Temple Grandin Quotes - Page 2

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a good teacher.

There tends to be a lot of autism around the tech centers... when you concentrate the geeks, you're concentrating the autism genetics.

In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.

You can't punish a child who is acting out because of sensory overload.

People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?

You have got to keep autistic children engaged with the world. You cannot let them tune out.

When you're a weird geek, the way to sell yourself is to show your skills.

Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.

I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits.

We owe them [animals] a decent life and a decent death, and their lives should be as low-stress as possible. That's my job. I wish animals could have more than just a low-stress life and a quick, painless death. I wish animals could have a good life, too, with something useful to do. People were animals, too, once, and when we turned into human beings we gave something up. Being close to animals brings some of it back.

Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments.

The most important thing people did for me was to expose me to new things.

My mind works like Google for images. You put in a key word; it brings up pictures.

I think sometimes parents and teachers fail to stretch kids. My mother had a very good sense of how to stretch me just slightly outside my comfort zone.

If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.

If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.

I believe that the place where an animal dies is a sacred one. There is a need to bring ritual into the conventional slaughter plants and use as a means to shape people's behavior. It would help prevent people from becoming numbed, callous, or cruel. The ritual could be something very simple, such as a moment of silence. In addition to developing better designs and making equipment to insure the humane treatments of all animals, that would be my contribution.

A treatment method or an educational method that will work for one child may not work for another child. The one common denominator for all of the young children is that early intervention does work, and it seems to improve the prognosis.

Curiosity is the other side of caution.

As you may know, some of the stereotyped behaviors exhibited by autistic children are also found in zoo animals who are raised in a barren environment.

It is never too late to expand the mind of a person on the autism spectrum.

I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions rights, we will have fewer problem behaviors... All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.

Dogs serve people, but people serve cats.

I think one of the worst things schools have done is taken out all of the stuff like art, music, woodworking, sewing, cooking, welding, auto-shop. All these things you can turn into careers. How can you get interested in these careers if you don't try them on a little bit?

You have to get autistic kids out and expose them to things, but do this without any surprises, so they know what to expect. You have to find skilled mentors to teach them things. For me, it was an aunt, and it was my science teacher. You need to find the things they're interested in and good at and expand on this.