Temple Grandin's Current Views

Post Reply New Topic

"As autism ignites a national conversation, Temple Grandin has something to say"

IMHO she has always separated the severe autistics from mild ones a bit too much.

Regression was noted by Kanner way back in the 1940s when presumably there was less “environmental insult.” I don’t think causation of Autism with regression is as completely different from mild Autism as she seems to think. The current consensus of a combination of genetics and environment seems about right.

I do agree her about sensory sensitivities. Most of the public emphases is on social difficulties. The role of sensory sensitivities in communication difficulties is rarely talked about. Severe sensory sensitivities are obvious. Mild ones are often normalized because people dealing with them often do not know they are dealing with them because it is a normal part of their lives.

I am not sure if it actually works for autistics to desensitize sensory sensitivity. If that were the case wouldn't autistic people get automatically desensitized from just living in a normal environment?

Overall gave to agree with Temple Grandins opinion on this stuff.. mainly because she outlines many of similiar issues , I faced as I grew up

Maybe she meant environmental insult induced regression meaning catalyst for burnouts, the main difference is it is particularly at a very young age, affecting developmental milestones directly?

And definitely do check for other illnesses, but not just ones that can induce regressive autism like symptoms.
Even one's own body itself a source of sensory insult, left untreated can cause developmental issues.


But sure.
Yet no speech delay doesn't mean better verbal processing (or making an illusion that favoring this meant no issues), ability mask and all of that.


I can personally agree that sensory matters had to go first. Because living in chronic dysregulation leave one little to no space for a lot of things.

Especially in a limited processing space, but is overwhelmed and largely occupied by sensory related dysregulations. And the intensity of it multiplies in underdeveloped stages.

But I think it shouldn't limit to just sensory, but also mental and emotional. And sensory, I think, shouldn't be so exclusively external, but also internal.

Although, sensory, particularly externally sourced intolerance and triggers, is the most doable to accomodate.

Limited processing, left with an even smaller room that isn't occupied by dysregulation meant a huge bottlenecking for learning, knowing perspectives, or even -- seeing beyond themselves and their own body.


And frankly, that part is rather very personal to me, enough that I had to both attained hard earned mental and emotional peace through inner work.

All I have left now are biological sources of "noise", one that I wish that I can either just afford, get a medication to quiet it down, or just bypass it entirely through sheer irrelevance though it's an entirely unskippable until it's truly no longer there.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

right from the "get go" I object to the categorization that all autistic individuals think "in pictures" not words. Ignorance whether from Grandin (who has recanted to some part of that claim since she wrote that "thinking in pictures" book, I and many other ASD individuals are incapable of thinking in pictures because we have aphantasia and can not coujure up images in our mind at all. got me up in arms when that introductory statement was made, now I'll go back and read the "rest of the story" but I remain skeptical. As much as Grandin did for autism awareness initially, and I know she changes her mind and educates herself, the popular media has still not educated itself regarding science's current understanding of autism as a whole and reporters work from ignorance and bias in articles like this one. As always I am grateful for you posts regarding issues that are related to ASD. Thank you

^Temple Grandin may think in pictures. I don't.

Maybe the emphasis of visual medium learning for autistics is more about for children with verbal and language processing delays and issues -- especially for ages below 2 or so -- and not for school aged children who eventually ended up with the verbal language, spoken and written, as the preferred learning medium.

Unless an autistic declares before ages 2, that they need purely need verbal learning mediums to develop all areas of development...

That the saying autistics are visual is more like overall really young autistic kids are visual -- or at least rely it more than neurotypicals of the same age to develop further -- and not all of autistics are that way forever.

Not defending that particular view of autism, but I call for the full context of that declaration.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I prefer written instructions to rely heavily on diagrams.

Well, I was diagnosed late.
I pass mainstream education no apparent issues other than the typical social and emotional stuff.
No academic related accomodations needed.
No therapies nor treatments nor any aides.
I graduated college level.

Some thought I'm even better than my peers when it came to language. But only because I put up with it.

However -- my apparent verbal skills are illusory. Language processing had always, always been unnatural to me. I never identified with the NVLD-like profiles.

It's very subtle unless I got tested a full battery of tests.
Whatever language issues I have are either pass it off as just another autistic social communication deficit behavior or another attribute around pragmatic languages.

Not a lot would catch because I pass as someone verbal enough, someone who can converse, discuss serious things and the lack of speech delay is the only, only reason why I got the Aspergers label while I'm a fully blown autistic.

I need a very competent speech language pathologist to figure this out. And I never had one.

Unlike other aspies, I did not switch from a yet developing autistic child relying on less verbal related mediums who yet to develop advanced enough verbal medium to practice with the verbal medium, to an autistic putting up with the verbal medium and then relying it more on verbal medium because it's easier to process and practice.

And as is with processing face to face interactions difficult and ended up favoring written texts.

Technically, I ended up with a huge mismatch of both; no transitioning from visually more reliant to verbally reliant and with texts easier to process -- I'm only left with patterns within patterns for a habit with crappy memory processing and recall to not able to utilize it to it's potential.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

A peritonsillar abscess It's usually a complication of tonsillitis and is often caused by the same bacteria that cause strep throat. Symptoms include severe pain, swollen tonsils and swollen lymph nodes. Treatments include needle aspiration and tonsillectomy

I had this quinsey when I was teen, admited to hospital but I also ear infections left me partially deaf and troubled time in my life. Temple does still have experience with speech issues and quite few more years experience than myself. Perhaps via tests on lime disease or strep...as child took quite bit anti-biotics which may being contributing reason I became celiac.

Look if a person doesn't get out in life then how much harder is it to accomplish goals. I find ear plugs help me in winter with earache and at times I do hear sounds more clearly and it's too loud. Before dragging my son out house (in nice way on farm) he was wrecking our lives not going out, if I let ADHD take over I'd never have had a job, without money what ought person to do.

Failed autism inclusion at school was and is trouble because home school pressure to teach a man-son is on me. Its true about resources available to families with bills speech and OT starting a group meetup is one way of refreshing, or idea on Montessori type school for asd but including additional language support as my son was sent home and nixmorf model isn't as available as ABA schools in our country.

Behaviour, yes it's diverse with combined schitsophrenua at times or ADHD. But sex seems to be huge problem for men and to place that in public news awareness article is just off the top. Maybe ADHD is also factor in woke culture where people considered unemployable based on appearance not just time blindness. Then women's probably best diagnose not as bi-polar but modern ADHD because men don't really want women with brains, again where I live many other women were not allowed to follow choice of career.

And experience tells me inflammation is still a form of internal noise, infection induced brain injury or no, it's bottlenecking development and learning.

And chronic inflammation, no matter the cause, it's almost no different than having the inability to leave, avoid manage whatever source of sensory overload.

Imagine there's a lot of noise everywhere that makes you throw a fit.

Now imagine it's inside you and it's not auditory. The effects the same; easily meltdown, prone to shutdowns, distracted, irritable, tired, etc.

And no desensitization whatsoever.

Difference is that the noise is internal, and happens for no apparent reason unless medically checked.
Being thrown with "autism accomodations" and all that, yet neglect whatever internal medical issues that causes just as much discomfort.


Funniest thing is that I considered this scenario of one of the possibilities of "why am I autistic -- despite the apparent lack of autistics in my family lines?".

Only to discern that it's just a source of my nonsensical dysregulation, and the apparent inability to see past myself possibly since age 5 -- that only kept me out from learning more externally related lessons despite the lack of environmental related hostile factors like abuse or extreme poverty or supposedly the pressures of daily living demands.

When I had experienced the contrast -- chronic inflammation is no longer chronic, it just comfirms that I was right.

At the moment, I'm figuring out if I can DIY my way out of whatever language processing issues I have, due to the possibility of me having any sessions with a competent SLP might me impossible.

I may spend half of my 30s relearning word processing by myself, just like I should've earlier.
After spending 25+ years putting up with chronic dysregulation due to some untreated chronic inflammatory crap that's also happened to be physically disruptive and unmanageable until I got infected with pneumonia and got treated for it.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.