Aphantasia (the inability to visualize) and Trauma

Rebecca

While my post is a long time after your post. It may still be usefull to you or someone else reading this thread.

I have aphantasia (and so does my sister). While I can't visualise a picture, I can imagine where objects are and what shape they are. Kind of like holding an object in the dark and working out it's shape.

For teaching you may be able to replace the word visualise with imagine... However this may not work as well for visual mnemonics.

I also find where possible drawing diagrams and graphs, helps my understading and learning. Possibly making up for 0not being able to visualise it.

Personally spelling was the area I struggled most in school. I find that typing or writing is much easier than trying to spell out loud or listening to some one spelling a word. Seeing the word written down, I can often tell if it looks right. I can often tell if word felt right when typing. The coping stratagies I use are trying to use are phonetics, breaking the word down into ones I can spell, incombination with a spell checker. I that doesn't work, I frequently use a more common (simpler) word than I would like to, which makes my understanding of English look poorer. If I have to learn a new spelling, then I have to resort to brute force repeditive learning (like memorising bank card, PIN numbers)

Difficulty imagining fantasy seemed odd because I am such an artist--performing, visual, and literary.  But when I try to entertain a fantasy, it is a static picture unless someone is telling me what to picture next or I am saying it out loud.  Reading can be so unrewarding, and I fail to remember critical pieces of stories.  Yet I love movies and have vivid recollections of terror and delight!  Movies give me the fantasy life that taps my emotions!

I am very interested in this subject. Working in k-5 education, the process of visualization is needed (expected) in many areas of the goals we have for our students to develop critical thinking skills. I have always understood that I might need to teach visualization, meaning meta cognition, but never thought about someone not able to visualize (as I know it). This could have quite an impact on education. From the start of a lesson, with the teacher building background, there is an assumed "visualization" going on in the minds of the students. With the ultimate goal of teaching students to use a variety of strategies, such as visualization, to comprehend new input. The idea that a child with multiple adverse childhood experiences may have Aphantasia, is not something I have ever known of, or even have a brief memory of, in all my years in education. It would be supportive to know what this might look like in a classroom, as how to support a child with this thinking construct. 

Thank you,

Rebecca