Autistic author: "Animals in Translation"

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Ok, I'm NT but I grew up getting along with animals better than people, and it took me years to figure out how to interact with people to where I wouldn't get eaten alive. (I think I'm NT anyway.)

I just started reading the book, "Animals In Translation" by Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who became an animal behaviorist. I'm getting the chills reading it. I'm not far enough into it to give a better idea, but from a review by Nature magazine: "At times it is difficult to work out whether this is a book about animal behavior with insight from autism, or a book about autism that uses animal behavior to explain what it is like to be autistic. A major achievement of the book is that it is both."

Oprah Magazine: "Grandin's focus in her book is not on all the "normal" things autistics and animas can't do but on the unexpected, extraordinary, invaluable things they can."

If you want to read another book by Temple Grandin that's relevant ( I personally like all her books) to this topic, try Thinking in Pictures. I think Animals in Translation is the most in depth book, at the same time the easiest to read. But Thinking in Pictures is good for personal insight in her unique abilities.

Animals In Translation is a beautiful insightful book. Everyone should read it. NTs, ASDs... EVERYONE.

When I read Thinking in Pictures I kept thinking, I'm sort of like that, too!
I knew I wasn't as strongly AS as Temple, but I kept seeing issues she had that I have also had to contend with. I think I have learned to cope with a lot of it, but I expect that most of my apparant "normalcy" is a charade.

Kim, Thinking In Pictures sounds interesting.

I hadn't heard of her before! A friend told me he saw her on TV, something about her work with cattle. I'm so intrigued.

I have all her books, a memoir her mom wrote, Thorn in my Side, listened to a radio interview and saw her in person during her book promotion.

I think I found this link on another post on this site.
It's the first of 5-parts of a program on Temple called
"The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow".

Among other things, it explains how Temple is now a major
figure in the ultra-macho meat-processing industry, largely
due to her insight into how animals think/feel/react.

As a (male, 52-yo) recent semi-self dx (a teacher friend who has
worked with AS kids spotted the probability), I found it quite
enlightening.

The other parts should be easily obvious links at the end of the first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ycu3JFRrA

I do not read a lot of books but I did reed this one and I found it a good read. Because I used to think in pictures too a lot preschool as my language development up until the age of 4 was little more than screeming, making car noises and running around blowing rasberries.

I enjoyed that book, as well as "Thinking in Pictures."

From an autistic/Aspie standpoint, Animals in Translation is a great book. I have no quarrel with it there.

From the standpoint of someone with a obsession with dogs, an almost instinctive understanding of them, and who is up to date with current canine literature and research, it makes me wince horribly. Grandin doesn't know much about dogs at all. I wish she would stick to livestock. White factoring has nothing to do with temperament, and indeed probably correlates to domestication and neoteny. Grandin also does not seem to understand that white markings and white coats are influenced by several different gene sets. Breed specific legislation is worthless when it comes to combating dog bites; she fails to take into consideration well-known factors such as the "macho" appeal of certain breeds and hence their appeal to certain irresponsible owners who want a dog more as an aggressive status symbol than as a well-behaved pet and hence are unlikely to properly train it.

I loved that book too [and a couple of other one's of hers]. I probably ought to re-read it because I'm clambering up a learning curve of my own with my two boys. Don't know if we would share the same sense of humor, but you could check it out at http://whitterer-autism.blogspot.com
Best wishes