The Thinking Style That Gives Autistic People A Different Approach
Bottom-up thinking: what it is, why it’s useful and the limitations
When I was at university, writing essays was a special kind of struggle. I would eventually manage to complete them, and sometimes did quite well. But I always suspected that I laboured over them more than was necessary, or at least more than others did.
I thought it was just my anxiety compelling me to leave no stone unturned in checking sources. I was determined not to miss any relevant details and wouldn’t rest until I was confident that I’d captured it all. It’s not that I doubted my arguments or lacked evidence. It was about building the complete picture.
It turns out that there’s an explanation for the process I went through to eventually arrive at my conclusion. It’s called bottom-up thinking. It’s recognised as being common among Autistic people like me and unsurprisingly, it’s all about attention to detail.
So what is bottom-up thinking how is it different from top-down thinking?
Bottom-up thinking is when people take in and process details in order to arrive at a conclusion. Top-down thinking works by people relating what they see to prior knowledge and experience rather than focusing on the details.
