¶ … Pictures: My Life Autism Temple Grandin. For a special education teacher/Class. Double spaced 1in margins times roman font size 12 Order ID Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin.

Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism is the autobiography of Temple Grandin, an extraordinary woman with autism. Grandin's accomplishments are so impressive her achievements would be noteworthy even if she had not been born with autism. However, when Grandin was born, autism was seldom diagnosed in infants, and her failure to talk, relate to others, and otherwise develop normally was seen as a sign of mental retardation. Her mother was advised to institutionalize her, but Grandin's mother persevered and sought special services for her daughter to enable her to talk, obtain an education, and eventually go on to graduate school in the field of animal science.

One of the most unusual aspects of Grandin's book is the fact that she credits her autism, at least in part, for her success. Grandin designs cruelty-free slaughterhouses...

At first, said Grandin, "I had no idea that my thought processes were different. In fact, I did not realize the full extent of the differences until very recently. At meetings and at work I started asking other people detailed questions about how they accessed information from their memories. From their answers I learned that my visualization skills far exceeded those of most other people" (Grandin 20).
However, although she does not express a desire to have been 'born differently' Grandin does note that she did need additional assistance from her teachers to truly thrive as a student. Certain subjects, such as French and algebra, she found almost impossible because of her deficits in language and abstract reasoning. Autism produces highly focused abilities and Grandin was brilliant in some subjects and quite poor in others. She also had to struggle to learn…