Vicky Katrin Kuhlmann

CumLaude

Department: Social Design
Website: vickykatrin.com

SORRY, I AM AN IMAGE THINKER

Dyslexia is the cognitive ability to process information through images, combined with a visual and experiential learning style. In my research I examined our education system, which is characterized by strategies for teaching word thinkers and neglects the potential of other ways of thinking. Such teaching is incomplete, since we know that we can think creatively in pictures, sound, abstract terms, movement, or in numbers. Words are not the beginning and end of learning, and I wish schools could involve all these important and rich ways of thinking.

For children I designed oversized play blocks in letter shapes, inspired by how dyslexics experience the alphabet in three dimensions. By playing with them children engage their whole bodies, memorizing the three dimensional letters as real objects. These objects present words as pictures and, essentially, utilize visual strategies rather than phonetic ones to introduce words. For adults I conceived a NIUSpaper that transmits information mainly through images. Together these designs lead us to consider the question: “if we embraced the vast potential of dyslexic brains how many Edisons would we have?”