Cartoons and autism

I'm finally reading a book that was recommended to me over 25 years ago: Understanding Comics. It is a breakdown of the power of comics as a true art form, what it's power of story is, and what components of comics make up the way they tell a story (different from text only.)

I could go on and on about this, but I had a particular epiphany, sparked by an article about eye contact and autism someone sent me.

Here are two parts from the book. Below, let me transcribe the text, in case it’s hard to read from the images:

When we abstract an image through cartooning, we’re not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details.

By stripping down an image to its essential 'meaning,' an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t.

Each [speaker] also sustains a constant awareness of his or her own face, but this mind-picture is not nearly so vivid; just a sketchy arrangement... A sense of shape... A sense of general placement.

Something as simple and as basic -- as a cartoon.

Thus, when you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face -- you see it as the face of another.

But when you enter the world of the cartoon -- you see yourself.

I believe this is the primary cause of our childhood fascination with cartoons, though other factors such as universal identification, simplicity and the childlike features of many cartoon characters also play a part.

The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled...

...An empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm.

We don’t just observe the cartoon we become it!

That’s why I decided to draw myself in such a simple style.

Would you have listened to me if I look like this??

This gave me a lot to think about, but one big one is the difference between that view of a cartoon face in our minds and the realistic one.

Small children draw very simple pictures. As they develop, you see more and more details being drawn. Maybe just a circle at first for a face, then eyes, nose and mouth; circles for hands with five lines sticking straight out, then those hands doing something; bodies facing the viewer, then bodies in motion.

I wonder if a child's view of the world is so simple?

I’ve seen this adding of detail as an adult. I never was a "car" girl, able to identify every car on the road, like some little kids can. But I’ve become obsessed with electric cars and I’ve learned to identify them. I went from seeing "car" to being aware of headlight shape, door handles, amount of chrome around the windows, and so on. These details have always been there, but I didn’t pay attention to them, and so I might as well not have seen them at all.

What if that filter is what an autistic child doesn’t have? What of they are bombarded by all those details, unable to filter out the important bits: a circle with five sticks sticking out?

Montessori equipment is specifically designed to lack detail - my mom said this over and over that detail distracts the child from the work. Some of that is due to the European sense of design of her time (eg IKEA vs Victorian antiques.)

But she does have a point, and maybe Dr. Montessori intuitively understood that child's simplistic view of the world.

I have always wanted to make instruction cards for all the Montessori lessons for students to revisit, particularly students who lack strong short term memory and require repetition, but maybe they shouldn’t be photos, but cartoons? So as not to distract from the work?

And for autistic children, how can cartoons be used as a tool to help focus their attention to the important details?

Lots to think about.

Kiki

PS I have become in love with adult nonfiction comics, beginning with Barefoot Gen, and Maus, then Operation Ajax (the history of the American coup in Iran - wow, what a story!) Are there more?

Every Japanese person reads "manga" - which spans childhood to adulthood, G to X rated. Manga is simply another form of literature there. I wish it were here too. It has so much potential.

Note: I read all ten volumes of Barefoot Gen, then discovered that the author also wrote a text biography. It was amazing how different each was, though both were the same story.

In particular, certain concepts had to have one character explain it to another in the comic, but in text, the narrator could just write a paragraph as a separate explanation, for instance, the historic significance of certain actions.

It made me very aware of the limitations of comics, in the same way that comics had great advantages too, where you can say so much more in pictures than just words.

(First sent to a parent group from our old school, a group for parents of kids with learning differences. I stay on that list to offer my Montessori experience and wisdom, and also because those parents are so smart about their kids! I learn a lot about myself and my own past school difficulties, as well as understanding the adults around me now.)

Side note: there is an amazing nonfiction manga written by the mother of an autistic child in Japan. The manga is called With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child. Like Barefoot Gen, it is both a difficult read and ultimately an uplifting one. (For those in the Bay Area, Oakland public library has all volumes.)