{"id":205,"date":"2013-10-17T21:29:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=205"},"modified":"2013-10-17T21:29:46","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:29:46","slug":"first-year-book-author-temple-grandin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2013\/10\/17\/first-year-book-author-temple-grandin\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Year Book Author Temple Grandin"},"content":{"rendered":"

By HAYLEY HOFFMAN<\/strong> – STAFF WRITER<\/em><\/p>\n

On Thurs., Sept. 12, students and faculty gathered to listen to the first-year book author Temple Grandin speak about her autobiography Thinking in Pictures.<\/p>\n

Grandin is an autism activist and serves as a consultant to the livestock industry about animal behavior in slaughterhouses.<\/p>\n

She is a professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University and the author of several bestselling books, including The Way I See It and The Autistic Brain. She was also the subject of the HBO film Temple Grandin, which received multiple Emmy Awards in 2010.<\/p>\n

Grandin began her speech by giving an introduction to autism and the spectrum on which it operates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a little bit of the autistic trait, you\u2019ll have an advantage,\u201d Grandin said. \u201cIf you have too much of the trait, you\u2019ll have a handicap.\u201d<\/p>\n

She then drew on examples of several autistic children, like Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, who overcame their handicaps to become successful later in life. This, Grandin claimed, was due to the help they received from their peers and teachers while in school.<\/p>\n

\"First-year<\/a>
First-year book author Temple Grandin at her speech in Newlin on Thursday, Sept. 12.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re different and not that social,\u201d Grandin said, \u201cYou need to get involved with other people that have shared interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout her speech, Grandin spoke of her own mentors who helped her to achieve even though the odds were against her. They encouraged her to develop and pursue her interests in animals and technology, which ultimately set her on the path to revolutionizing the livestock industry.<\/p>\n

Grandin addressed the problems she sees in the modern educational system for diagnosing and educating children on the autism spectrum. \u201cThe education system fails to stimulate and educate visual learners,\u201d Grandin said. \u201cThese kids need to be stretched and need mentors to teach them skills to use in the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandin was thrilled to be asked to come to Centre\u2019s campus. \u201cI\u2019m honored to be here and I\u2019m excited that my book was chosen for incoming students to read,\u201d Grandin said.<\/p>\n

Thinking in Pictures is about Grandin\u2019s life as a person living with autism. In it, she shares how she overcame her difficulties to function in society by thinking in an unusual way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thinking is bottom-up,\u201d Grandin said. \u201cI form a concept with specific examples. I don\u2019t go to the theory first and then try to shove the details in.\u201d<\/p>\n

These examples are then separated into categories, which are organized by common visual features. Grandin is able to use this way of thinking to create detailed blueprints from memory.<\/p>\n

First-year Caitlin Smith enjoyed reading the book this summer. \u201cI like psychology, so it was interesting to see how Grandin thinks versus how I think,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Sanna Gough was interested in Grandin\u2019s methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe convocation was very interesting because of the ways that Grandin suggested we educate autistic children. She is living proof that those methods will work and help those kids succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the convocation, first-year Emilie O\u2019Connor asked Grandin if she thought her life would have different had she never been told of her autism diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a child with no speech,\u201d Grandin said. \u201cI was the kind of child they would put in the mental hospital. If I had only been diagnosed with speech delay, they would have sent me to a speech therapist and a therapy school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandin stressed the importance of communities coming together and using their resources to help children with autism. Without the community, the \u201cquirky kids\u201d would have no outlet and no mentors to help them succeed.<\/p>\n

Grandin\u2019s closing thought for the group was about not stressing to a child that they are \u201cjust autistic.\u201d People on the autism spectrum have jobs and contribute to their community, just like \u201cnormal\u201d people; in other words, they\u2019re more than just a label.<\/p>\n

\u201cAutism is not my whole sense of being,\u201d Grandin said. \u201cBut, it\u2019s part of who I am, and I wouldn\u2019t want to change it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By HAYLEY HOFFMAN – STAFF WRITER On Thurs., Sept. 12, students and faculty gathered to listen to the first-year book author Temple Grandin speak about her autobiography Thinking in Pictures. Grandin is an autism activist and serves as a consultant to the livestock industry about animal behavior in slaughterhouses. She is a professor of Animal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-leisure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}