Great Throughts Treasury

"I think the core criterion is the social awkwardness, but the sensory issues are a serious problem in many, many cases of autism and they make it impossible to operate in the environment where you?re supposed to be social. How can you be social if you can?t tolerate those five TVs that are in that bar?"

"I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits."

"I use my mind to solve problems and invent things."

"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect."

"I was also struck, when we walked together, by her seeming inability to feel some of the simplest emotions. The mountains are pretty, she said, but they don?t give me a special feeling, the feeling you seem to enjoy ? You look at the brook, the flowers, I see what great pleasure you get out of it. I?m denied that."

"I would not be here now if I did not have anti-depressants."

"I was so afraid to go out west to my aunt's ranch. But the only choice my mother gave me was to go for two weeks or all summer. I wound up staying all summer. And that's where I learned about cattle. I could relate to their behavior, their fears."

"I was expected to sit at the table, learn how to eat properly."

"I was fascinated with optical illusions."

"I would never talk just to be social. Now, to sit down with a bunch of engineers and talk about the latest concrete forming systems, that?s really interesting. Talking with animal behaviorists or with someone who likes to sail, that?s interesting. Information is interesting to me. But talking for the sake of talking, I find that quite boring."

"I?m a visual thinker, really bad at algebra. There?s others that are a pattern thinker. These are the music and math minds. They think in patterns instead of pictures. Then there?s another type that?s not a visual thinker at all, and they?re the ones that memorize all of the sports statistics, all of the weather statistics."

"If I could snap my fingers and be non-autistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am."

"If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave."

"If I did not have my work, I would not have my life."

"If language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten."

"If you have autism in the family history, you still vaccinate. Delay it a bit, space them out."

"If you start using a medication in a person with autism, you should see an obvious improvement in behavior in a short period of time. If you do not see an obvious improvement, they probably should not be taking the stuff. It is that simple."

"In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves."

"I'm a visual thinker, really bad at algebra. There's others that are a pattern thinker. These are the music and math minds. They think in patterns instead of pictures. Then there's another type that's not a visual thinker at all, and they're the ones that memorize all of the sports statistics, all of the weather statistics."

"I'm a visual thinker, not a language-based thinker. My brain is like Google Images."

"In a noisy place I can?t understand speech, because I cannot screen out the background noise."

"It is never too late to expand the mind of a person on the autism spectrum."

"It?s very important for the parents of young autistic children to encourage them to talk, or for those that don?t talk, to give them a way of communicating, like a picture board, where they can point to a glass of milk, or a jacket if they?re cold, or the bathroom."

"It hurts because they don't have enough expectations for the kids. I see too many kids who are smart who've graduated, but they're not getting a job because when they were young they didn't learn any work skills," Grandin said. "They've got no life skills. The parent thinks, 'Oh, poor Tommy, he has autism so he doesn't have to learn things like shopping.?"

"It's very important for the parents of young autistic children to encourage them to talk, or for those that don't talk, to give them a way of communicating, like a picture board, where they can point to a glass of milk, or a jacket if they're cold, or the bathroom. If they want something, then they need to learn to request that thing."

"It's much more work for the mother of an autistic child to have a job, because working with an autistic child is such a hassle until they go to school."

"I've always thought of myself as a cattle-handling specialist, a college professor first; autism is secondary."

"I've worked with tons of people that I know who are on the spectrum - but now I think severe autism has really increased."

"Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind."

"Let's get into talking about how autism is similar animal behavior. The thing is I don't think in a language, and animals don't think in a language. It's sensory based thinking, thinking in pictures, thinking in smells, thinking in touches. It's putting these sensory based memories into categories."

"Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that."

"Language just gradually came in, one or two stressed words a time. Before then, I would just scream. I couldn?t talk. I couldn?t get my words out. So the only way I could tell someone what I wanted was to scream. If I didn?t want to wear a hat, the only way I knew to communicate was screaming and throwing it on the floor."

"Mild autism can give you a genius like Einstein. If you have severe autism, you could remain nonverbal. You don't want people to be on the severe end of the spectrum. But if you got rid of all the autism genetics, you wouldn't have science or art. All you would have is a bunch of social 'yak yaks.'"

"Many autistic children like to smell things, and smell may provide more reliable information about their surroundings than either vision or hearing."

"Most important skills taught under age 8. Learning how to take turns. This was taught with a board game. When I got a little older, the whole family played cards. Lessons learned from turn taking in board games can be applied to taking turns doing activities as a family. When the family went to a movie, I had to take turns with my sister picking the movie. Another example would be choosing a restaurant or a store to visit. Saying please and thank you. Shaking hands and greeting people. It was demonstrated like teaching a person in a foreign country how to behave. Mother and teachers demonstrated the correct distance, looking in the eye and the amount of hand pressure. I practiced my skills by being party hostess when my mother invited guests for dinner. Shopping and learning the value of money. I got 50 cents a week to buy things I wanted such as comics, balsa wood toy airplanes, kites, and ice cream bars. These were items that if I wanted them I had to buy them myself. I also had to do all the interactions with the store staff. Mom stayed away when I made my purchases. My favorite toy airplane cost 69 cents so I had to have two weeks of allowance to buy it. Comics were 10 cents and a kite and string was 20 cents. Today these prices would be higher but I learned the value of money from my purchases. I also learned that I had to wait and save to get the 69 cent airplane. My ability in art was always encouraged. My teachers and mother encouraged me to draw many different things."

"Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die."

"My Advice is: You always have to keep persevering."

"My mind sort of works like a search engine. You ask me something, and I start seeing pictures."

"My life is basically my work."

"My grandfather was an engineer who invented the automatic pilot for airplanes."

"My mind works like Google for images. You put in a key word; it brings up pictures."

"My mind can always separate the two. Even when I am very upset, I keep reviewing the facts over and over until I can come to a logical conclusion."

"My problems are sort of more on a nuisance level. I can't stand scratchy clothes, I've got to have soft kinds of cotton against my skin, and I don't know why some 100% cotton t-shirts itch and others don't; it has something to do with the weave."

"Nature is cruel but we don't have to be"

"Neither living nor learning was good without order."

"One big question that's come up is: Has autism increased on the mild side of things? I don't think so - they've always been here. Some of this is increased detection."

"Normal people have an incredible lack of empathy. They have good emotional empathy, but they don?t have much empathy for the autistic kid who is screaming at the baseball game because he can?t stand the sensory overload. Or the autistic kid having a meltdown in the school cafeteria because there?s too much stimulation."

"One of my sensory problems was hearing sensitivity, where certain loud noises, such as a school bell, hurt my ears. It sounded like a dentist drill going through my ears."

"One of the problems today is for a kid to get any special services in school, they have to have a label. The problem with autism is you've got a spectrum that goes from Einstein down to someone with no language," said Grandin, who has a form of high-functioning autism known as Asperger's syndrome. "Steve Jobs was probably mildly on the autistic spectrum. Basically, you've probably known people who were geeky and socially awkward but very smart. When does geeks and nerds become autism? That's a gray area. Half the people in Silicon Valley probably have autism."

"Parents get so worried about the deficits that they don't build up the strengths, but those skills could turn into a job," said Grandin, who addresses scientific advances in understanding autism in her newest book, "The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum." "These kids often have uneven skills. We need to be a lot more flexible about things. Don't hold these math geniuses back. You're going to have to give them special ed in reading because that tends to be the pattern, but let them go ahead in math."