Seeing the the World Differently: A Legacy of Visual Thinking and Neurodiverse Learning, Three Generation.

Jacqueline Hewitt-Main, OBE

Founder of The Cascade Foundation | Neurodiversity Advocate | Mother | Mentor

A Patterned Mind in a Verbal World

I’ve always known I was different. Not in a way that made me feel less — just other. I saw the world in patterns, puzzles, and sequences. My job has a manager I could walk into their shop, watch someone run it once, and replicate the entire routine the next day. Not because I memorized it, but because I saw it — like choreography unfolding in my mind.
That visual processing became my superpower. At university, while others struggled to connect theory with practice, I could instantly map academic concepts onto real-life scenarios — especially within prison rehabilitation.
Eventually, lecturers asked me to teach students how to bridge theory and lived experience. It was surreal. I wasn’t just learning; I was translating.

The Academic Barrier
Despite my strengths, the education system wasn’t built for minds like mine. The Wechsler Adult Reading Test required a reading age of 113 to pass a degree. Mine was 66. My spelling age hovered around 7–8 years. Yet I could read 98 CVC words in a minute, process visual information rapidly, and solve complex problems without needing words. But the moment I had to verbalize, my scores dropped to low average.
My son Richard faced different challenges. His working memory was poor, his reading comprehension age was 11 years and 6 months, and he struggled to read from the board — something I could do effortlessly. But he had stronger verbal foundations than I did, and with the right support, he could navigate school more effectively.

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Seeing the World Differently_ A Legacy of Visual Thinking and Neurodiverse Learning (pdf)