Hi, I think you are already doing a marvelous job and have listened very carefully. She also has done exceedingly well in communicating her issues to you.

I too think in pictures and have also experienced some, minor, distress when noticing that words have taken over some areas of thought that were once occupied by pictures. One possible cause for the transition is my need to communicate verbally in my employment. I need to take pictorial memories of items and geographic locations and convey them, along with instructions, in a very precise manner using radio communication. I am very attached to my ability to think in three dimensional geometric space and the high level clarity in which I can do this. To have this clouded, or crowded, by words is distressing. These pictorial thoughts are like friends.

What might help is to provide an oasis of pictorial thought. The kind that can't easily be substituted with words. Some examples for me are to plan or design things, physical things. I might lie in bed planning how I'm going to install a garden bed, the plants required, orientation to the sun, reticulation requirements and exactly what components and fittings are required. I might think about all my tools that I require and the colour schemes and how the finished product might look. I think you get the idea. Solving problems is good too. I might have a broken fitting on my cast iron BBQ burner. Cast iron is difficult to weld and I don't have the necessary welding equipment, it also has other challenging properties different to normal steel. So how am I going to fix this object in a durable and safe manner. So try finding some tasks that are appropriate to her interests that require a high level of pictorial thought. Provide her with a comfortable environment free of distraction to do this.

A final comment. We had a 20yr old Japanese girl staying with us for two weeks. She was studying teaching and worked at our sons' school. She had learned English since age 14 but never used it to talk to English speaking people. Now she was emersed in an English speaking culture and had no option but to converse in English. I remember asking about this and how she was coping. She said that it made her very tied and her brain felt overloaded. She also spent long periods in her room and resting. This was her oasis to unwind and recover from communicating in a foreign language. She also had lengthy phone calls in Japanese to her friends. Without this retreat she would have burned out. We are all wired differently but every-ones brain/mind needs a place of comfort and familiarity.

She needs to use words, that's basically unavoidable, but if you could reassure her that she doesn't have to lose he pictures then that could make all the difference. Try and restore some of her pictures.