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Temple Grandin
(born August 29, 1947) is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. As a person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is also widely noted for her work in autism advocacy and is the inventor of the hug machine designed to calm hypersensitive persons.
The biography film starts off with Temple visiting her aunt for the summer and working on her ranch. Temple had always been fascinated by animals because they "thought like her" and she seems very interested in a device that hugs the cows to "gentle them". One day, while having a panic attack, Temple places herself in the device and it immediately calms her down.
When Temple first attended college, she was very nervous when she moved into her college dorm. Temple had another panic attack in her room, but her mother gave her space by closing the door. Immediately after, her mother had a flashback to when Temple was little and had relentless tantrums. Before that, Temple was diagnosed with classic autism, a severe case of autism in which she seemed aloof, lacked eye contact, had no language, and avoided human affection and touch. At this time, science classified autism as a form of schizophrenia, blaming mothers as the cause for the disorder and claiming that they were cold and aloof toward their autistic child, naming them "refrigerator mothers". The diagnostician suggested placing Temple in an institution. Temple's mother refused to listen to the diagnostician and helped Temple adapt to the everyday world. Her mother hired a speech therapist, who worked one-on-one with Temple and enabled her to acquire language.
Thinking in pictures
with 2006 Updates from the Expanded Edition
Chapter 1: Autism and Visual Thought
Dr. Temple Grandin
I THINK IN PICTURES. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult to understand, but in my job as an equipment designer for the livestock industry, visual thinking is a tremendous advantage.
Visual thinking has enabled me to build entire systems in my imagination. During my career I have designed all kinds of equipment, ranging from corrals for handling cattle on ranches to systems for handling cattle and hogs during veterinary procedures and slaughter. I have worked for many major livestock companies. In fact, one third of the cattle and hogs in the United States are handled in equipment I have designed. Some of the people I've worked for don't even know that their systems were designed by someone with autism. I value my ability to think visually, and I would never want to lose it.
One of the most profound mysteries of autism has been the remarkable ability of most autistic people to excel at visual spatial skills while performing so poorly at verbal skills. When I was a child and a teenager, I thought everybody thought in pictures. I had no idea that my thought processes were different. In fact, I did not realize the full extent of the differences until very recently. At meetings and at work I started asking other people detailed questions about how they accessed information from their memories. From their answers I learned that my visualization skills far exceeded those of most other people.
I credit my visualization abilities with helping me understand the animals I work with. Early in my career I used a camera to help give me the animals' perspective as they walked through a chute for their veterinary treatment. I would kneel down and take pictures through the chute from the cow's eye level. Using the photos, I was able to figure out which things scared the cattle, such as shadows and bright spots of sunlight. Back then I used black-and-white film, because twenty years ago scientists believed that cattle lacked color vision. Today, research has shown that cattle can see colors, but the photos provided the unique advantage of seeing the world through a cow's viewpoint. They helped me figure out why the animals refused to go in one chute but willingly walked through another.
TEMPLE GRANDIN MOVIE WINS 7 EMMY AWARDS!!
The very talented cast and crew of the HBO film Temple Grandin received most of the major awards in their catagory! It won for Best Made-for-Television Movie, Best Director, Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Music Composition, and Best Camera Editing at the 62nd Emmy Awards on Sunday August 29, 2010.
At the podium, the cast members humbly redirected the spotlight to Dr. Grandin herself, who attended the award ceremony with her mother, Eustacia Cutler. The movie’s director, Mick Jackson, said of Dr. Grandin, "She was an inspiration to all … and a hero to everyone in the autism world." Claire Danes, who portrayed Temple in the movie, said, “It was an honor to portray the life of this brilliant woman."
A conversation with temple grandin
FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow this is TALK OF THE NATION SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
FLATOW: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. For the rest of the hour, a look inside the often mysterious world of autism through the eyes of someone who has made a career out of overcoming the roadblocks the illness put in her way.
Temple Grandin doesn't see the world like most of us do. She does, she would say, see the world more like most animals: a place of fear without emotion where your thoughts come to you in pictures rather than in words.
Interview with Temple Grandin
Posted on Monday, January 02 @ 17:17:46 EST by
I recently had the amazing opportunity of speaking to the most well-known autistic individual in the world, Dr. Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin has appeared on the Today Show, Larry King Live, 48 hours, ABC's Primetime Live, and 20/20. She has been featured in publications such as Time Magazine, People Magazine, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and the New York Times. She is well-respected for desigining the majority of livestock facilities in the United States.
What follows is the transcript text of my video interview With Temple Grandin. A video and transcript of her FutureQuest keynote speech will be available in the future.