Temple Grandin
Grandin Since the begging of time, the humane kinds have witnessed the existence of genius minds. Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Galileo Galilee and many others are all examples of geniuses that were born to revolutionize their area of expertise. Fortunately, in today’s days these kinds of geniuses continue to exist, and among these contemporaneous geniuses there is a pecial woman disserving mentioning. Her name is Temple Grandin, an autistic scientist, inventor and writer that was born to revolutionize the handling of livestock and the understanding of autism. Since about six month old temple grandin displayed the typical symptoms of autism: a neurological disorder that affects the brains’ normal development causing lack of language, lack of sensory/motor processing, noise sensitivity, fixation on rotating objects, and sensitivity to physical touch. Since her diagnosis temple’s mother directed all her effort to improving her daughter’s life.
She took the time to search for schools where the staff was capacitated to deal with her daughter special needs; she hired a special care giver to play with temple to prevent her from immerging into the autistic world; and she enrolled her in speech therapy. Thanks to all these efforts and to her constant dedication and tutoring, temple learned to speak and read. As temple entered puberty, she was frequently found on a state of constant panic and stress triggered by her oversensitivity to sounds, to images and to touch.
Looking for some release to her symptoms, grandin parted to her aunt’s cattle ranch in Arizona. In the ranch, while looking at cows entering a squeeze chute, temple realized that cattle’s anxiety went way once they entered the chute. Intrigued by this fact, she decided to enter the chute and tried it out onto herself. While she was being hugged by the mechanical devise, she found herself on a state of relaxation she had never been before.
Since she was unable to tolerate touch and having found something that attained to release her symptoms, temple immediately built her own chute, which she later called ‘the squeeze machine. ’ Temple has said that the squeeze machine gave her physical comfort and helped her to connect with her mother and to feel sympathy toward others. Today, a more advance version of the squeeze machine is used to treat autistic and developmentally disable children in many centers along the United States (Grandin, Temple).
When she finished high school, Grandin entered Franklin Pierce College where she graduated with honors and earned a B. A. in psychology. Then, she enrolled at Arizona State University to continue her career as a psychologist. Nevertheless, during academic years 1970-72 she worked at different livestock facilities where she began to notice certain similarities between cows and her autistic condition: cows just like her, thought in pictures and experienced moments of intense anxiety and stress. Fascinated by this iscovery, she resolved to switch her master’s to animal science. In 1975 she finished her master’s degree, which she followed by a Ph. D. in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989, and in 1980 she opened her own company, Grandin livestock handling system incorporated. Because during her previous jobs temple saw firsthand the methods used to kill livestock and understood cattle’s fears and anxieties at slaughterhouses, she dedicated her genius to designing what she calls “humane slaughter systems. This is temple’s term to refer to livestock handling systems that reduce livestock pain, discomforts and fears along their lives in farms and meat plants as well as during their execution in slaughter houses. One of her most significant contributions to livestock has been the curve chute she designed in 1986. The chute, among other things, prevents cattle from seeing people, shadows, trucks and other factors that scare them and increase the animals stress during their last minutes. With the curve chute, therefore, cattle remain calm and die peacefully.
Since the curve chute came out, it’s advantages and benefits were recognized, and quickly became the only handling system at meat processing plants in the United States and in countries such as Canada, Mexico, England, and Australia (“Grandin, Temple”). Temple success with livestock is in part accredited to her autism, which allows her to see in pictures. “My mind Works just like Google for images. I don’t think in the abstract at all, everything in my life is organized visually” (Qtd. in Vansickle).
This ability enables her to connect to farm animals and visualize major problems, which she then improves in her creations. In addition, Temple believes that because animals give humans so much they should be treated with respect up until their death. Among her most weighty achievements on this matter figure: an objective scoring system to ensure humane handling of cattle and pigs at meat processing facilities, procedures to reduce animals’ sickness and death, hundreds of articles and training videos that explain and demonstrate proper livestock handling, and several books on the same subject.
She also developed the American Meat Instituted animal welfare auditing program, which is the first program in the United States to monitor and supervise proper slaughtering processes and the total number of incorrectly stunned animals. Although grandin’s work focuses more on livestock behavior, she is also well-known for her contributions to autism. She has written many articles and lectured endlessly about her experience with autism, and based on her experience scientists have developed new treatments and procedures for autistic children.
Besides, she wrote her story about her live with autism in her autobiographic books, Emergence: Labeled Autistic as well as in Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from My Life with Autism (Vansickle). Temple Grandin besides being the most known autistic adult in the world, is one of the most influential and respected names in her field. Time Magazine accredited this by including her among the 100 most influential people in the world. Her work has been awarded with numerous honors such as “Who’s Who of American Women in 1990, Humane Award from the American Veterinary Medical Association, and Richard L.
Knowlton Innovation Award from Meat Marketing and Technology Magazine” (Vansickle). Currently, Doctor Grandin spends her days teaching at Colorado State University and consulting with the livestock industry on facility designs, livestock handling, and animal welfare.
Works Cited
- “Grandin, Temple. ” Current Biografy 1994: n. pag. Biographies Plus Illustrated. . Web. 9 Apr. 2011.
- Vansickle, Joe. “Temple Grandin. ” National Hog Farmer 15 May 2007: 28-30. Academic Rearch Premier. Web. 9 Apr. 2011.
