The Ethics of Autism: Among Them, but Not of Them

Voices of Autism: Temple Grandin

Voices of Autism Temple Grandin is a full professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She established a national reputation designing cattle chutes and slaughterhouses, designs that both reduce animal stress and promote the humane slaughter of animals. In addition to her work in animal sciences, Dr. Grandin is known for her publications and lectures on her experiences with autism. In the second of her autobiographical books, Thinkingin PicturesandOtherReportsfromMyLifewithAutism, she discusses animal science, autism, as well as the ways in which autism has contributed to a richer understanding of her profession. Her essays range over a variety of topics, including the way in which autism results in her pictorial way of thinking, the role of emotions in her life, and human relationships. Grandin credits her pictorial way of thinking for her abilities to design humane cattle-processing plants, as well as her ability to draw complex diagrams of her designs with little formal drafting education. Grandin only recently came to appreciate that her way of thinking is dramatically different from other people. Not everyone who has autism possesses this pictorial way of thinking, but Grandin believes that in her case the two are linked. “I would never want to become so normal that I would lose those skills,” she says (Grandin 1995, 180). Another of Grandin’s notable inventions is her “squeeze machine,” created to replicate the sensation of being hugged without human contact. All her life Grandin avoided being touched by other people, yet sought the comforting feeling of being hugged. Sensory difficulties made hugs from other people too uncomfortable. Her first experience simulating hugs was to get inside a cattle chute at her aunt’s ranch. Since that time Grandin has modified and redesigned squeeze machines of her own making which simulate the feeling of being hugged, as well as relieve fear and anxiety (Grandin 1995, 63). Despite the assertion that “Fortunately, none of my siblings are autistic” (Grandin 1995, 176), Grandin does not want to be “cured” of the condition that makes her who she is. She reiterates sentiments from chapter 3, saying that she “. . . would not want to lose my ability to think visually. I have found my place along the great continuum” (Grandin 1995, 60–61). 5 Seth Chwast, Self-study in Slate Blue ...