Can you read maps?

[ems]

I've often said that asperger's is a condition of extremes. I seems that I am either hyper or hypo something and I'd say that's the case for most aspies I know as well.

One area where is seems that the stereotypcial aspie excels is in reading maps or taking in information in a tabular fashion. I am abysmal at both. And I just wondered if anyone else is the same.

Bus/Train time-tables make me anxious. They feel as if someone has thrown a load of data at me all at once. Strangely, I can probably help someone else make sense of a time-table, but when it comes to myself the anxiety makes everything jumbled. (I'm the same with budgeting. I can help you, but cannot do it myself.)

The other one is reading maps. I am just useless. If I had to do a journey on my own, I would have to pull over countless times to check how many more extra centimetres I had gone on the map and whether we were still on the right line. I'm not sure how much that is related to anxiety, but it feels like it is primarily as aspie thing as it is about the amount of info and only focusing on what counts.

Someone tell me I am not alone!

The last few sentences speak the truth

And no you're not alone

 

[Fitzo]

It is commonly believed that men are much better at maps than women because they developed better spacial awareness going back to being hunter gatherers.
I am personally lousy with maps and sense of direction.
However going by some of the replies on here maybe Aspie women are the exception - or not.....
That was no help at all

 

[Heron]

I believe in maps‼
Everything is a point in a kind of map.
That is, everything corresponds to a subset of another mapped image, since two maps always are mapped.
Often a point in a map corresponds to the empty set in another, but that is still something!

 

[WildCat]

Not world champion level by a longshot, but I'm fairly good with navigation and a map. Yes, I can and do make mistakes finding a good route, especially in the thick of traffic (what a nightmare that is), but usually it only takes me a time or two to memorize a good and efficient route.

Speaking of, maps were a huge interest of mine as a kid. Well before electronic GPS and Google started gaining ground, you had to rely on paper to get you where you needed to go. Had stacks of them along with a world globe, rest of the family thought it was odd but fortunately they were willing to go along with it. It was pure bliss to me getting lost in all the details.

 

[texkag]

I've often said that asperger's is a condition of extremes. I seems that I am either hyper or hypo something and I'd say that's the case for most aspies I know as well.

One area where is seems that the stereotypcial aspie excels is in reading maps or taking in information in a tabular fashion. I am abysmal at both. And I just wondered if anyone else is the same.

Bus/Train time-tables make me anxious. They feel as if someone has thrown a load of data at me all at once. Strangely, I can probably help someone else make sense of a time-table, but when it comes to myself the anxiety makes everything jumbled. (I'm the same with budgeting. I can help you, but cannot do it myself.)

The other one is reading maps. I am just useless. If I had to do a journey on my own, I would have to pull over countless times to check how many more extra centimetres I had gone on the map and whether we were still on the right line. I'm not sure how much that is related to anxiety, but it feels like it is primarily as aspie thing as it is about the amount of info and only focusing on what counts.

Someone tell me I am not alone!

This sounds very familiar to my issues. I can get lost while in possession of a sat-nav and map. If the sat-nav sends me in the wrong direction I struggle to find my way to the point of the departure. I cannot keep the image of the route in my head and struggle to keep track of the actual direction I'm driving in. I don't think it's a problem of visualization, I think it's more to do with poor short-term memory. Like you, I have to stop all the time to see where I am on the map. The problem seems to have gotten worse over the years. Even with places I am very familiar with, I can struggle to find my way if I haven't been there for a week or so; the memory fades that quickly.

 

[paloftoon]

I am good with maps personally, and thankful for my natural ability to do so. I was good with regular maps in like 3rd or 4th grade, and my parents had no idea. They thought they had to 'teach' me.

 

[dragoncat16]

I've always been good with maps, and, since I'm a scientist, I am also good at reading (and creating) tables of data, charts, graphs, etc. I think I have a natural ability for it, because when I was in grade 5, my map reading and similar skills were at 13th grade level. I also could find my way around unfamiliar places without a map, just by using my instincts and the location of the sun in the sky. Maybe it's a spatial relationships thing. I guess a person is either good at it or not, and maybe it has nothing to do with ASD.