Temple Grandin Reveals Her Advice for Educating Autistic Kids

Dr. Temple Grandin has unique insight into the minds of autistic children. Her approach—stay positive.
Dr. Temple Grandin offers tips for special educators and parents with autistic children.
(Photo: Rosalie Winard)

The following essay was written by Dr. Temple Grandin exclusively for TakePart. Special educators need to look at what a child can do instead of what he/she cannot do.

“Kids with autism often get fixated on one thing, and it is important to expand their fixations.”

There needs to be more emphasis on building up and expanding the skills a child is good at. Too often people get locked into a label such as dyslexia, ADHD, or autism, and they cannot see beyond the label. Kids that get a label often have uneven skills. They may be talented in one area and have a real deficiency in another.

“I was appalled to learn that some schools are very rigid about forcing a child to only study materials that are designed for his/her grade level.”

In my case, I was really good at art, but doing algebra made no sense. It is important to work on areas where a child is weak, but an emphasis on deficits should not get to the point where building the area of strength gets neglected. READ MORE >>

• Methods to Expand Abilities
• Never Hold a Gifted Child Back
• Use Abilities to Do Assignments

 

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Dr. Temple Grandin’s achievements are remarkable because she was an autistic child. She was motivated to pursue a career as a scientist and livestock equipment designer. Temple lectures to parents and teachers throughout the U.S. on her experiences with autism. She was honored in Time magazine’s 2010 “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.”

 

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Be here now

Dr. Anthony C. Hollander

I have been hearing all sorts of comments and expressions lately that have been making my head spin. Given the level of “autism awareness” combined with all of the emphasis on training of staff/educators, and the emphasis on parent training and counseling, I never would have thought that these comments would be so widespread.

Should we give a lot of structure, or sit back and see what happens? Hesitate, or don’t hesitate? Well, how about this one: “Hire the person, but what can you expect from someone that only makes minimum wage?” Or how about this one: “We only have the child for six hours a day.” (In my private practice I see most of the children I work with less time in one year then the staff sees the child in one week.) Or this one: “There is only so much we can do, because the child has autism.” Have you been hearing these kinds of expressions lately? Or am I the only one?

When I started the Summer Intensive Program, it was the largest community-based consumer-run program of its kind in the country. I had over 100 people working for me for nothing more than a significant training program, coupled with the best darn letter of recommendation that anyone could ever get. At the height of the program, we had the same number of people working for something like $0.57 an hour - way less than minimum wage! The people in my programs had to undergo a full month-long training session. The paperwork demands were, up until the most recent IEP publications, the most demanding of any other location in the country. We also took the children that no one else would take: the most violent, most dangerous.

There were very serious potential staff interview sessions, with actual video tapes to be seen as part of the interview, along with all sorts of background, academic standing, and personal recommendations combined. People had to know up front exactly what they were trying to get themselves into, and what their work demands would be before they came to work. We also took in people who had no direction in life, no idea what they wanted to do. It turns out that these people that we hired became the original one-to-one person and worked their butts off all summer long. It also turns out that these one-to-one people were the single most important part of our programs. They were the people that actually did the work that we all talked about needing to be done. It got to the point where I was having people from all walks of life, even physicians, coming to the program for training. To this day, I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone who would be willing to work one-to-one with this population. That’s why I have conducted tons of training sessions, not only for support personnel, but for the bus drivers, nurses, substitutes, student teachers, home aides, camp aides, etc.

My parents gave me some advice: “Be here now.” In other words, don’t let other things get in the way of your chosen responsibilities.