0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
I think I'll start out and just talk a little bit about

0:00:02.000,0:00:04.000
what exactly autism is.

0:00:04.000,0:00:07.000
Autism is a very big continuum

0:00:07.000,0:00:10.000
that goes from very severe -- the child remains non-verbal --

0:00:10.000,0:00:13.000
all the way up to brilliant scientists and engineers.

0:00:13.000,0:00:15.000
And I actually feel at home here,

0:00:15.000,0:00:17.000
because there's a lot of autism genetics here.

0:00:17.000,0:00:19.000
You wouldn't have any...

0:00:19.000,0:00:23.000
(Applause)

0:00:23.000,0:00:25.000
It's a continuum of traits.

0:00:25.000,0:00:28.000
When does a nerd turn into

0:00:28.000,0:00:30.000
Asperger, which is just mild autism?

0:00:30.000,0:00:33.000
I mean, Einstein and Mozart

0:00:33.000,0:00:35.000
and Tesla would all be probably diagnosed

0:00:35.000,0:00:37.000
as autistic spectrum today.

0:00:37.000,0:00:40.000
And one of the things that is really going to concern me is

0:00:40.000,0:00:43.000
getting these kids to be the ones that are going to invent

0:00:43.000,0:00:45.000
the next energy things,

0:00:45.000,0:00:49.000
you know, that Bill Gates talked about this morning.

0:00:49.000,0:00:51.000
OK. Now, if you want to understand

0:00:51.000,0:00:53.000
autism, animals.

0:00:53.000,0:00:55.000
And I want to talk to you now about different ways of thinking.

0:00:55.000,0:00:58.000
You have to get away from verbal language.

0:00:58.000,0:01:00.000
I think in pictures,

0:01:00.000,0:01:03.000
I don't think in language.

0:01:03.000,0:01:05.000
Now, the thing about the autistic mind

0:01:05.000,0:01:08.000
is it attends to details.

0:01:08.000,0:01:10.000
OK, this is a test where you either have to

0:01:10.000,0:01:12.000
pick out the big letters, or pick out the little letters,

0:01:12.000,0:01:14.000
and the autistic mind picks out the

0:01:14.000,0:01:16.000
little letters more quickly.

0:01:16.000,0:01:20.000
And the thing is, the normal brain ignores the details.

0:01:20.000,0:01:22.000
Well, if you're building a bridge, details are pretty important

0:01:22.000,0:01:25.000
because it will fall down if you ignore the details.

0:01:25.000,0:01:28.000
And one of my big concerns with a lot of policy things today

0:01:28.000,0:01:30.000
is things are getting too abstract.

0:01:30.000,0:01:32.000
People are getting away from doing

0:01:32.000,0:01:34.000
hands-on stuff.

0:01:34.000,0:01:36.000
I'm really concerned that a lot of the schools have taken out

0:01:36.000,0:01:38.000
the hands-on classes,

0:01:38.000,0:01:40.000
because art, and classes like that,

0:01:40.000,0:01:42.000
those are the classes where I excelled.

0:01:42.000,0:01:44.000
In my work with cattle,

0:01:44.000,0:01:47.000
I noticed a lot of little things that most people don't notice

0:01:47.000,0:01:49.000
would make the cattle balk. Like, for example,

0:01:49.000,0:01:52.000
this flag waving, right in front of the veterinary facility.

0:01:52.000,0:01:55.000
This feed yard was going to tear down their whole veterinary facility;

0:01:55.000,0:01:57.000
all they needed to do was move the flag.

0:01:57.000,0:02:00.000
Rapid movement, contrast.

0:02:00.000,0:02:02.000
In the early '70s when I started, I got right down

0:02:02.000,0:02:04.000
in the chutes to see what cattle were seeing.

0:02:04.000,0:02:07.000
People thought that was crazy. A coat on a fence would make them balk,

0:02:07.000,0:02:10.000
shadows would make them balk, a hose on the floor ...

0:02:10.000,0:02:12.000
people weren't noticing these things --

0:02:12.000,0:02:14.000
a chain hanging down --

0:02:14.000,0:02:16.000
and that's shown very, very nicely in the movie.

0:02:16.000,0:02:18.000
In fact, I loved the movie, how they

0:02:18.000,0:02:20.000
duplicated all my projects. That's the geek side.

0:02:20.000,0:02:23.000
My drawings got to star in the movie too.

0:02:23.000,0:02:25.000
And actually it's called "Temple Grandin,"

0:02:25.000,0:02:27.000
not "Thinking In Pictures."

0:02:27.000,0:02:29.000
So, what is thinking in pictures? It's literally movies

0:02:29.000,0:02:31.000
in your head.

0:02:31.000,0:02:33.000
My mind works like Google for images.

0:02:33.000,0:02:36.000
Now, when I was a young kid I didn't know my thinking was different.

0:02:36.000,0:02:38.000
I thought everybody thought in pictures.

0:02:38.000,0:02:40.000
And then when I did my book, "Thinking In Pictures,"

0:02:40.000,0:02:43.000
I start interviewing people about how they think.

0:02:43.000,0:02:45.000
And I was shocked to find out that

0:02:45.000,0:02:47.000
my thinking was quite different. Like if I say,

0:02:47.000,0:02:49.000
"Think about a church steeple"

0:02:49.000,0:02:51.000
most people get this sort of generalized generic one.

0:02:51.000,0:02:53.000
Now, maybe that's not true in this room,

0:02:53.000,0:02:57.000
but it's going to be true in a lot of different places.

0:02:57.000,0:02:59.000
I see only specific pictures.

0:02:59.000,0:03:03.000
They flash up into my memory, just like Google for pictures.

0:03:03.000,0:03:05.000
And in the movie, they've got a great scene in there

0:03:05.000,0:03:09.000
where the word "shoe" is said, and a whole bunch of '50s and '60s shoes

0:03:09.000,0:03:11.000
pop into my imagination.

0:03:11.000,0:03:13.000
OK, there is my childhood church,

0:03:13.000,0:03:16.000
that's specific. There's some more, Fort Collins.

0:03:16.000,0:03:18.000
OK, how about famous ones?

0:03:18.000,0:03:21.000
And they just kind of come up, kind of like this.

0:03:21.000,0:03:24.000
Just really quickly, like Google for pictures.

0:03:24.000,0:03:26.000
And they come up one at a time,

0:03:26.000,0:03:28.000
and then I think, "OK, well maybe we can have it snow,

0:03:28.000,0:03:30.000
or we can have a thunderstorm,"

0:03:30.000,0:03:33.000
and I can hold it there and turn them into videos.

0:03:33.000,0:03:36.000
Now, visual thinking was a tremendous asset

0:03:36.000,0:03:39.000
in my work designing cattle-handling facilities.

0:03:39.000,0:03:41.000
And I've worked really hard on improving

0:03:41.000,0:03:43.000
how cattle are treated at the slaughter plant.

0:03:43.000,0:03:46.000
I'm not going to go into any gucky slaughter slides.

0:03:46.000,0:03:48.000
I've got that stuff up on YouTube if you want to look at it.

0:03:48.000,0:03:52.000
But, one of the things that I was able to do in my design work

0:03:52.000,0:03:54.000
is I could actually test run

0:03:54.000,0:03:56.000
a piece of equipment in my mind,

0:03:56.000,0:03:59.000
just like a virtual reality computer system.

0:03:59.000,0:04:01.000
And this is an aerial view

0:04:01.000,0:04:04.000
of a recreation of one of my projects that was used in the movie.

0:04:04.000,0:04:06.000
That was like just so super cool.

0:04:06.000,0:04:08.000
And there were a lot of kind of Asperger types

0:04:08.000,0:04:11.000
and autism types working out there on the movie set too.

0:04:11.000,0:04:13.000
(Laughter)

0:04:13.000,0:04:15.000
But one of the things that really worries me

0:04:15.000,0:04:19.000
is: Where's the younger version of those kids going today?

0:04:19.000,0:04:22.000
They're not ending up in Silicon Valley, where they belong.

0:04:22.000,0:04:25.000
(Laughter)

0:04:25.000,0:04:30.000
(Applause)

0:04:30.000,0:04:33.000
Now, one of the things I learned very early on because I wasn't that social,

0:04:33.000,0:04:37.000
is I had to sell my work, and not myself.

0:04:37.000,0:04:39.000
And the way I sold livestock jobs

0:04:39.000,0:04:42.000
is I showed off my drawings, I showed off pictures of things.

0:04:42.000,0:04:44.000
Another thing that helped me as a little kid

0:04:44.000,0:04:46.000
is, boy, in the '50s, you were taught manners.

0:04:46.000,0:04:48.000
You were taught you can't pull the merchandise off the shelves

0:04:48.000,0:04:50.000
in the store and throw it around.

0:04:50.000,0:04:53.000
Now, when kids get to be in third or fourth grade,

0:04:53.000,0:04:56.000
you might see that this kid's going to be a visual thinker,

0:04:56.000,0:04:58.000
drawing in perspective. Now, I want to

0:04:58.000,0:05:00.000
emphasize that not every autistic kid

0:05:00.000,0:05:02.000
is going to be a visual thinker.

0:05:02.000,0:05:06.000
Now, I had this brain scan done several years ago,

0:05:06.000,0:05:08.000
and I used to joke around about having a

0:05:08.000,0:05:10.000
gigantic Internet trunk line

0:05:10.000,0:05:12.000
going deep into my visual cortex.

0:05:12.000,0:05:14.000
This is tensor imaging.

0:05:14.000,0:05:16.000
And my great big internet trunk line

0:05:16.000,0:05:18.000
is twice as big as the control's.

0:05:18.000,0:05:20.000
The red lines there are me,

0:05:20.000,0:05:24.000
and the blue lines are the sex and age-matched control.

0:05:24.000,0:05:26.000
And there I got a gigantic one,

0:05:26.000,0:05:28.000
and the control over there, the blue one,

0:05:28.000,0:05:32.000
has got a really small one.

0:05:32.000,0:05:34.000
And some of the research now is showing

0:05:34.000,0:05:38.000
is that people on the spectrum actually think with primary visual cortex.

0:05:38.000,0:05:41.000
Now, the thing is, the visual thinker's just one kind of mind.

0:05:41.000,0:05:44.000
You see, the autistic mind tends to be a specialist mind --

0:05:44.000,0:05:48.000
good at one thing, bad at something else.

0:05:48.000,0:05:50.000
And where I was bad was algebra. And I was never allowed

0:05:50.000,0:05:52.000
to take geometry or trig.

0:05:52.000,0:05:55.000
Gigantic mistake: I'm finding a lot of kids who need to skip algebra,

0:05:55.000,0:05:57.000
go right to geometry and trig.

0:05:57.000,0:06:00.000
Now, another kind of mind is the pattern thinker.

0:06:00.000,0:06:02.000
More abstract. These are your engineers,

0:06:02.000,0:06:04.000
your computer programmers.

0:06:04.000,0:06:06.000
Now, this is pattern thinking. That praying mantis

0:06:06.000,0:06:08.000
is made from a single sheet of paper --

0:06:08.000,0:06:10.000
no scotch tape, no cuts.

0:06:10.000,0:06:13.000
And there in the background is the pattern for folding it.

0:06:13.000,0:06:15.000
Here are the types of thinking:

0:06:15.000,0:06:18.000
photo-realistic visual thinkers, like me;

0:06:18.000,0:06:22.000
pattern thinkers, music and math minds.

0:06:22.000,0:06:24.000
Some of these oftentimes have problems with reading.

0:06:24.000,0:06:26.000
You also will see these kind of problems

0:06:26.000,0:06:29.000
with kids that are dyslexic.

0:06:29.000,0:06:31.000
You'll see these different kinds of minds.

0:06:31.000,0:06:34.000
And then there's a verbal mind, they know every fact about everything.

0:06:34.000,0:06:36.000
Now, another thing is the sensory issues.

0:06:36.000,0:06:40.000
I was really concerned about having to wear this gadget on my face.

0:06:40.000,0:06:43.000
And I came in half an hour beforehand

0:06:43.000,0:06:45.000
so I could have it put on and kind of get used to it,

0:06:45.000,0:06:48.000
and they got it bent so it's not hitting my chin.

0:06:48.000,0:06:51.000
But sensory is an issue. Some kids are bothered by fluorescent lights;

0:06:51.000,0:06:54.000
others have problems with sound sensitivity.

0:06:54.000,0:06:57.000
You know, it's going to be variable.

0:06:57.000,0:07:01.000
Now, visual thinking gave me a whole lot of insight

0:07:01.000,0:07:03.000
into the animal mind.

0:07:03.000,0:07:06.000
Because think about it: An animal is a sensory-based thinker,

0:07:06.000,0:07:10.000
not verbal -- thinks in pictures,

0:07:10.000,0:07:13.000
thinks in sounds, thinks in smells.

0:07:13.000,0:07:16.000
Think about how much information there is there on the local fire hydrant.

0:07:16.000,0:07:19.000
He knows who's been there, when they were there.

0:07:19.000,0:07:22.000
Are they friend or foe? Is there anybody he can go mate with?

0:07:22.000,0:07:25.000
There's a ton of information on that fire hydrant.

0:07:25.000,0:07:29.000
It's all very detailed information,

0:07:29.000,0:07:31.000
and, looking at these kind of details

0:07:31.000,0:07:33.000
gave me a lot of insight into animals.

0:07:33.000,0:07:37.000
Now, the animal mind, and also my mind,

0:07:37.000,0:07:39.000
puts sensory-based information

0:07:39.000,0:07:41.000
into categories.

0:07:41.000,0:07:43.000
Man on a horse

0:07:43.000,0:07:45.000
and a man on the ground --

0:07:45.000,0:07:47.000
that is viewed as two totally different things.

0:07:47.000,0:07:50.000
You could have a horse that's been abused by a rider.

0:07:50.000,0:07:52.000
They'll be absolutely fine with the veterinarian

0:07:52.000,0:07:55.000
and with the horseshoer, but you can't ride him.

0:07:55.000,0:07:58.000
You have another horse, where maybe the horseshoer beat him up

0:07:58.000,0:08:00.000
and he'll be terrible for anything on the ground,

0:08:00.000,0:08:03.000
with the veterinarian, but a person can ride him.

0:08:03.000,0:08:05.000
Cattle are the same way.

0:08:05.000,0:08:07.000
Man on a horse,

0:08:07.000,0:08:09.000
a man on foot -- they're two different things.

0:08:09.000,0:08:11.000
You see, it's a different picture.

0:08:11.000,0:08:14.000
See, I want you to think about just how specific this is.

0:08:14.000,0:08:18.000
Now, this ability to put information into categories,

0:08:18.000,0:08:21.000
I find a lot of people are not very good at this.

0:08:21.000,0:08:23.000
When I'm out troubleshooting equipment

0:08:23.000,0:08:25.000
or problems with something in a plant,

0:08:25.000,0:08:29.000
they don't seem to be able to figure out, "Do I have a training people issue?

0:08:29.000,0:08:31.000
Or do I have something wrong with the equipment?"

0:08:31.000,0:08:33.000
In other words, categorize equipment problem

0:08:33.000,0:08:35.000
from a people problem.

0:08:35.000,0:08:38.000
I find a lot of people have difficulty doing that.

0:08:38.000,0:08:41.000
Now, let's say I figure out it's an equipment problem.

0:08:41.000,0:08:43.000
Is it a minor problem, with something simple I can fix?

0:08:43.000,0:08:46.000
Or is the whole design of the system wrong?

0:08:46.000,0:08:49.000
People have a hard time figuring that out.

0:08:49.000,0:08:51.000
Let's just look at something like, you know,

0:08:51.000,0:08:53.000
solving problems with making airlines safer.

0:08:53.000,0:08:55.000
Yeah, I'm a million-mile flyer.

0:08:55.000,0:08:57.000
I do lots and lots of flying,

0:08:57.000,0:09:00.000
and if I was at the FAA,

0:09:00.000,0:09:04.000
what would I be doing a lot of direct observation of?

0:09:04.000,0:09:06.000
It would be their airplane tails.

0:09:06.000,0:09:09.000
You know, five fatal wrecks in the last 20 years,

0:09:09.000,0:09:13.000
the tail either came off or steering stuff inside the tail broke

0:09:13.000,0:09:15.000
in some way.

0:09:15.000,0:09:17.000
It's tails, pure and simple.

0:09:17.000,0:09:19.000
And when the pilots walk around the plane, guess what? They can't see

0:09:19.000,0:09:21.000
that stuff inside the tail.

0:09:21.000,0:09:23.000
You know, now as I think about that,

0:09:23.000,0:09:26.000
I'm pulling up all of that specific information.

0:09:26.000,0:09:29.000
It's specific. See, my thinking's bottom-up.

0:09:29.000,0:09:33.000
I take all the little pieces and I put the pieces together like a puzzle.

0:09:33.000,0:09:35.000
Now, here is a horse that was deathly afraid

0:09:35.000,0:09:37.000
of black cowboy hats.

0:09:37.000,0:09:39.000
He'd been abused by somebody with a black cowboy hat.

0:09:39.000,0:09:42.000
White cowboy hats, that was absolutely fine.

0:09:42.000,0:09:45.000
Now, the thing is, the world is going to need

0:09:45.000,0:09:47.000
all of the different kinds of minds

0:09:47.000,0:09:49.000
to work together.

0:09:49.000,0:09:52.000
We've got to work on developing all these different kinds of minds.

0:09:52.000,0:09:55.000
And one of the things that is driving me really crazy,

0:09:55.000,0:09:57.000
as I travel around and I do autism meetings,

0:09:57.000,0:10:00.000
is I'm seeing a lot of smart, geeky, nerdy kids,

0:10:00.000,0:10:03.000
and they just aren't very social,

0:10:03.000,0:10:05.000
and nobody's working on developing their interest

0:10:05.000,0:10:07.000
in something like science.

0:10:07.000,0:10:10.000
And this brings up the whole thing of my science teacher.

0:10:10.000,0:10:13.000
My science teacher is shown absolutely beautifully in the movie.

0:10:13.000,0:10:15.000
I was a goofball student. When I was in high school

0:10:15.000,0:10:18.000
I just didn't care at all about studying,

0:10:18.000,0:10:21.000
until I had Mr. Carlock's science class.

0:10:21.000,0:10:24.000
He was now Dr. Carlock in the movie.

0:10:24.000,0:10:27.000
And he got me challenged

0:10:27.000,0:10:30.000
to figure out an optical illusion room.

0:10:30.000,0:10:32.000
This brings up the whole thing of you've got to show kids

0:10:32.000,0:10:34.000
interesting stuff.

0:10:34.000,0:10:37.000
You know, one of the things that I think maybe TED ought to do

0:10:37.000,0:10:40.000
is tell all the schools about all the great lectures that are on TED,

0:10:40.000,0:10:42.000
and there's all kinds of great stuff on the Internet

0:10:42.000,0:10:44.000
to get these kids turned on.

0:10:44.000,0:10:47.000
Because I'm seeing a lot of these geeky nerdy kids,

0:10:47.000,0:10:50.000
and the teachers out in the Midwest, and the other parts of the country,

0:10:50.000,0:10:52.000
when you get away from these tech areas,

0:10:52.000,0:10:54.000
they don't know what to do with these kids.

0:10:54.000,0:10:56.000
And they're not going down the right path.

0:10:56.000,0:10:58.000
The thing is, you can make a mind

0:10:58.000,0:11:01.000
to be more of a thinking and cognitive mind,

0:11:01.000,0:11:04.000
or your mind can be wired to be more social.

0:11:04.000,0:11:06.000
And what some of the research now has shown in autism

0:11:06.000,0:11:08.000
is there may by extra wiring back here,

0:11:08.000,0:11:11.000
in the really brilliant mind, and we lose a few social circuits here.

0:11:11.000,0:11:15.000
It's kind of a trade-off between thinking and social.

0:11:15.000,0:11:17.000
And then you can get into the point where it's so severe

0:11:17.000,0:11:20.000
you're going to have a person that's going to be non-verbal.

0:11:20.000,0:11:22.000
In the normal human mind

0:11:22.000,0:11:25.000
language covers up the visual thinking we share with animals.

0:11:25.000,0:11:28.000
This is the work of Dr. Bruce Miller.

0:11:28.000,0:11:31.000
And he studied Alzheimer's patients

0:11:31.000,0:11:33.000
that had frontal temporal lobe dementia.

0:11:33.000,0:11:36.000
And the dementia ate out the language parts of the brain,

0:11:36.000,0:11:41.000
and then this artwork came out of somebody who used to install stereos in cars.

0:11:41.000,0:11:45.000
Now, Van Gogh doesn't know anything about physics,

0:11:45.000,0:11:47.000
but I think it's very interesting

0:11:47.000,0:11:49.000
that there was some work done to show that

0:11:49.000,0:11:51.000
this eddy pattern in this painting

0:11:51.000,0:11:54.000
followed a statistical model of turbulence,

0:11:54.000,0:11:56.000
which brings up the whole interesting idea

0:11:56.000,0:11:58.000
of maybe some of this mathematical patterns

0:11:58.000,0:12:00.000
is in our own head.

0:12:00.000,0:12:02.000
And the Wolfram stuff -- I was taking

0:12:02.000,0:12:04.000
notes and I was writing down all the

0:12:04.000,0:12:06.000
search words I could use,

0:12:06.000,0:12:10.000
because I think that's going to go on in my autism lectures.

0:12:10.000,0:12:12.000
We've got to show these kids interesting stuff.

0:12:12.000,0:12:14.000
And they've taken out the autoshop class

0:12:14.000,0:12:16.000
and the drafting class and the art class.

0:12:16.000,0:12:19.000
I mean art was my best subject in school.

0:12:19.000,0:12:21.000
We've got to think about all these different kinds of minds,

0:12:21.000,0:12:24.000
and we've got to absolutely work with these kind of minds,

0:12:24.000,0:12:27.000
because we absolutely are going to need

0:12:27.000,0:12:30.000
these kind of people in the future.

0:12:30.000,0:12:32.000
And let's talk about jobs.

0:12:32.000,0:12:34.000
OK, my science teacher got me studying

0:12:34.000,0:12:37.000
because I was a goofball that didn't want to study.

0:12:37.000,0:12:39.000
But you know what? I was getting work experience.

0:12:39.000,0:12:41.000
I'm seeing too many of these smart kids who haven't learned basic things,

0:12:41.000,0:12:43.000
like how to be on time.

0:12:43.000,0:12:45.000
I was taught that when I was eight years old.

0:12:45.000,0:12:48.000
You know, how to have table manners at granny's Sunday party.

0:12:48.000,0:12:51.000
I was taught that when I was very, very young.

0:12:51.000,0:12:54.000
And when I was 13, I had a job at a dressmaker's shop

0:12:54.000,0:12:56.000
sewing clothes.

0:12:56.000,0:12:59.000
I did internships in college,

0:12:59.000,0:13:02.000
I was building things,

0:13:02.000,0:13:05.000
and I also had to learn how to do assignments.

0:13:05.000,0:13:09.000
You know, all I wanted to do was draw pictures of horses when I was little.

0:13:09.000,0:13:11.000
My mother said, "Well let's do a picture of something else."

0:13:11.000,0:13:13.000
They've got to learn how to do something else.

0:13:13.000,0:13:15.000
Let's say the kid is fixated on Legos.

0:13:15.000,0:13:18.000
Let's get him working on building different things.

0:13:18.000,0:13:20.000
The thing about the autistic mind

0:13:20.000,0:13:22.000
is it tends to be fixated.

0:13:22.000,0:13:24.000
Like if a kid loves racecars,

0:13:24.000,0:13:26.000
let's use racecars for math.

0:13:26.000,0:13:29.000
Let's figure out how long it takes a racecar to go a certain distance.

0:13:29.000,0:13:33.000
In other words, use that fixation

0:13:33.000,0:13:36.000
in order to motivate that kid, that's one of the things we need to do.

0:13:36.000,0:13:39.000
I really get fed up when they, you know, the teachers,

0:13:39.000,0:13:42.000
especially when you get away from this part of the country,

0:13:42.000,0:13:44.000
they don't know what to do with these smart kids.

0:13:44.000,0:13:46.000
It just drives me crazy.

0:13:46.000,0:13:48.000
What can visual thinkers do when they grow up?

0:13:48.000,0:13:51.000
They can do graphic design, all kinds of stuff with computers,

0:13:51.000,0:13:56.000
photography, industrial design.

0:13:56.000,0:13:58.000
The pattern thinkers, they're the ones that are going to be

0:13:58.000,0:14:01.000
your mathematicians, your software engineers,

0:14:01.000,0:14:05.000
your computer programmers, all of those kinds of jobs.

0:14:05.000,0:14:08.000
And then you've got the word minds. They make great journalists,

0:14:08.000,0:14:11.000
and they also make really, really good stage actors.

0:14:11.000,0:14:13.000
Because the thing about being autistic is,

0:14:13.000,0:14:16.000
I had to learn social skills like being in a play.

0:14:16.000,0:14:19.000
It's just kind of -- you just have to learn it.

0:14:19.000,0:14:22.000
And we need to be working with these students.

0:14:22.000,0:14:24.000
And this brings up mentors.

0:14:24.000,0:14:27.000
You know, my science teacher was not an accredited teacher.

0:14:27.000,0:14:29.000
He was a NASA space scientist.

0:14:29.000,0:14:31.000
Now, some states now are getting it to where

0:14:31.000,0:14:33.000
if you have a degree in biology, or a degree in chemistry,

0:14:33.000,0:14:36.000
you can come into the school and teach biology or chemistry.

0:14:36.000,0:14:38.000
We need to be doing that.

0:14:38.000,0:14:40.000
Because what I'm observing is

0:14:40.000,0:14:42.000
the good teachers, for a lot of these kids,

0:14:42.000,0:14:44.000
are out in the community colleges,

0:14:44.000,0:14:47.000
but we need to be getting some of these good teachers into the high schools.

0:14:47.000,0:14:50.000
Another thing that can be very, very, very successful is

0:14:50.000,0:14:53.000
there is a lot of people that may have retired

0:14:53.000,0:14:56.000
from working in the software industry, and they can teach your kid.

0:14:56.000,0:14:59.000
And it doesn't matter if what they teach them is old,

0:14:59.000,0:15:02.000
because what you're doing is you're lighting the spark.

0:15:02.000,0:15:05.000
You're getting that kid turned on.

0:15:05.000,0:15:08.000
And you get him turned on, then he'll learn all the new stuff.

0:15:08.000,0:15:10.000
Mentors are just essential.

0:15:10.000,0:15:12.000
I cannot emphasize enough

0:15:12.000,0:15:15.000
what my science teacher did for me.

0:15:15.000,0:15:18.000
And we've got to mentor them, hire them.

0:15:18.000,0:15:20.000
And if you bring them in for internships in your companies,

0:15:20.000,0:15:23.000
the thing about the autism, Asperger-y kind of mind,

0:15:23.000,0:15:26.000
you've got to give them a specific task. Don't just say, "Design new software."

0:15:26.000,0:15:28.000
You've got to tell them something a lot more specific:

0:15:28.000,0:15:31.000
"Well, we're designing a software for a phone

0:15:31.000,0:15:33.000
and it has to do some specific thing.

0:15:33.000,0:15:35.000
And it can only use so much memory."

0:15:35.000,0:15:37.000
That's the kind of specificity you need.

0:15:37.000,0:15:39.000
Well, that's the end of my talk.

0:15:39.000,0:15:41.000
And I just want to thank everybody for coming.

0:15:41.000,0:15:43.000
It was great to be here.

0:15:43.000,0:15:55.000
(Applause)

0:15:55.000,0:15:58.000
Oh, you've got a question for me? OK.

0:15:58.000,0:15:59.000
(Applause)

0:15:59.000,0:16:03.000
Chris Anderson: Thank you so much for that.

0:16:03.000,0:16:05.000
You know, you once wrote, I like this quote,

0:16:05.000,0:16:07.000
"If by some magic, autism had been

0:16:07.000,0:16:10.000
eradicated from the face of the Earth,

0:16:10.000,0:16:13.000
then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire

0:16:13.000,0:16:15.000
at the entrance to a cave."

0:16:15.000,0:16:17.000
Temple Grandin: Because who do you think made the first stone spears?

0:16:17.000,0:16:20.000
The Asperger guy. And if you were to get rid of all the autism genetics

0:16:20.000,0:16:22.000
there would be no more Silicon Valley,

0:16:22.000,0:16:24.000
and the energy crisis would not be solved.

0:16:24.000,0:16:27.000
(Applause)

0:16:27.000,0:16:29.000
CA: So, I want to ask you a couple other questions,

0:16:29.000,0:16:31.000
and if any of these feel inappropriate,

0:16:31.000,0:16:33.000
it's okay just to say, "Next question."

0:16:33.000,0:16:35.000
But if there is someone here

0:16:35.000,0:16:37.000
who has an autistic child,

0:16:37.000,0:16:39.000
or knows an autistic child

0:16:39.000,0:16:42.000
and feels kind of cut off from them,

0:16:42.000,0:16:44.000
what advice would you give them?

0:16:44.000,0:16:46.000
TG: Well, first of all, you've got to look at age.

0:16:46.000,0:16:48.000
If you have a two, three or four year old

0:16:48.000,0:16:50.000
you know, no speech, no social interaction,

0:16:50.000,0:16:52.000
I can't emphasize enough:

0:16:52.000,0:16:56.000
Don't wait, you need at least 20 hours a week of one-to-one teaching.

0:16:56.000,0:16:59.000
You know, the thing is, autism comes in different degrees.

0:16:59.000,0:17:01.000
There's going to be about half the people on the spectrum

0:17:01.000,0:17:03.000
that are not going to learn to talk, and they're not going to be working

0:17:03.000,0:17:06.000
Silicon Valley, that would not be a reasonable thing for them to do.

0:17:06.000,0:17:08.000
But then you get the smart, geeky kids

0:17:08.000,0:17:10.000
that have a touch of autism,

0:17:10.000,0:17:12.000
and that's where you've got to get them turned on

0:17:12.000,0:17:14.000
with doing interesting things.

0:17:14.000,0:17:17.000
I got social interaction through shared interest.

0:17:17.000,0:17:21.000
I rode horses with other kids, I made model rockets with other kids,

0:17:21.000,0:17:23.000
did electronics lab with other kids,

0:17:23.000,0:17:25.000
and in the '60s, it was gluing mirrors

0:17:25.000,0:17:28.000
onto a rubber membrane on a speaker to make a light show.

0:17:28.000,0:17:31.000
That was like, we considered that super cool.

0:17:31.000,0:17:33.000
CA: Is it unrealistic for them

0:17:33.000,0:17:35.000
to hope or think that that child

0:17:35.000,0:17:38.000
loves them, as some might, as most, wish?

0:17:38.000,0:17:40.000
TG: Well let me tell you, that child will be loyal,

0:17:40.000,0:17:42.000
and if your house is burning down, they're going to get you out of it.

0:17:42.000,0:17:45.000
CA: Wow. So, most people, if you ask them

0:17:45.000,0:17:47.000
what are they most passionate about, they'd say things like,

0:17:47.000,0:17:50.000
"My kids" or "My lover."

0:17:50.000,0:17:53.000
What are you most passionate about?

0:17:53.000,0:17:55.000
TG: I'm passionate about that the things I do

0:17:55.000,0:17:57.000
are going to make the world a better place.

0:17:57.000,0:17:59.000
When I have a mother of an autistic child say,

0:17:59.000,0:18:01.000
"My kid went to college because of your book,

0:18:01.000,0:18:03.000
or one of your lectures," that makes me happy.

0:18:03.000,0:18:06.000
You know, the slaughter plants, I've worked with them

0:18:06.000,0:18:08.000
in the '80s; they were absolutely awful.

0:18:08.000,0:18:12.000
I developed a really simple scoring system for slaughter plants

0:18:12.000,0:18:14.000
where you just measure outcomes: How many cattle fell down?

0:18:14.000,0:18:16.000
How many cattle got poked with the prodder?

0:18:16.000,0:18:18.000
How many cattle are mooing their heads off?

0:18:18.000,0:18:20.000
And it's very, very simple.

0:18:20.000,0:18:22.000
You directly observe a few simple things.

0:18:22.000,0:18:24.000
It's worked really well. I get satisfaction out of

0:18:24.000,0:18:27.000
seeing stuff that makes real change

0:18:27.000,0:18:29.000
in the real world. We need a lot more of that,

0:18:29.000,0:18:31.000
and a lot less abstract stuff.

0:18:31.000,0:18:38.000
(Applause)

0:18:38.000,0:18:40.000
CA: When we were talking on the phone, one of the things you said that

0:18:40.000,0:18:42.000
really astonished me was you said one thing

0:18:42.000,0:18:46.000
you were passionate about was server farms. Tell me about that.

0:18:46.000,0:18:49.000
TG: Well the reason why I got really excited when I read about that,

0:18:49.000,0:18:52.000
it contains knowledge.

0:18:52.000,0:18:54.000
It's libraries.

0:18:54.000,0:18:56.000
And to me, knowledge is something

0:18:56.000,0:18:58.000
that is extremely valuable. So, maybe, over 10 years ago

0:18:58.000,0:19:00.000
now our library got flooded.

0:19:00.000,0:19:02.000
And this is before the Internet got really big.

0:19:02.000,0:19:04.000
And I was really upset about all the books being wrecked,

0:19:04.000,0:19:06.000
because it was knowledge being destroyed.

0:19:06.000,0:19:08.000
And server farms, or data centers

0:19:08.000,0:19:11.000
are great libraries of knowledge.

0:19:11.000,0:19:14.000
CA: Temple, can I just say it's an absolute delight to have you at TED.

0:19:14.000,0:19:17.000
TG: Well thank you so much. Thank you.

0:19:17.000,0:19:23.000
(Applause)