Spring Break
Autistic professor turns the tables on disability
By Chloe Wittry
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: News
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"When I was young, I assumed that everyone perceived the world the way I did," Grandin said at a book signing on Monday night in the Lory Student Center for her latest book, "Animals Make Us Human."
Grandin has used her autism, a severe developmental disability that limits a person's ability to communicate, to become a successful livestock handling equipment designer and gives credit to her visualization abilities with helping understand the animals she works with.
"I visualize designs being used in every possible situation with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in different weather conditions," she said.
At the book signing, Grandin discussed the emotions of animals and how her autism causes her thought process to work much like theirs. She said autistic people and animals are sensory-based thinkers, not language-based.
"The animal mind and my mind are bottom-up thinking. You take a few pieces of information, and you have to work hard at putting them together," she said. "When you teach an autistic child not to run across the street, you have to teach him the same lesson on a bunch of different streets. The same goes for animals."
Grandin was the first autistic to author books on the way the autistic mind works including "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's" and "Emergence: Labeled Autistic." In her books she emphasizes the fact that despite others' beliefs, she is living proof that autism can be modified and controlled.
Grandin, who didn't speak until she was about 4 years old, said that she goofed off in high school and didn't do her work until, at the end of high school, her science teacher realized her abilities and interests and mentored her.
"Good teachers make a big difference," she said. "My high school science teacher sparked my interest in science and increased my motivation to study and stop messing around."
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