First of all, an animal does not understand an abstract concept such as being property or non-property. It is going to experience an environment that humans can manipulate to the animal's detriment or well being.

I think in pictures. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head.

As a child, Temple Grandin, PhD, like many children with autism, couldn't speak and raged for no identifiable reason. Yet she grew up to earn a PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois; pioneer humane ways of treating cattle using knowledge gleaned from her disorder; and write on the sensory and cognitive experience of being autistic.

There are gentler and easier methods to achieve the benefits that some children get from holding therapy. Sensory treatment should be used in conjunction with standard educational progress. Behavioral, social, and cognitive problems must also be treated.

Jobs should have a well-defined goal or endpoint. Sell your work, not your personality. Make a portfolio of your work. The boss must recognize your social limitations.

In this paper, I discuss my views of animal consciousness using comparisons from my experience with autism, and examples from a large body of scientific evidence on other neurological disorders which affect consciousness.

The author (an autistic person) developed a device that delivers deep touch pressure to help her learn to tolerate touching and to reduce anxiety and nervousness.

The basic principles of assessing risk versus benefit and using a blind evaluation should be used with all types of medications which are used to improve a child's behavior and/or language development.

Answers to questions about sensory oversensitivity and overload, food preferences and avoidance, toilet training, echolalia, fixations, diagnostic categories, early intervention, clothing issues.

Being truly outstanding in any field may be associated with some type of abnormality. At what point does a brilliant computer programmer or engineer get labeled with Asperger's?

Verbal thinkers are more likely to deny animals' thought; they are unable to imagine thought without words. It is easy for me to see things from the animals' perspective. I can imagine looking through their eyes or walking with four legs.

Two of the subjects covered in this chapter are the frustration of not being able to speak and sensory problems. My senses were oversensitive to loud noise and touch. Loud noise hurt my ears and I withdrew from touch to avoid over-whelming sensation.

I am a big believer in early intervention. You have got to keep autistic children engaged with the world. You cannot let them tune out. I can remember when I tuned out, I would just sit and rock and let sand go through my hands.

We have an education system that almost discriminates against visual thinkers, because visual thinkers are not as strong at some of the more abstract things.

I would think in an ideal world, you don't want to have people who cant talk, but on the other hand, you definitely don't want to get rid of all of the autism genetics becvause if you did that, there'd be no scientists...

Friday, February 20, 1998 Fresh Air

Another thing you need to understand about a person with autism is: �I am what I think rather than what I feel� and this is one of the reason why it is so important to have this knowledge.

By educating (writing her memoirs, speaking to the public about her own experiences growing up with autism), Grandin is deepening our understanding of the unfathomable and increasing the likelihood individuals with autism may reach much fuller potential.

A person with autism can make a successful transition into a job or career with gradual transitions, supportive employers, mentors, educating employers and employees, freelance work, and a good portfolio.

Teachers, therapists and other professionals who work with autistic people need to recognize and treat sensory processing problems in autism. Treatment programs that are appropriate and beneficial for one type of autism may be painful for other types.

The language part of my brain is the computer operator, and the rest of my brain is the computer. In most people, the brain's computer operator and the computer are merged into one seamless consciousness; but in me they are separate.

As children get older they tend to separate into two groups. For one type of child the teacher can jerk open the front door; and for the other type, the teacher must sneak quietly through the back door.

Rigidity in both behavior and thinking is a major characteristic of people with autism/AS. They have difficulty understanding the concept that sometimes it is OK to break a rule.

Probably the total normal person is the perfect little social person. That person may make a great manager but they're not going to be inventing the next computer system on flying to the moon or doing, you know, really cool technical stuff.

..as far as I can tell, the only reason she wants people like me around at all, is because we're genetically related to people like her and people like her are useful to society. This sentiment seems widespread... If people think the reason that I am afraid to look in a mirror or at photographs of myself has nothing to do with people making public statements to the effect that people who have trouble talking and don't live "independently" and self-injure are useless unless we're either made into some other kind of person or repositories for the genes that "balance out" the human race from other useless people... they're wrong too. I think that my existence brings more meaning to the world than simply to pull the gene pool towards the really valuable people. I think that the existence of my friends brings more meaning to the world than simply to pull the gene pool towards the really valuable people. I think that the existence of people with Williams syndrome brings more meaning to the world than to serve as fodder for other people's intellectual snobbery. And I think these things are true whether or not we hold jobs, or learn certain things.

Temple Grandin's many articles and her books demonstrate the wide variety of hurdles she has coped with throughout her life. Having made a successful transition into the "normal" world, Grandin has found herself in the optimal position to share her inside view with society at large. Perhaps one of her greatest advantages is her objectivity in representation: her writing is marked with scientific clarity and unaffected directness.

"I basically don't have any personal life," admits the anthropologist from Mars. What about an emotional life? "I've probably got the emotions of an 11-year-old," she replies evenly. "But I would say I do have visual empathy, say, in the case of a 600kg animal being shackled and hoisted. And I would say most normal people have a very poor visual theory of mind when it comes to these kinds of things. Not like me."

Information on Livestock Behaviour, Design of Facilities and Humane Slaughter.

As a person with autism, it is easy for me to understand how animals think because my thinking processes are like an animal's. I have no language-based thoughts at all. My thoughts are in pictures, like videotapes in my mind.