This is
the first in a series of guest articles from Autism Care UK
looking at a famous faces across the autism spectrum,
both current and historical. This first article looks at Temple Grandin.
Who is Temple Grandin?
There are
a number of famous people with autism, and deciding where to start this series
was a tough challenge. However we opted for Temple Grandin, because there are
not many people can say that they have had an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award
winning film made about them and their experiences. She was also listed by Time
Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Born in
Boston, Massachusetts she was diagnosed with autism aged three in 1950. She was
placed in a structured nursery school, and began speaking at aged four.
Throughout her middle and high school years she was often bullied, with other
students calling her ‘tape recorder’ due to her tendency to repeat things over
and over again. Upon her graduation she
went on to earn a bachelor’s degree as well as a master’s and doctoral degrees.
She is now a bestselling author and a Professor at Colorado State University and. She is
widely regarded for her work on autism advocacy and invented the ‘hug machine’
which is designed to calm hypersenstitive people.
In the spotlight.
Grandin
first came to the public’s attention after bring described in Oliver Sacks’
book An Anthropologist on Mars. She
has gone on to be featured throughout the mainstream media including high
profile appearances on programmes such as Primtime
Live, Larry King Live and The Today Show. In addition to her
television appearances articles about her life have appeared in Time Magazine,
People Magazine Forbes and The New York Times. In addition, in 2009 she was the
focus of a three-hour interview on C-SPAN- In
Depth with Temple Grandin. Most famously, Grandin was the focus of the 2010 film
Temple Grandin which went on to win
five Emmy Awards. The role of Grandin was played by Claire Danes.
Temple’s experience of Autism.
In
terms of Grandin’s views on autism, based on her own personal experience she
supports early intervention and supportive teachers who are able to direct a
child’s fixations in constructive directions. Temple says that she is primarily
a visual thinker, and as such words are to her, a second language. However, she
attributes her success in livestock facility designer due to her extraordinary
ability to recall details which is a common characteristics among those with
visual memories. In describing her memory, she has liked it to watching a
full-length movie in her head, which she is able to replay as many times as she
wants which enables her to notice small details.
She
is also able to view her memories using slightly different contexts by changing
the positions of the lighting and shadows. 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, the field in which she
initially made her name. As a result of her autism Grandin has first-hand
experience of the anxiety associated with feeling threatened by everything in
her environment which cites as the motivation in her mission to both design and
promote humane livestock handling processes including improved standards of
slaughter.
Despite
the issues she has had throughout her life as a result of autism throughout her
life she has famously said “if I could snap my
fingers and become non-autistic I would not do so. Autism is part of who I am.”
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