From the article: "If I ask you to think through a problem you don’t think in symbols, numbers, or any other representation. You think in words, and therefore your ability to think relies on your ability to deploy words. "
Author hasn't done his homework. The belief thoughts = words has been well-debunked. The first hit from a lazy Google search is a Scientific American article all about it, helpfully titled 'You Don't Need Words to Think".
https://archive.ph/KjJ1R
Or, if you like scientific papers better, see "Language and thought are not the same thing: evidence from neuroimaging and neurological patients"
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4874898/
