Temple Grandin Encourages You To Think Differently

 Temple Grandin

At this year's Singularity Summit, designer and autism advocate, Temple Grandin spoke of her experiences and uses the example of the 2012 Fukushima nuclear disaster to illustrate how sometimes, the most obvious flaws in a system can be the least apparent to those working in it.

W hen she was a baby, Temple Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized.

She tells her story of "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.

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.  Her books include, The Way I See It.

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.

BBC Horizon  produced a well-done piece entitled, The Woman Who Thinks Like A Cow, that explores the background and development of Grandin's rejection of her early diagnosis as a limitation, and her journey of self-realization and awakening that came from visiting her relative's cattle farm.

Her story was also brought to film in HBO's Temple Grandin starring Clare Danes. Director Mick Jackson's film, is remarkable, embodying Grandin's various idiosyncrasies (such as talking, too loud, too fast, and too much) without resorting to caricature. Jackson does a marvelous job of depicting not only her actual accomplishments (among other things, she took the "squeeze machine" created to "gentle" upset cattle and adapted it for herself, using it to replace the hugs she never got as a child; later on, she revolutionized the systems used to prepare cows for slaughter, as well as the design of the slaughterhouses themselves), but also her more abstract talents, especially the extraordinary visual acuity that enables her to remember virtually everything she's ever seen.

At this year's Singularity Summit Grandin spoke of her experiences and uses the example of the 2012 Fukushima nuclear disaster to illustrate how sometimes, the most obvious flaws in a system can be the least apparent to those working in it.


SOURCE  Singularity Summit 2012

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