Dr. Temple Grandin didn’t talk until she was three and a half years old. In 1950 she was diagnosed with autism. Today Dr. Grandin is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. She developed her talents into a livestock-handling equipment designer and is a professor at Colorado State University. Dr. Grandin has become a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism because “I have read enough to know that there are still many parents, and yes, professionals too, who believe that ‘once autistic, always autistic.’ This dictum has meant sad and sorry lives for many children diagnosed, as I was in early life, as autistic. To these people, it is incomprehensible that the characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled. However, I feel strongly that I am living proof that they can” (from Emergence: Labeled Autistic). Even though she was considered “weird” in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor, who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald’s, Swift and others. Grandin says animals think like autistic humans. “I’m an extreme visual thinker. I don’t think in words,” Grandin said during a press conference Friday at the Treffert Center for Autism in Fond du lac. “An animal is sensory based, not word based. If an animal is afraid of something he tends to associate it with something he is seeing or hearing.” Dr. Grandin spoke at the Marian University Stayer Center Friday evening.
