Temple Grandin Quotes

There needs to be a lot more emphasis on what a child CAN do, instead of what he cannot do.

What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.

I am different, not less

The world needs different kinds of minds to work together.

The thing about being autistic is that you gradually get less and less autistic, because you keep learning, you keep learning how to behave. It's like being in a play; I'm always in a play.

If you have a 2 or 3 year old who is not talking, you must start an early intervention program. The worst thing you can do with an autistic 3 year old is to do nothing.

Nature is cruel but we don't have to be

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

I had people in my life who didn't give up on me: my mother, my aunt, my science teacher. I had one-on-one speech therapy. I had a nanny who spent all day playing turn-taking games with me.

People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?

People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.

In special education, there's too much emphasis placed on the deficit and not enough on the strength.

Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.

You got to get away from words if you want to understand any animal. It thinks in pictures, it thinks in smells, it thinks in touch sensations - little sound bites like, it's a very detailed memory.

If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of what I am.

You simply cannot tell other people they are stupid, even if they really are stupid.

People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a good teacher.

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

I think sometimes parents and teachers fail to stretch kids. My mother had a very good sense of how to stretch me just slightly outside my comfort zone.

You have got to keep autistic children engaged with the world. You cannot let them tune out.

Autism is part of who I am.

You can be honest without sharing your opinions on everything.

Curiosity is the other side of caution.

The most important thing people did for me was to expose me to new things.

When you're a weird geek, the way to sell yourself is to show your skills.

As you may know, some of the stereotyped behaviors exhibited by autistic children are also found in zoo animals who are raised in a barren environment.

I can remember being bullied and teased. It was absolutely horrible. I got kicked out of ninth grade for throwing a book at a girl who teased me. It was absolutely terrible.

Dogs serve people, but people serve cats.

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

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.

When kids are really little, they all look the same. No speech, no social relatedness, cannot emphasize enough the importance of early educational intervention.

Autism is an extremely variable disorder.

There's no black and white dividing line between a mild Aspergers, which is the mild autism, and computer engineer, for example.

I'd rather see a kid get fixated on something they can turn into a career.

You get these fear memories that are hard to undo.

I'm seeing too many smart kind of socially awkward kids, a lot milder than I was, not getting employment because they're not learning job skills.

I'm a child of the 50s. I was expected to have table manners. There needs to be some expectations for behavior. I'm seeing some children today, they don't push them enough.

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.

You can't punish a child who is acting out because of sensory overload.

I'm seeing too many kind of socially awkward kids that get through schools and then they can't hold a job because they haven't learned the discipline of get up in the morning.

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

I think a brain can be made "more thinking" or made "more emotional." At what point does this become abnormal? Autism in its milder variants, I think, is part of normal human variation.

Some children may need a behavioral approach, whereas other children may need a sensory approach.

Some teachers just have a knack for working with autistic children. Other teachers do not have it.

I use my mind to solve problems and invent things.

Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.

I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world. We need a lot more of that and a lot less abstract stuff.

All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.

The squeeze machine is not going to cure anybody, but it may help them relax; and a relaxed person will usually have better behavior.