Temple Grandin - Emphasize what we can do
ASPartOfMe
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Well-known author Temple Grandin visits Meridian Mall's autism museum
As she looked around the museum, taking in the “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” inspired sensory activity area and an autism history timeline, she said one of the most important things is the photos of celebrities who have autism on the wall, people such as Anthony Hopkins, Greta Thunberg and Elon Musk.
It shows people who are on the autism spectrum can do great things.
“I want to see the kids that are different get out there and be successful,” she said
DeGroat, who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome as a child and who opened the museum earlier this year to raise awareness for autism, said it was “astonishing” to have Grandin visit the museum.
Grandin said a modern problem is that when a child is diagnosed with autism, the parents will get locked onto the label and think the child won’t do anything.
But this isn’t true. The kids just need to have early intervention, be exposed to things and learn what they like, what they don’t like and what they can do to be successful, she said.
She referenced Stephen Hawking, who said people should concentrate on things their disability doesn’t prevent them from doing well.
“There's too much emphasis on the deficit and not enough emphasis on what the person can do,” she said.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Sometimes a lot of times kids will grow up not being able to do things or the things they can do are useless party tricks so saying isn’t true rather than sometimes isn’t true is not accurate
Employment and independent living are quite low among autistic people
So you could say doing amazing things in a career are the exception not the norm for autistic people.
The norm being a life of requiring assistance and poverty from not being employable.
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."
- George Bernie Shaw
ASPartOfMe
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Joined: 25 Aug 2013
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Posts: 34,248
Location: Long Island, New York
Sometimes a lot of times kids will grow up not being able to do things or the things they can do are useless party tricks so saying isn’t true rather than sometimes isn’t true is not accurate
Employment and independent living are quite low among autistic people
So you could say doing amazing things in a career are the exception not the norm for autistic people.
The norm being a life of requiring assistance and poverty from not being employable.
Most of us will not end up doing amazing things or no things, just things. Assuming no things will with a few exceptions guarantee no things. Assuming things is far from a guarantee of success, what it does is give opportunities to find out.
Making predictions about what a child will be as an adult is a fools errand.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
I strongly suspect these rates would be a lot higher if a more strengths-based approach to raising autistic children were standard, and if workplace accommodations for autistic people were more common (including accommodations in the process of seeking a job in the first place). Some autistic people would still be too disabled to work, but it seems to me that the percentage could be significantly lower than it is now.
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I strongly suspect these rates would be a lot higher if a more strengths-based approach to raising autistic children were standard, and if workplace accommodations for autistic people were more common (including accommodations in the process of seeking a job in the first place). Some autistic people would still be too disabled to work, but it seems to me that the percentage could be significantly lower than it is now.
In Canada this line of thought applies in spades to the disabled in general. Very limited help/programs for people on disabilty benifits to retrain/find a job that fits.
I strongly suspect these rates would be a lot higher if a more strengths-based approach to raising autistic children were standard, and if workplace accommodations for autistic people were more common (including accommodations in the process of seeking a job in the first place). Some autistic people would still be too disabled to work, but it seems to me that the percentage could be significantly lower than it is now.
Another thing is that Grandin is looking at this from the perspective of someone whose parents were affluent. Many things that would enable autistic people to "do amazing things" would require broad systemic overhaul, depending upon where one is, or failing that, require one's family to be affluent.
Plenty of American autists could "do amazing things" if they actually had access to supports, but also, if their families and they could afford an education, and or they didn't have to choose from among the dwindling number of autism-friendly jobs.
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"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." - Franz Kafka
ASD (dx. 2004, Asperger's Syndrome) + ADHD
I strongly suspect these rates would be a lot higher if a more strengths-based approach to raising autistic children were standard, and if workplace accommodations for autistic people were more common (including accommodations in the process of seeking a job in the first place). Some autistic people would still be too disabled to work, but it seems to me that the percentage could be significantly lower than it is now.
Another thing is that Grandin is looking at this from the perspective of someone whose parents were affluent. Many things that would enable autistic people to "do amazing things" would require broad systemic overhaul, depending upon where one is, or failing that, require one's family to be affluent.
Plenty of American autists could "do amazing things" if they actually had access to supports, but also, if their families and they could afford an education, and or they didn't have to choose from among the dwindling number of autism-friendly jobs.
First time I looked into her background and found out she came from”a very wealthy family”
So another autistic person of privilege attempting to lecture the world on how wonderful autism is.
I wonder where she would be today if she was one of the 1/3 of autistic people with intellectual disability or didn’t have her parents wealth to back her up.
Reminds me of Trump claiming he’s a genius business man, despite being given a million dollars as a teenager.
Who couldn’t make money on real estate back then starting with a million$
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."
- George Bernie Shaw
Either affluent or at least well-educated and otherwise lucky in some important ways. My own parents weren't affluent, but they were well-educated and also well-versed in the art of teaching. They also had received a hand-me-down piano as a gift (they could not have afforded the piano themselves).
When I was almost four years old, at around the same time I belatedly began to walk and talk, I figured out, on my own, how to play the piano by ear (first just melodies, then chords too soon afterward). Obviously I could not have done this if we didn't have a piano in the first place, and if I had not seen my father and older sister playing it.
Also, thanks in part to excellent tutoring from my parents, I managed to do very well academically, despite my late start with learning to talk.
I wish every autistic child could have these or similar advantages. Instead of ABA therapists spending all day pressuring the child to make eye contact at younger and younger ages, I wish every autistic child could have specialized academic tutors who could teach foundational math and reading skills in a playful, age-appropriate way BEFORE the child acquires the basic social skills necessary to attend school -- and, if possible, BEFORE the child even learns to talk. Many autistic children are hyperlexic, able to learn to read before learning to talk, and probably even more autistic kids could be hyperlexic if they were given appropriate tutoring.
I wish it were more widely recognized that autistic children need to learn things in a different order from everyone else, and thus need playful, individually-tailored, strengths-based tutoring in their early years, instead of delaying any and all academic instruction until the child is "table-ready."
Agreed.
To deal with the latter issue, the autistic community itself needs to become much more organized than it is now. One of the various kinds of groups we need is career-oriented groups for people in specific professional/occupational categories. Once such groups become big enough, or form big enough clusters, they will be able to help make the hiring process easier in various ways.
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- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
- My Twitter / "X" (new as of 2021)
So another autistic person of privilege attempting to lecture the world on how wonderful autism is.
I wonder where she would be today if she was one of the 1/3 of autistic people with intellectual disability or didn’t have her parents wealth to back her up.
Fair point but what Temple -- and all of us -- are trying to do is make the most of the tools that we have, even if our toolkit isn't as full as other people's toolkits.
I like Temple Grandin. She looks at the positives instead of the negatives. We need to look at possibilities instead of limits. Kids on the spectrum must be raised to believe that they can contribute to the world. They need to be raised to be thrivers instead of being raised to be bums.
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I strongly suspect these rates would be a lot higher if a more strengths-based approach to raising autistic children were standard, and if workplace accommodations for autistic people were more common (including accommodations in the process of seeking a job in the first place). Some autistic people would still be too disabled to work, but it seems to me that the percentage could be significantly lower than it is now.
Another thing is that Grandin is looking at this from the perspective of someone whose parents were affluent. Many things that would enable autistic people to "do amazing things" would require broad systemic overhaul, depending upon where one is, or failing that, require one's family to be affluent.
Plenty of American autists could "do amazing things" if they actually had access to supports, but also, if their families and they could afford an education, and or they didn't have to choose from among the dwindling number of autism-friendly jobs.
^This^ I'm considered "high functioning", but my parents were poor as church mice when I was growing up and we also lived in a VERY rural area with no access to nothing. My mother never let me do any activities that were not special needs specfic, even if I had no desire to do those activities. I wanted to take riding lessons and learn show jumping but no, my mom just found a school psychologist who owned a few horses and instead of teaching me how to ride, just used the horses as some sort of physical therapy session. She always wanted me to lie down on the horse's back...while the horse was saddled. The lady's husband was friends with a veterinarian and tried to arrange for me to spend the summer shadowing them but my mom turned that down right away because she was adamant they would try to rape me. My mom only let me go to a general special needs summer camp more for physically disabled kids which was super crowded due to the people running the camp not understanding the concept of scheduling. I wanted to go to summer camp at the zoo or the horse arena but no. There were always pedos there (there was a guy at the special needs camp who got arrested for hurting kids there...they did not do proper background checks) and whenever I bring this up now, just wanting some validation my mom gaslights me about how bad my behavior supposedly was.
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I'm autistic, received a fair deal of support and understanding growing up, graduated summa cum laude from college, and then landed a job with the state with the help of a supported employment agency. Sure it wasn't my teenage dream job to be a historian, but I like it, my superiors think highly of me (I disclose often and present an endearing "sheldon but fuzzier" type of persona), and even if my supported employment agency vanished overnight, I'd still probably be able to keep the job.
Having Temple Grandin as a role model was always reassuring. I even warmly referred to her as "our empress" in high school. You can simultaneously benefit from outside support and still then use that to function independently. And also, even if you aren't Temple Grandin or otherwise are a savant employed at doing exactly what you do best, you can still make something of yourself, and still take pride in whatever perks you feel you derive from being an Aspie. Yes, I did adjust my ambitions to try and avoid the pitfalls my set of challenges could present, but oh well. I'd still never give up being on the spectrum if I had the option. Hey, lots of people without autism also aim for the stars and then crash back down to earth.
If you ask me, embrace the label. Take pride in being on the spectrum and whatever perks it does give you. Yet never be ashamed to take a handout or accommodation.