Do my “deficits” as an autistic person make me a “bad” reader?

Pippa Hennessy, writer, publisher and writing workshop facilitator, shares her thoughts on visual imagination and reading from an autistic perspective.

Visual imagination “deficit”

I've long been interested in visual imagination when reading and writing – I’d noticed when I was a teenager that I tend to skip descriptive passages in fiction – they don't interest me at all. When I started writing seriously (when I was in my early forties), the aspect of writing I struggled with most was descriptive writing. It still is, which is why I write poetry (yes, it does make sense!).

I spent a lot of time thinking and talking about this, and discovered that my visual imagination is severely lacking compared to most of the people I know. I remember being very startled, on watching the first Harry Potter film, to discover that Ron Weasley has bright ginger hair. It clearly says all through the books that he does, and it’s a particularly notable visual characteristic, so you'd have thought I would have noticed and remembered it. However, I had no visual image of any of the characters at all. Or the settings, or the various creatures that make an appearance. I mentioned this to several of my friends, and they were, without exception, extremely surprised.

If you look at the AQ-50 test [The Autism Spectrum Quotient Test], two questions explicitly refer to lack of visual imagination, so it is seen (by some, at least) as an indicator for autism.

Q3. If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind. “definitely disagree”

Q8. When I’m reading a story, I can easily imagine what the characters might look like. “definitely disagree”

I’d never thought it was particularly odd, although I had wondered why people waxed lyrical about, for example, Hardy's descriptions of the Dorset landscape. With a severe visual imagination deficit, it’s next to impossible for me to appreciate this sort of writing. To me, it just gets in the way of the story. but to other people it seems to give a whole extra dimension to the writing that I can’t appreciate. It isn’t a problem for me, but it does mean I prefer more plot-driven books.

Narrative imagination “deficit”

Also on the AQ-50, there are three questions about narrative imagination – the ability to make up stories and play "let's pretend" games.

Q14. I find making up stories easy. “slightly disagree”

Q40. When I was young I used to enjoy playing games involving pretending with other children. “definitely disagree”

Q50. I find it very easy to play games with children that involve pretending. “definitely disagree”

Perhaps surprisingly, given I’m a writer, it turns out I’m no good at this either. I remember, when we were children, my brother would try to involve me in "let's pretend" games. He'd make up the most amazing and detailed scenarios – I remember one where we were on an aeroplane that was about to crash and we had to find a way to survive – and he was always disappointed that I just could not play these games. I was unable to develop (and had no interest in developing) the story, and I couldn’t put myself in character. My mum once said I had no idea how to play until my brother came along.

With my own children, a game we used to play as a family was "story circle”. We’d take it in turns to say a sentence, adding to the story. I used to dread playing that game, because I could never think of what might happen next. Interestingly, my youngest (also autistic, and non-binary) hated it too, because they always knew what was going to happen next ­– they have excellent narrative imagination – and would get very upset when someone else came up with a sentence that contradicted their ideas for story progressions.

Can I be a good reader?

So, I have visual and narrative imagination deficits. How can I enjoy reading books? And, for that matter, how can I be a writer?

Writing is easy – I stick to a genre that doesn’t require storytelling. In some ways poetry is all about creating images of one sort or another, but that can include images of emotions, or concepts, or reflections, or events, or the nature of life. This is very firmly where my poetry is based. I've tried many times to include sensory descriptions in poems, but so far without significant success.

Reading is more problematic. Is it possible to enjoy a story fully without being able to access the visual (and other sensory) imagery the writer has sweated blood and ink to conjure up? I can’t answer that question, as I don’t know what I’m missing out on, but I do know that I need to read. I grew up without a TV and was hyperlexic so by the time I started school I was reading ten or more books (almost always fiction) every week, rapidly progressing from picture books to young adult literature and adult science fiction. That continued until I went to university, at which point I discovered other activities… and by the time I was in my second year I realised I was going ever so slightly mad because I wasn’t reading. I joined Beeston Library and recovered my sanity. Interestingly, I struggle with TV and films because I have a poor memory for images, especially faces, so media which rely on visual images to hook a story together don’t work well for me.

So I don’t care whether or not I’m a “good” reader. I don't miss the visual and narrative forms of imagination – I’ve never had them so I don’t know what they are. I can imagine emotions and concepts and links between all sorts of things that other people don’t see, which means perhaps I don’t get the story in quite the same way when I read a book, but I certainly get plenty of enjoyment out of it. And that, after all, is what it’s all about!