Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin
Mary Temple Grandinis an American professor of animal science at Colorado State University with autism, world-renowned autism spokesperson and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. She is widely celebrated as one of the first individuals on the autism spectrum to publicly share insights from her personal experience of autism. She is also the inventor of the "hug box", a device to calm those on the autism spectrum. In the 2010 Time 100, an annual list of the one...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth29 August 1947
CityBoston, MA
CountryUnited States of America
I studied a lot of animal behavior and one of the things I find really interesting is the whole idea that animals are sensory based thinkers and I wrote about this in my book, Animals in Translation. That an animal's memory is not in words, they've got to be in pictures - it's very detailed so let's say the animal gets afraid of something - they'll get afraid of something that they're looking at or hearing, the moment the bad thing happens.
I can remember being bullied and teased. It was absolutely horrible. I got kicked out of ninth grade for throwing a book at a girl who teased me. It was absolutely terrible.
I try to return my calls but I get inundated with emails and I can't answer them all. So often, I have to refer to them my webpage and the frequently asked questions or refer them to the books. But if they take the time to call me, I try to call back. You know, I am really busy, but just happened to have an hour in the hotel room and had some time before I have to meet some people about 20 minutes.
You gotta bleed 'em in 60 seconds or less.
I thought I could fix everything with engineering.
Junior high was a real mess for me and then came puberty. My anxiety attacks came during puberty, and then all of my nerves started.
One big question that's come up is: Has autism increased on the mild side of things? I don't think so - they've always been here. Some of this is increased detection.
It's much more work for the mother of an autistic child to have a job, because working with an autistic child is such a hassle until they go to school.
Costs for liability insurance are higher than costs for many procedures. There is a need to reform liability laws to stop out-of-control health care costs.
I would not be here now if I did not have anti-depressants.
I was expected to sit at the table, learn how to eat properly.
I like to cross the divide between the personal world and the scientific world.
Autistic children are very difficult to take care of, especially severely autistic ones. When I was 4, I had almost no language; when I was 3, I had none at all.
When I was in high school and college, I thought everybody could think in pictures. And my first inkling to my thinking was even different was when I was in college and I read an article about, you know, some scientist said that the caveman could not have designed tools until they had language.