It sounded to me like she was a Florence Nightingale in your life. Phil Stieg: I was struck by how often you praised your mother.

I spent hours stiffening the wings on the bird kite with different amounts of tape to get them to fly better. I loved making things, and kids today don’t do that anymore. I would spend hours and hours when I was seven or eight years old tinkering with little parachutes I made out of scarves to make them open better, tinkering with little bird kites.

Not being able to talk was very, very frustrating. People had to slow down when they talked to me. When the grown-ups talked fast, it went into gibberish. Temple Grandin: Well, I got into very good early speech therapy because I couldn’t talk. Given the era in which you were raised in the 50s, can you tell us a little bit about what that experience was like as a child? I was struck in reading the book, with the complexities of that. Phil Stieg: So I think the world owes you a great debt for being so honest about having been born with and lived with autism. Temple, thank you for being with us today. In our conversation, she shares some insights into how her brain works – freely associating images and sensations in a manner that reveals a uniquely brilliant mind. I spoke with Temple about how individual brains are wired to think in different ways, including Visual Thinking, the title of her new book. She has provided enormous insight into how those with neurodivergent brains see the world. But she is probably best known as an advocate for people like herself who are on the autism spectrum. With her fascinating ability to understand how animals think, she transformed the cattle and livestock industry with a revolutionary re-design of handling facilities and slaughterhouses. Temple Grandin, professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. Grandin urges us to respect our young visual thinkers and celebrate their strengths instead of labeling them with disabilities. The woman Oliver Sacks called “the anthropologist on Mars” explains how our brains may be naturally wired to think in words, mathematics, or visuals, and there’s nothing disordered about any of them.ĭr. Temple Grandin, PhD., wants kids - especially those on the autism spectrum - to start using their hands again.

Temple grandin pictures