Temple Grandin Quotes - Page 4

I'm seeing too many kind of socially awkward kids that get through schools and then they can't hold a job because they haven't learned the discipline of get up in the morning.

I'm a visual thinker, not a language-based thinker. My brain is like Google Images.

If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the Earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.

I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world. We need a lot more of that and a lot less abstract stuff.

If you have autism in the family history, you still vaccinate. Delay it a bit, space them out.

I'm seeing too many kids where they get fixated on their own autism. I'd rather have them get fixated that they like programming computers or they like art or they want to sing in the church choir or they want to train dogs, you know, something that they can turn into a career.

For example, if ears are back on a horse, it's obviously not very happy. And the eyes show that it's not happy. Now, if the eyes are nice and soft and brown, then it's calm. You can see these things in horses and cattle, and I think that some of these people are just really good at picking up these signals, but they don't realize it.

Medication should never be considered the only tool for helping a person.

Pressure is calming to the nervous system.

If you start using a medication in a person with autism, you should see an obvious improvement in behavior in a short period of time. If you do not see an obvious improvement, they probably should not be taking the stuff. It is that simple.

I am also a believer in an integrated treatment approach to autism.

In my opinion, one of the greatest animal-welfare problems is the physical abuse of livestock during transportation.... Typical abuses I have witnessed with alarming frequency are; hitting, beating, use of badly maintained trucks, jabbing of short objects into animals, and deliberate cruelty.

One of the big areas I'd like to see a lot more research done on is the sensory problems, and it's real variable. One kid's got sound sensitivity; another one can't tolerate fluorescent lights. I can't stand scratchy clothes.

My Advice is: You always have to keep persevering.

Animals make us Human.

One of my sensory problems was hearing sensitivity, where certain loud noises, such as a school bell, hurt my ears. It sounded like a dentist drill going through my ears.

Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

Language just gradually came in, one or two stressed words a time. Before then, I would just scream. I couldn't talk. I couldn't get my words out. So the only way I could tell someone what I wanted was to scream. If I didn't want to wear a hat, the only way I knew to communicate was screaming and throwing it on the floor.

From a scientific standpoint, Aspergers and autism are one syndrome. Aspergers is part of the autism spectrum, not a separate disorder.

People wouldn’t have become who we are today if we hadn’t coevolved with dogs.

Autism is part of who I am.

Research has shown that a barren environment is much more damaging to baby animals than it is to adult animals. It does not hurt the adult animals the same way it damages babies.

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. I mean after all, the first stone spear was not designed by the totally social people.

Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that.

I can explain how a person with autism thinks. I am very, very interested in how people think. It's been a gradual process of learning more and more about how my thinking process is different. You know it's bottom up - you take specific examples to make concepts and then I put them in categories.