This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
At the invitation of the Longmont Public Library, Dr. Temple Grandin visited Longmont on Tuesday, September 12, 2017, and gave an inspiring speech concerning her thoughts on children with Autism and what we as parents and educators should be doing for them.
Dr. Grandin's speech can be broken into three subsections: Getting children out working, Building on strengths and Advice for helping children on the spectrum.
Getting children out working:
One of the first comments that Dr. Grandin made was, "Get the video games under control. Get kids out doing things. The difference between Granddad and Junior getting a job is that Granddad worked at a young age, while Junior is addicted to video games." She encourages all children, on or off the spectrum, to work from a young age. "In Colorado, you can get a retail job at 14." She was adamant in saying, "We need to get kids doing scheduled tasks outside the home." Her suggestions were volunteering for an organization, walk the neighborhood dogs, mow lawns or hand out pamphlets at church. Learning how to work is an important skill for all children, according to Dr. Grandin, and it especially helps children on the spectrum learn how to "sell" themselves. She also stressed the importance of building a portfolio of work. This simple idea has helped Dr. Grandin "go through the backdoor" throughout her life, especially when applying for college and breaking into her chosen career. "If you are weird, show your work." Dr. Grandin emphasized throughout her talk.
Her suggestions were volunteering for an organization, walk the neighborhood dogs, mow lawns or hand out pamphlets at church. Learning how to work is an important skill for all children, according to Dr. Grandin, and it especially helps children on the spectrum learn how to "sell" themselves. She also stressed the importance of building a portfolio of work. This simple idea has helped Dr. Grandin "go through the backdoor" throughout her life, especially when applying for college and breaking into her chosen career. "If you are weird, show your work." Dr. Grandin emphasized throughout her talk.
Building on strengths:
Dr. Grandin is an advocate for nurturing the strengths of the individual verses focusing on the deficits. One way to do this is by joining special interest groups such as 4H, robotics, scouts and theater, to name a few. She, herself, made many friends and found a love for a great many things simply by exploring several interest groups. Incidentally, these groups also offered her safety from bullying and helped build confidence.
Dr. Grandin also mentioned how often she was surprised that she enjoyed something when she had predetermined that she would dislike it. She says, "Don't overspecialize" in any one area and shared one of her favorite quotes by Issac Asimov, "A degree is the first step down a ruinous highway. You don't want to waste it so you go into doctoral research. You end up a thorough ignoramus on everything in the world except for one sub-divisional sliver of nothing." She used this quote to hit home the point that the more exposure children have, in a variety things, it helps them relate better to the world around them.
Another area where we should be focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses is in the job industry. Dr. Grandin comments on the need for all kinds of thinkers on projects to insure situations such; as electrical failures happening in Houston hospitals because the circuit boxes were kept in the basement, which flooded; or what happened to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. She stated that visual thinkers like her could have visualized the possible disasters which would have helped the engineers design measures to prevent catastrophes from happening.
The last thing Dr. Granin mentioned was doing lots of hands-on activities. She was specifically passionate about hands-on classes being offered in schools and was sad to see that so many were being removed from the curriculum. She says that these activities promote problem-solving skills, being more observant, hobbies and creativity.
Advice for children on the spectrum:
Dr. Grandin remarked how she was a horrible student in school until a teacher inspired her to become a scientist through work, which gave her a "pathway to a goal." Once deciding that science was what she wanted to explore she was more motivated to put in the work, even in the areas she found most difficult, in order to reach her goal. She encouraged us all to be life long explorers and gave examples of places to find free classes to follow those passions. In addition to exploring, she points out the need to experiment and learn from our failures.
As for teaching children on the spectrum, Dr. Grandin is a believer in accounting for the child's age when handing out advice. For small children she emphasizes slowing down when you talk to them, playing a lot of turn-based games, create/take advantage of opportunities to make them use language, give instructions and explain why it is done or not done this way and use every situation to teach. For older children she mentioned getting them in special interest groups, using a tablet for them to learn to type, instead of a laptop or computer, to get out of the house and begin working, and to build a portfolio.
Lastly, Dr. Grandin encourages everyone to stop letting the label of Autism define our children. She mentions in her book, The Autistic Brain, that she has several children come talk to her who mention their autism first. She then goes on to talk about how she enjoys hearing about the things they like rather than their diagnosis. She stated in her talk that parents also allow themselves to take on the identity as a "special needs" parent. It becomes who they are. She talked about her own mother having interests outside of Dr. Grandin's autism. Dr. Grandin mentions how healthy it is for children on the spectrum to see their parents be more than just their parents.
Dr. Grandin provided a great deal of information to process in her hour long talk. Her books provide a more in depth look into her views and research on Autism, many of which can be found at the Longmont Public Library.
