Philip and I have reached Chapter 8 in Soma’s book
Understanding Autism through RPM. We
will go through the 6 factors (1 per day) that piece together to form one’s
mental map.
“Philip, what is a mental map?” (Philip's answers in bold)
It is each person’s way of interpreting the environment.
What is it based on?
Neural pathways and brain function.
What does the mental map influence?
Behavior
The first factor that comprises the mental map is
encoding. It is the process of
interpreting the objective stimuli that we sense in the physical space and
situation we are in. In autism, the
sensory channels may detect the environment in a number of different ways. For example, a person with global hearing may
hear things as one big sound in which the sound of people’s voices in the room,
the hum of the refrigerator, and noise from the TV all blend as one. A person with selective vision may only look
at a detail such as things that are red over everything else.
Generalized hearing and vision is when a person can take in the whole
environment while being able to distinguish the details, attending to what is
necessary and filtering out the extraneous.
I asked Philip how he encodes a new environment.
I see a new place as interesting. I am like an explorer. It sometimes opens me to trouble. I hear things at one sound. It is sometimes distracting from hearing one
thing. I have a hard time so near loud
sounds. I use my hearing the most. I place sounds in my head into
categories. I try to filter out the unimportant
ones. This takes a lot of energy. I can take some sounds out now. It helps to not be too loud. I hear conversation well. I am always attending tons to words. I like hearing talking. I each day open my ears to education.
What about your vision?
Walking around New York City for the first time April 2013
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