Autism rights advocate Temple Grandin hails those who think differently

by Andrea Goodell, excerpts reprinted with permission

Autism rights advocate Temple Grandin hails those who think differently. "The world needs people who think differently," Temple Grandin says.

Grandin has broken barriers both in the animal science industry and the public’s understanding of what it means to live with autism.

Grandin is an award-winning scientist, animal behaviorist, inventor, and proponent of autism rights. In February she offered a pair of lectures to two sold-out crowds as a fundraiser for Benjamin’s Hope. Grandin shared candid insights about living with autism, including how she “thinks in pictures”.

She offered strategies for people with autism to obtain employment and says everyone deserves to grow up and have a life that is full and purposeful. In many tech and industry jobs, “you need different kinds of minds,” she says.

Grandin estimates about 20% of the people she has worked with over the years have been autistic, dyslexic, have ADHD, or were otherwise not what is labeled as neurotypical. She describes three types of thinkers: verbal thinkers, such as writers, teachers, and lawyers; visual thinkers, such as artists and engineers; and spatial-visual thinkers, those who are good at both, such as mathematicians and musicians.

Grandin, herself, is a visual thinker. She remembers things in photo-realistic images and video clips in her mind.

Grandin posits that luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, and Thomas Edison would be labeled as neurodivergent — and possibly autistic — today. “All of these people learned how to work at an early age,” Grandin says. “What would happen to Michaelangelo today? He’d probably be addicted to video games in the basement.”

“There are different ways of working with problems,” Grandin says.