[jsonne]

You should look up a concept called "Gestalt Learning". I liken it to the "Eureka" effect that Thomas Edison talked about.

For any professional educators or other folks more familiar with this I am about to butcher this concept I am sure but my layman's understanding is the following. Basically rather than a bottom up approach to learning it's a top down approach where you see the whole picture first rather than each piece and then dance around it until you just "get it". Think of imagining a house and then learning about it until the entire house system makes sense. You might imagine the house, then learn a large "chunk" which is the foundation, then another chunk which is the plumbing, etc. etc. A more typical learning method might be you learn what a brick is and then you learn how they're put together, then you understand a wall, etc. etc. This style of learning is more common in folks on the ASD spectrum but isn't exclusive to ASD folks. I find for me I'll encounter a concept, then think on it periodically over some period of time until one day I just sort of "get it". It's not better or worse than other ways of learning but it just means you need to approach things differently to learn more efficiently.