Temple Grandin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
I did not know that eye movements had meaning until
I read Mind Blindness by Simon Baron-Cohen. I had
no idea that people communicated feelings with their
eyes. I also did not know that people get all kinds
of little emotional signals which transmit feelings.
My understanding of this became clearer after I
read Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio. From the
book I learned that, in most people, information
in memory is seamlessly linked with emotion. I have
emotions which can be very strong when I am experiencing
them, but information stored in memory can be scanned
at will without emotion. It is like surfing the
Internet of web pages in my mind.
Social relationships have been learned solely by
intellect and use of my visualization skills. All
my thoughts are in pictures, like videotapes in
my imagination. When I encounter a new social situation
I can scan my data banks for a similar situation
that I can use as a model to guide me in the new
situation. My data banks in social skills are also
filled with news articles about diplomatic relationships
between different countries and an archive of previous
experiences. I use these scenarios to guide me in
different situations. I then run videotapes in my
imagination of all the possible ways to predict
how the other person might act. It is all done using
my visual mind. I have great difficulty with new
social situations if I cannot recall a similar situation
to use as a guide.
It is easy for me to pass a simple 'theory of mind'
test because I visualize what the other person would
be seeing. For example, if John sees Sally put a
candy in a jar and then Sally eats the candy when
John leaves the room and replaces it with a pen,
I know that John expects to find a candy because
he did not see the candy replaced by the pen. I
have difficulty with more complex 'theory of mind'
problems which involve two or three people doing
several different things. I do not have sufficient
short-term memory to remember the sequence of events.
My problem is due to a poor short-term working memory.
Difficulties with short-term working memory should
not be confused with a lack of understanding of
'theory of mind.' I can solve more complex 'theory
of mind' tests if I am allowed to write down the
sequence of events. Over time, I have built up a
tremendous library of memories of my past experiences,
TV, movies, and newspapers to spare me the social
embarrassments caused by my autism; and I use these
to guide the decision process in a totally logical
way. I have learned from experience that certain
behaviors make people mad. Earlier in my life, my
logical decisions were often wrong because they
were based on insufficient data. Today they are
much better, because my memory contains more information.
Using my visualization ability, I observe myself
from a distance. I call this my little scientist
in the corner, as if I'm a little bird watching
my own behavior from up high. This idea has also
been reported by other people with autism. Dr. Asperger
noted that autistic children observe themselves
constantly. They see themselves as an object of
interest.
According to Antonio Damasio, people who suddenly
lose emotions because of strokes often make disastrous
financial and social decisions. These patients have
completely normal thoughts, and they respond normally
when asked about hypothetical social situations.
But their performance plummets when they have to
make rapid decisions without emotional cues. It
must be like suddenly becoming autistic. I can handle
situations where stroke patients may fail because
I never relied on emotional cues in the first place.
At age 51, I have a vast data bank; but it has taken
me years to build up my library of experiences and
learn how to behave in an appropriate manner. I
did not know until very recently that most people
rely heavily on emotional cues.
After many years I have learned - by rote - how
to act in different situations. I can speed-search
my CD-ROM memory of videotapes and make a decision
quickly. It is like surfing the Internet in my mind.
Doing this visually may be easier than doing it
with verbal thinking. I try to avoid situations
where I can get into trouble. As a child, I found
picking up social cues impossible. When my parents
were thinking about getting divorced, my sister
felt tension; but I felt nothing because the signs
were subtle. My parents never had big fights in
front of us. The signs of emotional friction were
stressful to my sister, but I didn't even see them.
Since my parents were not showing obvious, overt
anger toward each other; I just did not comprehend
the tension.
Social interaction is further complicated by the
physiological problems of attention shifting. Since
people with autism require much more time than others
to shift their attention between auditory and visual
stimuli, they find it more difficult to follow rapidly
changing, complex social interactions. These problems
may be part of the reason why Jack, a man with autism,
said, "If I relate to people too much, I become
nervous and uncomfortable." Learning social
skills can be greatly helped with videotapes. I
gradually learned to improve my public speaking
by watching tapes and by becoming aware of easily
quantifiable cues, such as rustling papers that
indicate boredom. It is a slow process of continuous
improvement. There are no sudden breakthroughs.
Figuring out how to interact socially was much more
difficult than solving an engineering problem. I
found it relatively easy to program my visual memory
with the knowledge of cattle-dipping vats or corral
designs. Recently, I attended a lecture where a
social scientist said that humans do not think like
computers. That night at a dinner party I told this
scientist and her friends that my thought patterns
resemble computing and that I am able to explain
my thought processes step by step. I was kind of
shocked when she told me that she is unable to describe
how her thoughts and emotions are joined. She said
that when she thinks about something, the factual
information and the emotions are combined into a
seamless whole. I finally understood why so many
people allow emotions to distort the facts. My mind
can always separate the two. Even when I am very
upset, I keep reviewing the facts over and over
until I can come to a logical conclusion.
Over the years, I have learned to be more tactful
and diplomatic. In my freelance livestock equipment
design business, I have learned never to go over
the head of the person who hired me unless I have
his or her permission. From past experiences I have
learned to avoid situations in which I could be
exploited and to stroke egos that may feel threatened.
To master diplomacy, I read about business dealings
and international negotiations in the Wall Street
Journal and other publications. I then used them
as models.
I know that things are missing in my life, but I
have an exciting career that occupies my every waking
hour. Keeping myself busy keeps my mind off what
I may be missing. Sometimes parents and professionals
worry too much about the social life of an adult
with autism. I make social contacts via my work.
If a person develops her talents, she will have
contacts with people who share her interests.
Develop Talents
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of developing
a talent area such as drafting, commercial art,
custom cabinetwork, fixing cars or computer programming.
These things will provide an intellectually satisfying
career. My life would not be worth living if I did
not have intellectually satisfying work. My career
is my life. Sometimes professionals working with
people with autism become so concerned about the
person's social life that developing intellectually
satisfying employment skills is neglected.
When high functioning autistic or Asperger's children
reach 8th or 9th grade, they need mentor teachers
to teach them skills such as computer programming.
I had a wonderful high school science teacher who
taught me to use the scientific research library.
Computers are a great field because being weird
is okay. A good programmer is recognized for his/her
skills. I know several very successful autistic
computer programmers.
To make up for social deficits autistic people need
to make themselves so good that they are recognized
for brilliant work. People respect talent. They
need mentors who are computer programmers, artists,
draftsmen, etc. to teach them career skills. I often
get asked "How does one find mentors?"
You never know where a mentor may be found. He or
she may be standing in the checkout line at the
supermarket. I found one of my first meat industry
mentors when I met the wife of his insurance agent
at a party. She struck up a conversation with me
because she saw my hand embroidered western shirt.
I had spent hours embroidering a steer head on the
shirt. Post a notice on the bulletin board at the
local college in the computer science department.
If you see a person with a computer company name
badge, approach him or her and show the person work
that the person with autism has done.
Since people with autism and Asperger's are inept
socially, they have to sell their work instead of
their personality. I showed my portfolio of pictures
and blueprints to prospective customers. I never
went to the personnel office. I went straight to
the engineers and asked to do design jobs.
Freelance work is really great. It avoids many social
problems. I can go in and design the project and
then get out before I get in social problems. There
have been several sad stories where an autistic
draftsman or technician has been promoted to a management
position. It was a disaster which ended up with
the person being fired or quitting. Employers need
to recognize the person's limitations. An excellent
draftsman, commercial artist, technician or computer
programmer may lose their career when promoted to
management. They should be rewarded with more pay
or a new computer instead of a management job.
Sins of the System
I developed this rule system to guide social interactions
and my behavior.
· Really Bad Things - examples: murder, arson,
stealing, lying in court under oath, injuring or
hitting other people. All cultures have prohibitions
against really bad things because an orderly civilized
society cannot function if people are robbing and
killing each other.
· Courtesy Rules - Examples: not cutting
in on a line at the movie theater or airport, table
manners, saying 'thank you' and keeping oneself
clean. These things are important because they make
the other people around you more comfortable. I
don't like it when somebody else has sloppy table
manners so I try to have decent table manners. It
annoys me if somebody cuts in front of me in a line
so I do not do this to other people.
· Illegal But Not Bad - examples: slight
speeding on the freeway and illegal parking. However,
parking in a handicapped zone would be worse because
it would violate the courtesy rules.
· Sins of the Systems (SOS) - examples: smoking
pot and being thrown in jail for ten years and sexual
misbehavior. SOS's are things where the penalty
is so severe that it defies all logic. Sometimes
the penalty for sexual misbehavior is worse than
killing somebody. Rules governing sexual behavior
are so emotionally based that I do not dare discuss
the subject for fear of committing an SOS. An SOS
in one society may be acceptable behavior in another;
whereas rules 1, 2, 3 tend be more uniform between
different cultures.
I have learned never to do a sin of the system.
This is one of the reasons I chose celibacy. It
avoids a lot of problems. People with autism have
to learn that certain behavior will not be tolerated
period. You will be fired no matter how good your
work is if you commit an SOS at work. People with
autism and Asperger's need to learn that if they
want to keep a job they must not commit an SOS at
work. The social knowledge required is just too
complex. Attempting to date at work is too hazardous
to one's job. If they want to date they should do
it outside of work. The most successful marriages
that people with autism have involved partners with
shared work interests.
Conclusion
I put a great deal of emphasis on employment because
I see so many very intelligent people with autism
and Asperger's syndrome without satisfying jobs.
A satisfying profession made life have meaning for
me. I am what I do and think instead of what I feel.
Last year the library at my university was flooded
and almost a million books drowned. I cried and
cried about this. I grieved for the drowned books.
It upsets me so much because the thoughts were dying.
Nobody would ever read these books again. However,
it turned out that the books could be saved by freeze
drying; but at the time I did not know that this
was possible. To me, knowledge is something very
precious, and the destruction of knowledge is really
terrible. Using my intellect to do work that is
useful and make the world a better place is very
important to me. Knowledge is more important to
me than emotion.
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