Have you heard of Synesthesia?
You may have heard of the term “Synesthesia” through the pop star “Billie Eilish.” Eilish describes her songs as being certain colours and associates days of the week and numbers as being represented by a certain colour. I first became interested in this neurological condition when my daughter bought her first car! It was a lovely sky blue and she named her car “Maisy.” My son then responded by saying that her car could not be called “Maisy” as this was clearly a yellow colour. We were a little confused by this comment and after a series of questions we discovered that my son had colours for names and he could not understand that others did not do this. My son was 15 at the time and this was the first time that we realised that my son did this.
Today, I have watched a webinar with a journalist called “Tim Dickson” through www.nasen.org.uk. Here Dickson talks about how he has always associated numbers and letters as certain colours and the detail was fascinating even down to the shade and texture of a colour and visual drawing. He talked about being able to memorise phone numbers as he had a visual colour system in his mind. Dickson described how this visualisation and association helps him to spot spelling mistakes as there is a break in the colour system if the word is spelt incorrectly. He talked about this way of thinking as being largely positive in the sense that famous artists such as “Kandinsky” who could hear colours when listening to music were hugely successful. Synesthesia is believed to be a strength for those with a creative mind, allowing a person to think, feel and taste in colour and ultimately in promoting abstract thinking.
However, sensory overload can be the negative side and when a child walks into a colourful classroom with letters and numbers that do not match their own concept, then this can create a barrier for learning. As a teacher in the noughties, we were instructed to produce colourful displays and there was never a consideration that this could have a negative impact on neurodivergent students. Many students can become overwhelmed by a loud, busy and multisensory environment. Many children with Synesthesia are never identified as they individually assume that everybody sees, tastes or hears in colour. This is an important point; we must as educators get better at asking children about how they think. This condition is not officially classed as a disorder but can be understood as a trait of neurodivergence. I think the important thing for us to consider as teachers and parents should be that someone else’s perception of the world can be completely different to another person’s. We must communicate with empathy and curiosity.
