I have heard that aphantasia and other visuospatial sketchpad challenges are sometimes co-present with autism, and anecdotally I’ve observed something of a trend among my autistic friends. Apparently it’s also borne out by at least some research (e.g.):
I don’t think this suggests that one is necessarily a consequent of the other (Temple Grandin, for instance, once described mind as a "search engine that searches for photographs) (*). But it is interesting to ponder these co-occurrences.
(* Regarding the diversity of the autistic experience, there’s a saying in the autistic community: “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”)
