Central coherence is NOT a term you hear every day (or, I’m guessing, ever). But it’s kind of a big deal if we’re talking about social communication. 

Central coherence refers to the ability to find meaning from a lot of little details. 

Most brains are wired to do this. Most brains are designed to find connections and make meaning from experiences.

Central coherence is the thing that allows us to:

See a forest rather than just a lot of trees;

See a car instead of just wheels, windows and doors;

See a black car, a church and people dressed in festive clothing and know that there’s likely a wedding happening; OR

See a black car, a church, and people dressed in dark, somber clothing and know that there’s likely a funeral happening.

Understand categories (and how seemingly disparate things are similar)

Understand the arc of a story instead of seeing a series of unrelated pictures in a book;

Realize why someone else is having the thought or feeling that they are having.

This gets a little wonky, so let me see if I can break it down.

In the “forest vs. trees” example, we don’t often think about this, but there is a step involved between seeing a bunch of trees and thinking “forest”: this step is Central Coherence. 

In the black car, church and people examples above - did you catch how just one little detail led to a different whole picture?

Now let’s take it up several levels in complexity.

In order to understand a conversation, we have to be able to understand the words and be able to pay attention to the words that someone is saying. With me so far? Ok.

But, in order to actually participate in the conversation, we have to know what the “gist” of the conversation is. Why we’re having the conversation. Why the other person is saying what they’re saying. How to weave in what we want to contribute into the conversation.

This is COMPLICATED STUFF!!!! It is a wonder that any of us can make ourselves understood by anyone else! Seriously.

I said this in an earlier post, but I really want to make this clear:

A problem with social communication (or with central coherence) is NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. 

It’s not that the person wants to disregard the threads that connect an idea or event. It’s that their brains can’t make meaning (or can’t make meaning well enough or fast enough) to serve them in the moment.

It’s about brain wiring.

[And, interestingly -- brains that are not wired for Central Coherence sometimes have an advantage over brains that are. Brains that are wired to see mostly details (without making meaning of these details) can spot errors in computer code, for example. They can spot small differences in patterns that someone who is only seeing the gist of the thing will not see. And while I don’t want to gloss over the difficulties that people with social communication issues face, I do want to say that it’s not all gloom and doom.]

We need brains of all types. We need people who are different from each other. It makes everyone’s lives richer.

We also want to help people who struggle with their brains. And this is where early intervention (and intervention in general) comes in. We can change the pathways that aren’t serving. Create pathways that do serve. And help kids who struggle overcome their social communication challenges while still honoring and respecting who they are in the world.