Islands of Genius by Peter Leed

Author:Peter Leed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

CHAPTER 13

Temple: “An Emergence Extraordinaire”

Dr. Temple Grandin is well known around the world. She has become an extremely valuable and articulate ambassador for raising awareness of, information about, and insight into autism and Asperger syndrome as she shares the story of her own “emergence labeled autistic,” as she calls it, through the years. She is a fierce advocate for “training the talent” and provides a stellar example and role model of the success of that strategy for anyone with autism or Asperger syndrome.

Temple Grandin is also known equally well around the world as a leading animal scientist with special expertise on the design of animal handling facilities; she lectures and consults worldwide on this topic. One-half of the cattle in the United States are handled in equipment she has designed for meat plants. Temple obtained her PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989 and presently is a professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her book, Animals in Translation (Grandin and Johnson 2005) was a New York Times bestseller and she has several hundred industry-related publications in addition to winning numerous industry awards.

Temple attributes much of her success as a livestock facility designer to her ability to think visually—Thinking in Pictures as she calls it in her very insightful and popular book on that topic (Grandin 2006)—coupled with an extraordinary ability to recognize and remember detail in tape recorder or hard-disk-like, digital image fashion. Her visual thinking patterns, abilities and memory are closely linked, she feels, to her autism. Mechanical/spatial skills, coupled with massive, literal memory of the type that Temple demonstrates, do occur in savant syndrome in some persons, along with the more frequently reported art, music and math skills.

Temple maintains a very active website on these animal science matters at www.grandin.com. That website is devoted to “help educate people throughout the world about modern methods of livestock handling which will improve animal welfare and productivity.” She spends a great deal of her time lecturing, consulting, writing and doing research in this area of her special expertise.

In addition to her heavy schedule in that specialized vocational area, Temple has been equally engaged in sharing her story, and her expertise, about autism with audiences around the world. She lectures frequently at autism conferences and has written extensively on that topic as well as providing valuable insights and advice to parents, professionals and the public, based on the unique credential of her own personal journey with autism.

Temple Grandin first shared her story of autism in 1986 in her book Emergence Labeled Autistic (Grandin and Scariano 1986). Dr. Bernard Rimland captured the significance and mission of that book well in his Foreword:

To my knowledge this is the first book written by a recovered autistic individual. It is an exciting book. The readers share the adventure of growing from an extremely handicapped child who appeared to be destined for permanent institutionalization to a vigorous, productive and respected adult who is a world authority in her field. (Grandin and Scariano 1986, p.

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