1 00:00:00,444 --> 00:00:02,890 I think I'll start out and just talk a little bit 2 00:00:02,914 --> 00:00:04,405 about what exactly autism is. 3 00:00:04,429 --> 00:00:07,064 Autism is a very big continuum 4 00:00:07,088 --> 00:00:10,262 that goes from very severe -- the child remains nonverbal -- 5 00:00:10,286 --> 00:00:12,976 all the way up to brilliant scientists and engineers. 6 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:14,977 And I actually feel at home here, 7 00:00:15,001 --> 00:00:17,547 because there's a lot of autism genetics here. 8 00:00:17,571 --> 00:00:18,603 (Laughter) 9 00:00:18,627 --> 00:00:19,785 You wouldn't have any -- 10 00:00:19,809 --> 00:00:22,778 (Applause) 11 00:00:22,802 --> 00:00:24,838 It's a continuum of traits. 12 00:00:24,862 --> 00:00:30,519 When does a nerd turn into Asperger, which is just mild autism? 13 00:00:30,543 --> 00:00:35,701 I mean, Einstein and Mozart and Tesla would all be probably diagnosed 14 00:00:35,725 --> 00:00:37,617 as autistic spectrum today. 15 00:00:37,641 --> 00:00:40,932 And one of the things that is really going to concern me 16 00:00:40,956 --> 00:00:43,191 is getting these kids to be the ones 17 00:00:43,215 --> 00:00:46,037 that are going to invent the next energy things 18 00:00:46,061 --> 00:00:48,311 that Bill Gates talked about this morning. 19 00:00:48,798 --> 00:00:52,711 OK, now, if you want to understand autism: animals. 20 00:00:52,735 --> 00:00:55,625 I want to talk to you now about different ways of thinking. 21 00:00:55,649 --> 00:00:58,499 You have to get away from verbal language. 22 00:00:58,523 --> 00:01:02,124 I think in pictures. I don't think in language. 23 00:01:02,822 --> 00:01:08,092 Now, the thing about the autistic mind is it attends to details. 24 00:01:08,116 --> 00:01:11,171 This is a test where you either have to pick out the big letters 25 00:01:11,195 --> 00:01:12,418 or the little letters, 26 00:01:12,442 --> 00:01:16,335 and the autistic mind picks out the little letters more quickly. 27 00:01:16,687 --> 00:01:20,438 And the thing is, the normal brain ignores the details. 28 00:01:20,462 --> 00:01:23,472 Well, if you're building a bridge, details are pretty important 29 00:01:23,496 --> 00:01:25,894 because it'll fall down if you ignore the details. 30 00:01:25,918 --> 00:01:28,785 And one of my big concerns with a lot of policy things today 31 00:01:28,809 --> 00:01:30,487 is things are getting too abstract. 32 00:01:30,511 --> 00:01:33,738 People are getting away from doing hands-on stuff. 33 00:01:33,762 --> 00:01:35,922 I'm really concerned that a lot of the schools 34 00:01:35,946 --> 00:01:39,914 have taken out the hands-on classes, because art, and classes like that -- 35 00:01:39,938 --> 00:01:42,251 those are the classes where I excelled. 36 00:01:42,275 --> 00:01:44,429 In my work with cattle, 37 00:01:44,453 --> 00:01:47,431 I noticed a lot of little things that most people don't notice 38 00:01:47,455 --> 00:01:48,743 would make the cattle balk. 39 00:01:48,767 --> 00:01:52,314 For example, this flag waving right in front of the veterinary facility. 40 00:01:52,338 --> 00:01:55,665 This feed yard was going to tear down their whole veterinary facility; 41 00:01:55,689 --> 00:01:57,603 all they needed to do was move the flag. 42 00:01:57,627 --> 00:01:59,695 Rapid movement, contrast. 43 00:01:59,719 --> 00:02:02,753 In the early '70s when I started, I got right down in the chutes 44 00:02:02,777 --> 00:02:04,276 to see what cattle were seeing. 45 00:02:04,300 --> 00:02:05,762 People thought that was crazy. 46 00:02:05,786 --> 00:02:09,068 A coat on a fence would make them balk, shadows would make them balk, 47 00:02:09,092 --> 00:02:12,156 a hose on the floor -- people weren't noticing these things. 48 00:02:12,180 --> 00:02:13,696 A chain hanging down ... 49 00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:15,976 And that's shown very, very nicely in the movie. 50 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,455 In fact, I loved the movie, how they duplicated all my projects. 51 00:02:19,479 --> 00:02:20,820 That's the geek side. 52 00:02:20,844 --> 00:02:23,264 My drawings got to star in the movie, too. 53 00:02:23,288 --> 00:02:25,398 And, actually, it's called "Temple Grandin," 54 00:02:25,422 --> 00:02:26,746 not "Thinking in Pictures." 55 00:02:26,770 --> 00:02:28,335 So what is thinking in pictures? 56 00:02:28,359 --> 00:02:31,038 It's literally movies in your head. 57 00:02:31,062 --> 00:02:33,944 My mind works like Google for images. 58 00:02:33,968 --> 00:02:37,012 When I was a young kid, I didn't know my thinking was different. 59 00:02:37,036 --> 00:02:38,955 I thought everybody thought in pictures. 60 00:02:38,979 --> 00:02:41,234 Then when I did my book, "Thinking in Pictures," 61 00:02:41,258 --> 00:02:43,670 I started interviewing people about how they think. 62 00:02:43,694 --> 00:02:46,849 And I was shocked to find out that my thinking was quite different. 63 00:02:46,873 --> 00:02:49,049 Like if I say, "Think about a church steeple," 64 00:02:49,073 --> 00:02:51,586 most people get this sort of generalized generic one. 65 00:02:51,610 --> 00:02:53,522 Now, maybe that's not true in this room, 66 00:02:53,546 --> 00:02:56,812 but it's going to be true in a lot of different places. 67 00:02:56,836 --> 00:02:59,339 I see only specific pictures. 68 00:02:59,363 --> 00:03:03,172 They flash up into my memory, just like Google for pictures. 69 00:03:03,196 --> 00:03:05,739 And in the movie, they've got a great scene in there, 70 00:03:05,763 --> 00:03:09,563 where the word "shoe" is said, and a whole bunch of '50s and '60s shoes 71 00:03:09,587 --> 00:03:11,253 pop into my imagination. 72 00:03:11,648 --> 00:03:14,159 OK, there's my childhood church; that's specific. 73 00:03:14,547 --> 00:03:16,415 There's some more, Fort Collins. 74 00:03:16,439 --> 00:03:18,486 OK, how about famous ones? 75 00:03:18,510 --> 00:03:21,187 And they just kind of come up, kind of like this. 76 00:03:21,211 --> 00:03:24,122 Just really quickly, like Google for pictures. 77 00:03:24,146 --> 00:03:25,705 And they come up one at a time, 78 00:03:25,729 --> 00:03:28,680 and then I think, "OK, well, maybe we can have it snow, 79 00:03:28,704 --> 00:03:30,328 or we can have a thunderstorm," 80 00:03:30,352 --> 00:03:32,976 and I can hold it there and turn them into videos. 81 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,213 Now, visual thinking was a tremendous asset 82 00:03:36,237 --> 00:03:39,039 in my work designing cattle-handling facilities. 83 00:03:39,539 --> 00:03:42,739 And I've worked really hard on improving how cattle are treated 84 00:03:42,763 --> 00:03:43,915 at the slaughter plant. 85 00:03:43,939 --> 00:03:46,435 I'm not going to go into any gucky slaughter slides. 86 00:03:46,459 --> 00:03:49,347 I've got that stuff up on YouTube, if you want to look at it. 87 00:03:49,371 --> 00:03:50,412 (Laughter) 88 00:03:50,436 --> 00:03:53,329 But one of the things that I was able to do in my design work 89 00:03:53,353 --> 00:03:55,976 is I could test-run a piece of equipment in my mind, 90 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,432 just like a virtual reality computer system. 91 00:03:59,448 --> 00:04:03,089 And this is an aerial view of a recreation of one of my projects 92 00:04:03,113 --> 00:04:04,475 that was used in the movie. 93 00:04:04,499 --> 00:04:06,510 That was like just so super cool. 94 00:04:06,534 --> 00:04:10,012 And there were a lot of, kind of, Asperger types and autism types 95 00:04:10,036 --> 00:04:11,984 working out there on the movie set, too. 96 00:04:12,008 --> 00:04:13,184 (Laughter) 97 00:04:13,208 --> 00:04:15,999 But one of the things that really worries me is: 98 00:04:16,023 --> 00:04:19,027 Where's the younger version of those kids going today? 99 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:22,015 They're not ending up in Silicon Valley, 100 00:04:22,039 --> 00:04:23,279 where they belong. 101 00:04:23,303 --> 00:04:25,123 (Laughter) 102 00:04:25,147 --> 00:04:30,055 (Applause) 103 00:04:30,079 --> 00:04:33,660 One of the things I learned very early on because I wasn't that social, 104 00:04:33,684 --> 00:04:37,095 is I had to sell my work, and not myself. 105 00:04:37,446 --> 00:04:40,406 And the way I sold livestock jobs is I showed off my drawings, 106 00:04:40,430 --> 00:04:42,162 I showed off pictures of things. 107 00:04:42,186 --> 00:04:44,425 Another thing that helped me as a little kid 108 00:04:44,449 --> 00:04:46,678 is, boy, in the '50s, you were taught manners. 109 00:04:46,702 --> 00:04:49,741 You were taught you can't pull the merchandise off the shelves 110 00:04:49,765 --> 00:04:51,399 in the store and throw it around. 111 00:04:51,423 --> 00:04:53,575 When kids get to be in third or fourth grade, 112 00:04:53,599 --> 00:04:56,427 you might see that this kid's going to be a visual thinker, 113 00:04:56,451 --> 00:04:57,716 drawing in perspective. 114 00:04:57,740 --> 00:04:58,938 Now, I want to emphasize 115 00:04:58,962 --> 00:05:01,885 that not every autistic kid is going to be a visual thinker. 116 00:05:02,452 --> 00:05:06,430 Now, I had this brain scan done several years ago, 117 00:05:06,454 --> 00:05:10,387 and I used to joke around about having a gigantic Internet trunk line 118 00:05:10,411 --> 00:05:12,338 going deep into my visual cortex. 119 00:05:12,362 --> 00:05:14,237 This is tensor imaging. 120 00:05:14,261 --> 00:05:18,113 And my great big Internet trunk line is twice as big as the control's. 121 00:05:18,137 --> 00:05:19,741 The red lines there are me, 122 00:05:19,765 --> 00:05:23,674 and the blue lines are the sex and age-matched control. 123 00:05:24,590 --> 00:05:26,612 And there I got a gigantic one, 124 00:05:26,636 --> 00:05:30,644 and the control over there, the blue one, has got a really small one. 125 00:05:31,841 --> 00:05:33,976 And some of the research now is showing 126 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:38,031 that people on the spectrum actually think with the primary visual cortex. 127 00:05:38,055 --> 00:05:41,096 Now, the thing is, the visual thinker is just one kind of mind. 128 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:44,705 You see, the autistic mind tends to be a specialist mind -- 129 00:05:44,729 --> 00:05:47,342 good at one thing, bad at something else. 130 00:05:47,842 --> 00:05:49,596 And where I was bad was algebra. 131 00:05:49,620 --> 00:05:51,910 And I was never allowed to take geometry or trig. 132 00:05:51,934 --> 00:05:53,097 Gigantic mistake. 133 00:05:53,121 --> 00:05:55,556 I'm finding a lot of kids who need to skip algebra, 134 00:05:55,580 --> 00:05:57,229 go right to geometry and trig. 135 00:05:57,587 --> 00:06:00,187 Now, another kind of mind is the pattern thinker. 136 00:06:00,211 --> 00:06:01,450 More abstract. 137 00:06:01,474 --> 00:06:04,037 These are your engineers, your computer programmers. 138 00:06:04,061 --> 00:06:05,455 This is pattern thinking. 139 00:06:05,479 --> 00:06:08,364 That praying mantis is made from a single sheet of paper -- 140 00:06:08,388 --> 00:06:09,805 no scotch tape, no cuts. 141 00:06:09,829 --> 00:06:13,364 And there in the background is the pattern for folding it. 142 00:06:13,388 --> 00:06:15,033 Here are the types of thinking: 143 00:06:15,471 --> 00:06:18,023 photo-realistic visual thinkers, like me; 144 00:06:18,596 --> 00:06:21,976 pattern thinkers, music and math minds. 145 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,588 Some of these oftentimes have problems with reading. 146 00:06:24,612 --> 00:06:29,093 You also will see these kind of problems with kids that are dyslexic. 147 00:06:29,117 --> 00:06:31,141 You'll see these different kinds of minds. 148 00:06:31,165 --> 00:06:34,739 And then there's a verbal mind, they know every fact about everything. 149 00:06:34,763 --> 00:06:36,729 Now, another thing is the sensory issues. 150 00:06:36,753 --> 00:06:40,045 I was really concerned about having to wear this gadget on my face. 151 00:06:40,432 --> 00:06:42,586 And I came in half an hour beforehand 152 00:06:42,610 --> 00:06:45,593 so I could have it put on and kind of get used to it, 153 00:06:45,617 --> 00:06:48,355 and they got it bent so it's not hitting my chin. 154 00:06:48,379 --> 00:06:49,531 But sensory is an issue. 155 00:06:49,555 --> 00:06:51,704 Some kids are bothered by fluorescent lights; 156 00:06:51,728 --> 00:06:53,885 others have problems with sound sensitivity. 157 00:06:54,237 --> 00:06:56,410 You know, it's going to be variable. 158 00:06:57,392 --> 00:07:00,812 Now, visual thinking gave me a whole lot of insight 159 00:07:00,836 --> 00:07:03,096 into the animal mind. 160 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:06,553 Because think about it: an animal is a sensory-based thinker, 161 00:07:06,577 --> 00:07:12,774 not verbal -- thinks in pictures, thinks in sounds, thinks in smells. 162 00:07:12,798 --> 00:07:16,142 Think about how much information there is on the local fire hydrant. 163 00:07:16,166 --> 00:07:17,528 He knows who's been there -- 164 00:07:17,552 --> 00:07:18,583 (Laughter) 165 00:07:18,607 --> 00:07:19,764 When they were there. 166 00:07:19,788 --> 00:07:22,683 Are they friend or foe? Is there anybody he can go mate with? 167 00:07:22,707 --> 00:07:25,589 There's a ton of information on that fire hydrant. 168 00:07:25,613 --> 00:07:28,399 It's all very detailed information. 169 00:07:28,736 --> 00:07:32,975 And looking at these kind of details gave me a lot of insight into animals. 170 00:07:33,428 --> 00:07:36,976 Now, the animal mind, and also my mind, 171 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:41,569 puts sensory-based information into categories. 172 00:07:41,593 --> 00:07:43,296 Man on a horse, 173 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:44,875 and a man on the ground -- 174 00:07:44,899 --> 00:07:47,684 that is viewed as two totally different things. 175 00:07:47,708 --> 00:07:50,207 You could have a horse that's been abused by a rider. 176 00:07:50,231 --> 00:07:52,501 They'll be absolutely fine with the veterinarian 177 00:07:52,525 --> 00:07:54,976 and with the horseshoer, but you can't ride him. 178 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,175 You have another horse, where maybe the horseshoer beat him up, 179 00:07:58,199 --> 00:08:02,194 and he'll be terrible for anything on the ground with the veterinarian, 180 00:08:02,218 --> 00:08:04,233 but a person can ride him. 181 00:08:04,257 --> 00:08:05,564 Cattle are the same way. 182 00:08:05,588 --> 00:08:09,513 Man on a horse, a man on foot -- they're two different things. 183 00:08:09,537 --> 00:08:11,493 You see, it's a different picture. 184 00:08:11,517 --> 00:08:14,638 See, I want you to think about just how specific this is. 185 00:08:14,662 --> 00:08:18,049 Now, this ability to put information into categories, 186 00:08:18,073 --> 00:08:21,425 I find a lot of people are not very good at this. 187 00:08:21,449 --> 00:08:23,617 When I'm out troubleshooting equipment 188 00:08:23,641 --> 00:08:25,469 or problems with something in a plant, 189 00:08:25,493 --> 00:08:27,498 they don't seem to be able to figure out: 190 00:08:27,522 --> 00:08:29,222 "Do I have a training-people issue? 191 00:08:29,246 --> 00:08:31,681 Or do I have something wrong with the equipment?" 192 00:08:31,705 --> 00:08:35,399 In other words, categorize equipment problem from a people problem. 193 00:08:35,423 --> 00:08:38,519 I find a lot of people have difficulty doing that. 194 00:08:38,543 --> 00:08:41,107 Now, let's say I figure out it's an equipment problem. 195 00:08:41,131 --> 00:08:43,907 Is it a minor problem, with something simple I can fix? 196 00:08:43,931 --> 00:08:46,246 Or is the whole design of the system wrong? 197 00:08:46,270 --> 00:08:48,976 People have a hard time figuring that out. 198 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,096 Let's just look at something like, you know, 199 00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:53,366 solving problems with making airlines safer. 200 00:08:53,390 --> 00:08:54,976 Yeah, I'm a million-mile flier. 201 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:56,826 I do lots and lots of flying, 202 00:08:56,850 --> 00:09:00,082 and if I was at the FAA, 203 00:09:00,106 --> 00:09:03,628 what would I be doing a lot of direct observation of? 204 00:09:04,197 --> 00:09:06,501 It would be their airplane tails. 205 00:09:06,525 --> 00:09:09,075 You know, five fatal wrecks in the last 20 years, 206 00:09:09,099 --> 00:09:10,874 the tail either came off, 207 00:09:10,898 --> 00:09:14,332 or steering stuff inside the tail broke in some way. 208 00:09:14,747 --> 00:09:16,800 It's tails, pure and simple. 209 00:09:16,824 --> 00:09:19,357 And when the pilots walk around the plane, guess what? 210 00:09:19,381 --> 00:09:21,432 They can't see that stuff inside the tail. 211 00:09:21,456 --> 00:09:22,893 Now as I think about that, 212 00:09:22,917 --> 00:09:26,376 I'm pulling up all of that specific information. 213 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:27,573 It's specific. 214 00:09:27,597 --> 00:09:29,092 See, my thinking's bottom-up. 215 00:09:29,116 --> 00:09:32,813 I take all the little pieces and I put the pieces together like a puzzle. 216 00:09:32,837 --> 00:09:36,604 Now, here is a horse that was deathly afraid of black cowboy hats. 217 00:09:36,628 --> 00:09:39,188 He'd been abused by somebody with a black cowboy hat. 218 00:09:39,212 --> 00:09:42,101 White cowboy hats, that was absolutely fine. 219 00:09:42,596 --> 00:09:45,146 Now, the thing is, the world is going to need 220 00:09:45,170 --> 00:09:49,259 all of the different kinds of minds to work together. 221 00:09:49,283 --> 00:09:52,474 We've got to work on developing all these different kinds of minds. 222 00:09:52,498 --> 00:09:55,040 And one of the things that is driving me really crazy 223 00:09:55,064 --> 00:09:57,411 as I travel around and I do autism meetings, 224 00:09:57,435 --> 00:10:00,576 is I'm seeing a lot of smart, geeky, nerdy kids, 225 00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:02,775 and they just aren't very social, 226 00:10:02,799 --> 00:10:05,890 and nobody's working on developing their interest 227 00:10:05,914 --> 00:10:07,289 in something like science. 228 00:10:07,666 --> 00:10:10,353 And this brings up the whole thing of my science teacher. 229 00:10:10,377 --> 00:10:13,485 My science teacher is shown absolutely beautifully in the movie. 230 00:10:13,509 --> 00:10:15,995 I was a goofball student when I was in high school. 231 00:10:16,019 --> 00:10:18,047 I just didn't care at all about studying, 232 00:10:18,071 --> 00:10:21,300 until I had Mr. Carlock's science class. 233 00:10:21,324 --> 00:10:23,696 He was now Dr. Carlock in the movie. 234 00:10:24,097 --> 00:10:29,976 And he got me challenged to figure out an optical illusion room. 235 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,715 This brings up the whole thing of you've got to show kids 236 00:10:32,739 --> 00:10:33,896 interesting stuff. 237 00:10:34,314 --> 00:10:37,627 You know, one of the things that I think maybe TED ought to do 238 00:10:37,651 --> 00:10:40,966 is tell all the schools about all the great lectures that are on TED, 239 00:10:40,990 --> 00:10:43,477 and there's all kinds of great stuff on the Internet 240 00:10:43,501 --> 00:10:44,873 to get these kids turned on. 241 00:10:44,897 --> 00:10:47,383 Because I'm seeing a lot of these geeky, nerdy kids, 242 00:10:47,407 --> 00:10:50,591 and the teachers out in the Midwest and other parts of the country 243 00:10:50,615 --> 00:10:52,553 when you get away from these tech areas, 244 00:10:52,577 --> 00:10:54,589 they don't know what to do with these kids. 245 00:10:54,613 --> 00:10:56,634 And they're not going down the right path. 246 00:10:56,658 --> 00:10:58,440 The thing is, you can make a mind 247 00:10:58,464 --> 00:11:01,189 to be more of a thinking and cognitive mind, 248 00:11:01,213 --> 00:11:03,688 or your mind can be wired to be more social. 249 00:11:03,712 --> 00:11:06,343 And what some of the research now has shown in autism 250 00:11:06,367 --> 00:11:09,837 is there may by extra wiring back here in the really brilliant mind, 251 00:11:09,861 --> 00:11:11,774 and we lose a few social circuits here. 252 00:11:11,798 --> 00:11:14,749 It's kind of a trade-off between thinking and social. 253 00:11:14,773 --> 00:11:17,365 And then you can get to the point where it's so severe, 254 00:11:17,389 --> 00:11:20,245 you're going to have a person that's going to be non-verbal. 255 00:11:20,269 --> 00:11:21,976 In the normal human mind, 256 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:25,622 language covers up the visual thinking we share with animals. 257 00:11:25,646 --> 00:11:28,337 This is the work of Dr. Bruce Miller. 258 00:11:29,496 --> 00:11:33,228 He studied Alzheimer's patients that had frontal temporal lobe dementia. 259 00:11:33,252 --> 00:11:36,275 And the dementia ate out the language parts of the brain. 260 00:11:36,299 --> 00:11:38,570 And then this artwork came out of somebody 261 00:11:38,594 --> 00:11:40,562 who used to install stereos in cars. 262 00:11:41,567 --> 00:11:45,233 Now, Van Gogh doesn't know anything about physics, 263 00:11:45,257 --> 00:11:48,578 but I think it's very interesting that there was some work done 264 00:11:48,602 --> 00:11:51,325 to show that this eddy pattern in this painting 265 00:11:51,349 --> 00:11:54,497 followed a statistical model of turbulence, 266 00:11:54,521 --> 00:11:56,540 which brings up the whole interesting idea 267 00:11:56,564 --> 00:12:00,302 of maybe some of this mathematical patterns is in our own head. 268 00:12:00,326 --> 00:12:01,879 And the Wolfram stuff -- 269 00:12:01,903 --> 00:12:06,469 I was taking notes and writing down all the search words I could use, 270 00:12:06,493 --> 00:12:09,820 because I think that's going to go on in my autism lectures. 271 00:12:09,844 --> 00:12:12,271 We've got to show these kids interesting stuff. 272 00:12:12,295 --> 00:12:14,562 And they've taken out the auto-shop class 273 00:12:14,586 --> 00:12:16,686 and the drafting class and the art class. 274 00:12:16,710 --> 00:12:18,976 I mean, art was my best subject in school. 275 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,859 We've got to think about all these different kinds of minds, 276 00:12:21,883 --> 00:12:24,663 and we've got to absolutely work with these kind of minds, 277 00:12:24,687 --> 00:12:26,975 because we absolutely are going to need 278 00:12:26,999 --> 00:12:29,520 these kinds of people in the future. 279 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:31,779 And let's talk about jobs. 280 00:12:32,264 --> 00:12:34,457 OK, my science teacher got me studying, 281 00:12:34,481 --> 00:12:36,895 because I was a goofball that didn't want to study. 282 00:12:36,919 --> 00:12:39,264 But you know what? I was getting work experience. 283 00:12:39,288 --> 00:12:42,752 I'm seeing too many of these smart kids who haven't learned basic things, 284 00:12:42,776 --> 00:12:46,224 like how to be on time -- I was taught that when I was eight years old. 285 00:12:46,248 --> 00:12:48,803 How to have table manners at granny's Sunday party. 286 00:12:48,827 --> 00:12:51,012 I was taught that when I was very, very young. 287 00:12:51,486 --> 00:12:56,463 And when I was 13, I had a job at a dressmaker's shop sewing clothes. 288 00:12:56,487 --> 00:12:59,075 I did internships in college, 289 00:12:59,099 --> 00:13:02,302 I was building things, 290 00:13:02,326 --> 00:13:05,343 and I also had to learn how to do assignments. 291 00:13:05,367 --> 00:13:08,957 You know, all I wanted to do was draw pictures of horses when I was little. 292 00:13:08,981 --> 00:13:11,809 My mother said, "Well let's do a picture of something else." 293 00:13:11,833 --> 00:13:13,997 They've got to learn how to do something else. 294 00:13:14,021 --> 00:13:15,865 Let's say the kid is fixated on Legos. 295 00:13:15,889 --> 00:13:18,586 Let's get him working on building different things. 296 00:13:18,610 --> 00:13:22,206 The thing about the autistic mind is it tends to be fixated. 297 00:13:22,230 --> 00:13:26,108 Like if the kid loves race cars, let's use race cars for math. 298 00:13:26,132 --> 00:13:29,572 Let's figure out how long it takes a race car to go a certain distance. 299 00:13:29,596 --> 00:13:32,709 In other words, use that fixation 300 00:13:32,733 --> 00:13:36,589 in order to motivate that kid, that's one of the things we need to do. 301 00:13:36,613 --> 00:13:39,701 I really get fed up when the teachers, 302 00:13:39,725 --> 00:13:42,527 especially when you get away from this part of the country, 303 00:13:42,551 --> 00:13:44,931 they don't know what to do with these smart kids. 304 00:13:44,955 --> 00:13:46,118 It just drives me crazy. 305 00:13:46,142 --> 00:13:48,384 What can visual thinkers do when they grow up? 306 00:13:48,408 --> 00:13:51,357 They can do graphic design, all kinds of stuff with computers, 307 00:13:51,381 --> 00:13:54,764 photography, industrial design. 308 00:13:56,383 --> 00:14:00,315 The pattern thinkers -- they're the ones that are going to be your mathematicians, 309 00:14:00,339 --> 00:14:02,846 your software engineers, your computer programmers, 310 00:14:02,870 --> 00:14:04,833 all of those kinds of jobs. 311 00:14:04,857 --> 00:14:08,429 And then you've got the word minds; they make great journalists, 312 00:14:08,453 --> 00:14:10,976 and they also make really, really good stage actors. 313 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:13,392 Because the thing about being autistic is, 314 00:14:13,416 --> 00:14:16,247 I had to learn social skills like being in a play. 315 00:14:16,271 --> 00:14:18,644 You just kind of ... you just have to learn it. 316 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:21,976 And we need to be working with these students. 317 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:24,108 And this brings up mentors. 318 00:14:24,132 --> 00:14:27,232 You know, my science teacher was not an accredited teacher. 319 00:14:27,256 --> 00:14:28,976 He was a NASA space scientist. 320 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:32,404 Some states now are getting it to where, if you have a degree in biology 321 00:14:32,428 --> 00:14:33,699 or in chemistry, 322 00:14:33,723 --> 00:14:36,560 you can come into the school and teach biology or chemistry. 323 00:14:36,584 --> 00:14:38,110 We need to be doing that. 324 00:14:38,540 --> 00:14:40,330 Because what I'm observing is, 325 00:14:40,354 --> 00:14:42,403 the good teachers, for a lot of these kids, 326 00:14:42,427 --> 00:14:44,075 are out in the community colleges. 327 00:14:44,099 --> 00:14:46,635 But we need to be getting some of these good teachers 328 00:14:46,659 --> 00:14:47,810 into the high schools. 329 00:14:47,834 --> 00:14:51,390 Another thing that can be very, very, very successful is: 330 00:14:51,414 --> 00:14:53,522 there's a lot of people that may have retired 331 00:14:53,546 --> 00:14:55,368 from working in the software industry, 332 00:14:55,392 --> 00:14:56,780 and they can teach your kid. 333 00:14:56,804 --> 00:14:59,613 And it doesn't matter if what they teach them is old, 334 00:14:59,637 --> 00:15:02,364 because what you're doing is you're lighting the spark. 335 00:15:02,388 --> 00:15:04,852 You're getting that kid turned on. 336 00:15:04,876 --> 00:15:08,291 And you get him turned on, then you'll learn all the new stuff. 337 00:15:08,315 --> 00:15:10,579 Mentors are just essential. 338 00:15:10,603 --> 00:15:14,336 I cannot emphasize enough what my science teacher did for me. 339 00:15:14,944 --> 00:15:17,976 And we've got to mentor them, hire them. 340 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,808 And if you bring them in for internships in your companies, 341 00:15:20,832 --> 00:15:23,305 the thing about the autism, Asperger-y kind of mind, 342 00:15:23,329 --> 00:15:25,297 you've got to give them a specific task. 343 00:15:25,321 --> 00:15:27,163 Don't just say, "Design new software." 344 00:15:27,187 --> 00:15:29,454 You've got to tell them something more specific: 345 00:15:29,478 --> 00:15:31,375 "We're designing software for a phone 346 00:15:31,399 --> 00:15:33,199 and it has to do some specific thing, 347 00:15:33,223 --> 00:15:34,976 and it can only use so much memory." 348 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,427 That's the kind of specificity you need. 349 00:15:37,451 --> 00:15:39,310 Well, that's the end of my talk. 350 00:15:39,334 --> 00:15:41,577 And I just want to thank everybody for coming. 351 00:15:41,601 --> 00:15:42,976 It was great to be here. 352 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:50,000 (Applause) 353 00:15:54,526 --> 00:15:56,717 (Applause ends) 354 00:15:56,741 --> 00:15:58,566 Oh -- you have a question for me? OK. 355 00:15:58,590 --> 00:16:00,987 (Applause) 356 00:16:01,011 --> 00:16:03,039 Chris Anderson: Thank you so much for that. 357 00:16:03,063 --> 00:16:05,389 You know, you once wrote -- I like this quote: 358 00:16:05,413 --> 00:16:09,974 "If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the Earth, 359 00:16:09,998 --> 00:16:12,975 then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire 360 00:16:12,999 --> 00:16:14,340 at the entrance to a cave." 361 00:16:14,364 --> 00:16:15,392 (Laughter) 362 00:16:15,416 --> 00:16:18,652 Temple Grandin: Because who do you think made the first stone spear? 363 00:16:18,676 --> 00:16:19,834 It was the Asperger guy, 364 00:16:19,858 --> 00:16:22,411 and if you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, 365 00:16:22,435 --> 00:16:26,100 there'd be no more Silicon Valley, and the energy crisis would not be solved. 366 00:16:26,124 --> 00:16:27,465 (Applause) 367 00:16:27,489 --> 00:16:29,719 CA: I want to ask you a couple other questions, 368 00:16:29,743 --> 00:16:33,507 and if any of these feel inappropriate, it's OK just to say, "Next question." 369 00:16:33,531 --> 00:16:37,145 But if there is someone here who has an autistic child, 370 00:16:37,169 --> 00:16:41,910 or knows an autistic child and feels kind of cut off from them, 371 00:16:42,533 --> 00:16:44,380 what advice would you give them? 372 00:16:44,404 --> 00:16:46,733 TG: Well, first of all, we've got to look at age. 373 00:16:46,757 --> 00:16:50,706 If you have a two, three or four-year-old, no speech, no social interaction, 374 00:16:50,730 --> 00:16:53,019 I can't emphasize enough: Don't wait. 375 00:16:53,043 --> 00:16:56,173 You need at least 20 hours a week of one-to-one teaching. 376 00:16:56,352 --> 00:16:58,845 The thing is, autism comes in different degrees. 377 00:16:58,869 --> 00:17:02,376 About half of the people on the spectrum are not going to learn to talk, 378 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,501 and they won't be working in Silicon Valley. 379 00:17:04,525 --> 00:17:06,975 That would not be a reasonable thing for them to do. 380 00:17:06,999 --> 00:17:10,076 But then you get these smart, geeky kids with a touch of autism, 381 00:17:10,100 --> 00:17:12,580 and that's where you've got to get them turned on 382 00:17:12,604 --> 00:17:14,093 with doing interesting things. 383 00:17:14,117 --> 00:17:17,132 I got social interaction through shared interests -- 384 00:17:17,156 --> 00:17:21,113 I rode horses with other kids, I made model rockets with other kids, 385 00:17:21,137 --> 00:17:23,115 did electronics lab with other kids. 386 00:17:23,139 --> 00:17:27,390 And in the '60s, it was gluing mirrors onto a rubber membrane on a speaker 387 00:17:27,414 --> 00:17:28,595 to make a light show. 388 00:17:28,619 --> 00:17:30,841 That was, like, we considered that super cool. 389 00:17:30,865 --> 00:17:31,871 (Laughter) 390 00:17:31,895 --> 00:17:33,392 CA: Is it unrealistic for them 391 00:17:33,416 --> 00:17:38,156 to hope or think that that child loves them, as some might, as most, wish? 392 00:17:38,180 --> 00:17:40,414 TG: Well, I tell you, that child will be loyal, 393 00:17:40,438 --> 00:17:43,813 and if your house is burning down, they're going to get you out of it. 394 00:17:43,837 --> 00:17:47,496 CA: Wow. So most people, if you ask them what they're most passionate about, 395 00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:50,368 they'd say things like, "My kids" or "My lover." 396 00:17:51,010 --> 00:17:52,762 What are you most passionate about? 397 00:17:52,786 --> 00:17:55,817 TG: I'm passionate about that the things I do 398 00:17:55,841 --> 00:17:57,878 are going to make the world a better place. 399 00:17:57,902 --> 00:18:00,124 When I have a mother of an autistic child say, 400 00:18:00,148 --> 00:18:02,210 "My kid went to college because of your book 401 00:18:02,234 --> 00:18:03,434 or one of your lectures," 402 00:18:03,458 --> 00:18:04,609 that makes me happy. 403 00:18:04,633 --> 00:18:07,346 You know, the slaughter plants I worked with in the '80s; 404 00:18:07,370 --> 00:18:08,687 they were absolutely awful. 405 00:18:08,711 --> 00:18:11,987 I developed a really simple scoring system for slaughter plants, 406 00:18:12,011 --> 00:18:13,563 where you just measure outcomes: 407 00:18:13,587 --> 00:18:14,829 How many cattle fell down? 408 00:18:14,853 --> 00:18:16,601 How many got poked with the prodder? 409 00:18:16,625 --> 00:18:18,656 How many cattle are mooing their heads off? 410 00:18:19,018 --> 00:18:20,352 And it's very, very simple. 411 00:18:20,376 --> 00:18:22,353 You directly observe a few simple things. 412 00:18:22,377 --> 00:18:23,541 It's worked really well. 413 00:18:23,565 --> 00:18:25,904 I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff 414 00:18:25,928 --> 00:18:28,648 that makes real change in the real world. 415 00:18:28,672 --> 00:18:31,421 We need a lot more of that, and a lot less abstract stuff. 416 00:18:31,445 --> 00:18:32,596 CA: Totally. 417 00:18:32,620 --> 00:18:37,703 (Applause) 418 00:18:37,727 --> 00:18:40,826 CA: When we were talking on the phone, one of the things you said 419 00:18:40,850 --> 00:18:42,052 that really astonished me 420 00:18:42,076 --> 00:18:45,237 was that one thing you were passionate about was server farms. 421 00:18:45,843 --> 00:18:46,994 Tell me about that. 422 00:18:47,018 --> 00:18:50,395 TG: Well, the reason why I got really excited when I read about that, 423 00:18:50,419 --> 00:18:52,075 it contains knowledge. 424 00:18:52,099 --> 00:18:53,757 It's libraries. 425 00:18:53,781 --> 00:18:57,300 And to me, knowledge is something that is extremely valuable. 426 00:18:57,324 --> 00:19:00,440 So, maybe over 10 years ago now, our library got flooded. 427 00:19:00,464 --> 00:19:02,515 This is before the Internet got really big. 428 00:19:02,539 --> 00:19:05,220 And I was really upset about all the books being wrecked, 429 00:19:05,244 --> 00:19:07,220 because it was knowledge being destroyed. 430 00:19:07,244 --> 00:19:11,657 And server farms, or data centers, are great libraries of knowledge. 431 00:19:11,681 --> 00:19:12,972 CA: Temple, can I just say, 432 00:19:12,996 --> 00:19:15,082 it's an absolute delight to have you at TED. 433 00:19:15,106 --> 00:19:16,257 Thank you so much. 434 00:19:16,281 --> 00:19:18,176 TG: Well, thank you so much. Thank you. 435 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:23,436 (Applause)