Can't relate to Temple Grandin

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I probably don't have autism because I can't relate to Temple Grandin at all. I don't like animals all that much and I don't think in pictures. I also don't have sensory issues like she does. I don't dislike people like she did when she was younger.

I have zero visual ability, I can't draw to save my life and I just tend to score really low in the area of visual skills.

If aren't like Temple Grandin, does it mean you don't have autism or can you still have autism and be nothing like her?

I'd say most of us aren't like Temple Grandin. She's only one person with Autism, she's not the end-all and be-all of what people with Autism are like. No matter how much some people might like to insist she is.

Oh gawd!


I don't like clothes or shoes or Sarah Jessica Parker!! !


I must not be a woman!! !

Temple Grandin is just one person with autism - mind you, a pretty outstanding one when you consider that she has had a bigger impact on her industry than any NT, and when you consider that the medical advice given her parents was "Put her in an institution". She showed the world that "autistic" did not mean "write off". But she is still just one person with autism.

The autism spectrum is broad. 70-85% of people on the spectrum have sensory issues ... but not 100%. The other 15-30% are just as genuinely autistic as the other 70-85%.

Liking animals, thinking in pictures, drawing, visual skills - none of these are diagnostic criteria. They are just how Temple's autism happens to manifest itself. She herself will tell you that heaps of autistic people have poor graphic skills - e.g. many of the mathematical types (like me), and the word/fact types who (she claims) would make good journalists. There is evidence that skills in mathematics correlates with autistic personality, yet Temple Grandin was poor at algebra. That doesn't stop her from being autistic. Mathematical ability - like visual ability - is not part of the definition of autism spectrum disorder; it is just a common way that autism expresses itself in some people.

ASD requires social impairment. That does not mean you hate people. That means you find it more difficult than other people your age to interact with your peers. That means you don't understand social interaction as well as other people do. You may love people - be an extrovert even - but still find social interaction difficult.

You need to read about other people with ASD. Try Rudy Simone - she's a jazz singer, comedienne, and speaker ... and has Asperger's syndrome: http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/10/27/im-right-here-rudy-simone-on-life-as-an-aspergirl/.

No one person defines what being autistic is - it takes a large group of people to demonstrate the range of possibilities within the autism spectrum.

The autism spectrum is broad enough to contain Temple Grandin and Rudy Simone - and they are very different to each other.

No, the spectrum is extremely broad.

You're right, all of you, it's just that so many autistic people tend to "worship" her.

Last edited by ocdgirl123 on 06 Mar 2011, 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

The two main components defining autism are a pervasive interest exclusive to most else and an inability to understand body language and / or social interactions appropriately. Temple originated with classic Kanner's, and so most people with Asperger's likely can't relate to her.

There has been growing evidence that non-verbal learning disability (NVLD) is associated with Asperger's, which would likely place those on the opposite end of what Temple has achieved. Another less talked about but somewhat heavily researched these days is hyperlexia, which is likely the kind of people Temple is talking about as "word" thinkers. Hyperlexia is also considered to be a part of the spectrum.

I admire Temple for what she has accomplished and what she has done for the autistic community. I admire her also for taking steps to not get so heavily involved in the neurotypical debates. Instead she gives advice to those in the autistic community, something which is definitely needed. The majority of us can't function adequately on our own and need support systems.

I understand what Temple is talking about when she comments along the lines of her mind was empty from the start and needed to fill it up with information to gain knowledge. She does it with pictures. Others might do it with words or facts. I had always thought that is how nearly all children begin their learning process. They start out empty and fill up the mental vortex with words and / or images.

Understanding that concept of starting empty and filling up with knowledge puts a more realistic approach on whether or not people have the ability to insert thoughts into your head. If you were to say this to a therapist, you would likely be labeled a schizophrenic. As we think about it, isn't that the purpose of the education system and the media? That's how I always thought of it.

I don't think in pictures to the degree that Temple does, but I do have strong spatial reasoning. I can mentally rotate complex images in my mind. I understand the concept of being able to visualize running systems in three dimensions. I can't draw for the sake of my life, however. And I tend to get lost in visual detail. I operate with shapes and not so much in colors and fine details. I guess I can compensate with my outstanding word abilities.

I am hyperlexic. I read either before or at the time I started speaking. I don't believe I was even taught how to read. I remember being told to constantly slow down. I had trouble getting the gist of stories, comprehending what I read and am horrible at inferential analysis. Go figure. We're all different.

I am diagnosed with AS and NVLD which is an impairment in spatial/visual ability among other things....I am definitely not a visual thinker!

I have good rote memory , good attention to detail and good verbal ability. These are my strengths.

I can't figure out what calling her a hero has to do with identifying with her.

Not that I do either one of those things (I'm practically nothing like her, and I don't call her a hero, I'm not into supercrip-worship whether I happen to like what someone does or not), but many of the people I know who do call her a hero are nothing like her at all.

FWIW, I'm not a visual thinker, nor do I think in symbols or categories the way she seems to. I don't have a generally fixed set of abilities like she has. And that's just the beginning. I know that there are visual thinkers with terrible visual processing, but I do think my terrible visual processing is part of why I'm not a visual thinker. Visually I get so easily and rapidly overloaded that everything breaks into pieces and moves around or something, it's hard to describe. The visual movement can actually make me physically ill (now that I'm capable of motion sickness). And I can't understand what I see visually without a lot of effort -- differentiating objects from each other, and identifying them, is hard work. And I could go on for ages about the many ways I have very little in common with her. I mean there's things about her that I do have going on, but very few.

I'm a ... primarily visual but also other senses ... thinker. I don't think in words, except to an extremely limited degree that is completely useless for actual thought, and I am hyperlexic. My thinking isn't like Grandin's in many ways (not eidetic, I can't visualize how to build things, I am not so rigidly categorical that I need to define "dog" by their noses, for example, but I categorize in such a way that I do more easily identify things by associated sensory impressions rather than by words or letters). Despite my ability to use language, I feel like my access to language is not entirely solid, and I have issues with concepts like "names."

I'm not really much like Temple Grandin and I don't identify with her or view her as a hero. I did watch the movie about her, which I did enjoy. I think she says some problematic things that I just can't stand behind, and, yeah, that just about covers it.

I can most certainly relate to many things Temple Grandin has said, however, we do have some major differences. For example, she seems to be a proponent of touch therapy, and I generally don't like to be touched, by people, or things...I hate those massage chairs.

I'm not sure that I think in pictures. If I'm thinking of food, I generally think in taste. Sometimes I think in words/text, and sometimes I think in pictures, but most often, I generally think in some abstract way which represents the mapping of the object or process in my brain rather than the actual object or process and is probably best described as a sensation with possibly some secondary sensory involvement.

With physics, I had a lot of visual thoughts but also sensations which gave me a feel for how the objects or system was acting.

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Temple Grandin did have a problem with auditory input. Many persons who do not process words/sounds easily (imperfect hearing/central auditory processing disorder, supersensitivity to some sounds, etc.) can have clear everyday communication difficulties. Temple Grandin has been able to bring the topic of autism to the public mind/public consciousness - that is quite an accomplishment. Temple Grandin is not a typical autistic at all (my view) because she has clearly been able to work her way around autism compared with the majority of persons on the spectrum (my view) who simply cannot do that, due to underlying impairments, as easily as she has done. Regarding the idea of reduced visual ability/zero visual ability, there is a two word term called: constructional apraxia which you might look up. It's clear that Temple Grandin could draw. Temple Grandin did not have constructional apraxia.

What i relate to, when i watch her trying to explain something she is passionate about , knows so much about and has explained a hundred times before, is the way she suddently finds something , a new way to explain something she just thought about, and skips to that before explaining the part that was supposed to lead to it, leaving her sentence open for misinterpretation. This has helped me greatly in understanding what happens to me sometimes.She helps me spot what i do wrong. I'm pretty sure she spots it too when she listens to her own conferences after they're done.
Like suddently, the idea that having a strict upbringing helped her grow up to be more functionnal pops in her mind, and the way she explains it can lead people to misundertand her and think she means parents should be strict and ignore their children's sensory problems. Why? because she was in the middle of explaining sensory problems when this idea popped up, and she went straight to it. Sometimes it makes me cringe at the thought parents will understand the contrary of what she truly thinks about this, they will automatically link the two unrelated ideas , and i want to say nooooo don't confuse them!
But it helps me remember that other people don't automatically know my point of view about things ,and i have to be clear even if i've explained something a thousand times to a thousand different people in the past.

This might be a media generated phenomenon. Few people disparage her, one because it is politically incorrect to beat down a disabled person and, two, because she really has done a lot for autism advocacy . People that are ambivalent say little or nothing. So the predominant input you receive about her is skewed toward the "heroic". I'd bet if you dug a little deeper you would find that many people respect her even if they disagree with her ideas on autism and her work in industrialized farming. Her story has been conflated into almost cult worship by some, when it is best understood as simply an example of possibility for those on the spectrum. She is not me, nor you, and we are not her. She is what CAN happen with he right support and opportunities, not necessarily what WILL happen nor even should happen for others on the spectrum

I think Temple is a typical autistic in her ability to learn. The difference is the people around her, and her willingness to continue on despite mistakes and not withdraw. We can learn social interaction--but it takes a long time to fill our minds to where we can do it acceptably. A lot of us don't have a mother like Temple's who will put in the time to teach us. Nor is it likely that our gifts will be so useful to others that they will help us though the long and arduous awkward learning phase. Temple was lucky that she chose to write for publication--editors are used to bending over backwards for the best material. I was lucky that I had and took advantage of a lot of social opportunities when I was young--would have been even better had I known I was different.

Honestly I don't think you can really subdivide autistic people in useful groups by achievements. I would say she is in the same grouping as anyone else with her particular cognitive/perceptual/movement style, whether or not they have achieved anything like what she has. And whether she is typical or atypical also depends on those attributes, not on her successes. (So much of success depends on circumstance as much or more than anything innate. And she had excellent circumstances.)