Through the years of teaching my kids the ABC’s, math basics, literature, and now more advanced subjects the hardest subject for my kids with autism is learning about the abstract. I have been pushing this quite a bit recently because as my kids get to high school level work they will be asked to do more abstract, creative thinking. One of the best ways of teaching and immediately seeing if the lesson was learned is through art.
My twice exceptional child was reading through an art history book and found Picasso. She didn’t understand how Picasso could be considered art. We began talking about different forms of art. I settled on Cubism as a place to start learning about abstract art and thus abstract thinking.
Cubism= A nonobjective school of painting and sculpture developed in Paris in the early 20th century, characterized by the reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, often geometric structures usually rendered as a set of discrete planes.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/cubism#ixzz1hyEYcwz2
Ballerina Barbiean attempt at cubism cat
As you can see the attempt fell flat. She could not even “see” the difference in the pictures. When we sat and talked about it she realized that they were different. We talked about the differences. The biggest stumbling block is she doesn’t understand why anyone would not just try to reproduce exactly what is in front of them.
I am THRILLED we did this together. I didn’t realize that she had a such a clear knowledge of the differences between how she views the world and how others can view the world. She understands that somehow the painter with cubism cat ‘saw’ the cat as they painted it, but she cannot.
We will continue to do abstract thinking problems, art, and anything else I can come up with. Practise, practise, practise. Even if in the end my dear daughter cannot draw in an abstract way or produce a written poem that is not based solidly in reality, she will know of abstractism and have been shown it in many mediums.
I have learned over the years of teaching my children that what is a solid wall to one child is an open door to another. I will work with these same concepts with each of my autistic children. I will continue to read other’s ideas and try to widen our horizon. I am working hard to give my daughter the tools she will need to deal with a world that is both black and white, and gray.