Temple Grandin
Some teachers just have a knack for working with autistic children. Other teachers do not have it.
I would not be here now if I did not have anti-depressants.
I know a number of autistic adults that are doing extremely well on Prozac.
I have been on the same dose of anti-depressants for 15 years, and my nerves still go up and down in cycles; but my nerves are cycling at a lower level than they were before.
And while we are on the subject of medication you always need to look at risk versus benefit.
When you take a drug to treat high blood pressure or diabetes, you have an objective test to measure blood pressure and the amount of sugar in the blood. It is straight-forward. With autism, you are looking for changes in behavior.
I like to figure things out and solve problems.
I use my mind to solve problems and invent things.
My life is basically my work.
Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that.
When I was younger I was looking for this magic meaning of life. It's very simple now. Making the lives of others better, doing something of lasting value. That's the meaning of life, it's that simple.Collection: Simple
People on the autism spectrum don't think the same way you do. In my life, people who made a difference were those who didn't see labels, who believed in building on what was there. These were people who didn't try to drag me into their world, but came into mine instead.Collection: Thinking
There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child CAN do, instead of what he cannot do.Collection: Children
The world needs different kinds of minds to work together.Collection: Mind
What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.Collection: People
I am different, not lessCollection: Inspiring
I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.Collection: Animal
Nature is cruel but we don't have to beCollection: Compassion
You can be honest without sharing your opinions on everything.Collection: Opinion
I strongly recommend that students with autism get involved in special interest clubs in some of the areas they naturally excel at. Being with people who share your interests makes socializing easier.Collection: People
You got to get away from words if you want to understand any animal. It thinks in pictures, it thinks in smells, it thinks in touch sensations - little sound bites like, it's a very detailed memory.Collection: Memories
In special education, there's too much emphasis placed on the deficit and not enough on the strength.Collection: Special
I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions rights, we will have fewer problem behaviors... All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.Collection: Zoos
I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.Collection: Done
People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?Collection: People
People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.Collection: People
In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.Collection: Rocks
If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.Collection: Motivational
I think it's a real shame so many schools have taken out the hands-on classes. Art, music, auto mechanics, cooking, sewing, these are all things that can turn into jobs. You know, wood shop, steel shop, welding. These are all things that can turn into great careers, get kids interested. Things they can do with other students. Other things for our word thinkers: journalism clubs, drama clubs.Collection: Art
By looking at autistic kids, you can't tell when you're working with them who you're going to pull out, who is going to become verbal and who's not. And there seem to be certain kids who, as they learn more and more, they get less autistic acting, and they learn social skills enough so that they can turn out socially normal.Collection: Kids
A real common problem with a lot of animals is that guys are bad, hate to say it, but they will tune into some big feature like the glasses, maybe the beard, baseball hats, you know some unique feature like that. And they'll generalize like, "Okay! All people with baseball hats or black rimmed glasses are bad."Collection: Baseball
I want get people to think about sensory based of thinking.Collection: Thinking
One of the big areas I'd like to see a lot more research done on is the sensory problems, and it's real variable. One kid's got sound sensitivity; another one can't tolerate fluorescent lights. I can't stand scratchy clothes.Collection: Real
Sometimes we forget about common sense. Autism is used too much as an excuse for bad behavior.Collection: Common Sense
One area of study that still needs to be done is the kind of autism where kids have speech and they lose it. Some parents say it's happened right after vaccines. That group needs to be studied separately from others.Collection: Kids
You could train cats do things, a lot of people don't think cats aren't trainable. Cats can be trusted just a friend.Collection: Cat
Sometimes cats just avoid using a litter box but that [cat going poop outside the litter box but pees inside the litter box] is kind of strange. Most time people ask me why they go outside the litter box period.Collection: Cat
In the 50s and 60s, kids were taught how to shake hands. They were taught how to have manners. There needs to be a lot more of that kind of stuff because the autistic mind doesn't pick up social things and subtle cues.Collection: Kids
An animal’s memory is not in words, they’ve got to be in pictures – it’s very detailed so let’s say the animal gets afraid of something. Like, for example you beat the dog up and they're looking at you and your Nike shoes or any sneaker or anything like a Nike, he's likely to be afraid of that - so anything without that Nike wingtip, he's likely to be fine. If you think about it, that's a different picture, than a Nike type shoe. Its specific because its sensory based.Collection: Nike
I feel very strongly that we need to give beef cattle a really good life. When they go to slaughter, it needs to be painless.Collection: Good Life
Sometimes you have to go outside your field of study to find the right people.Collection: People
All children in the '50s were taught manners, they were taught to say please and thank you, they were taught not to be rude. And I'm seeing some problems today where somebody's losing a job because they made fun of a fat lady that couldn't fit in the elevator. I mean that was the sort of thing that, when I was eight years old, my mother made it very clear to me that that was not okay to say that kind of stuff.Collection: Mother
How do you have a think in pictures? Well, you have to sort the pictures into categories. You know, for example, a dog knows that, you know, there's good people and there's bad people. And I talked to a lady the other day where her dog was afraid of people with white beards because she had adopted him from an animal shelter and somebody with a white beard had abused him. And this dog was now afraid of everybody that had a white beard. That was the bad category.Collection: Dog
Well the dog that is the most is the a Labrador retrievers because they tolerate kids tugging on them and things better than other dogs. They are a real good natured. They’re also real calm and sometimes when working with autistic children that’s probably more popular dog breed - now there are different ways to use service animals.Collection: Dog
You have to use food motivation whereas a dog will do things for you just for social motivation, praise and petting. Also with any animal you want to stroke it. Don't pat it, stroke it. Most don't like patting.Collection: Dog
Fear was my main emotion until I started taking anti-depressant medication. And I was one of the people where, as I got older, the fear got worse and worse. So I can really relate to an animal getting, you know, scared and traumatized.Collection: Animal
Everything I think is in pictures.Collection: Thinking
here's certain things that are similar to cats and dogs. Dogs are just hyper social and they have a want to please you way more than a cat does.Collection: Dog
The thing is, autism is a big spectrum. Going from folks who remain nonverbal, all the way up to, ya know, famous scientists and musicians. And we've got to work on strengths. We also have to work on teaching basic manners and skills.Collection: Teaching