Emmy Winner Temple Grandin: Kids on the Autism Spectrum Need to Get Out There

August 31, 2010

August 31st, 2010

The HBO movie Temple Grandin won big at the 62nd Emmy Awards this Sunday, taking

home five awards, including best made-for-TV movie. In the film, Danes

plays Grandin, the world-renowned animal scientist and perhaps the most

well-known and vocal person on the autism spectrum.

What I love about Grandin’s story (she’s a best-selling author and one of TIME

magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2010) is that she’s not successful in

spite of her diagnosis of autism, she’s made brilliant contributions as a

scientist and advocate precisely because she sees the world in a unique way.

In an interview earlier this year, Grandin had some advice for parents of

children on the autism spectrum, as well as some insights about the rising

number of autism cases.

She talked about her fear as a child of being in groups and the constant

over-stimulation she experienced because of her sensory processing difficulties

(characteristic of people with an autism diagnosis). But one summer, her mom

pushed her to take a field trip to visit a cattle ranch–she was terrified, but

with her mom’s encouragement she went.

The trip changed her life–she fell in love with animals, and she’s spent her

life exploring this passion. She said that kids with autism need to “get out and

be exposed to new things,” even though it may be uncomfortable. The key is

finding what makes a child tick and then letting him run with it.

Kids on the autism spectrum can go on to do great things, says Grandin, but she

sees too many of them not getting any work experience. Grandin herself is

considered on the mild end of the spectrum (with a diagnosis of Asperger’s–a

label that will soon disappear and be folded into Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Her insight on the rise of autism diagnosis? She think that a lot of kids on

the mild end of the spectrum are being recognized as having the disorder because

our society is not as structured as it used to be. In other words, we’re not

spending as much time stressing proper etiquite and telling kids exactly what to

say in social situations. With a more loose, child-centered approach (which she

doesn’t say is bad), she says it’s now more apparent when a child doesn’t have a

good grasp on subtle social rules.

Food for thought–it doesn’t explain the rise in more severe cases of autism, but

Grandin says that whereas we used to think of certain kids as “nerds,” we now

understand they may live on the mild end of the spectrum. She’s an inspiring

woman with a lot to say. Check out one of her many books, including Thinking in

Pictures: My Life with Autism.

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