Temple Grandin

“Temple’s life shows us the courage and creativity of a person who found the blessings of autism—the blessings of a different kind of brain that, along with its challenges, may also bring extraordinary gifts.”

Early in Temple Grandin, autism is conveyed simultaneously as a set of challenges and a set of opportunities. Grandin is a prime example of what people with autism are capable of, given how much she has accomplished in her life. However, the challenges that can come with autism are not overlooked, as emphasized when noted that it took courage for Grandin to persevere.

“Half the beef cattle in the United States and Canada, and a growing number overseas, are handled in facilities she has designed.”

Grandin’s influence on the cattle industry and other animal production industries is enormous. Though the purpose of Temple Grandin is to emphasize Grandin’s personal journey, statistics regarding Grandin’s impact demonstrate how widespread Grandin’s designs have become.

“Time magazine named Temple one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2010.”

Recognition has reached Grandin and brought her into the public eye, as evidenced by her making Time’s list of the 100 Most Influential People. This degree of public recognition is notable for anyone, but certainly for someone who has faced the kind of challenges that Grandin has. It is also significant that Grandin has achieved this kind of recognition not for being a pop star or other celebrity, but instead because of the influential work she has done in the animal industry and in advocating for people with autism.

“This is what Temple does for a living: she gives animals better lives.”

Grandin’s ability to convey complex ideas in easy-to-understand ways is reflected in this passage. All of Grandin’s work, whether it involves designing new equipment, teaching students, advising industry experts, or talking to the public about important issues, comes down to one thing. Fundamentally, Grandin is devoted to studying, raising public awareness of, and improving animals’ well-being.

“And that's something Temple understands. As a child, she was in exactly the same position as these animals.”

A key idea in Temple Grandin is that there is a similarity between children with autism and animals. This comparison is based on the idea that animals cannot communicate directly with humans, while children with autism likewise have difficulty communicating. While this comparison helps to explain what it is like to experience the world as a child with autism, it is also related to Grandin’s powerful connection with animals and ability to empathize with them.

“Each person with autism is different, just as those who don’t have autism are all different.”

The concept of neurodiversity is explained in simple terms, by concentrating on the idea of difference. While there are certain traits that are common among people with autism, there is a wide range of talents, capabilities, and challenges that are unique to each individual. While noting the distinctive traits of autism, the text reminds readers that everyone—not only people with autism—have both gifts and challenges to grapple with.

“If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic […] I wouldn’t do it. It’s a part of who I am.”

Grandin has attained levels of success that are especially remarkable given the challenges she has had to overcome. Yet she sees autism as a defining characteristic and even a key shaper of her success, and thus would never take that part of her away. As a prominent advocate for people with autism, Grandin has written and spoken extensively on their behalf, and worked to increase acceptance of autism.

“But girls weren’t supposed to grow up to be inventors then, much less a girl with autism.”

While autism is a central topic of Temple Grandin, it is not the only challenge Grandin had to face. Sexism and conservative expectations of gender roles were other challenges she had to grapple with. As this quote explains, her early dreams of becoming an inventor were not always seriously—not just because of her autism, but simply because she was a girl, and the expectations of the time were that only boys would pursue careers in science and technology.

“Temple didn’t mean to be nasty. She explains today that she pulled these pranks to relieve her boredom.”

The full range of ways that Grandin handled the challenges of her autism is shown. Sometimes these involved positive solutions, as when she developed a version of the cattle chute to help with her anxiety. At other times, however, Grandin turned to pranks and even violence to relieve her frustrations. Yet, these examples of acting out had a root cause of boredom that showed Temple had needs that were not being met at the time.

“While still offering help to people who have problems with autism, dyslexia, and attention disorders, the neurodiversity movement seeks to uncover—and celebrate—their hidden strengths as well.”

Temple Grandin includes several explanatory sections that break away from the main story of Grandin’s life to provide contextual information and explanations of key ideas. In this passage, the concept of neurodiversity is explained to those who may be unfamiliar with the term. The main point is that neurodiversity stresses a positive, accepting attitude toward cognitive differences while also working to meet the needs of people facing cognitive challenges.

“Because Temple also noticed the same details the horses did—like a bale of hay slightly out of place—she could make small changes to calm the animal’s fear before it turned to panic.”

Grandin’s unique mental habits and patterns set her apart from others but also were one of the keys to her success. Grandin’s ability to notice details others might overlook allowed her to understand how animals thought and felt. Thus, Grandin illustrates one of the book’s key ideas about autism: that it can come with unique ways of thinking that lead to creativity and insights.

“I see the world an awful lot like a cow.”

In this strong, simple statement, Grandin directly draws a connection between the impact her autism has had on her and her deep connection to animals—particularly cattle. Grandin understands that cattle see the world in a particular way, one that is distinct from the way people see the world. In addition, by drawing a comparison between herself and cattle, Grandin implies that her way of seeing the world is likewise distinct from the way most other people do.

“At last, Temple felt engulfed with a feeling of calm, security, and peace—the way you felt as a small child, wrapped in the arms of your mother or father, certain that everything would be all right.”

The moment Grandin is first able to experiment with the cattle chute is presented as a revelation. The “calm, security, and peace” she felt strongly contrasts with the anxiety, fear, and discomfort that she felt at other times in her youth. In addition, that the sensation was like being held by a parent is notable, given that in childhood, Grandin tended to pull away when her mother or father tried to hold her.

“Mr. Carlock had a different view. Rather than trying to discourage her special interests, the science teacher used her fixation as a motivator.”

Along with Grandin’s mother, Mr. Carlock was a major influence on Grandin’s development. Most significantly, Mr. Carlock encouraged Grandin’s interest in the cattle chute, even when experts thought the fixation was a problem. In going against the grain and seeing Grandin’s interest as a motivation, Mr. Carlock shares Grandin’s ability to think in unorthodox ways.

“Temple left her professor’s office, letting that door close behind her. She walked across campus and through the doors of the university’s construction and industrial design departments.”

While Grandin arrived at graduate school with the intention of doing a research project on the behavior of cattle in chutes, her idea was met with resistance. Nevertheless, she persisted and found other professors who would support her project idea. Grandin literally closed one door and looked for another to open in this case, but in addition, the mention of doors points to their symbolic significance to Grandin, who saw doors as a metaphor for the possibilities that lay before her if she could find a way through challenges.

“As a graduate student and in her early days as a private consultant, Temple endured harassment that would have cost the men their jobs today.”

As a child, Grandin faced discrimination because of her gender as well as her autism. Grandin’s work early in her professional career and shows that such discrimination continued in her adult life. Some workers at stockyards and other settings were very opposed to Grandin’s presence and attempted to haze her in disgusting ways. Despite this, Grandin persevered.

“Temple saw that for cattle to have a good life on the ranch they needed more than protection from pain. They needed protection from fear as well.”

While some workers in the cattle industry at the time Grandin began limited their concerns to keeping the animals from being harmed, because they saw them as products that they did not want to damage. Grandin, however, had a different view. She sought to make the animals feel comfortable, safe, and unafraid. Though her ideas were unorthodox at the time, she eventually convinced others that it was important to care for the animals’ overall wellbeing.

“Her facilities were especially designed to meet the animals’ needs—not just for food and water but for something they craved just as much: calm, comfort, and companionship.”

Grandin took her keen insight into animal behavior and psychology and applied it to her designs for animal production equipment and systems. She created designs that were not simply based on moving the animals as efficiently as possible and for making work as easy as possible for humans. She created designs that allowed cattle to move in ways that felt natural to them. Ultimately, this proved to be beneficial to both the cattle and to their human handlers.

“Temple’s most important innovations in design were accomplished not in spite of but because of her autism.”

Grandin’s autism was a key factor in her success. Autism led Grandin to see and experience the world in unique and often unexpected ways. When applied to cattle system designs and other professional projects that Grandin worked on, this perspective was transformed into creativity.

“Nature can be very harsh […] I’m not saying it’s cruel, because cruelty entails intent.”

Like some other people with autism, Grandin was less bothered by pain that is typical for people without autism. Yet Grandin’s sense of empathy for animals meant that she understood when they were in pain or afraid. She accepted that nature can be harsh and sometimes cause pain but saw a difference between nature’s treatment of animals and humans’ mistreatment of animals.

“So the question is, what should a humane feedlot and slaughterhouse be like?”

Grandin takes a middle-of-the-road view of the animal production industry. While she acknowledges that it necessarily involves the slaughter of animals, she is also deeply concerned with animal well-being. She applies this balanced view to her work, asking about ways that animal production systems could be designed to treat animals with as much dignity, care, and respect as possible.

“I can see how good things could be.”

When she first began working as a consultant for the Spencer Foods kosher slaughterhouse, Grandin was horrified by what she saw there. Animals were being slaughtered in ways that caused them great pain. For Grandin, who has a deep connection to what animals are feeling, this was extremely hard to witness. However, she persevered through her own horror because she knew that she could make things better for the animals.

“Let’s look at what they are actually doing and find things we can measure. Like counting moos.”

As a consultant, Grandin has advised both industry experts and the public how to be more considerate of animal welfare. In explaining her insights to others, she knows how to rely on heuristics, or practical approaches to problem solving, such as when she advised McDonald’s inspectors to measure how stressed cattle were by counting their moos. Such approaches manage to be both intuitive and scientific (because they can be measured), thus exemplifying Grandin’s unorthodox but effective approach to problem-solving.