Mary Temple Grandin (born August 29, 1947) is an American academic, inventor, and ethologist. She is a prominent proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior, and is also an autism spokesperson.[2]
Grandin is one of the first autistic people to document the insights she gained from her personal experiences with autism. She is a faculty member with Animal Sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Colorado State University.
In 2010, Time 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, named her in the "Heroes" category.[3] She was the subject of the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning biographical film Temple Grandin. Grandin has been an outspoken proponent of autism rights and neurodiversity movements.
Mary Temple Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a wealthy family. One of the family's employees was also named Mary, so Grandin was referred to by her middle name, Temple, to avoid confusion.[4] Temple's mother is Anna Eustacia Purves (later Cutler), an actress, singer, and granddaughter of John Coleman Purves (co-inventor of the aviation autopilot). She has a degree in English from Harvard University.[5] Temple's father was Richard McCurdy Grandin,[6][7] a real estate agent and heir to the largest corporate wheat farm business in the United States at the time, Grandin Farms.[8] Grandin's parents divorced when she was 15, and her mother eventually went on to marry Ben Cutler, a New York saxophonist,[9] in 1965, when Grandin was 18 years old. Grandin's father died in California in 1993.[6]
Grandin has three younger siblings: two sisters and a brother. Grandin has described one of her sisters as being dyslexic. Her younger sister is an artist, her other sister is a sculptor, and her brother is a banker.[8][10]John Livingston Grandin (Temple's paternal great-grandfather) and his brother William James Grandin were French Huguenots who drilled for oil. John Grandin intended to cut a deal with John D. Rockefeller in a meeting, but the latter kept him waiting so long that he walked out before Rockefeller arrived. The brothers then went into banking, and when Jay Cooke's firm collapsed, they received thousands of acres of undeveloped land in North Dakota as debt collateral. They set up wheat farming in the Red River Valley and housed the workers in dormitories. The town of Grandin, North Dakota, is named after John Livingston Grandin.[5][11]
Grandin was not formally diagnosed with autism until her adulthood. When she was two, the only formal diagnosis given to her was "brain damage",[13][14] a finding finally dismissed through cerebral imaging at the University of Utah by the time she turned 63 in 2010.[15] While Grandin was still in her mid-teens, her mother chanced upon a diagnostic checklist for autism. After reviewing the checklist, Grandin's mother hypothesised that Grandin's symptoms were best explained by the disorder. Grandin was later determined to be an autistic savant.[13][16][17][18][19]
Early childhood
When Grandin was a toddler, the medical advice at the time for a diagnosis like hers was to recommend institutionalization,[20] a measure that caused a bitter rift of opinion between Grandin's parents. Her father was keen to follow this advice, while her mother was strongly opposed to the idea.[21]
Grandin's mother took her to the world's leading special needs researchers at the Boston Children's Hospital, with the hope of finding an alternative to institutionalization. Grandin's mother eventually found a neurologist who suggested a trial of speech therapy. A speech therapist was hired and Grandin received personalized training from the age of two and a half.[22] Her mother later hired a nanny when she was aged three and a half to play turn taking games with Temple and her sister. Grandin started kindergarten in Dedham Country Day School. Her teachers and classmates tried to create an environment to accommodate Grandin's needs and sensitivities.
Grandin considers herself fortunate to have had supportive mentors from elementary school onward. Even so, Grandin states that junior high and high school were the most unpleasant times of her life.[23]
Middle school and high school
Grandin attended Beaver Country Day School from seventh to ninth grade. She was expelled at the age of 14 for throwing a book at a schoolmate who taunted her. Grandin described herself as the "nerdy kid" whom everyone ridiculed. She has described occasions when she walked down the hallway and her fellow students kept calling her a "tape recorder" because she would perseverate. Grandin stated in 2012, "I could laugh about it now, but back then it really hurt."[24]
The year after her expulsion, Grandin's parents divorced. Three years later, Grandin's mother married Ben Cutler, a New York saxophonist.[9] At 15 Grandin spent a summer on the Arizona ranch of Ben Cutler's sister, Ann, and this would become a formative experience toward her subsequent career interest.
Several reports and sources cited the different names of the schools Grandin attended: Beaver Country Day School or Cherry Falls Girls' School (the latter named in her first book, Emergence: Labeled Autistic); and Hampshire Country School or Mountain Day School (the latter called by Grandin in the early books). Following her expulsion from Beaver Country Day School, Grandin's mother enrolled her at Hampshire Country School in Rindge, New Hampshire. That school was founded in 1948 by Boston child psychologist, Henry Patey, for the students of "exceptional potential (gifted) that have not been successful in a typical setting". She was accepted there and became Winter Carnival Queen and captain of the hockey team. At HCS, Grandin met William Carlock, a science teacher who had worked for NASA, who became her mentor and helped her significantly toward building up her self-confidence.[25]
It was Carlock who encouraged Grandin to develop her idea to build her squeeze machine (hug box) when she returned from her aunt's farm in Arizona in her senior year of high school.[25] At the age of 18 when she was still attending Hampshire Country School, with Carlock's and school owner/founder Henry Patey's support, Grandin built the hug box.[26] Carlock's supportive role in Grandin's life continued even after she left Hampshire Country School. As a favor to Henry Patey, the President of the newly founded Franklin Pierce College (5 miles from Hampshire Country School) agreed to accept Temple as a student without the typical records and files of a typical High School student. When Grandin was facing criticism for her hug box at Franklin Pierce College, it was Carlock who suggested that Grandin undertake scientific experiments to evaluate the efficacy of the device.[25] It was his constant guidance to Grandin to refocus the rigid obsessions she experienced with the hug box into a productive assignment that subsequently allowed this study undertaken by Grandin to be widely cited as evidence of Grandin's resourcefulness.
Steve Silberman, in his book NeuroTribes, wrote that Grandin helped break down years of shame and stigma because she was one of the first adults to publicly disclose that she was autistic. Bernard Rimland, a father of an autistic son and author of the book Infantile Autism, wrote the foreword to Grandin's first book Emergence: Labeled Autistic. Her book was published in 1986. Rimland wrote "Temple's ability to convey to the reader her innermost feelings and fears, coupled with her capacity for explaining mental processes will give the reader an insight into autism that very few have been able to achieve."
In Developing Talents, 2nd Edition, Grandin explores many unnoticed aspects of vocational rehabilitation programs that provide job training and placement for people with disabilities, as well as Social Security Administration programs that offer vocational assistance.
In her later book, Thinking in Pictures, published in 1995, the neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote at the end of the foreword that the book provided "a bridge between our world and hers, and allows us to glimpse into a quite other sort of mind."
In her early writings, Grandin characterized herself as a recovered autistic and, in his foreword, Bernard Rimland used the term recovered autistic individual. In her later writings, she has abandoned this characterization. Steve Silberman wrote, "It became obvious to her, however, that she was not recovered but had learned with great effort to adapt to the social norms of the people around her."
Grandin has said that when her book Thinking in Pictures was published in 1995, she thought that all individuals with autism thought in photographic-specific images the way she did. By the time the expanded edition was published in 2006, she had realized that it had been wrong to presume that every person with autism processed information in the same way she did. In the 2006 edition, she wrote that there were three types of specialized thinking. They were: 1. Visual Thinkers like she is, who think in photographically specific images. 2. Music and Math Thinkers – who think in patterns and may be good at mathematics, chess, and programming computers. 3. Verbal Logic Thinkers – who think in word details, and she noted that their favorite subject may be history.
In one of her later books, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum, the concept of three different types of thinking by autistic individuals is expanded. This book was published in 2013. An influential book that helped her to develop her concept of pattern thinking was Clara Claiborne Park's book entitled Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter's Life with Autism. It was published in 2001. The Autistic Brain also contains an extensive review of scientific studies that provide evidence that object-visual thinking is different from spatial-visualization abilities.
Grandin became well-known beyond the American autistic community, after being described by Oliver Sacks in the title narrative of his book An Anthropologist on Mars (1995), for which he won a Polk Award. The title is derived from Grandin's characterization of how she feels around neurotypical people. In the mid-1980s Grandin first spoke in public about autism at the request of Ruth C. Sullivan, one of the founders of the Autism Society of America (ASA). Sullivan writes:
I first met Temple in the mid-1980s [at the] annual [ASA] conference. Standing on the periphery of the group was a tall young woman who was obviously interested in the discussions. She seemed shy and pleasant, but mostly she just listened. I learned her name was Temple Grandin. It wasn't until later in the week that I realized she was someone with autism. I approached her and asked if she'd be willing to speak at the next year's [ASA] conference. She agreed. The next year Temple first addressed an [ASA] audience. People were standing at least three deep. The audience couldn't get enough of her. Here, for the first time, was someone who could tell us from her own experience, what it was like to be extremely sound sensitive ("like being tied to the rail and the train's coming"). She was asked many questions: "Why does my son do so much spinning?" "Why does he hold his hands to his ears?" "Why doesn't he look at me?" She spoke from her own experience, and her insight was impressive. There were tears in more than one set of eyes that day. Temple quickly became a much sought-after speaker in the autism community.[27]
Based on personal experience, Grandin advocates early intervention to address autism and supportive teachers, who can direct fixations of the child with autism in fruitful directions. She has described her hypersensitivity to noise and other sensory stimuli. She says words are her second language and that she thinks "totally in pictures", using her vast visual memory to translate information into a mental slideshow of images that may be manipulated or correlated.[28] Grandin attributes her success as a humane livestock facility designer to her ability to recall detail, which is a characteristic of her visual memory. Grandin compares her memory to full-length movies in her head, that may be replayed at will, allowing her to notice small details. She also is able to view her memories using slightly different contexts by changing the positions of the lighting and shadows.
As a proponent of neurodiversity, Grandin does not support eliminating autism genes entirely or treating mildly-autistic individuals.[14][29] However, she believes that autistic children who are severely disabled and nonverbal need therapies "like [ applied behavioral analysis] [...] to function",[14] and stated in her book, Thinking in Pictures, "In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive."[30]
In March of every year, Grandin hosts a public event at Boston University.[31] The event was cancelled in March 2020 due to COVID-19.[32]
Handling livestock
In 1980 Grandin published her first two scientific articles on beef cattle behavior during handling: "Livestock Behavior as Related to Handling Facilities Design" in the International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems, Vol. 1, pp. 33–52 and "Observations of Cattle Behavior Applied to the Design of Cattle Handling Facilities", Applied Animal Ethology, Vol. 6, pp. 19–31. She was one of the first scientists to report that animals are sensitive to visual distractions in handling facilities such as shadows, dangling chains, and other environmental details that most people do not notice. When she was awarded her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, she studied the effects of environmental enrichment on pigs. The title of her dissertation was "Effect of Rearing Environment and Environmental Enrichment on the Behavior and Neural Development in Young Pigs". Grandin expanded her theories in her book, Animals Make Us Human.
In 1993, she edited the first edition of Livestock Handling and Transport. Grandin wrote three chapters and included chapters from contributors from around the world. Subsequent editions of the book were published in 2000, 2007, 2014, 2019, and 2024. In her academic work as a professor at Colorado State University, her graduate student Bridgett Voisinet conducted one of the early studies that demonstrated that cattle who remained calm during handling had higher weight gains. In 1997, when the paper was published, this was a new concept. The paper is entitled, "Feedlot Cattle with Calm Temperaments Have Higher Average Daily Gains Than Cattle with Excitable Temperaments", published in The Journal of Animal Science, Vol. 75, pp. 892–896.
Another important paper published by Grandin was, "Assessment of Stress During Handling and Transport", Journal of Animal Science, 1997, Vol. 75, pp. 249–257. This paper presented the concept that an animal's previous experiences with handling could have an effect on how it will react to being handled in the future, as a new concept in the animal-handling industry.
A major piece of equipment that Grandin developed was a center track (double rail) conveyor restrainer system for holding cattle during stunning at large beef slaughtering plants. The first system was installed in the mid-1980s for calves and a system for large beef cattle was developed in 1990. This system is used by many large meat companies. It is described in "Double Rail Restrainer Conveyor for Livestock Handling", first published in the Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, Vol. 4, pp. 327–338 in 1988, and "Transferring results of behavioral research to industry to improve animal welfare on the farm, ranch, and slaughter plant", Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 8, pp. 215–228, published in 2003.
Grandin also developed an objective, numerical scoring system for assessing animal welfare at slaughtering plants. The use of this scoring system resulted in significant improvements in animal stunning and handling during slaughter. This work is described in "Objective scoring of animal handling and stunning practices in slaughter plants", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 212, pp. 3–39, "The feasibility of using vocalization scoring as an indicator of poor welfare during slaughter", Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 56, pp.121–128, and "Effect of animal welfare audits of slaughter plants by a major fast food company on cattle handling and stunning practices", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 216, pp.848–851.
In 2008, Grandin published Humane Livestock Handling[33] with contributions by Mark Deesing, a long time collaborator with her. The book contains a review of the main aspects of cattle behavior and provides a visual guide in the form of construction plans and diagrams for the implementation of Grandin's ideas relating to humane livestock handling. Many of her contributions to the field of handling livestock and the design of livestock handling systems advocated for in her books are available through her website as well.[citation needed] Grandin helped design animal processing plants at the White Oak Pastures organic farm in Bluffton, Georgia.[34]
Other scientific contributions
Grandin is the author or co-author of more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers on a variety of other animal behavior subjects. Some of the other subjects are the effect of hair whorl position on cattle behavior, the influence of stress prior to slaughter upon meat quality, religious slaughter, mothering behavior of beef cows, cattle temperament, and causes of bruising.
Grandin has lectured widely about her first-hand experiences of the anxiety of feeling threatened by everything in her surroundings, and of being dismissed and feared, which motivates her work in humane livestock handling processes. She studied the behavior of cattle, how they react to ranchers, movements, objects, and light. Grandin then designed curved corrals she adapted with the intention of reducing stress, panic, and injury in animals being led to slaughter. This has proved to be a further point of criticism and controversy among animal activists who have questioned the congruence of a career built on animal slaughter alongside Grandin's claims of compassion and respect for animals. While her designs are widely used throughout the slaughterhouse industry, her claim of compassion for the animals is that because of her autism she can see the animals' reality from their viewpoint, that when she holds an animal's head in her hands as it is being slaughtered, she feels a deep connection to them.[35]
Her business website promotes the improvement of standards for slaughterhouses and livestock farms.
Temple Grandin giving a speech on "pink slime" for the National Association of College and University Food Services 2013 National Conference in Minneapolis
One of her notable essays about animal welfare is "Animals Are Not Things",[37] in which she posits that technically, animals are property in society, but the law ultimately gives them ethical protections or rights. She compares the properties and rights of owning cattle, versus owning screwdrivers, enumerating how both may be used to serve human purposes in many ways, but when it comes to inflicting pain, there is a vital distinction between such "properties", because legally, a person can smash or grind up a screwdriver, but cannot torture an animal.
Her insight into the minds of cattle has taught her to value the changes in details to which animals are particularly sensitive and to use her visualization skills to design thoughtful and humane animal-handling equipment. She was named a fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in 2009.[38]
In 2012, when the American beef industry was struggling with public perception of its use and sale of pink slime, Grandin spoke out in support of the food product. She said, "It should be on the market. It should be labeled. We should not be throwing away that much beef."[39]
Grandin's work has attracted the attention of philosophers interested in the moral status of animals. Andy Lamey has argued that while Grandin's method of slaughter is a significant positive development for animals, her attempts to formulate a moral defense of meat-eating have been less successful.[40]
I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animals respect.
Grandin says that "the part of other people that has emotional relationships is not part of me", and she has neither married nor had children. She later stated that she preferred the science fiction, documentary, and thriller genre of films and television shows to more dramatic or romantic ones. Beyond her work in animal science and welfare and autism rights, her interests include horseback riding, science fiction, movies, and biochemistry.
She has noted in her autobiographical works that autism affects every aspect of her life. Grandin has to wear comfortable clothes to counteract her sensory processing disorder and has structured her lifestyle to avoid sensory overload. She regularly takes antidepressants, but no longer uses her squeeze machine,[26] stating in February 2010 that: "It broke two years ago, and I never got around to fixing it. I'm into hugging people now."[42]
When she was in boarding school, Grandin chose to live a celibate life and, in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 2013, stated, "Now I'm old enough to where sexual urges are all gone, and it's like, good riddance."[43]
Grandin was featured in Beautiful Minds: A Voyage Into the Brain, a documentary produced in 2006 by Colourfield Tell-A-Vision, a German company. She was named one of 2010's one hundred most influential people in the world by Time magazine.[3] In 2011, she was featured in an episode of the Science documentary series Ingenious Minds. In 2018, Grandin was featured in the documentary This Business of Autism, which explored autism employment and the success story of autism employers such as Spectrum Designs Foundation and was produced by Mesh Omnimedia.[65]
Folk-punk band AJJ, formerly known as Andrew Jackson Jihad, included two songs called "Temple Grandin" and "Temple Grandin Too" on their LP Christmas Island. In 2017, Grandin was the focus of a children's book by author Julia Finlay Mosca titled The Girl Who Thought In Pictures, A Story of Temple Grandin.[67]
In 2018, Grandin was profiled in the book Rescuing Ladybugs[68] by author and animal advocate Jennifer Skiff as a "global hero" for "standing her ground and fighting for change after witnessing the extreme mistreatment of animals" used in farming.[69] In 2023, I am Temple Grandin was added to the children's book series known as "Ordinary People Change the World" by author Brad Meltzer and illustrator Chris Eliopoulos. The show Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum on PBS, based on this book series, featured Grandin in Season 2, Episode 9 "James Naismith / Temple Grandin."[70][71] In 2024, Grandin was profiled in a biographical chapter bearing her name in the book Don't Mourn for Us: The Autistic Life of Jim Sinclair and an Extraordinary Story of Neurodiversity, and was described as "the superstar of the autism community."[72]
Publications
Books
Emergence: Labeled Autistic (with Margaret Scariano, 1986, updated 1991), ISBN0-446-67182-7
The Learning Style of People with Autism: An Autobiography (1995). In Teaching Children with Autism: Strategies to Enhance Communication and Socialization, Kathleen Ann Quill, ISBN0-8273-6269-2
Thinking in Pictures: Other Reports from My Life with Autism (1996) ISBN0-679-77289-8
Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism (2004). ISBN1-931282-56-0
The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism (with Sean Barron, 2005), ISBN1-932565-06-X
Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals, Second Edition (with Mark Deesing, 2013), ISBN978-0-12-394586-0
Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor (2018) ISBN1524738204
The Loving Push: How Parents and Professionals Can Help Spectrum Kids Become Successful Adults (with Debra Moore Ph.D., 2016), ISBN978-1941765203
Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions (2022) ISBN0593418360
Navigating Autism: 9 Mindsets For Helping Kids on the Spectrum (with Debra Moore, Ph.D., 2021). ISBN 978-0393714845
Selected academic works
Grandin, T. 1989 (Updated 1999). "Behavioral Principles of Livestock Handling". Professional Scientist. December 1989 (pages 1–11).
Grandin, T. 1994. "Euthanasia and Slaughter of Livestock". Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association. Volume 204:1354–1360.
Grandin, T. 1995. "Restraint of Livestock. Proceedings: Animal Behaviour Design of Livestock and Poultry Systems" International Conference (pages 208–223). Published by: Northeast Regional Agriculture Engineering Service. Cooperative Extension. 152 Riley – Robb Hall, Ithaca, New York, 14853 USA.
Grandin, T. 1996. "Factors That Impede Animal Movement at Slaughter Plants". Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 209 No.4:757–759.
Grandin, T. 2001. "Cattle vocalizations are associated with handling and equipment problems at beef slaughter plants". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Volume 71, 2001, Pg. 191–201.
Grandin, T. 2013. "Making slaughterhouses more humane for cattle, pigs, and sheep". Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 1:491–512.
In livestock agriculture and the meat industry, a slaughterhouse, also called an abattoir, is a facility where livestock animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a meat-packing facility.
Donna Leanne Williams, also known by her married name Donna Leanne Samuel and as Polly Samuel, was an Australian writer, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter, and sculptor.
Exsanguination is the loss of blood from the circulatory system of a vertebrate, usually leading to death. The word comes from the Latin 'sanguis', meaning blood, and the prefix 'ex-', meaning 'out of'.
In Judaism, shechita is ritual slaughtering of certain mammals and birds for food according to kashrut. One who practices this, a kosher butcher is called a shochet.
The autism rights movement, also known as the autistic acceptance movement, is a social movement allied with the disability rights movement. It emphasizes the neurodiversity paradigm, viewing autism as a set of naturally occurring variations in human cognition, a disability with both strengths and weaknesses, rather than as a disease to be cured or a medical disorder. This paradigm contradicts and diverges from the medical model of disability, without opposing all aspects of it.
A hug machine, also known as a hug box, a squeeze machine, or a squeeze box, is a therapeutic device designed to calm hypersensitive persons, usually individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The device was invented by Temple Grandin to administer deep-touch pressure, a type of physical stimulation often self-administered by autistic individuals as a means of self-soothing.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to autism:
A cattle prod, also called a stock prod or a hot stick, is a handheld device commonly used to make cattle or other livestock move by striking or poking them. An electric cattle prod is a stick with electrodes on the end which is used to make cattle move via a relatively high-voltage, low-current electric shock. The electric cattle prod is said to have been invented by Texas cattle baron Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. of the King Ranch around 1930, although versions were sold as early as 1917.
The Humane Slaughter Act, or the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act, is a United States federal law designed to decrease suffering of livestock during slaughter. It was approved on August 27, 1958. The most notable of these requirements is the need to have an animal completely sedated and insensible to pain. This is to minimize the suffering to the point where the animal feels nothing at all, instead blacking out and never waking. This differs from animal to animal as size increases and decreases. Larger animals such as bovines require a stronger method than chickens, for example. Bovines require electronarcosis or something equally potent, though electronarcosis remains a standard. The bovine would have a device placed on their head that, once activated, sends an electric charge that efficiently and safely stuns them. Chickens, on the other hand, require much less current to be efficiently sedated and are given a run under electrically charged water. To ensure that these guidelines are met, the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors at slaughtering plants are responsible for overseeing compliance, and have the authority to stop slaughter lines and order plant employees to take corrective actions. Although more than 168 million chickens and around 9 billion broiler chickens are killed for food in the United States yearly, the Humane Slaughter Act specifically mentions only cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep and swine.
Ruth Christ Sullivan was an American organizer and advocate for education for people with autism.
Autistic art is artwork created by autistic artists that captures or conveys a variety of autistic experiences. According to a 2021 article in Cognitive Processing, autistic artists with improved linguistic and communication skills often show a greater degree of originality and attention to detail than their neurotypical counterparts, with a positive correlation between artistic talent and high linguistic functioning. Autistic art is often considered outsider art. Art by autistic artists has long been shown in separate venues from artists without disabilities. The works of some autistic artists have featured in art publications and documentaries and been exhibited in mainstream galleries. Although autistic artists seldom received formal art education in the past, recent inclusivity initiatives have made it easier for autistic artists to get a formal college education. The Aspergers/Autism Network's AANE Artist Collaborative is an example of an art organization for autistic adults.
Societal and cultural aspects of autism or sociology of autism come into play with recognition of autism, approaches to its support services and therapies, and how autism affects the definition of personhood. The autistic community is divided primarily into two camps: the autism rights movement and the pathology paradigm. The pathology paradigm advocates for supporting research into therapies, treatments, and/or a cure to help minimize or remove autistic traits, seeing treatment as vital to help individuals with autism, while the neurodiversity movement believes autism should be seen as a different way of being and advocates against a cure and interventions that focus on normalization, seeing it as trying to exterminate autistic people and their individuality. Both are controversial in autism communities and advocacy which has led to significant infighting between these two camps. While the dominant paradigm is the pathology paradigm and is followed largely by autism research and scientific communities, the neurodiversity movement is highly popular among most autistic people, within autism advocacy, autism rights organizations, and related neurodiversity approaches have been rapidly growing and applied in the autism research field in the last few years.
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior is a 2005 book by Temple Grandin and co-written by Catherine Johnson. Animals in Translation explores the similarity between animals and people with autism, a concept that was originally touched upon in Grandin's 1995 book Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism.
Cattle are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Mature female cattle are called cows and mature male cattle are bulls. Young female cattle are called heifers, young male cattle are oxen or bullocks, and castrated male cattle are known as steers.
Temple Grandin is a 2010 American biographical drama television film directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, an autistic woman whose innovations revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouses. It is based on Grandin's memoirs Emergence and Thinking in Pictures.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) or autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) describe a range of conditions classified as neurodevelopmental disorders in the DSM-5, used by the American Psychiatric Association. As with many neurodivergent people and conditions, the popular image of autistic people and autism itself is often based on inaccurate media representations. Additionally, media about autism may promote pseudoscience such as vaccine denial or facilitated communication.
Thinking in Pictures is a psychologically-focused autobiography written and largely edited by Temple Grandin. First published in 1995, it documents much of her life with autism. Grandin is often labeled as having "high functioning" autism; having published literary works and academic articles in addition to working as a professor and lecturer of animal science. The title, Thinking in Pictures, comes from Grandin's analogy of her method of thought processing; she states that words come as a second language to her. Though Grandin sees the world differently than most, her firm belief on being "different, but not less" and daily intent of self-preservation manifest clearly throughout her writing. Many instances in the book recount her work on cattle farms and how she sees images in her mind of prototypes of machines and edits them before building even occurs. In addition to explaining her work with cattle, Grandin incorporates information on aspects of autism like diagnostic criteria, common misconceptions, and treatment alternatives throughout her book.
David Christopher Miedzianik is an English autistic poet and writer. His writings portray the more difficult aspects of autism. Additionally, most of his poems focus on social difficulties that he experiences. He is unemployed, but writes about how he wants to work and find love. Miedzianik writes about specific examples pertaining to those desires. Miedzianik's works have been extensively analyzed by noted autism researchers, who describe his writing as thoughtful, sophisticated, and displaying an unusually strong awareness of his social difficulties.
The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum is a 2013 nonfiction popular science book written by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It discusses Grandin's life experiences as a person with autism from the early days of scientific research on the topic and how advances in technology have revolutionized the understanding of autism and its connection to the brain.
Equine-assisted therapy or equine-assisted therapy on autistic people is a therapy using a mediating horse or pony. A session can take place on foot or on horseback. Equine-assisted therapy is one of the few animal-assisted therapies regularly studied for its effectiveness, and the most popular of all autism therapies.
↑ Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota (1990). The WPA Guide To 1930s North Dakota (2nded.). State Historical Society of North Dakota. pp.193–194. ISBN978-1891419140.
↑ "ASABE Fellows"(PDF). American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). Archived from the original(PDF) on October 30, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
↑ Andy Lamey, "The Animal Ethics of Temple Grandin: A Protectionist Analysis", The Journal Of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 32 Issue 1, 2019. Open access version at https://philpapers.org/rec/LAMTAE-2Archived August 8, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
↑ "Temple Grandin". Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. December 6, 2013. Archived from the original on July 16, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
↑ "Temple Grandin". Western Heritage from the Texas Trail of Fame. June 14, 2013. Archived from the original on July 3, 2019. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
↑ "Hall of Great Westerners". National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Archived from the original on April 19, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
↑ Klinkenborg, Verlyn (May 1, 2005). "What Do Animals Think?". Discover Magazine. Archived from the original on April 22, 2019. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
↑ Harris, Will (April 2, 2010). "A Chat with Temple Grandin". premiumhollywood.com. Archived from the original on July 12, 2019. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
↑ Mosca, Julia (2017). The Girl Who Thought In Pictures, The story of Temple Grandin. Innovation Press. ISBN9781943147304. OCLC966575841.
↑ Skiff, Jennifer (2018). Rescuing Ladybugs: Inspirational Encounters with Animals That Changed the World. New World Library. ISBN9781608685028.
↑ Skiff, Jennifer (2018). Rescuing Ladybugs: Inspirational Encounters with Animals That Changed the World. New World Library. p.170. ISBN9781608685028.
↑ Dinh, Ann (2024). "Temple Grandin". Don't Mourn for Us: The Autistic Life of Jim Sinclair and an Extraordinary Story of Neurodiversity. ISBN979-8338157381.
Further reading
Oliver Sacks, An anthropologist on Mars, The New Yorker, 1993, and later in An anthropologist on Mars: Seven paradoxical tales, Vintage Books, Penguin Random House, LLC, New York, 1996, ISBN9780345805881.
Andy Lamey, "The Animal Ethics of Temple Grandin: A Protectionist Analysis", The Journal Of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 32 Issue 1, 2019.
Temple Did It, and I Can Too!: Seven Simple Life Rules by Jennifer Gilpin Yacio
The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca
How to Build a Hug: Temple Grandin and her Amazing Squeeze Machine by Amy Guglielmo
Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
