his weaknesses and exploiting his talents and strengths.

Tom West concludes that we need to focus on trying to gain acceptance of this simple idea:  visual thinkers and those with differently wired brains can sometimes see what others cannot see. 

To recognize and cherish these different thinkers, education and testing conventions should be changed to recognize these differences, as well as signs of future accomplishments. 

His well-constructed aspects of various perspectives about visual thinkers Seeing Others Cannot See matches our work in the Davis Dyslexia Association International and Davis Autism Approach.   Our Davis perspective accomplishes West’s suggestions worldwide every day through our Davis DDAI® and DAA® Licensed Facilitator and Facilitator/Coaches. 

​ As Davis DDAI and DAA trained providers, we go a step beyond his recommendation: “There is so much more that needs to be done for visual thinkers…”.  Our clients do for themselves because of, not despite, their way of thinking.  Self-esteem rises as visual spatial learners realize they are ‘more than’ not ‘less than’ others.  Given this understanding and tools, they accept the responsibility and pride that comes with  Seeing What Others Cannot See - The Hidden Advantage of Visual Thinkers and Differently Wired Brains. 

Of children with reading difficulties, almost half have problems that are not apparent until 4th grade. From Kindergarten to Grade 3, focus is on ‘learning to read’. By 4th grade, now the focus is on ‘reading to learn’.  Some students have no difficulties with letter or word recognition or phonetic decoding. Yet, their reading difficulty is that they are unable to read fluently or comprehend what they read.

Linguistically, we know that a word has three parts: what it looks like (spelling), what it sounds like (pronunciation), and what it means (definition/picture sense).

A learner who is struggling with comprehension is probably lacking knowledge of what the word truly means.

Words without ‘meaning’, the third part of the word, hamper access to getting ‘the picture’ the author intended.  Often our picture thinking or our non-verbal intelligence demands more than the ability to recognize how to say a word. 

Sometimes it’s the small words we see everywhere (the, so, for, yet) or words with multiple meanings (run, of), or look like other words (on/no/one, of/if/off) that create confusion.  For picture thinkers sensing no picture or uncertainty of which picture associated with a word, is like reading a sentence with holes in it, like swiss cheese.  Another analogy: like viewing a movie where a few frames are missing every few seconds – would you stay for the whole movie?

I recall a 17 year old who could read, and did so with such great expression she often read aloud in class.  The problem she experienced was that she did not understand what she read.  The resulting stress and self-doubt hampered her ability to use the information she read in discussion and testing.

What to do: Take this learner through Davis Orientation Counseling® with the understanding that their great brain (so good at turning on its picture thinking) turns on automatically - and they can turn it off when it gets in the way of seeing the actual words written on the page. Introduce Davis Symbol Mastery®; this is an excellent method that helps the learner to integrate the three parts of essential words. Practice the Davis Sight Exercises - they increase reading fluency.

Learning Options matches short term programs that provide life-long results to take advantage of our natural way of thinking.  When a screening determines hands-on picture thinking strengths, acceptance into the program guarantees changes for the better.

Discovering that the part of our thinking considered ‘picture or non-verbal’ is at the root of problems with reading and writing, helps us realize that much of our everyday life is filled with examples of the difference between ‘word/verbal’ thinking and ‘picture/nonverbal’ thinking. 
 
Here’s an example of how our brain takes in information in ‘nonverbal’ ways:  Many years ago my sister and I were investigating a creekbed at our summer cottage.  We felt the smooth stones and cold water on our feet as we hunted for yellow popping flowers, when suddenly we were covered with spray from an animal we’d never noticed before.  Our initial curiosity about plants, which didn’t need words to be experienced, was replaced with a very pervasive scent experience, which also did not need words to be experienced.  Language or not, we’d had a very strong experience.   Later that evening, our clothes buried, we got to see bats flying over our tent that served as an outdoor bedroom until a mixture of time and washing with floating Ivory soap in the lake returned us to our pre-skunk condition. 
 
We experienced what happened to us through our senses --sight, sound, scent, feeling, motion.  In the world of education we describe these sensory-input avenues as Multi Modal. 
 
Both idyllic flower hunt and skunkspray reaction had multimodal non-verbal expression from smiles to screams, from sauntering to shocked stillness leading to crazed running, from open to closed noses and eyes, from feeling smooth stones and mosses in the creekbed to smashing over roots and rocks.  
 
Here comes an example of our use of ‘word/verbal intelligence’.  Now decades later I share our adventure by using words, putting the words into writing.  By use of your word/verbal intelligence, you understand and maybe even relate to my story.  Reading about this experience uses words - one modality.  If your verbal/word thinking intelligence is strong enough you can comprehend by picturing what happened. 
 
Those with strong ‘picture/nonverbal intelligence’ who struggle with words (how to say them, what they mean) are blocked from experiencing, understanding, thinking about, and sharing what goes on around us and within us when the events and ideas are provided solely in word format. 
 
Most approaches to helping with reading and writing continue using ‘word/verbal intelligence’ – the weak area of the brain.  By understanding and being given tools to use our ‘picture/nonverbal intelligence’, people who struggled when given tools limited to ‘word/verbal intelligence’, can and do have access to and can succeed in the world of words.  The Davis approach helps people succeed because of, not despite their way of thinking.
 
 
 
 
 

Before the invention of written language, dyslexia and other focus-based and symbol-based ‘dis’abilities didn't exist.  Instead, persons who struggle with written language were likely custodians of oral history because of their excellent ability to memorize and transmit the spoken word.

Imaginative play, an early childhood staple, is rife with examples of intuitive thought and nonverbal thinking. Kids great at this perceive and formulate mental concepts faster than other people, and easily perceive imagination as reality. 

We see kids seamlessly slipping in and out of imagination during their play.  This nonverbal mode of thinking can cause difficulty in learning written language. How?  When efforts to read or write are met with our kids automatic slipping into imagination, they do not come out with words or symbols you expect.  How is this fair?  Their imagination has served them well in other ways, why not with this?

We interpret these difficulties as issues with focus. Unaddressed, this becomes a major complaint, rather than revered gift. 

Being in the real world is a feeling, just as being in the imaginary world is a feeling.  Knowing that negotiating the real world requires both our imaginary-self and real-self to work together is the essence of ‘focus’. 
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By simply recognizing the feeling of focus (being present, oriented), getting tools to make that easier, finding symbols or situations that trigger the need to use their imagination and how to resolve these triggers, you’ll be providing them the best of both worlds.

Keep on doing what you are doing with giving them opportunities to enjoy their creativity alone, with other kids, in group activities, with you.  Take some time to investigate the Davis® tools that help people succeed because of, not despite, their natural way of thinking.  Call, email, or visit my website to consider more Learning Options with which children and adults are empowered. 

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