She thinks in pictures: Animal expert, autistic professor Temple Grandin visits UMass
1
2
3
4
AMHERST - Temple Grandin didn't talk until she was 4. Images, not words, filled her head. She had frequent, unexplainable temper tantrums. In her words, she had "all the symptoms of autism."
Temple Grandin, now 62, is in fact autistic. She is also a doctor and professor of animal science, an inventor, an accomplished writer (she has written widely about both animal science and autism), and something of a celebrity. Her book, "Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism," was recently made into an HBO movie starring Claire Danes.
On Tuesday, Grandin was seated in the front of the Campus Center Book Store at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, patiently signing copies of her books, as eager animal science majors, fans and other autograph seekers champed at the bit while waiting to meet her.
"You interested in animal science or autism?" she repeatedly asked her giddy visitors, their answers ranging from one subject to the other to both.
The respected scientist came to Amherst Tuesday as a part of U.S. Department of Agriculture program called "Producing Natural Local Meat for Consumers." Grandin - who teaches at Colorado State University - is stopping at UMass, as wells as at colleges in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and at Old Sturbridge Village, to talk with farmers, students and teachers about the humane treatment of animals.
A BBC documentary report on Temple Grandin
Treating livestock well
Grandin knows a good deal about the treatment of livestock. According to her book, "Thinking in Pictures," a third of the cattle and hogs in the United States are handled in facilities that she designed. Among her prominent designs are curved lanes common to feed yards or slaughterhouses, which are used to move animals willingly through those facilities.
"If an animal balks and refuses to walk through an alley, one needs to find out why it is scared and refuses to move. Unfortunately, people often try to correct these problems with force, instead of by understanding the animal's behavior," she writes.
In an interview at the bookstore, Grandin said her ability to understand animal behavior was linked to her autism.
"I think in pictures, not words. I think like Google for images," she said, referring to the Internet search engine, which will produce dozens of images of an object named by a user.
At the book signing, she asked members of the audience to give her a word, to explain how her mind works. Stephen Herbert, director of the Center for Agriculture at UMass, stepped in and offered "circus."
"Circus: I picture big globes that floated down from the ceiling at a circus I went to when I was young," Grandin said. "I see Cirque du Soleil, a video of the Blue Man Group I once saw. I am seeing specific examples of circus things."
Helping animals
Seeing the world visually is helpful when it comes to dealing with animals, Grandin said. In her book, Grandin explains how her acute awareness of the visual world led to the observation that an animal entering a slaughterhouse may balk, not because it is afraid of death, but because of a small object that it must cross over.
In one instance, Grandin wrote about how a whole cattle-processing plant was thrown into chaos after a plastic bottle fell in front of the entrance.
"The animal mind thinks in pictures, sounds, and uses its sense of smell and touch," Grandin said. "It certainly does not think in language."
Grandin's observations of the animal world have also led to innovations that have helped those with autism. Watching anxious cattle enter a squeeze chute, which is used to hold and control an animal in one place, she noticed that the animal became more calm. Consequently, Grandin climbed in a squeeze chute herself and found that it helped reduce her own anxiety. That realization helped produce the "squeeze machine," which is used to help treat people with autism.
"Therapists have found that deep pressure over large areas of the nervous system help relieve anxiety when the nervous system is all hyped up," Grandin said.
Grandin is a native of Dedham and attended high school and college in New Hampshire before moving westward. She was diagnosed with autism in 1950, according to her Web site. Her parents were told that she should be institutionalized.
Early intervention
On Tuesday, Grandin credited early educational intervention and the help of her science teachers in high school for "helping turn me around."
"The worst thing you can do with an autistic kid is to do nothing," Grandin said. "It was my science teachers that got me turned around, because they got me interested in studying."
Indeed, Grandin hasn't stopped studying since. She obtained a psychology degree from Franklin Pierce in 1970, a master's degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975 and a doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1989.
Those achievements, along with her advocacy for those with autism and work in the livestock industry, have made Grandin something of a celebrity. She has appeared on the Today Show, ABC's Primetime Live, Larry King Live and has been written about in The New York Times, People magazine and U.S. News and World Report.
Most recently HBO released a full-length film about her life, titled "Temple Grandin," which debuted Feb. 6. The movie will run on HBO through the end of the month, Grandin said.
She was emphatic in her praise of the movie, saying she felt the filmmakers had done an excellent job.
"It's kind of strange," she said, reflecting on what it's like to have a movie made about her life. "It's like going into a time machine back to the '60s or '70s."
