Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds | Video on TED.com

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds | Video on TED.com

One of my favorite ways to relax and forget due dates, falling behind in my reading and will there be a job in social work for me once I graduate; is MOVIES. And it’s funny how even when I think I am just relaxing I find some great entertainment that is current, relevant, and leaves me thinking about what I watched long after I have turned off the TV and moved onto to other things.

This time it was the movie titled Temple Grandin, it is a true story about a woman with autism, who was born in the late 40’s, she is living an amazing life and has blazed a trail of autism advocacy and animal rights.

Temple has a particular disorder called Sensory integration dysfunction (SID) it is a “neurological disorder that was first studied in-depth by Anna Jean Ayres. Ayres describes sensory integration as the ability to organize sensory information for use by the brain. An individual with sensory integration dysfunction would therefore have an inability to organize sensory information as it comes in through the senses” Ayres, A. J. (2005). Sensory Integration and the Child: 25th Anniversary Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services. In other words, for someone like Temple Grandin, she is experiencing the world in pictures with every detail in place. This is an amazing ability, when Temple was asked if she would support a cure for autistic spectrum she said she would not as she supports neurodiversity.

In my research on SID, I found some disagreement about the SID as a discrete disorder not a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-IV-TR, which does not make someone’s experience any less real. For Temple Grandin, she has negotiated her life through her own activism along with the support of her family and schools. This is not always the case, for others who may have the same diagnosis.

In my internship agency we discuss issues facing learning disabled high school students who transition to college in relation to the amount and type of pre college preparation as a major determining factor of success in college. A role model like Temple Grandin is inspiring she was able to take her challenges with over sensory stimulation and used it as a means for invention of the hug machine. As a teenager she discovered while observing the way cattle were vaccinated while confined in a squeeze chute, that some of the cattle immediately calmed down after pressure was administered. She realized the deep pressure from the chute had a calming effect, and decided that might settle down her own hypersensitivity (her neurons must have been having a party with this connection of what on it’s face seems like unrelated information), a definite rage to master.

Several therapy programs in the United States use hug machines, effectively achieving general calming effects among both children and adults with autism. A 1995 study on the efficacy of Grandin's device, conducted by the Center for the Study of Autism, working with Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, involving ten children with autism, found a reduction in tension and anxiety.

Temple’s solution for herself also influenced the cattle industry using Temple’s animal rights activism. The blueprint above shows Temple's design with with curved corrals specifically designed to reduce stress in animals being led to slaughter. Although they are being led to slaughter Temples efforts made this more ‘humane.' I find this very interesting and actually not surprising that cattle as well as any being would feel better in structures which replicate nature in general. There is also some commonality that ties the movement of Universal Design to Temple's structures. Universal design is a method that is being used to design structures that fit in with natural inclines of the land, and make accommodations for disabled people universal and built into the way all building and structures should be made, inclusive and eco-dynamic.

Endnote /Aside: I am including the mission statement of the TED conference,TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. Temple spoke after Bill Gates presentation.

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