MANSFIELD, Ohio — “Looking at personality differences, it’s like a music mixing board.” Dr. Temple Grandin said Thursday, “When does geeks and nerds become autism? When does a Silicon Valley geek become autism?
“There’s no black and white dividing line. Get a little bit of the trait, you get a mathematician who invented the Hubble Space Telescope. Get too much of it, then you get more severe autism.”
“The Way I See It” was more than a personal view of autism. Grandin told an audience of approximately 900 that autism is now too widely defined as a broad spectrum. She also stressed early intervention.
It was also a very personal talk.
“What really motivated me when I was in my 20s,” she said, “was I really wanted to prove to people I wasn’t stupid. That really, really motivated me.”
She accomplished that by showing people her portfolio, her work and what she could do. She;s visual and artistic. Her detailed drawings demonstrated her abilities.
“I’m a visual thinker,” she said. “When I was younger I didn’t know other people didn’t think this way.”
“When I was a little kid, I had all of the full-blown symptoms, no speech until age four. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of early intervention, and I got into really good early intervention programs. My teacher did a lot of the same kind of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) things that are being done now,” Grandin said.
Whatever program is used, Grandin said it was important that the teachers, and that could be parents or caregivers as well, get in 20 hours a week of one-on-one with the children. You’ve got to keep their brains connected to the world,” she said.
She said a good teacher is gently insistent and “knows just how hard to push.”
Autism is defined as a disorder of brain development characterized, across a spectrum, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. Grandin explained how communications styles differ and how autistic children respond to different stimuli.
Even in locations where there aren’t services or an understanding of autism, Grandin said parents can recognize the signs and her description was met with laughter. “When he [the child] is three years old, with no speech, and a lot of weird behavior, that’s a diagnosis. If you have that diagnosis, don’t wait. You have to start working with that kid now,” Grandin said.
Grandin detailed the ways her parents and teachers taught her. She was taught to take turns through board games. She was taught manners when greeting her parents’ guests at the door. She said now there’s a tendency for parents to over-protect autistic children.
“That wasn’t done with me,” Grandin said, “Eight years old, I was shopping by myself. How do you learn money? Well, I got 50 cents a week….If I wanted a wind-up plane with a rubber band, that was 69 cents, so I had to save.”
She also described a “world of sensory scramble” that affects some autistic children. She suggested Environmental Enrichment as an effective treatment of autism. “It’s a sensory desensitization method,” Grandin said. “You use simple household things to, first of all, stimulate two senses at a time. Like you might smell vanilla and touch some rough carpet.”
She suggested the sensory treatment as a supplementary therapy, not a replacement, to traditional treatment. (An article by the University of California can be found online.)
Three examples of famous autistics she referenced were Albert Eistein, Nikola Tesla, and she suggested Steve Jobs.
“What would happen to little Albert today,” she asked, “No speech until age three. This is a big problem we have with autism: You’ve got this huge spectrum. I was at Silicon Valley last week. Half of them are on the spectrum, especially the computer programmers. But they avoid the labels. See the problem we have is we’ve got a spectrum now. They’ve change the diagnostic criteria in 2013 that goes from Silicon Valley to maybe someone who maybe can’t dress themselves. It’s all called the same thing.
“These diagnoses are not precise; they’ll get hung up on it. ADHD, dyslexia, autism, OCD, a lot of things overlap. You’ve got little kids who aren’t talking? I don’t really care what the diagnosis is: You’ve got to get that 20 hours of one-on-one.”
Gradin suggested that the American Psychiatric Association’s merging Aspergers with autism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, made “a mess.”
“In the 50s I went to school with a lot of kids they used to call geeks and nerds, and they would definitely be labeled on the autism spectrum today and they’re ending up playing video games in the basement instead of getting jobs and owning businesses.”
“It’s not like tuberculosis: You either have it or you don’t. It’s not that simple,” Grandin said of autism. It’s like slots on a music mixing board. That’s the way to look at personailty traits.”
Grandin’s lecture, “The Way I See It, A Personal Look at Autism,” was delivered at the Mid-Ohio Conference Center on Thursday evening. It was a free lecture sponsored by The Ohio State University at Mansfield.
Dr. Temple Grandin is considered the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Most recently she was honored as one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” She is also a best-selling author and an activist for issues relating to autism. She is also a professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. Her website provides more information about her life and about autism.
“It’s not like tuberculosis: You either have it or you don’t. It’s not that simple,” Grandin said of autism. It’s like slots on a music mixing board. That’s the way to look at personailty traits,” said Temple Grandin.
