I wrote an article on object blindness and context blindness and got this reply:

Oh My Goodness!!!
You have just explained why I hate tidying up especially my bedroom, when I neatly put things is drawers or baskets I cannot find them except sometimes by texture, so my clothes are usually on my bed where I can see them until I become so embarrassed i tidy up again and within three days when thing are all over the bed and chair It feels so right but know the habit is so wrong.
No I am not a teenager I am 50 years of age and trying desperately to be “normal” in a family who will not accept my differences, it’s like a life half lived, I think
Thanks heaps for the info
Jennifer

It seemed such a shame people like Jennifer have not been taught how to work further with visual agnosias so I told her how I set out my home and navigate life as a meaning blind person living in supported independence.
I wrote:

Hi Jennifer,

I have drawers which are mesh baskets so I can see what’s in them.
I also prefer kitchen shelves which are open so I can easily navigate the choices as I can’t access them in my head .

I have my kitchen in logical sequence, so if you walk in a circuit you’d come to food, then cooker, with utensils in the draw directly under the cooker and cooking stuff directly under that.  Above the cooker in open cupboards are crockery (for serving up).  Continuing clockwise are the cups (because the kettle is on the cooker) and next to that is the tea/coffee.  Next comes the sink and water, and following that the glasses cupboard (what you put water into).

My bedroom is similar, everything is en route in logical sequence so using it becomes a ‘walk through’.  Next to my bed are the underclothes – knickers, bras, socks in that order.  Next in the circuit are the mesh drawers and hanging clothes.  Then beyond that is the open shoe rack.  Voila, I’m dressed, production line style!

In the living room we have a ‘doing chair’ which has things put on it that require some kind of action out in the outside world (repairs, replacement, off to charity shop etc).

I learned to set things out like this around my teens, without which I had to rely on copying the action patterns of others.  I lived alone from age 15 so there was nobody to help me.  Its tough but necessity is a good teacher.

I hope you can show those who care about you the article on meaning blindness and this one so they can help you set up systems by which you can consistently find, recognise and sequence the use of things in your world.

I have written of meaning blindness in most of my 9 books, especially perhaps Like Colour To The Blind, Autism; An Inside Out Approach and The Jumbled Jigsaw but also in Nobody Nowhere, Somebody Somewhere, Everyday Heaven and Autism and Sensing and their are poems about it in the Jessica Kingsley publication of Not Just Anything.

Warmly,

Donna Williams
http://www.donnawilliams.net