# Do the congenitally deaf think in sign language?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-congenitally-deaf-think-in-sign-language/149544>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 18, 2003, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-congenitally-deaf-think-in-sign-language/149544 "2003-01-18T22:36:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-congenitally-deaf-think-in-sign-language/149544/41 "2003-02-09T03:39:17Z")

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There’s an interesting book called “Thinking in Pictures” by Temple Grandin, (an autistic who featured in Oliver Sacks book “An Anthropologist on Mars”) which deals with her autism, and the way people think. (I read it a while ago, so I’ll try to remember here)

In it, she compares her memory to a VCR, where everything is recorded, and is remembered by being re-played. After finding that most of the people trained in psycology and the arts could only imagine thinking in words, she also found that those she knew who were engineers and such thought often in concepts and physical structures.

Anyhow, that’s what this thread brought to mind, especially after \*\* js\_africanus\*\* and **Blalron** ’s posts. For the record, my room needs no words to describe my thoughts about it, save perhaps “Blaaa”.

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