December 11, 2019 • 42 mins
We hear so much about the challenges that people living on the spectrum face, it’s easy to lose sight of the remarkable strides that people with Autism have made in all areas of society — In this episode, we are celebrating the success of Dr. Temple Grandin, a leading advocate in the Autism world, and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Temple Grandin has appeared on the cover of Time, delivered a famous TED talk, had an award-winning film made about her life, authored a myriad of books and traveled the world educating people about autism.
In a very special Life on the Spectrum interview, Dr. Grandin shares how she overcame her own obstacles to achieve success, and offers excellent advice for today’s parents on helping kids with autism build a successful life. Dr. Grandin believes that "the world needs all kinds of minds." We couldn't agree more! We’ll also hear from our wonderful teen and parent Autism Roundtables.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
All the kids that I have met with autism they
are a living example of a good human being, like all the
things that you want a good human person to have.
They already have it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know, he's kind of taught us all to calm
down a little bit and reflect on why we react
to things the way that we do just because he's
always had these big reactions to things. But it goes
the other way too, well, I'm having a reaction. Why
am I reacting this way? So we all do it,
so I think we've all benefited from the skills that
we try to teach him.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
They are truthful, they are authentic. They are very connected
to themselves, not with the outer world, but with their
inside, they are very connected.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Just seeing things a bit differently. We'll be walking and
she'll see those planes in the sky that are just
little white dots and always like, " Oh, there's a plane."
I can't hear it. How do you see that? She
just suddenly sees something like that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I've heard the term before here today, " super powers". I
would say their ability to focus on a specific task
for extended periods of time is very robust. The level
of honesty, or following the rules, or just in terms
of as an employee, mindset, that they would be a
(01:27):
great employee.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
I sometimes have friends or whatever and they'll talk about their
teenagers out until midnight, and stuff like that. And I'm
just like, " What is that even like?" That is so
far out of my experience, right? He's such a great
kid. He makes me worry about other things, but he
never makes me worry about is he safe, where is
he? That's never, ever a question. He's so great.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Tolerance toward everything in life, like patience, tolerance, empathy, kindness.
Lots of seeing people through different eyes, accepting differences, which
are things that our world needs now. But he taught
me all these things and I feel blessed.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I appreciate that authenticity and that filter- less approach at
times on getting to, sort of, things a lot quicker.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
He's a giant nerd and I love that about him
so much. When he was much younger he was reading
Garfield and we had this conversation about how Garfield would call
John a " nerd" and how that was kind of derogatory.
And then we had this conversation about how today nerds are
cool, like Mark Zuckerberg and all these guys that make
so much money in today's world. And so, to some
(02:46):
degree the world has changed a little bit and this
a good time for him to be alive. It's a
good time for him to be who he is today
because his super powers are going to be so in
demand, I think.
Katie Bennison (03:04):
Those are some parents from our Autism Parents round table.
We hear so much about the challenges faced by people
with autism. It's really easy to lose sight of the
remarkable strides they've made in all corners of society, from
technology, to music, to farming. Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Greta
(03:25):
Thunberg, Stanley Kubrick, Daryl Hannah, Nikola Tesla, David Byrne, Jerry
Seinfeld, Emily Dickinson, these are just a few of the
incredibly successful people who are known, or thought to be,
on the spectrum. Welcome to Life on the Spectrum, the
autism family podcast. I'm your host, Katie Bennison. I'm also
(03:48):
known as Mom to my two daughters Charlotte and Sophie.
Sophie has autism. This week we're talking about success on
the spectrum. Now, of course, our parent and teen round
tables have plenty to say on this topic. But first,
we're going to hear from one of the most inspiring
people in the autism community, Temple Grandin. Because of her
(04:12):
autism, Temple Grandin didn't speak until she was three and
a half years old. And when she was young she
was teased and bullied in school. But she found friends
with shared interests, like horses, model rockets, and electronics. And
she had a science teacher who became a key mentor.
Today, Temple Grandin is a professor of Animal Science at
(04:34):
Colorado State University. She also has a successful consulting business.
Her main focus is livestock handling and animal welfare, and
she's a world expert in these areas. In fact, today
over half the cattle in North America are handled in
humane systems that she designed. Dr. Grandin is a prominent
(04:54):
author and a public speaker who lectures worldwide on autism
and animal handling. She's been featured in the New York
Times, on 60 Minutes, and in a popular Ted Talk.
Her life is also the subject of an award- winning
film. Temple Grandin is an inspiration to families everywhere who
(05:14):
are living with autism, including ours. Dr. Grandin, thank you
so much for joining us.
Temple Grandin (05:21):
It's really good to be here.
Katie Bennison (05:23):
You have achieved enormous success in spite of the obstacles
you faced growing up. And if you look back on
your childhood, what were the key supports that really helped you?
Temple Grandin (05:34):
Well, first of all, I went into really good speech therapy very
young. There was also a lot of attention on turn
taking games when I was maybe four, five years old.
A lot of these kids are going to learn how to wait
and take their turns. Mother had a very good sort
of feel on how to stretch me. There's a tendency sometimes
(05:54):
to overprotect and coddle these kids. She was always stretching
me, but giving me choices. And by about third grade
it became obvious that I was good at art and she
encouraged me to draw lots of different things, not just
do the same horse head over and over again. Another
thing was helpful is I'm a child of the '50s.
And in the '50s social skills were taught to all
(06:15):
kids in a much more structured way. You were taught
to say please and thank you, you were taught to
take turns talking, we had sit- down meals. All of this
stuff was very, very helpful, especially when I was in elementary school.
Katie Bennison (06:28):
And because autism is so rule- based, I guess that's
why it helped you be successful in learning.
Temple Grandin (06:37):
Well, one of the things I'm observing now, and I've
been observing this a lot in the last five or
six years when I go to autism conferences, is a
lot of grandparents come up to me. Grandparents that have
been in decent careers, accounting, engineering, banking, whole lot of
different careers, and they are discovering that they are probably
on the spectrum when the grandchildren get diagnosed. Then the
(06:59):
granddad will go, " Oh!" Or even the grandmother will go, "
Oh! Well, that's why I was kind of weird and
I never got along." Because the other thing that that
grandparent had is when he was 11, or she was
11, there were paper routes. Children had jobs. They learned how to
work before they graduated from high school. That's another really
important key thing.
Katie Bennison (07:19):
Because you had a job as a seamstress when you were 13
years old.
Temple Grandin (07:23):
That's right. It was a job that Mother just got in
the neighborhood. It was during a summer, it was a
couple of afternoons a week. And Mother saw a lady
who worked out of her house doing freelance seamstressing, and
I took apart dresses, and then she'd pin them and
then I would hand hem them for her. And at
first I volunteered, but then I was really helpful to
where she started paying me and I loved the money
(07:46):
that I got from it. I think that's another thing, a
lot of kids don't understand money. And the reason why
I understood money is when I was a little kid
I got 50 cents a week for allowance. And if
I did some other jobs maybe I could earn some
more. But I knew exactly what 50 cents could buy
and in the '50s it was a lot. I could do 10 candy bars, or I
could get five comics with it, but if I wanted a 69-
(08:09):
cent airplane I had to save for two weeks. I
was learning that at a very young age. In other
words, I learned the meaning of money by what 50
cents could buy. Then when my sister and I wanted
to go blow it all on games at the county
fair, we'd save up a couple of dollars, maybe $1. 50,
and play carnival games for a dime a piece.
Katie Bennison (08:31):
Right.
Temple Grandin (08:31):
You see, that's converting that money to something that's not
abstract. I'll never forget when I learned what $ 20 was
worth because my favorite thing when I was a kid
I had a table hockey game. This was a really good thing
because you have play it with somebody else to make
table hockey fun. But I saw it in the window of
the toy store and it cost like $ 21. Well, then I
(08:53):
understood that that was almost a year's worth of allowance. So
a $ 20 bill got changed into a hockey game.
Katie Bennison (09:00):
Right.
Temple Grandin (09:01):
You see, that makes money real.
Katie Bennison (09:03):
Absolutely.
Temple Grandin (09:04):
And kids are not doing that today. Let's find paper
route replacements. How about walk dogs for the neighbors? It's
really important for the children to learn how to do
a task on a schedule, outside the family. It's somebody
else's dog they have to walk every morning at seven
or six o'clock in the morning. How about volunteer jobs?
It could be at a house of worship, it could
(09:25):
be at a farmer's market, it could be washing cars,
something that they do for somebody else. But I like
things that are done on a regular basis, where every
Thursday night there's a social event and the kid has
to work on preparing the food.
Katie Bennison (09:40):
Yeah, because the schedule is so important for kids on the
spectrum.
Temple Grandin (09:43):
Well, they've got to learn. And the other thing that
I was taught in the '50s was being on time. A
lot of students in college, that go into college that have autism,
are having problems with getting up in the morning and
being on time. I had a lot of social problems
in college, but being on time and losing homework was
not one of my problems because this being on time
(10:03):
was pounded in when I was a young kid. And we
had sit- down meals, and we weren't allowed to bring
toys or books to the table. Now, the electronic devices
need to get put away for some sit- down meals.
That would help a lot.
Katie Bennison (10:15):
Yep. That's what happens at our house. So, if we move to
when you were a little bit older, when you were
in your teen years, what were some of the key
supports that helped you then?
Temple Grandin (10:25):
Well, I did... high school was a complete mess for
me. I got kicked out of high school for fighting. I threw
a book at a girl that bullied me. My parents
found, my mother, found a special school for me to
go to for kids with problems. And when I look
back on it most of those kids probably had autism.
I was not the least bit interested in studying. Now,
one of the things they did not allow there was
(10:47):
becoming a recluse in my room. I had to attend
meals, I had to attend chapel, I had to attend movie night. And, okay,
not studying was okay, but I had to do something
to join in. So they put me to work running
the horse barn and cleaning stalls. Every day I had
nine stalls to clean, horses to feed, and horses to
put in out of the stalls out to pasture. And I was
(11:08):
good at doing that job and I was proud of the
fact that basically I ran their horse barn for three
years, didn't do much studying. What I did learn is
I learned how to work from that. Also, Mr. (Patey)
, the Head Master, said that will get me through
my adolescence. That was something that's important. And then the
last year of high school is when Mr. (Carlock) ,
my super, wonderful, mentor science teacher came on the scene
(11:31):
and he gave me interesting projects to do. And now
I got knuckled down and I started studying because now studying
was a pathway to a goal. It wasn't just to
study for the sake of studying. It was to study so
I could become a scientist. That's important.
Katie Bennison (11:46):
And he recognized that in you?
Temple Grandin (11:48):
Yeah.
Katie Bennison (11:49):
What did your mentors do that was different than others?
Temple Grandin (11:54):
Well, let's look. Mr. Carlock, my science teacher, I was really
interested in visual optical illusions. You probably saw in the
movie how I got interested in that Ames optical illusion
room. And they actually showed part of the original movie
that I saw when I was in high school. Now, my science teacher
wasn't going to tell me how to build it. He
(12:14):
wanted me to figure it out for myself. And back
then there was no way to look it up online.
And I got frustrated on figuring it out for myself. Then, finally,
he gave me one hint. He let me look at
a picture in a psychology book for about 10 seconds,
but he wanted me to figure it out myself how
to make it.
Katie Bennison (12:34):
So, what would you say were some of the biggest challenges you faced along
the way? And how-
Temple Grandin (12:41):
Well, high school was the worst part of my life.
Katie Bennison (12:43):
How did you overcome that?
Temple Grandin (12:45):
Well, I had some refuges away from bullying and that was horses.
And I had a friend that I've just written an
article with about how horses helped a person with autism. It's a
paper that's published online now. It talks about how horses
helped me out. And there were two ways they helped me
out. Working in the horse barn, but the other thing
(13:07):
is was friends through the shared interest of riding and
getting horses ready for show. And when we were doing
riding activities I was not getting bullied and teased. Same
thing with electronics and model rockets. The students that were
interested in those particular activities were not the bullies. And this is
why I think it's so important for these kids to
(13:27):
get friends through shared interest. It could be band, it
could be the school play, it could be cooking, art,
it could be a lot of different things. That's where
I had friends when I was in high school.
Katie Bennison (13:39):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it's easier to have conversations with someone that
has shared interests.
Temple Grandin (13:44):
Well, that's right. And I was really bad about going on, and on, and
on talking about something that interested me like carnival rides.
I would just go on and on talking about it to the point
where people got bored with it.
Katie Bennison (13:58):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (13:59):
So I had to learn you can tell that story twice, but
that's it.
Katie Bennison (14:03):
Yes. And that's so funny because that's what our therapist
tells our daughter now and she's so stuck on Marvel.
I mean, you come across this all the time in
your work, of course, and there's children that have their
perseverative topic. And it's like, check in. Do you think
Michael wants you to talk about Marvel anymore? What else
can you talk to him about?
Temple Grandin (14:23):
Well, what's the other thing is, is try to broaden interests. Let's
say a kid likes cars. We can read about them,
we can do math with cars, take that interest and
broaden it. When I was in third grade all I
did was draw the same horse head over and over
again and Mother would say, " Oh, let's do a picture
of a beach with water colors," or some other thing that
would broaden our interest. I liked the rotor carnival ride
(14:47):
and that was a sensory reason why I liked to
get spun around in this big barrel and pushed up
against the wall. Well, you can learn some physics about how
that ride works and why you stay stuck to the
wall. You see, that would be an example of broadening
that interest.
Katie Bennison (15:02):
Such great advice from Temple Grandin. She is a true
inspiration. We'll get back to that remarkable conversation in a
moment, but first, we're going to hear from our Parent
Autism round table. As parents, we worry, of course. We
want our kids to succeed. But if there's one thing
(15:22):
Temple Grandin teaches us it's that there are plenty of
reasons to be hopeful. So we asked the parents on
our autism round table to share some of the hopes
and dreams they have for their kids.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I think really just to be at peace with who he is. And
just really to see how special and unique he is
because he does have significant empathy for friends. He has
virtually no empathy for parents.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I wish for him to be like in peace with
himself and be happy with who he is, and be
loved.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
All the conversations we've had over the last few years
have definitely sunk in and I see that in him
working with other people. So I think it's really just
to find his passion and his purpose, and just really
express that and not be attached to all these other
sort of things, but just to be and live.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Just being your functioning adult in the world, given whatever passion she
follows. But just to be able to live on her
own, or find a partner, or a group of friends
and be just a contributing member of society in her
own unique way. That's my biggest hope.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, the same you have for any of your children, right? You want
them to be happy, you want them to be loved, you want
them to love. That's it. What else is there?
Speaker 5 (16:48):
I mean, there isn't anything else. I don't care if
he makes money, I don't care about any of that
stuff. I just want him to be happy and feel
fulfilled in his life. That's the most important thing.
Katie Bennison (17:00):
Wise words from the parents on our autism round table.
Earlier, we were speaking with autism trailblazer, Temple Grandin. She
has written many books. One of them is called Thinking
in Pictures. Oliver Sacks wrote in the foreword of this
book that it was unprecedented because it was the first
(17:20):
time anyone with autism had explained exactly how their mind
works. So when I spoke to Dr. Grandin I asked
her to explain what she means when she talks about
thinking in pictures.
Temple Grandin (17:34):
Well, everything I think about is a picture. Now, if you watch the
HBO movie, the way it shows my thinking in pictures
is really accurate. It shows exactly how I think. It's
also associative. I think the best way for you to
understand how I think in pictures is to give me
(17:54):
a key word, but not something I can see in
my office right now, not something common like " house", " dog", "
cat", or " car". Give me a key word that's a
bit more original and I will tell you how my
mind kind of accesses it. It's sort of like Google
for images.
Katie Bennison (18:09):
Drum kit.
Temple Grandin (18:12):
Okay, drum kit. I just saw a drum kit the
other day at a place I gave a talk, so
I'm seeing that. Now I'm seeing a drum kit at
a great big church. And I asked why they had
plexiglass around the drums and they said that helped with
the sound. And in this church they had a giant train
that went across the stage. They used carbon dioxide to
(18:32):
make it go, "Shh." So now I've gotten from drum kit
to trains.
Katie Bennison (18:37):
Right.
Temple Grandin (18:37):
Now you see how there's an associative link. Now I'm seeing
the train. I was just going to the post office
today and we had to wait for the train to
go through the intersection. So I'm seeing that freight train
that goes through our town. So that's how I got
from drum kit to freight train. And then I can
(18:59):
use that to solve problems like when I was designing
things. I'm also a bottom- up thinker. When I first
started working on cattle handling design I went to every
feed lot in Arizona that worked cattle and there were
some curved facilities that were around at the time. There
were some that worked really well, there was some stuff that
worked badly. I remember two feed yards that had identical
(19:21):
systems and one worked badly and it was due to
orientation to the sun. And then I figured out where
there were layout mistakes. So then what I did was
put all the good bits together and chuck out the
bad bits to make new systems. Now, the thing about bottom-
up thinking is the more data you load into the
database, the better you think. And it also helps get
(19:44):
rid of rigid thinking because then you can sort data
into different categories, not just good and bad. You can have different degrees
of goodness or badness.
Katie Bennison (19:54):
So, you also participated in writing a children's book called
Temple Did It, I Can, Too!
Temple Grandin (20:01):
Well, Jennifer Gilpin wrote the book and I just want
to motivate kids. You see, too many kids are letting autism become
their whole identity. Now, autism's a very, very important part of
who I am, but it's secondary to career and livestock
(20:21):
industry, being a scientist, and being a professor doing my
classes, that comes first. And autism's a very important part of
who I am, I would not want to change. I like
the logical way I think, but it's not my primary
identity. I also feel very strongly that we've got to
motivate kids. We have to motivate them to study. But I
(20:44):
think another thing is we have to motivate where studying
is a pathway to a goal. See, there's a lot
of kids good at one thing, bad at something else.
I'm a visual thinker, absolutely cannot do algebra because there's
nothing there to visualize. Now I'm seeing kids right now
being kept out of something like a skilled trade or
out of auto mechanics because they can't do algebra. You don't
(21:05):
need algebra for that. I'll tell you what you need algebra for,
you're a chemist. I also read a very interesting article
in Wired magazine about the Lunar Lander computer and it
crashed. While the Lunar Lander was landing, the computer went
down. And a very clever programmer at MIT figured out
how to make sure that it always saved the navigation
(21:27):
data. And so when it came back on 10 seconds
later, the navigation still worked. And the only thing that's
known about the guy who programmed that is he was
reclusive and had a messy office. Well, that sounds familiar,
doesn't it?
Katie Bennison (21:41):
Yes.
Temple Grandin (21:42):
But he used algebra to make the computer, out of
priority, that that navigation stuff has to be saved no
matter what. But then, you need the clever engineering department
to make the space suit for walking on the moon.
This is why you need both kinds of minds, the visual thinkers
like me and then the more patterned mathematical thinkers, to
(22:04):
make the moon mission successful. And in my book Animals
in Translation I describe how thinking in pictures helped me
to understand animals because the first thing I did in
working with cattle is I wanted to look at what are
the animals seeing when they go through the chute? And
(22:28):
cattle will stop if there's a coat on the fence.
There's a vehicle parked next to the fence and they
see the shiny metal of the vehicle. That will make
them stop. Or there's a hose on the ground.
Katie Bennison (22:39):
Or a flag.
Temple Grandin (22:40):
Most people haven't noticed this stuff and the reason they didn't notice
it is they weren't visual thinkers. Now, I didn't know that at
the time. When I started in my 20's I thought
everybody was a visual thinker. I didn't know that my
thinking was different.
Katie Bennison (22:53):
So you have a remarkable connection with animals, can you
tell me why that relationship is so important to you?
Temple Grandin (22:59):
Well, I think it's because I think visually. Animals are sensory based thinkers. They
don't think in words. They think in pictures, their memories
are going to be in pictures. And in Animals in
Translation I talk about the horse that was scared of
black cowboy hats. He was abused by somebody wearing a
black hat, terrified of black cowboy hats, fine with somebody
(23:20):
with a white cowboy hat or a ball cap. Or
the sound of this vehicle is the vehicle that comes and
feeds me, maybe this other vehicle's going to chase me
around. So their memory is a sound. There are some dogs
that can know the sound of their owner's car.
Katie Bennison (23:37):
So, lack of empathy can be a trait sometimes associated
with people on the spectrum, but yet your work requires
that you very much empathize and connect with animals. How
do you respond to the idea that people with autism
lack empathy?
Temple Grandin (23:54):
I learned a lot about animals scientifically, observing them. I mean, some
people say, well, the dog doesn't have emotions. Well, that's
stupid because neurologically they've got all the subcortical structures where
emotions are the same in all mammals. But I have
this sort of visual empathy.
Katie Bennison (24:14):
But do you feel love for the animals, too?
Temple Grandin (24:17):
Well, I really care about them and I've got emotions,
but I think they're probably more in the present. And
I've had to learn how to control anger because I got
kicked out of high school for anger. And I had
to switch from anger to crying. I tell guys it's
okay to cry. NASA space scientists cried when they shut down
(24:38):
the shuttle.
Katie Bennison (24:40):
You've had so many big achievements because your thinking is
different. But, on a personal level, which ones feel the
biggest to you? Which were the ones that made you say, "
Wow, I actually did that"?
Temple Grandin (24:52):
Well, actually, when I did those dip vat projects that were shown really nicely
in the movie. And one of the things that motivated
me to do those projects is a lot of people thought it was
stupid. But, I remember looking at the drawing I did
for one of those projects and when I got the
drawing done I almost couldn't believe that I had done
it.
Katie Bennison (25:11):
You amazed yourself?
Temple Grandin (25:12):
I remember looking at the drawing and going, " Somebody stupid
doesn't do this drawing."
Katie Bennison (25:16):
Mm- hmm (affirmative). You said, " I am what I do more
than what I feel."
Temple Grandin (25:22):
That's right.
Katie Bennison (25:23):
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Temple Grandin (25:25):
Well, I get great satisfaction out of doing stuff, whether
it's building something. But I also get great satisfaction when I get an
email or somebody calls me, or they come up to
me in the airport, that happens all the time, and
they'll say... like one lady at the airport said, " Oh,
thank you so much for your book Thinking in Pictures. I
now understand my engineer husband and it saved our marriage." Or, "
(25:47):
My kid went to college because of one of your talks
or one of your books." I get great satisfaction from that.
Katie Bennison (25:54):
That's Dr. Temple Grandin, scientist, author, autism trailblazer. You're listening to
Life on the Spectrum, the autism family podcast. I'm Katie
Bennison. We hope you're enjoying this episode looking at success
on the spectrum and if you are enjoying it, please
consider giving us a review. It'll help us reach more
(26:14):
people and share with your friends. Our website is lifeonthespectrumpodcast.
com. When you're a family living with autism it is
so easy to get bogged down by the challenges and
by the tough times. So in this episode, we're focusing
(26:35):
on success stories. Here are some of the amazing teens
from our autism round table talking about some of the
good things about being on the spectrum.
Speaker 10 (26:50):
I overheard my friend talking and she said that I
was autistic. And so she said, " You're so fun- loving."
Speaker 11 (26:59):
It's being able to focus on anything you want, really.
Speaker 12 (27:02):
People with autism sometimes have heightened senses.
Speaker 11 (27:05):
Like when I was little I used to be super
focused on World War II and I was reading history textbooks for
Grade 10.
Speaker 12 (27:11):
So, I really love bunnies. I can know random bunny
facts off the top of my head.
Speaker 11 (27:16):
I know a lot about marine biology. I know what the Latin
name of the salmon and the red rock and all the
crabs are.
Speaker 12 (27:23):
And I also really like My Little Pony. If you just
show me an image of any character I can probably
guess the name pretty easily. I also really like music.
I've written a few songs and I'm a good singer.
Speaker 11 (27:34):
I think my creativity. I tend to be very observant,
or so I've been told.
Speaker 13 (27:41):
That is one of the greatest things about autism.
Katie Bennison (27:47):
Fun- loving, focused, a knack for marine biology, lots of
great reminders about the pluses of having autism from our
teen round table. Temple Grandin talks a lot about the
positive side of autism. She's living proof that people on
the spectrum can dream big. As a young person she
loved animals and wanted to work with them. And even
(28:09):
though she was badly bullied in school and faced huge
challenges, she was determined to make her dreams a reality.
As an animal scientist she's an inspiration. But she's also
had incredible success outside of animal science. Temple Grandin is
a role model for thousands of families and people living
(28:29):
with autism. So, I had to ask for her advice
on setting up kids on the spectrum for success.
Temple Grandin (28:38):
One of the things I did is I had to
work very hard to make myself good at what I
did. Another thing I'm finding, and I'm seeing a lot of
problems now with a lot of students today, just regular
students, their writing skills are terrible. And that's because when
they were in elementary school and in high school they
weren't writing book reports and essays. And writing was a
(28:59):
very important thing in my career because I would design
something and then I wrote about it. There's a scene
in the movie where I go up and I get
the editor's card. That scene is real. I saw that
if I wrote for that magazine it would open a
door.
Katie Bennison (29:11):
Yes.
Temple Grandin (29:11):
But then when I sent him the article a week
later, and it was a summary of my Master's thesis on squeeze
chutes, they published it.
Katie Bennison (29:17):
Yes!
Temple Grandin (29:18):
And if my writing had been terrible, they wouldn't have
published it.
Katie Bennison (29:23):
So what advice would you give to parents of kids
with autism to set them up for success?
Temple Grandin (29:30):
Well, we have to work with ages. The other thing I think
the problem with autism is when kids are really little
when they're three, you can have kids that look really severe, I looked horrible
when I was three. And then I had a lot of good
early intervention, really super good, lot of one- on- one
with the teachers. Then you kind of get different levels.
(29:52):
You've got people that are mathematicians, they ought to go
to Silicon Valley. I've been out to Silicon Valley. They
avoid all the labels. Half those programmers are on the
spectrum and they avoid the labels. And then you've got
the art kind of people like me, skilled trades would
be a good place for us to go. And the
reason why I'm pushing the skilled trades, things like plumbing,
electrical, fixing cars, airplanes, trains, boats, machinists, and heating and
(30:19):
air conditioning, because these are good jobs that will never get replaced
by computers. You'll have a job for life. And then
you've got individuals where that's not an option. And I
really like what Stephen Hawking said about disability in an
interview with the New York Times, he said, " Concentrate on
the things. Your disability does not prevent you from doing
(30:40):
well." And he could do math in the head really,
really well. And he concentrated on that. Teens, I would
say we need to be working on teaching living skills
and independence skills. We need to find paper route substitutes.
Okay, let's say it's a fully verbal kid, walk dogs
for the neighbors. If you belong to a church, church
(31:02):
volunteer job and it's on a schedule. You do it
every week. The instant they're legal I want to see
them in the real workforce. The thing you got to be careful
about is not too much multitasking. Multitasking is a real problem.
A super busy McDonald's would not be a good choice.
Let's get something like an ice cream shop that's not
(31:23):
as hectic and there's been some good successes in ice cream shops.
You know, a quieter kind of retail store. But office
supply stores have been good for some people. And I've
had parents admit that after their kid was out doing
these things, he kind of blossomed. But there's a tendency
to overprotect. I'm seeing 16- year- olds, fully verbal, good
(31:46):
students, and they've never gone shopping by themselves. And some
parents have trouble with letting go on having the kid
learn stuff like shopping and bank account, just basic stuff.
If I hadn't learned how to drive, I would not
have any career in the cattle industry. Pure and simple. Due to
the multitasking issue it's going to take longer to learn.
(32:11):
I did 200 miles on my aunt's dirt roads before we
touched traffic.
Katie Bennison (32:16):
Wow.
Temple Grandin (32:16):
That solves the multitasking issue. So let's start out in
the middle of a great big empty parking lot. For
me, it was out in the middle of the horse pasture, that's where I
started. And where there's nothing to hit and learn how
to operate the vehicle, but it's going to take longer.
Lots of times Driver's Ed chucks them in the deep
end too fast.
Katie Bennison (32:38):
What advice would you give to kids that are being
bullied?
Temple Grandin (32:44):
Well, there's some kids that get bullied so bad in high
school that may have to be taken out of that
school. And now if you homeschool your kid, you need to be
getting them into a lot of activities where he's doing
other social activities with other kids. If he's legal I
want him in the workforce.
Katie Bennison (33:01):
But, what should they think if they're getting bullied because
that, unfortunately, it happened to you. How did you deal
with it?
Temple Grandin (33:09):
Well, the only thing that saved me is that there were
refuges away from bullying and they were the shared interest
things, horseback riding, when I was working in the barn
the boys didn't come around the barn very much. My
bad places were the dining room and the parking lot.
Katie Bennison (33:25):
Mm- hmm ( affirmative). But what do you say to yourself-
Temple Grandin (33:27):
And I'd walk through the parking lot and they'd call me " Bones" because
I was skinny.
Katie Bennison (33:31):
Yeah, that's-
Temple Grandin (33:31):
" Bones" and " Tape Recorder" were the two things they
used to call me. And I didn't know why they
called me " Tape Recorder", but it was because I always
used the same phrases. But then as I got out
and I did more things, then I learned more different phrases
then I'm going to be less like a tape recorder.
You see, what you got to do with these kids
you got to get them out and fill the database.
Now, what do you do about sensory problems? Well, I talked to one
(33:55):
mom, her kid was afraid of the vacuum cleaner, so
she gave the kid the vacuum cleaner and says, " Okay, you can
turn it on and play with it." And he got
to loving it. One of the ways to help on
sound sensitivity is when the child can control it, he
or she turns that hair dryer on and off.
Katie Bennison (34:09):
Oh, yeah. We had that problem with Sophie in the public washrooms. We
had to write a social-
Temple Grandin (34:16):
Oh, those are awful. The problem you've got there is
you can't control that stuff in the public bathrooms. You
just can't control. That's where you put a headset on
and go in there.
Katie Bennison (34:26):
Yeah, well, we-
Temple Grandin (34:26):
All right? But then, if you wear a headset all the time,
your hearing's going to get more sensitive because the brain
will try to compensate. So what you want to do
is you can have a headset with you all the
time, but try not to wear it. And those public
bathrooms are just so horrible for uncontrollable, unpredictable, loud noises
that you wear the headset in there.
Katie Bennison (34:45):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (34:46):
But then other places, you want to try to not
wear it, but you have it there in case you need
it.
Katie Bennison (34:51):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (34:52):
See, again, that gives the kid control.
Katie Bennison (34:53):
Yeah. So what about adults on the spectrum, do you
have any advice for them?
Temple Grandin (35:00):
Well, friends with shared interests, that's always important. One of the
things I've read about depression is a thing called Activation Therapy.
Basically, what you do with that they gave an example
of a lady who loved cats and she was depressed.
So get her out of the house and she's going
to work for cat rescue. In other words, find something
(35:22):
the person's interested in and get them out doing it. And
that's not going to cure all depression, but just getting them
out doing stuff can often be really helpful. And they
actually call it Activation Therapy. But, again, it gets back to
that shared interest of things, where they're doing something with
other people with something they care about. Join a garden
(35:43):
club, join a book club.
Katie Bennison (35:45):
What do you like to do in your off time?
Temple Grandin (35:48):
Oh, I like to watch the science fiction movies. I loved
Avatar, I thought that was just such a wonderful movie. It's also
just what we would do in our off time I remember we would sit
and have dinner with the construction crews and we'd talk
about two things. How stupid the suits were, the managers were, and
the other thing we talked about was how to build stuff. That
(36:08):
was just really fascinating conversation.
Katie Bennison (36:11):
Temple, on behalf of everyone that is listening to Life
on the Spectrum, thank you for having such a big heart.
Temple Grandin (36:18):
Okay, great to talk to you.
Katie Bennison (36:19):
Bye.
Temple Grandin (36:19):
Okay, yeah, bye.
Katie Bennison (36:22):
Temple Grandin, professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University,
and a prominent author and public speaker. She's a hero
in the autism world and certainly in our household. I'm
so grateful that she took the time to join us
and to give us her advice on how to succeed
in life. Speaking of advice, here's some wisdom from our
(36:46):
round table of parents who have teenagers with autism. You'll
hear a few of my own thoughts in here, too.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I mean, I think at the beginning it's overwhelming, right?
And it's like, " How am I going to cope with
this?" and, " I can't do this," at least that was
my reaction. And it gets better, it definitely gets better
over time. And they get older, they learn things from
you, you learn things. Things improve, things just get, they
(37:16):
get better.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
The gift it's given me is to be a lot
kinder to myself. And as I said earlier, just try
and shift in your head because there's a lot of
problems every day, or we have significant problems it seems
every day. What is it I can learn, or what's
the opportunity in this, or what's the question you can
ask yourself? I ask myself whenever I'm stuck in it
(37:37):
and invariably I always get this incredible answer back in
terms of this gift. You don't see it at the
moment, but you see it later.
Katie Bennison (37:44):
Sophie is a gift. I have learned so much through
having her as a daughter and it has opened my
eyes, and it has made me more tolerant and caring,
and non- judgmental of others. And I know that she's
going to be fine. She's quirky. Aren't we all?
Speaker 4 (38:05):
I'm no where near the person I was five years
ago. I mean, I've grown in ways I didn't even
think where I had possibilities.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I would say just pace yourself, be kind to yourself, and know,
just trust, that it will get better. And if you can
find people that, whether it's online or, better if you
can, in person, but find people who have had similar
things that are going on because it helps immensely to
talk to other people and know that you're not the
(38:35):
only one.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
You just kind of become more accepting of people's variable
behaviors and different things you would've reacted to strongly when you
were younger and are more neurotypical, part of that group.
And then suddenly you're, " Oh, I'm a lot more open
to things."
Katie Bennison (38:53):
You know, everyone has something in their lives. There's a
separation in their family, or one kid has dyslexia, or
there's cancer with the grandfather, or something, and we all
cope, right? And we all have issues and autism is
(39:13):
a label. It doesn't necessarily mean that life is over.
And hopefully this podcast will help other families understand that
you're not alone and it's all good. It's going to
be fine. You just have to reach out and not
shut yourself in. And that's about it for today's episode
(39:40):
of Life on the Spectrum. It's also the last episode
of our first season. I really hope that you found
it helpful and inspiring. And if you want some more
helpful resources, check out our website, lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You can
also find us on Facebook. I want to thank our
(40:01):
writers of this season, Jennifer Moss and Jennifer Van Evra.
And special thanks to Craig Zarazun at Wave Productions for
recording our parent and teenage round tables, and my interview
with Temple Grandin. Just before I let you go, I
want to make sure to tell you about our special
bonus episode. It's my complete interview with Michelle Garcia Winner
(40:25):
on social thinking. It's on our website or wherever you
get your podcasts. Finally, to end this season on a
successful note, here are some parting thoughts from our autism
teen round table. I asked them to talk about some
of their hopes and dreams for the future because, really,
it's their voices that matter the most. I'm Katie Bennison.
(40:48):
Here's to Life on the Spectrum. What are your plans
and dreams for when you grow up?
Speaker 11 (40:57):
I'd like to be a marine biologist and own an
apartment, or own anything that I can live in, in
Hawaii, or anywhere where I can surf.
Speaker 12 (41:04):
I'm going to start small. I'm going to move into a
little studio apartment. I'm going to get a little steady
job, maybe one day get a better job that I'd like.
Speaker 14 (41:14):
I hope to be a railway conductor one day and,
if not, to be a business owner.
Speaker 12 (41:20):
My dream property would probably be a little cottage by
the water. I'd find a cute guy that also likes
bunnies and maybe My Little Pony as well. I don't know.
Speaker 15 (41:30):
I think I want to be a celebrity of some
kind. I think maybe a writer, probably.
Speaker 12 (41:35):
I would really like to become a musician, an artist,
or an animator, or something like that.
Speaker 16 (41:41):
Probably create graphic novels and stuff because I created a
bunch of creative stories from the dreams that I have,
or just ideas that pop into my head, you know?
And I'm also very good at drawing.
Speaker 10 (41:51):
When I'm older I want to have my own movie
about this super hero I created who's actually my alter
ego. And so she's autistic and her name is " El
Autismo" and El Autismo's super power is remembering things others
may forget. Never underestimate the power of autism. ( silence)
All the kids that I have met with autism they
are a living example of a good human being, like all the
things that you want a good human person to have.
They already have it.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
You know, he's kind of taught us all to calm
down a little bit and reflect on why we react
to things the way that we do just because he's
always had these big reactions to things. But it goes
the other way too, well, I'm having a reaction. Why
am I reacting this way? So we all do it,
so I think we've all benefited from the skills that
we try to teach him.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
They are truthful, they are authentic. They are very connected
to themselves, not with the outer world, but with their
inside, they are very connected.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Just seeing things a bit differently. We'll be walking and
she'll see those planes in the sky that are just
little white dots and always like, " Oh, there's a plane."
I can't hear it. How do you see that? She
just suddenly sees something like that.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I've heard the term before here today, " super powers". I
would say their ability to focus on a specific task
for extended periods of time is very robust. The level
of honesty, or following the rules, or just in terms
of as an employee, mindset, that they would be a
(01:27):
great employee.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
I sometimes have friends or whatever and they'll talk about their
teenagers out until midnight, and stuff like that. And I'm
just like, " What is that even like?" That is so
far out of my experience, right? He's such a great
kid. He makes me worry about other things, but he
never makes me worry about is he safe, where is
he? That's never, ever a question. He's so great.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Tolerance toward everything in life, like patience, tolerance, empathy, kindness.
Lots of seeing people through different eyes, accepting differences, which
are things that our world needs now. But he taught
me all these things and I feel blessed.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I appreciate that authenticity and that filter- less approach at
times on getting to, sort of, things a lot quicker.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
He's a giant nerd and I love that about him
so much. When he was much younger he was reading
Garfield and we had this conversation about how Garfield would call
John a " nerd" and how that was kind of derogatory.
And then we had this conversation about how today nerds are
cool, like Mark Zuckerberg and all these guys that make
so much money in today's world. And so, to some
(02:46):
degree the world has changed a little bit and this
a good time for him to be alive. It's a
good time for him to be who he is today
because his super powers are going to be so in
demand, I think.
Katie Bennison (03:04):
Those are some parents from our Autism Parents round table.
We hear so much about the challenges faced by people
with autism. It's really easy to lose sight of the
remarkable strides they've made in all corners of society, from
technology, to music, to farming. Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Greta
(03:25):
Thunberg, Stanley Kubrick, Daryl Hannah, Nikola Tesla, David Byrne, Jerry
Seinfeld, Emily Dickinson, these are just a few of the
incredibly successful people who are known, or thought to be,
on the spectrum. Welcome to Life on the Spectrum, the
autism family podcast. I'm your host, Katie Bennison. I'm also
(03:48):
known as Mom to my two daughters Charlotte and Sophie.
Sophie has autism. This week we're talking about success on
the spectrum. Now, of course, our parent and teen round
tables have plenty to say on this topic. But first,
we're going to hear from one of the most inspiring
people in the autism community, Temple Grandin. Because of her
(04:12):
autism, Temple Grandin didn't speak until she was three and
a half years old. And when she was young she
was teased and bullied in school. But she found friends
with shared interests, like horses, model rockets, and electronics. And
she had a science teacher who became a key mentor.
Today, Temple Grandin is a professor of Animal Science at
(04:34):
Colorado State University. She also has a successful consulting business.
Her main focus is livestock handling and animal welfare, and
she's a world expert in these areas. In fact, today
over half the cattle in North America are handled in
humane systems that she designed. Dr. Grandin is a prominent
(04:54):
author and a public speaker who lectures worldwide on autism
and animal handling. She's been featured in the New York
Times, on 60 Minutes, and in a popular Ted Talk.
Her life is also the subject of an award- winning
film. Temple Grandin is an inspiration to families everywhere who
(05:14):
are living with autism, including ours. Dr. Grandin, thank you
so much for joining us.
Temple Grandin (05:21):
It's really good to be here.
Katie Bennison (05:23):
You have achieved enormous success in spite of the obstacles
you faced growing up. And if you look back on
your childhood, what were the key supports that really helped you?
Temple Grandin (05:34):
Well, first of all, I went into really good speech therapy very
young. There was also a lot of attention on turn
taking games when I was maybe four, five years old.
A lot of these kids are going to learn how to wait
and take their turns. Mother had a very good sort
of feel on how to stretch me. There's a tendency sometimes
(05:54):
to overprotect and coddle these kids. She was always stretching
me, but giving me choices. And by about third grade
it became obvious that I was good at art and she
encouraged me to draw lots of different things, not just
do the same horse head over and over again. Another
thing was helpful is I'm a child of the '50s.
And in the '50s social skills were taught to all
(06:15):
kids in a much more structured way. You were taught
to say please and thank you, you were taught to
take turns talking, we had sit- down meals. All of this
stuff was very, very helpful, especially when I was in elementary school.
Katie Bennison (06:28):
And because autism is so rule- based, I guess that's
why it helped you be successful in learning.
Temple Grandin (06:37):
Well, one of the things I'm observing now, and I've
been observing this a lot in the last five or
six years when I go to autism conferences, is a
lot of grandparents come up to me. Grandparents that have
been in decent careers, accounting, engineering, banking, whole lot of
different careers, and they are discovering that they are probably
on the spectrum when the grandchildren get diagnosed. Then the
(06:59):
granddad will go, " Oh!" Or even the grandmother will go, "
Oh! Well, that's why I was kind of weird and
I never got along." Because the other thing that that
grandparent had is when he was 11, or she was
11, there were paper routes. Children had jobs. They learned how to
work before they graduated from high school. That's another really
important key thing.
Katie Bennison (07:19):
Because you had a job as a seamstress when you were 13
years old.
Temple Grandin (07:23):
That's right. It was a job that Mother just got in
the neighborhood. It was during a summer, it was a
couple of afternoons a week. And Mother saw a lady
who worked out of her house doing freelance seamstressing, and
I took apart dresses, and then she'd pin them and
then I would hand hem them for her. And at
first I volunteered, but then I was really helpful to
where she started paying me and I loved the money
(07:46):
that I got from it. I think that's another thing, a
lot of kids don't understand money. And the reason why
I understood money is when I was a little kid
I got 50 cents a week for allowance. And if
I did some other jobs maybe I could earn some
more. But I knew exactly what 50 cents could buy
and in the '50s it was a lot. I could do 10 candy bars, or I
could get five comics with it, but if I wanted a 69-
(08:09):
cent airplane I had to save for two weeks. I
was learning that at a very young age. In other
words, I learned the meaning of money by what 50
cents could buy. Then when my sister and I wanted
to go blow it all on games at the county
fair, we'd save up a couple of dollars, maybe $1. 50,
and play carnival games for a dime a piece.
Katie Bennison (08:31):
Right.
Temple Grandin (08:31):
You see, that's converting that money to something that's not
abstract. I'll never forget when I learned what $ 20 was
worth because my favorite thing when I was a kid
I had a table hockey game. This was a really good thing
because you have play it with somebody else to make
table hockey fun. But I saw it in the window of
the toy store and it cost like $ 21. Well, then I
(08:53):
understood that that was almost a year's worth of allowance. So
a $ 20 bill got changed into a hockey game.
Katie Bennison (09:00):
Right.
Temple Grandin (09:01):
You see, that makes money real.
Katie Bennison (09:03):
Absolutely.
Temple Grandin (09:04):
And kids are not doing that today. Let's find paper
route replacements. How about walk dogs for the neighbors? It's
really important for the children to learn how to do
a task on a schedule, outside the family. It's somebody
else's dog they have to walk every morning at seven
or six o'clock in the morning. How about volunteer jobs?
It could be at a house of worship, it could
(09:25):
be at a farmer's market, it could be washing cars,
something that they do for somebody else. But I like
things that are done on a regular basis, where every
Thursday night there's a social event and the kid has
to work on preparing the food.
Katie Bennison (09:40):
Yeah, because the schedule is so important for kids on the
spectrum.
Temple Grandin (09:43):
Well, they've got to learn. And the other thing that
I was taught in the '50s was being on time. A
lot of students in college, that go into college that have autism,
are having problems with getting up in the morning and
being on time. I had a lot of social problems
in college, but being on time and losing homework was
not one of my problems because this being on time
(10:03):
was pounded in when I was a young kid. And we
had sit- down meals, and we weren't allowed to bring
toys or books to the table. Now, the electronic devices
need to get put away for some sit- down meals.
That would help a lot.
Katie Bennison (10:15):
Yep. That's what happens at our house. So, if we move to
when you were a little bit older, when you were
in your teen years, what were some of the key
supports that helped you then?
Temple Grandin (10:25):
Well, I did... high school was a complete mess for
me. I got kicked out of high school for fighting. I threw
a book at a girl that bullied me. My parents
found, my mother, found a special school for me to
go to for kids with problems. And when I look
back on it most of those kids probably had autism.
I was not the least bit interested in studying. Now,
one of the things they did not allow there was
(10:47):
becoming a recluse in my room. I had to attend
meals, I had to attend chapel, I had to attend movie night. And, okay,
not studying was okay, but I had to do something
to join in. So they put me to work running
the horse barn and cleaning stalls. Every day I had
nine stalls to clean, horses to feed, and horses to
put in out of the stalls out to pasture. And I was
(11:08):
good at doing that job and I was proud of the
fact that basically I ran their horse barn for three
years, didn't do much studying. What I did learn is
I learned how to work from that. Also, Mr. (Patey)
, the Head Master, said that will get me through
my adolescence. That was something that's important. And then the
last year of high school is when Mr. (Carlock) ,
my super, wonderful, mentor science teacher came on the scene
(11:31):
and he gave me interesting projects to do. And now
I got knuckled down and I started studying because now studying
was a pathway to a goal. It wasn't just to
study for the sake of studying. It was to study so
I could become a scientist. That's important.
Katie Bennison (11:46):
And he recognized that in you?
Temple Grandin (11:48):
Yeah.
Katie Bennison (11:49):
What did your mentors do that was different than others?
Temple Grandin (11:54):
Well, let's look. Mr. Carlock, my science teacher, I was really
interested in visual optical illusions. You probably saw in the
movie how I got interested in that Ames optical illusion
room. And they actually showed part of the original movie
that I saw when I was in high school. Now, my science teacher
wasn't going to tell me how to build it. He
(12:14):
wanted me to figure it out for myself. And back
then there was no way to look it up online.
And I got frustrated on figuring it out for myself. Then, finally,
he gave me one hint. He let me look at
a picture in a psychology book for about 10 seconds,
but he wanted me to figure it out myself how
to make it.
Katie Bennison (12:34):
So, what would you say were some of the biggest challenges you faced along
the way? And how-
Temple Grandin (12:41):
Well, high school was the worst part of my life.
Katie Bennison (12:43):
How did you overcome that?
Temple Grandin (12:45):
Well, I had some refuges away from bullying and that was horses.
And I had a friend that I've just written an
article with about how horses helped a person with autism. It's a
paper that's published online now. It talks about how horses
helped me out. And there were two ways they helped me
out. Working in the horse barn, but the other thing
(13:07):
is was friends through the shared interest of riding and
getting horses ready for show. And when we were doing
riding activities I was not getting bullied and teased. Same
thing with electronics and model rockets. The students that were
interested in those particular activities were not the bullies. And this is
why I think it's so important for these kids to
(13:27):
get friends through shared interest. It could be band, it
could be the school play, it could be cooking, art,
it could be a lot of different things. That's where
I had friends when I was in high school.
Katie Bennison (13:39):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it's easier to have conversations with someone that
has shared interests.
Temple Grandin (13:44):
Well, that's right. And I was really bad about going on, and on, and
on talking about something that interested me like carnival rides.
I would just go on and on talking about it to the point
where people got bored with it.
Katie Bennison (13:58):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (13:59):
So I had to learn you can tell that story twice, but
that's it.
Katie Bennison (14:03):
Yes. And that's so funny because that's what our therapist
tells our daughter now and she's so stuck on Marvel.
I mean, you come across this all the time in
your work, of course, and there's children that have their
perseverative topic. And it's like, check in. Do you think
Michael wants you to talk about Marvel anymore? What else
can you talk to him about?
Temple Grandin (14:23):
Well, what's the other thing is, is try to broaden interests. Let's
say a kid likes cars. We can read about them,
we can do math with cars, take that interest and
broaden it. When I was in third grade all I
did was draw the same horse head over and over
again and Mother would say, " Oh, let's do a picture
of a beach with water colors," or some other thing that
would broaden our interest. I liked the rotor carnival ride
(14:47):
and that was a sensory reason why I liked to
get spun around in this big barrel and pushed up
against the wall. Well, you can learn some physics about how
that ride works and why you stay stuck to the
wall. You see, that would be an example of broadening
that interest.
Katie Bennison (15:02):
Such great advice from Temple Grandin. She is a true
inspiration. We'll get back to that remarkable conversation in a
moment, but first, we're going to hear from our Parent
Autism round table. As parents, we worry, of course. We
want our kids to succeed. But if there's one thing
(15:22):
Temple Grandin teaches us it's that there are plenty of
reasons to be hopeful. So we asked the parents on
our autism round table to share some of the hopes
and dreams they have for their kids.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
I think really just to be at peace with who he is. And
just really to see how special and unique he is
because he does have significant empathy for friends. He has
virtually no empathy for parents.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I wish for him to be like in peace with
himself and be happy with who he is, and be
loved.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
All the conversations we've had over the last few years
have definitely sunk in and I see that in him
working with other people. So I think it's really just
to find his passion and his purpose, and just really
express that and not be attached to all these other
sort of things, but just to be and live.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Just being your functioning adult in the world, given whatever passion she
follows. But just to be able to live on her
own, or find a partner, or a group of friends
and be just a contributing member of society in her
own unique way. That's my biggest hope.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, the same you have for any of your children, right? You want
them to be happy, you want them to be loved, you want
them to love. That's it. What else is there?
Speaker 5 (16:48):
I mean, there isn't anything else. I don't care if
he makes money, I don't care about any of that
stuff. I just want him to be happy and feel
fulfilled in his life. That's the most important thing.
Katie Bennison (17:00):
Wise words from the parents on our autism round table.
Earlier, we were speaking with autism trailblazer, Temple Grandin. She
has written many books. One of them is called Thinking
in Pictures. Oliver Sacks wrote in the foreword of this
book that it was unprecedented because it was the first
(17:20):
time anyone with autism had explained exactly how their mind
works. So when I spoke to Dr. Grandin I asked
her to explain what she means when she talks about
thinking in pictures.
Temple Grandin (17:34):
Well, everything I think about is a picture. Now, if you watch the
HBO movie, the way it shows my thinking in pictures
is really accurate. It shows exactly how I think. It's
also associative. I think the best way for you to
understand how I think in pictures is to give me
(17:54):
a key word, but not something I can see in
my office right now, not something common like " house", " dog", "
cat", or " car". Give me a key word that's a
bit more original and I will tell you how my
mind kind of accesses it. It's sort of like Google
for images.
Katie Bennison (18:09):
Drum kit.
Temple Grandin (18:12):
Okay, drum kit. I just saw a drum kit the
other day at a place I gave a talk, so
I'm seeing that. Now I'm seeing a drum kit at
a great big church. And I asked why they had
plexiglass around the drums and they said that helped with
the sound. And in this church they had a giant train
that went across the stage. They used carbon dioxide to
(18:32):
make it go, "Shh." So now I've gotten from drum kit
to trains.
Katie Bennison (18:37):
Right.
Temple Grandin (18:37):
Now you see how there's an associative link. Now I'm seeing
the train. I was just going to the post office
today and we had to wait for the train to
go through the intersection. So I'm seeing that freight train
that goes through our town. So that's how I got
from drum kit to freight train. And then I can
(18:59):
use that to solve problems like when I was designing
things. I'm also a bottom- up thinker. When I first
started working on cattle handling design I went to every
feed lot in Arizona that worked cattle and there were
some curved facilities that were around at the time. There
were some that worked really well, there was some stuff that
worked badly. I remember two feed yards that had identical
(19:21):
systems and one worked badly and it was due to
orientation to the sun. And then I figured out where
there were layout mistakes. So then what I did was
put all the good bits together and chuck out the
bad bits to make new systems. Now, the thing about bottom-
up thinking is the more data you load into the
database, the better you think. And it also helps get
(19:44):
rid of rigid thinking because then you can sort data
into different categories, not just good and bad. You can have different degrees
of goodness or badness.
Katie Bennison (19:54):
So, you also participated in writing a children's book called
Temple Did It, I Can, Too!
Temple Grandin (20:01):
Well, Jennifer Gilpin wrote the book and I just want
to motivate kids. You see, too many kids are letting autism become
their whole identity. Now, autism's a very, very important part of
who I am, but it's secondary to career and livestock
(20:21):
industry, being a scientist, and being a professor doing my
classes, that comes first. And autism's a very important part of
who I am, I would not want to change. I like
the logical way I think, but it's not my primary
identity. I also feel very strongly that we've got to
motivate kids. We have to motivate them to study. But I
(20:44):
think another thing is we have to motivate where studying
is a pathway to a goal. See, there's a lot
of kids good at one thing, bad at something else.
I'm a visual thinker, absolutely cannot do algebra because there's
nothing there to visualize. Now I'm seeing kids right now
being kept out of something like a skilled trade or
out of auto mechanics because they can't do algebra. You don't
(21:05):
need algebra for that. I'll tell you what you need algebra for,
you're a chemist. I also read a very interesting article
in Wired magazine about the Lunar Lander computer and it
crashed. While the Lunar Lander was landing, the computer went
down. And a very clever programmer at MIT figured out
how to make sure that it always saved the navigation
(21:27):
data. And so when it came back on 10 seconds
later, the navigation still worked. And the only thing that's
known about the guy who programmed that is he was
reclusive and had a messy office. Well, that sounds familiar,
doesn't it?
Katie Bennison (21:41):
Yes.
Temple Grandin (21:42):
But he used algebra to make the computer, out of
priority, that that navigation stuff has to be saved no
matter what. But then, you need the clever engineering department
to make the space suit for walking on the moon.
This is why you need both kinds of minds, the visual thinkers
like me and then the more patterned mathematical thinkers, to
(22:04):
make the moon mission successful. And in my book Animals
in Translation I describe how thinking in pictures helped me
to understand animals because the first thing I did in
working with cattle is I wanted to look at what are
the animals seeing when they go through the chute? And
(22:28):
cattle will stop if there's a coat on the fence.
There's a vehicle parked next to the fence and they
see the shiny metal of the vehicle. That will make
them stop. Or there's a hose on the ground.
Katie Bennison (22:39):
Or a flag.
Temple Grandin (22:40):
Most people haven't noticed this stuff and the reason they didn't notice
it is they weren't visual thinkers. Now, I didn't know that at
the time. When I started in my 20's I thought
everybody was a visual thinker. I didn't know that my
thinking was different.
Katie Bennison (22:53):
So you have a remarkable connection with animals, can you
tell me why that relationship is so important to you?
Temple Grandin (22:59):
Well, I think it's because I think visually. Animals are sensory based thinkers. They
don't think in words. They think in pictures, their memories
are going to be in pictures. And in Animals in
Translation I talk about the horse that was scared of
black cowboy hats. He was abused by somebody wearing a
black hat, terrified of black cowboy hats, fine with somebody
(23:20):
with a white cowboy hat or a ball cap. Or
the sound of this vehicle is the vehicle that comes and
feeds me, maybe this other vehicle's going to chase me
around. So their memory is a sound. There are some dogs
that can know the sound of their owner's car.
Katie Bennison (23:37):
So, lack of empathy can be a trait sometimes associated
with people on the spectrum, but yet your work requires
that you very much empathize and connect with animals. How
do you respond to the idea that people with autism
lack empathy?
Temple Grandin (23:54):
I learned a lot about animals scientifically, observing them. I mean, some
people say, well, the dog doesn't have emotions. Well, that's
stupid because neurologically they've got all the subcortical structures where
emotions are the same in all mammals. But I have
this sort of visual empathy.
Katie Bennison (24:14):
But do you feel love for the animals, too?
Temple Grandin (24:17):
Well, I really care about them and I've got emotions,
but I think they're probably more in the present. And
I've had to learn how to control anger because I got
kicked out of high school for anger. And I had
to switch from anger to crying. I tell guys it's
okay to cry. NASA space scientists cried when they shut down
(24:38):
the shuttle.
Katie Bennison (24:40):
You've had so many big achievements because your thinking is
different. But, on a personal level, which ones feel the
biggest to you? Which were the ones that made you say, "
Wow, I actually did that"?
Temple Grandin (24:52):
Well, actually, when I did those dip vat projects that were shown really nicely
in the movie. And one of the things that motivated
me to do those projects is a lot of people thought it was
stupid. But, I remember looking at the drawing I did
for one of those projects and when I got the
drawing done I almost couldn't believe that I had done
it.
Katie Bennison (25:11):
You amazed yourself?
Temple Grandin (25:12):
I remember looking at the drawing and going, " Somebody stupid
doesn't do this drawing."
Katie Bennison (25:16):
Mm- hmm (affirmative). You said, " I am what I do more
than what I feel."
Temple Grandin (25:22):
That's right.
Katie Bennison (25:23):
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Temple Grandin (25:25):
Well, I get great satisfaction out of doing stuff, whether
it's building something. But I also get great satisfaction when I get an
email or somebody calls me, or they come up to
me in the airport, that happens all the time, and
they'll say... like one lady at the airport said, " Oh,
thank you so much for your book Thinking in Pictures. I
now understand my engineer husband and it saved our marriage." Or, "
(25:47):
My kid went to college because of one of your talks
or one of your books." I get great satisfaction from that.
Katie Bennison (25:54):
That's Dr. Temple Grandin, scientist, author, autism trailblazer. You're listening to
Life on the Spectrum, the autism family podcast. I'm Katie
Bennison. We hope you're enjoying this episode looking at success
on the spectrum and if you are enjoying it, please
consider giving us a review. It'll help us reach more
(26:14):
people and share with your friends. Our website is lifeonthespectrumpodcast.
com. When you're a family living with autism it is
so easy to get bogged down by the challenges and
by the tough times. So in this episode, we're focusing
(26:35):
on success stories. Here are some of the amazing teens
from our autism round table talking about some of the
good things about being on the spectrum.
Speaker 10 (26:50):
I overheard my friend talking and she said that I
was autistic. And so she said, " You're so fun- loving."
Speaker 11 (26:59):
It's being able to focus on anything you want, really.
Speaker 12 (27:02):
People with autism sometimes have heightened senses.
Speaker 11 (27:05):
Like when I was little I used to be super
focused on World War II and I was reading history textbooks for
Grade 10.
Speaker 12 (27:11):
So, I really love bunnies. I can know random bunny
facts off the top of my head.
Speaker 11 (27:16):
I know a lot about marine biology. I know what the Latin
name of the salmon and the red rock and all the
crabs are.
Speaker 12 (27:23):
And I also really like My Little Pony. If you just
show me an image of any character I can probably
guess the name pretty easily. I also really like music.
I've written a few songs and I'm a good singer.
Speaker 11 (27:34):
I think my creativity. I tend to be very observant,
or so I've been told.
Speaker 13 (27:41):
That is one of the greatest things about autism.
Katie Bennison (27:47):
Fun- loving, focused, a knack for marine biology, lots of
great reminders about the pluses of having autism from our
teen round table. Temple Grandin talks a lot about the
positive side of autism. She's living proof that people on
the spectrum can dream big. As a young person she
loved animals and wanted to work with them. And even
(28:09):
though she was badly bullied in school and faced huge
challenges, she was determined to make her dreams a reality.
As an animal scientist she's an inspiration. But she's also
had incredible success outside of animal science. Temple Grandin is
a role model for thousands of families and people living
(28:29):
with autism. So, I had to ask for her advice
on setting up kids on the spectrum for success.
Temple Grandin (28:38):
One of the things I did is I had to
work very hard to make myself good at what I
did. Another thing I'm finding, and I'm seeing a lot of
problems now with a lot of students today, just regular
students, their writing skills are terrible. And that's because when
they were in elementary school and in high school they
weren't writing book reports and essays. And writing was a
(28:59):
very important thing in my career because I would design
something and then I wrote about it. There's a scene
in the movie where I go up and I get
the editor's card. That scene is real. I saw that
if I wrote for that magazine it would open a
door.
Katie Bennison (29:11):
Yes.
Temple Grandin (29:11):
But then when I sent him the article a week
later, and it was a summary of my Master's thesis on squeeze
chutes, they published it.
Katie Bennison (29:17):
Yes!
Temple Grandin (29:18):
And if my writing had been terrible, they wouldn't have
published it.
Katie Bennison (29:23):
So what advice would you give to parents of kids
with autism to set them up for success?
Temple Grandin (29:30):
Well, we have to work with ages. The other thing I think
the problem with autism is when kids are really little
when they're three, you can have kids that look really severe, I looked horrible
when I was three. And then I had a lot of good
early intervention, really super good, lot of one- on- one
with the teachers. Then you kind of get different levels.
(29:52):
You've got people that are mathematicians, they ought to go
to Silicon Valley. I've been out to Silicon Valley. They
avoid all the labels. Half those programmers are on the
spectrum and they avoid the labels. And then you've got
the art kind of people like me, skilled trades would
be a good place for us to go. And the
reason why I'm pushing the skilled trades, things like plumbing,
electrical, fixing cars, airplanes, trains, boats, machinists, and heating and
(30:19):
air conditioning, because these are good jobs that will never get replaced
by computers. You'll have a job for life. And then
you've got individuals where that's not an option. And I
really like what Stephen Hawking said about disability in an
interview with the New York Times, he said, " Concentrate on
the things. Your disability does not prevent you from doing
(30:40):
well." And he could do math in the head really,
really well. And he concentrated on that. Teens, I would
say we need to be working on teaching living skills
and independence skills. We need to find paper route substitutes.
Okay, let's say it's a fully verbal kid, walk dogs
for the neighbors. If you belong to a church, church
(31:02):
volunteer job and it's on a schedule. You do it
every week. The instant they're legal I want to see
them in the real workforce. The thing you got to be careful
about is not too much multitasking. Multitasking is a real problem.
A super busy McDonald's would not be a good choice.
Let's get something like an ice cream shop that's not
(31:23):
as hectic and there's been some good successes in ice cream shops.
You know, a quieter kind of retail store. But office
supply stores have been good for some people. And I've
had parents admit that after their kid was out doing
these things, he kind of blossomed. But there's a tendency
to overprotect. I'm seeing 16- year- olds, fully verbal, good
(31:46):
students, and they've never gone shopping by themselves. And some
parents have trouble with letting go on having the kid
learn stuff like shopping and bank account, just basic stuff.
If I hadn't learned how to drive, I would not
have any career in the cattle industry. Pure and simple. Due to
the multitasking issue it's going to take longer to learn.
(32:11):
I did 200 miles on my aunt's dirt roads before we
touched traffic.
Katie Bennison (32:16):
Wow.
Temple Grandin (32:16):
That solves the multitasking issue. So let's start out in
the middle of a great big empty parking lot. For
me, it was out in the middle of the horse pasture, that's where I
started. And where there's nothing to hit and learn how
to operate the vehicle, but it's going to take longer.
Lots of times Driver's Ed chucks them in the deep
end too fast.
Katie Bennison (32:38):
What advice would you give to kids that are being
bullied?
Temple Grandin (32:44):
Well, there's some kids that get bullied so bad in high
school that may have to be taken out of that
school. And now if you homeschool your kid, you need to be
getting them into a lot of activities where he's doing
other social activities with other kids. If he's legal I
want him in the workforce.
Katie Bennison (33:01):
But, what should they think if they're getting bullied because
that, unfortunately, it happened to you. How did you deal
with it?
Temple Grandin (33:09):
Well, the only thing that saved me is that there were
refuges away from bullying and they were the shared interest
things, horseback riding, when I was working in the barn
the boys didn't come around the barn very much. My
bad places were the dining room and the parking lot.
Katie Bennison (33:25):
Mm- hmm ( affirmative). But what do you say to yourself-
Temple Grandin (33:27):
And I'd walk through the parking lot and they'd call me " Bones" because
I was skinny.
Katie Bennison (33:31):
Yeah, that's-
Temple Grandin (33:31):
" Bones" and " Tape Recorder" were the two things they
used to call me. And I didn't know why they
called me " Tape Recorder", but it was because I always
used the same phrases. But then as I got out
and I did more things, then I learned more different phrases
then I'm going to be less like a tape recorder.
You see, what you got to do with these kids
you got to get them out and fill the database.
Now, what do you do about sensory problems? Well, I talked to one
(33:55):
mom, her kid was afraid of the vacuum cleaner, so
she gave the kid the vacuum cleaner and says, " Okay, you can
turn it on and play with it." And he got
to loving it. One of the ways to help on
sound sensitivity is when the child can control it, he
or she turns that hair dryer on and off.
Katie Bennison (34:09):
Oh, yeah. We had that problem with Sophie in the public washrooms. We
had to write a social-
Temple Grandin (34:16):
Oh, those are awful. The problem you've got there is
you can't control that stuff in the public bathrooms. You
just can't control. That's where you put a headset on
and go in there.
Katie Bennison (34:26):
Yeah, well, we-
Temple Grandin (34:26):
All right? But then, if you wear a headset all the time,
your hearing's going to get more sensitive because the brain
will try to compensate. So what you want to do
is you can have a headset with you all the
time, but try not to wear it. And those public
bathrooms are just so horrible for uncontrollable, unpredictable, loud noises
that you wear the headset in there.
Katie Bennison (34:45):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (34:46):
But then other places, you want to try to not
wear it, but you have it there in case you need
it.
Katie Bennison (34:51):
Yeah.
Temple Grandin (34:52):
See, again, that gives the kid control.
Katie Bennison (34:53):
Yeah. So what about adults on the spectrum, do you
have any advice for them?
Temple Grandin (35:00):
Well, friends with shared interests, that's always important. One of the
things I've read about depression is a thing called Activation Therapy.
Basically, what you do with that they gave an example
of a lady who loved cats and she was depressed.
So get her out of the house and she's going
to work for cat rescue. In other words, find something
(35:22):
the person's interested in and get them out doing it. And
that's not going to cure all depression, but just getting them
out doing stuff can often be really helpful. And they
actually call it Activation Therapy. But, again, it gets back to
that shared interest of things, where they're doing something with
other people with something they care about. Join a garden
(35:43):
club, join a book club.
Katie Bennison (35:45):
What do you like to do in your off time?
Temple Grandin (35:48):
Oh, I like to watch the science fiction movies. I loved
Avatar, I thought that was just such a wonderful movie. It's also
just what we would do in our off time I remember we would sit
and have dinner with the construction crews and we'd talk
about two things. How stupid the suits were, the managers were, and
the other thing we talked about was how to build stuff. That
(36:08):
was just really fascinating conversation.
Katie Bennison (36:11):
Temple, on behalf of everyone that is listening to Life
on the Spectrum, thank you for having such a big heart.
Temple Grandin (36:18):
Okay, great to talk to you.
Katie Bennison (36:19):
Bye.
Temple Grandin (36:19):
Okay, yeah, bye.
Katie Bennison (36:22):
Temple Grandin, professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University,
and a prominent author and public speaker. She's a hero
in the autism world and certainly in our household. I'm
so grateful that she took the time to join us
and to give us her advice on how to succeed
in life. Speaking of advice, here's some wisdom from our
(36:46):
round table of parents who have teenagers with autism. You'll
hear a few of my own thoughts in here, too.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
I mean, I think at the beginning it's overwhelming, right?
And it's like, " How am I going to cope with
this?" and, " I can't do this," at least that was
my reaction. And it gets better, it definitely gets better
over time. And they get older, they learn things from
you, you learn things. Things improve, things just get, they
(37:16):
get better.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
The gift it's given me is to be a lot
kinder to myself. And as I said earlier, just try
and shift in your head because there's a lot of
problems every day, or we have significant problems it seems
every day. What is it I can learn, or what's
the opportunity in this, or what's the question you can
ask yourself? I ask myself whenever I'm stuck in it
(37:37):
and invariably I always get this incredible answer back in
terms of this gift. You don't see it at the
moment, but you see it later.
Katie Bennison (37:44):
Sophie is a gift. I have learned so much through
having her as a daughter and it has opened my
eyes, and it has made me more tolerant and caring,
and non- judgmental of others. And I know that she's
going to be fine. She's quirky. Aren't we all?
Speaker 4 (38:05):
I'm no where near the person I was five years
ago. I mean, I've grown in ways I didn't even
think where I had possibilities.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I would say just pace yourself, be kind to yourself, and know,
just trust, that it will get better. And if you can
find people that, whether it's online or, better if you
can, in person, but find people who have had similar
things that are going on because it helps immensely to
talk to other people and know that you're not the
(38:35):
only one.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
You just kind of become more accepting of people's variable
behaviors and different things you would've reacted to strongly when you
were younger and are more neurotypical, part of that group.
And then suddenly you're, " Oh, I'm a lot more open
to things."
Katie Bennison (38:53):
You know, everyone has something in their lives. There's a
separation in their family, or one kid has dyslexia, or
there's cancer with the grandfather, or something, and we all
cope, right? And we all have issues and autism is
(39:13):
a label. It doesn't necessarily mean that life is over.
And hopefully this podcast will help other families understand that
you're not alone and it's all good. It's going to
be fine. You just have to reach out and not
shut yourself in. And that's about it for today's episode
(39:40):
of Life on the Spectrum. It's also the last episode
of our first season. I really hope that you found
it helpful and inspiring. And if you want some more
helpful resources, check out our website, lifeonthespectrumpodcast. com. You can
also find us on Facebook. I want to thank our
(40:01):
writers of this season, Jennifer Moss and Jennifer Van Evra.
And special thanks to Craig Zarazun at Wave Productions for
recording our parent and teenage round tables, and my interview
with Temple Grandin. Just before I let you go, I
want to make sure to tell you about our special
bonus episode. It's my complete interview with Michelle Garcia Winner
(40:25):
on social thinking. It's on our website or wherever you
get your podcasts. Finally, to end this season on a
successful note, here are some parting thoughts from our autism
teen round table. I asked them to talk about some
of their hopes and dreams for the future because, really,
it's their voices that matter the most. I'm Katie Bennison.
(40:48):
Here's to Life on the Spectrum. What are your plans
and dreams for when you grow up?
Speaker 11 (40:57):
I'd like to be a marine biologist and own an
apartment, or own anything that I can live in, in
Hawaii, or anywhere where I can surf.
Speaker 12 (41:04):
I'm going to start small. I'm going to move into a
little studio apartment. I'm going to get a little steady
job, maybe one day get a better job that I'd like.
Speaker 14 (41:14):
I hope to be a railway conductor one day and,
if not, to be a business owner.
Speaker 12 (41:20):
My dream property would probably be a little cottage by
the water. I'd find a cute guy that also likes
bunnies and maybe My Little Pony as well. I don't know.
Speaker 15 (41:30):
I think I want to be a celebrity of some
kind. I think maybe a writer, probably.
Speaker 12 (41:35):
I would really like to become a musician, an artist,
or an animator, or something like that.
Speaker 16 (41:41):
Probably create graphic novels and stuff because I created a
bunch of creative stories from the dreams that I have,
or just ideas that pop into my head, you know?
And I'm also very good at drawing.
Speaker 10 (41:51):
When I'm older I want to have my own movie
about this super hero I created who's actually my alter
ego. And so she's autistic and her name is " El
Autismo" and El Autismo's super power is remembering things others
may forget. Never underestimate the power of autism. ( silence)
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