SCIENTIST, INVENTOR, AND ADVOCATE UNITED STATESI do believe that recognizing different capacities and kinds of thought and expression can lead to greater connectedness and understanding.
—TEMPLE GRANDIN
Temple galloped across the ranch. Her breath exploded out in great gasps; her heart raced like it might fly out of her chest. She felt like she was having a heart attack, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t slow down. She couldn’t think. She had to keep moving. Moving. Moving.
Temple was having a panic attack. She had them all the time, and each attack was terrifying. This time, as Temple raced around her Aunt Ann’s ranch, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. The squeeze chute! she thought desperately. She pictured cows standing in the machine as workers gave them shots. At first the cattle were nervous, but once the side gates closed in and squeezed their flanks to hold them in place, the animals relaxed.
In 1943 Dr. Leo Kanner first coined the term autism to describe the unusual behavior of children he was working with. Autism is a brain disorder diagnosed in early childhood. Some classic symptoms include poor speech and eye contact; appearance of deafness; tantrums; lack of interest in people; and repetitive behaviors (like rocking, spinning, or hand flapping). The cause of autism is still unknown and, while early intervention and treatment has been shown to help, there is no known cure.
Before anyone could stop her, Temple threw herself into the empty chute. Down on all fours, she called out, “Pull the lever!”
Aunt Ann had no idea what Temple was doing, but she pulled the lever anyway. The gates closed in, squeezing Temple with a gentle pressure. Relief came instantly. She could feel her panic drifting away. Her breathing slowed. Her heartbeat slowed. A wave of calm swept over her. It was like a miracle.
Temple knew she had to build a squeeze machine of her own.
That summer, seventeen-year-old Temple Grandin did indeed design and build her own squeeze machine, which gave her great relief from the overwhelming anxiety caused by her autism. This was Temple’s first important step in turning her disability to an asset that would eventually help her achieve her dreams.
When Temple Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1947, no one knew she had autism. Although as a baby she struggled whenever she was held and preferred being alone in the baby carriage, Temple’s parents had no idea she was unusual. As she grew into a toddler, however, they noticed that she didn’t talk, and they worried she might be deaf. They also noticed she didn’t play like other children her age. While the toddler next door built sand castles with friends and played patty-cake with her mother, Temple spent hours alone watching sand trickle through her fingers, mesmerized by each individual grain. Temple was different.
When Temple was two and a half, a doctor diagnosed her with brain damage. Back then almost no one knew about autism. People with Temple’s symptoms were usually forced to live in a hospital or mental institution, away from their families. That’s what the doctor recommended for Temple, but her mother refused. Instead she started Temple in a speech therapy class and hired a nanny to work with Temple and her sister every day. “I would tune out,” Temple said, describing her early years, “shut off my ears, and daydream.” The teachers brought her back to earth. With their help, Temple began to talk and interact with her family.
Our understanding of autism has expanded, and today Temple would be diagnosed as someone with high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome.
When Temple hit adolescence, however, life got more difficult. People with autism often experience intensified symptoms during the teen years, probably triggered by hormonal changes. For Temple, it was crippling panic attacks. She was also teased a lot more for the unusual way she talked and acted.
Fortunately, in high school Temple met one of her most influential mentors: Mr. Carlock, her science teacher. He could see that Temple was incredibly bright, but it was also clear that her brain worked differently than other students’ did. Temple learned visually; she saw the world in pictures. While other kids teased her for being different, Carlock encouraged Temple to use those differences to her benefit. He suggested she design experiments that used her unique visual talents. Temple took his advice and began to think and experiment like a scientist. “He spent hours giving me encouragement when I became dejected by all the teasing by classmates. Mr. Carlock’s science lab was a refuge from a world I did not understand.”
Temple got kicked out of her first high school after she threw a book at a girl who was teasing her.
Throughout Temple’s childhood, her mother pushed her to do things she was uncomfortable with, to stretch herself, and to find and develop her passions. In high school, when Temple’s panic attacks were nearly nonstop, her mother forced her to spend the summer at her Aunt Ann’s ranch in Arizona. It turned out to be one of the best moves of Temple’s life. At the ranch, she spent her time helping with the animals and designing things. After she discovered that pressure from the cattle chute could relieve her anxiety for hours at a time, Temple designed and built one of her own. Temple describes the effects of using the machine: “I felt very calm and serene. . . . This was the first time I ever felt really comfortable in my own skin.”
Here’s how Temple describes the workings of her brain: “I think in pictures. Words are like a second language to me. I translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies, complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head.”
On the ranch, Temple had another important breakthrough—she discovered her love of cattle. She realized she had the ability to picture the world through their eyes. She could envision what the cows were seeing, how they were feeling, and predict how that would affect their behavior. Cattle and their behavior soon became Temple’s passion. During college, she studied psychology and designed a study of human stress relief using her squeeze machine on classmates.
Early in Temple’s career, a man blocked her from entering a feedlot, saying, “No girls allowed.” So Temple dressed as a man in heavy overalls, a hardhat, and sunglasses and got through with no problem.
For her master’s degree, Temple moved to Arizona where she could be near Aunt Ann and the ranch. At Arizona State University she studied animal science, focusing on cattle and feedlot systems. When she asked to do her master’s thesis on the behavior of cattle in different types of cattle chutes, her adviser thought she was crazy and said no. But Temple wouldn’t take no for an answer. She found two new advisers, in the Construction and Design Departments, and began her survey. She discovered that some types of chutes were more likely to injure cattle, some types of cattle were more accident-prone, and that a certain timing for operation was ideal for reducing stress and injury. Today, her findings are widely used by the cattle industry.
Temple wrote, “From as far back as I can remember, I always hated to be hugged. I wanted to experience the good feeling of being hugged, but it was just too overwhelming. . . . When I was six, I would wrap myself up in blankets and get under sofa cushions, because the pressure was relaxing. I used to daydream for hours . . . about constructing a device that would apply pressure to my body.”
Once out of school, Temple had to work even harder to get people to trust and believe in her abilities. Temple wanted to design better equipment for feedlots—equipment that wouldn’t scare cattle, that would keep them calm and reduce injuries and unnecessary deaths. Temple wanted to design a better life for the millions of cattle in these facilities. But in the 1960s almost no women worked in feedlots. There certainly weren’t any women with autism.
One of Temple’s first livestock design projects was a dip vat for John Wayne’s Red River feed yard in Arizona. A dip vat is a long, narrow, deep pool filled with pesticide that cattle swim through to get rid of ticks, lice, and other parasites. Temple didn’t like the existing designs. The steep, slick ramps often caused cattle to panic as they entered the pool. Some flipped over and drowned. Temple’s redesign had a more gradual ramp with grooves to give the cattle better footing.
One third of all cattle and hogs in the United States are now handled in more humane facilities designed by Temple.
The cowboys who worked at the feed yard, however, didn’t believe Temple knew what she was doing. Before the first test of her new design, the cowboys covered her ramp with a metal sheet, converting it back into the slippery system she was trying to fix. The first day they used it, the cattle panicked, as they had before, and two flipped over in the pool and drowned. When Temple found out, she was furious! After she insisted they remove the metal sheet, the cowboys were amazed that the ramp worked perfectly. The cattle entered the pool calmly and no more drowned.
Temple’s favorite TV show is STAR TREK. She identifies with Spock and Data, describing herself as a “pure logical being.” Human emotions often baffle her, just as they did the Vulcan and the android.
Temple went on to design and redesign feedlots all across America. She has written countless articles in industry magazines explaining how to improve animal facilities. Temple has her doctorate in animal science, works as a professor at Colorado State University, and is considered a world-famous expert on the behavior and psychology of cattle and hogs, as well as an advocate for their humane treatment.
She is also a world-famous expert on autism. Temple believes that intervening early and encouraging the talents of people with autism are the keys to helping them lead a happier, more fulfilling life. Through her bestselling books and frequent appearances, Temple has helped thousands of people with autism.
In 2010 Time Magazine listed Temple in its one hundred Most Influential People, and that same year a movie about her life won seven Emmy awards. The squeeze chute Temple invented as a teenager is now called a hug box and provides anxiety relief to people with autism all around the world. Temple used it herself for forty-five years until she didn’t need it anymore. “I’m into hugging people now,” she has stated.
Despite all the challenges Temple has faced because of her differences, she is clear about not wishing to change. She believes her disabilities gave her unique abilities. “If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.”
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I’d offer a summer horse camp for children with autism. I would call it Camp Horse Sense. There they would learn a little bit more about the horses, like how to tack and untack the horses, how to trot and canter, and possibly how to jump. I would be giving back to the world by teaching children how to be kind, loving, and caring toward other creatures. Letting children learn how to be independent and gentle with such large animals will be a great way to let children express themselves and feel good and free.
AGE 13