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Excellent and Thought-provoking!(Rating: 5)
I admire Temple Grandin's way of thinking - visual thinking, which draws my attention. Although she had a speech delay in her childhood, she can turn every word she heard into pictures, where I believe she can make the gist of the framework. Then she usually turns it into the whole picture. Dr. Grandin does it every day, which has made her an avid thinker and has reinforced her imagination skill. It seems so effective to me because I think she organizes many pictures in her brain to get her message across. Therefore, she understands animals quite well, because autistic people, esp. non-verbal ones and animals basically rely on visions instead of using words. She couldn't become what she is now if she were an NT person, I'd say.

I wasn't quite sure if I talked about some scenes of Dr. Grandin's seminar on my review of The Way I See It, but I didn't expect she would make such articulate presentations. Many people with Asperger's/autism are likely to be so nervous in public; I must admit that's a stereotypical idea because she has made a lot of effort to socialize by meeting her mentor, her science teacher at high school. And that motivated her to study animal science and now she teaches that at Colorado State Univ. Also she has made a bunch of presentations on Asperger's/autism.

After all this book made me think twice about developmental impairments - Even challenged people can have opportunities to succeed in life. They might be able to make the best use of their potentials NT people have never thought of!

Fascinating read(Rating: 5)
Temple Grandin is a high-functioning autistic (i.e., she has Asperger Syndrome). This book is her explanation of what it's like to live as an autistic, and how that life has given her insights into other autistics, "normal" people and other animals. The book is part biography, part therapy, but mostly a scientific voyage of thought and discovery. If it weren't for Temple's deep grounding in science, this would almost be a philosophical book. Temple covers a wide range of topics, ranging from the symptoms, development, causes, and treatment of autism, to the experiences of autistics, to the lessons that autism provides us about human thought in general.

The essence of Temple's experience is that she thinks in pictures. Not words, or emotions. It's like her brain is a vast collection of youtube clips or google images that she can search and access without necessarily accessing their emotional or verbal content. Temple had a very difficult time coming to grasp with this different way of thinking in that it made if very challenging to fit in with the people around her who didn't think in those ways. In particular, Temple highlights how the sensory experience of autistics is quite different. This literally means that they perceive the world differently, making any interactions inherently challenging. Where this has helped Temple is in understanding animal behavior, as she has gone on to design numerous livestock handling and processing facilities that maximize efficiency while minimizing animal suffering. This book even discusses Temple's moral and religious beliefs regarding the universe, herself, as well as the fate of the millions of animals that go through the facilities she has designed. Overall, it's a fascinating book that will not only appeal to anyone connected to autism, but to anyone who wants a view at how the human mind works, and how it can work differently.

With respect to the expanding edition, Temple has updates at the end of each chapter that are primarily devoted to new research on a particular topic (e.g., dating & autism, or pharmacological treatments for autism). Compared to the recent HBO special on Temple, this book is less of a biography (although there's lots of personal anecdotes) and far more of a thoughtful, scientific look at autism. One should note that Temple's Ph.D. is not in autism, but her keen mind and deep personal experiences supply tons of fascinating ideas, anecdotes, and recommendations. A great read- particularly for someone who's strength isn't writing!