Church steeples and the way you might look at them were eye-openers for Prof Temple Grandin, the most famous person in the world with autism.

Her The World Needs All Kinds of Minds presentation aims to “bust everyone out of the autism box”.

Through her writing and talks, she has given the world an insight into what it’s like to have the neurodevelopmental condition that can mean poor social skills, poor learning skills and behavioural problems, but can also produce acknowledged geniuses, like herself.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF THINKING

Ask someone who isn’t on the autism spectrum and they will describe a church steeple in a vague, generic way, she said.

“I think differently. I think ‘bottom up’, of the small details before the big picture. I think only of individual, specific steeples and I categorise them, in boxes, like the steeples in my hometown, or famous ones I’ve seen. Neuro-typical people think ‘top down’ – big picture first, then the small detail,” she says.

It was a difference in thinking that shocked her when she first realised it, she told the 800+ assembly of parents, Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) and health professionals at the seminar organised by the IMPACT trade union that represents SNAs.

Temple Grandin, who has had many high-tech brain scans to show how her autistic brain differs from the neuro-typical brain, feels less emotion than others and thinks in pictures.

Known to get down into cattle races to see what cattle see, she uses her picture thinking to solve design problems.

Others with autism may be pattern thinkers or word thinkers, she says, and most who are verbal (have speech) should be encouraged to learn how to manage in a work environment and find jobs that they like.

“I said nothing about my autism when I was looking for jobs. I just showed clients my detailed drawings – what I could do. That opened doors.”

From working in a sewing shop, to painting carnival signs and making cattle chutes, she went on to set up a cattle-handling equipment company. Her designs are now used on half the ranches in the US.

She has also become known worldwide as an advocate of humane slaughter practices in meat plants.

Again, she mentions how people with autism can bring talent to workplaces.

“I see lots of people working on construction sites that are on the autism spectrum and can build brilliant things,” says the person who showed huge mechanical ability from childhood. “There is too much emphasis on deficits nowadays and not enough on fuelling up the strengths.”

Movie inspiration

She is currently a Prof of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University and a specialist in animal behaviour.

Her writing about what it’s like to have autism and her career success have already led to a film being made about her life, Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, and to the BBC making a documentary about her, entitled The Woman Who Thinks Like A Cow.

DON’T GET HOOKED ON VIDEO GAMES

Children with autism getting too hooked on video games is a big no-no for her.

“Being holed up in your room playing video games and getting a welfare cheque is not a job,” she said.

“We’ve got to get kids with autism away from playing video games. They’re addictive.”

THE LOVING PUSH

She wasn’t allowed to be a recluse as a child, she insists.

“I call it the ‘loving push’ – doing like my mother did, getting me out doing things, filling my ‘internet’ so I wasn’t repeating the same stuff all the time, teaching me table manners, trying things to help me ‘stretch’.”

Her immediate response in relation to children with autism is ‘what can this kid do when he grows up’?

“I’ll tell you what I don’t want him to do – jail,” she says. “And I don’t want him ending up a recluse in his room. I want a smart kid out there, supporting himself – whatever the job is – music, making coffee, working in NASA.”

LEARNING TO TAKE TURNS

“Kids got to be taught social skills,” she went on, “how to take turns and that sometimes you have to do things to please others – and that you’ve got to do what the boss wants you to do, even it is stupid. That’s an important skill. All these things make you employable and able to support yourself, even if you’re on the autism spectrum,” She points out that there are many people on the autism spectrum currently working in Silicon Valley and NASA.

“They’re working there because they learned not to throw things when things went wrong. They ended up working in places like that because of their brains and because they had been taught that it was better to cry when things went wrong than break up the place. Learning that one thing made them employable.”

DON’T TALK FOR YOUR CHILDREN

She had lots of practical advice for parents and teachers during and after the lecture.

“I find some parents talk for their kids,” she said. “They don’t give them enough time to answer or do things for themselves. I know of a 17-year-old kid headed for engineering college, but he’d never shopped for himself, that’s being over-protective. My mother taught me to buy my own stuff and order in restaurants and serve snacks at parties from the age of seven. Some carers do too much too. Your job is to wean yourself out of a job.”

PICTURE, PATTERN AND WORD THINKERS

People with autism can be very good at many jobs, whether they are picture thinkers like her, or pattern or word thinkers.

Picture thinkers make good industrial designers, she said. Pattern thinkers make good musicians and mathematicians, and word thinkers are good at writing and acting.

GET KIDS VOLUNTEERING

She strongly advocates children with autism doing tasks outside the home.

“Get them out walking dogs for the neighbours – and no excuses. Get them doing volunteer jobs like putting up tents at farmers’ markets, playing cards with old folks.

“It’s all learning to take turns and to work. Learning to take turns is a huge skill. I learned it at home playing cards with my sister.”

DON’T REWARD BAD BEHAVIOUR

Don’t reward children for bad behaviour, she insisted. She mentions the story of a child who has thrown a table at a teacher being sent home as punishment, but where he played happily on his ipad.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s rewarding bad behaviour. If I threw a temper tantrum at home or in school there was no TV for one night. I knew the rules. My mother was consistent about it.”

She also advocates not letting children be too aware of their autism label.

“I’m seeing too many kids where autism becomes their total self, saying I can’t do x or y because of my autism. Mothers can define themselves too much by their child’s diagnosis too. My autism didn’t define my mother. My Mom’s ID was music and theatre, which was probably a good thing.”

She also talked about some universal characteristics of people with autism.

“Working memory is a problem. I’ve got tons of memory, but very little processor (working memory). I can’t hold one piece of information in my mind while manipulating another. Attention-shifting slowness is another universal. It takes much longer for me to shift back and forth between two different things. It’s like a slow computer or a mobile phone with one bar.”

She talked too of how when the school bell rang it hurt her ears and how sliding doors, background noise and ‘scratchy’ clothes upset her.

The inventor of the hug machine (pressure sometimes calms children with autism), she also points out that the difference between classifications of mild autism, ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’ can be marginal.

She also says we shouldn’t get too hung up on teaching methods.

“What matters is not how children learn to read, whether it’s phonics or whole words. The important thing is getting the child to read.”

And she had more advice – and questions – for the parents who spoke from the floor.

“Is he or she getting enough exercise? It’s essential. Have you tried a starter dose of anti-depressant for her anxiety if it’s bad?”

She admits that she couldn’t function without a low level of anti-depressant medication.

“Fear is the biggest emotion in autism. The fear centre in my brain scan was three times bigger than in that of a neuro-typical person. I was anxious all the time. It got worse in my 20s. I’ve been taking a low dose since 1990 and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.” CL

1Temple Grandin is also an advocate for children being taught practical skills, like carpentry or fixing small engines. “Retirees could do it. Haven’t you men’s sheds here? One thing I’ve learned about careers is that people get interested in careers they’ve been exposed to,” she says. “I worked on my aunt’s cattle ranch and managed a horse barn when I was in high school, so I knew I wanted to work with animals. I liked making things, fixing things. We don’t have enough kids exposed to trades nowadays. How are kids gonna know if they like something or if they’re good at it unless they’re allowed work with tools and are exposed to it?”

2She talked about how coloured paper can be so important in helping those with autism to read text more easily. “Some people have image break-up – their vision is like a TV pixillating. Sometimes print jiggles on the page. Printing on tan, grey, light blue or lavender paper can help with that. Shame to fail college because you hadn’t got the right colour paper in the printer.”

3Making friends can be difficult for those with autism, she stated. She found friends through shared interests like horse-riding, model rockets and electronics clubs in school. “I heard of a teacher finding friends for a kid by setting up a Star Trek club in school. Costs nothing, but makes a big difference.”

Prof Grandin was also in Ireland to speak at the International Congress of Food Science and Technology. To read instructive scientific papers on the internet about how environments affect children with autism, key in ‘autism environmental enrichment’, she suggests.

Her books are available on Amazon, including:

See www.templegrandin.com