WEBVTT 00:00:00.444 --> 00:00:02.890 I think I'll start out and just talk a little bit 00:00:02.914 --> 00:00:04.405 about what exactly autism is. 00:00:04.429 --> 00:00:07.064 Autism is a very big continuum 00:00:07.088 --> 00:00:10.262 that goes from very severe -- the child remains nonverbal -- 00:00:10.286 --> 00:00:12.976 all the way up to brilliant scientists and engineers. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:14.977 And I actually feel at home here, 00:00:15.001 --> 00:00:17.547 because there's a lot of autism genetics here. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:17.571 --> 00:00:18.603 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:18.627 --> 00:00:19.785 You wouldn't have any -- NOTE Paragraph 00:00:19.809 --> 00:00:22.778 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:22.802 --> 00:00:24.838 It's a continuum of traits. 00:00:24.862 --> 00:00:30.519 When does a nerd turn into Asperger, which is just mild autism? 00:00:30.543 --> 00:00:35.701 I mean, Einstein and Mozart and Tesla would all be probably diagnosed 00:00:35.725 --> 00:00:37.617 as autistic spectrum today. 00:00:37.641 --> 00:00:40.932 And one of the things that is really going to concern me 00:00:40.956 --> 00:00:43.191 is getting these kids to be the ones 00:00:43.215 --> 00:00:46.037 that are going to invent the next energy things 00:00:46.061 --> 00:00:48.311 that Bill Gates talked about this morning. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:48.798 --> 00:00:52.711 OK, now, if you want to understand autism: animals. 00:00:52.735 --> 00:00:55.625 I want to talk to you now about different ways of thinking. 00:00:55.649 --> 00:00:58.499 You have to get away from verbal language. 00:00:58.523 --> 00:01:02.124 I think in pictures. I don't think in language. 00:01:02.822 --> 00:01:08.092 Now, the thing about the autistic mind is it attends to details. 00:01:08.116 --> 00:01:11.171 This is a test where you either have to pick out the big letters 00:01:11.195 --> 00:01:12.418 or the little letters, 00:01:12.442 --> 00:01:16.335 and the autistic mind picks out the little letters more quickly. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:16.687 --> 00:01:20.438 And the thing is, the normal brain ignores the details. 00:01:20.462 --> 00:01:23.472 Well, if you're building a bridge, details are pretty important 00:01:23.496 --> 00:01:25.894 because it'll fall down if you ignore the details. 00:01:25.918 --> 00:01:28.785 And one of my big concerns with a lot of policy things today 00:01:28.809 --> 00:01:30.487 is things are getting too abstract. 00:01:30.511 --> 00:01:33.738 People are getting away from doing hands-on stuff. 00:01:33.762 --> 00:01:35.922 I'm really concerned that a lot of the schools 00:01:35.946 --> 00:01:39.914 have taken out the hands-on classes, because art, and classes like that -- 00:01:39.938 --> 00:01:42.251 those are the classes where I excelled. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:42.275 --> 00:01:44.429 In my work with cattle, 00:01:44.453 --> 00:01:47.431 I noticed a lot of little things that most people don't notice 00:01:47.455 --> 00:01:48.743 would make the cattle balk. 00:01:48.767 --> 00:01:52.314 For example, this flag waving right in front of the veterinary facility. 00:01:52.338 --> 00:01:55.665 This feed yard was going to tear down their whole veterinary facility; 00:01:55.689 --> 00:01:57.603 all they needed to do was move the flag. 00:01:57.627 --> 00:01:59.695 Rapid movement, contrast. 00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:02.753 In the early '70s when I started, I got right down in the chutes 00:02:02.777 --> 00:02:04.276 to see what cattle were seeing. 00:02:04.300 --> 00:02:05.762 People thought that was crazy. 00:02:05.786 --> 00:02:09.068 A coat on a fence would make them balk, shadows would make them balk, 00:02:09.092 --> 00:02:12.156 a hose on the floor -- people weren't noticing these things. 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:13.696 A chain hanging down ... 00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:15.976 And that's shown very, very nicely in the movie. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:19.455 In fact, I loved the movie, how they duplicated all my projects. 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:20.820 That's the geek side. 00:02:20.844 --> 00:02:23.264 My drawings got to star in the movie, too. 00:02:23.288 --> 00:02:25.398 And, actually, it's called "Temple Grandin," 00:02:25.422 --> 00:02:26.746 not "Thinking in Pictures." NOTE Paragraph 00:02:26.770 --> 00:02:28.335 So what is thinking in pictures? 00:02:28.359 --> 00:02:31.038 It's literally movies in your head. 00:02:31.062 --> 00:02:33.944 My mind works like Google for images. 00:02:33.968 --> 00:02:37.012 When I was a young kid, I didn't know my thinking was different. 00:02:37.036 --> 00:02:38.955 I thought everybody thought in pictures. 00:02:38.979 --> 00:02:41.234 Then when I did my book, "Thinking in Pictures," 00:02:41.258 --> 00:02:43.670 I started interviewing people about how they think. 00:02:43.694 --> 00:02:46.849 And I was shocked to find out that my thinking was quite different. 00:02:46.873 --> 00:02:49.049 Like if I say, "Think about a church steeple," 00:02:49.073 --> 00:02:51.586 most people get this sort of generalized generic one. 00:02:51.610 --> 00:02:53.522 Now, maybe that's not true in this room, 00:02:53.546 --> 00:02:56.812 but it's going to be true in a lot of different places. 00:02:56.836 --> 00:02:59.339 I see only specific pictures. 00:02:59.363 --> 00:03:03.172 They flash up into my memory, just like Google for pictures. 00:03:03.196 --> 00:03:05.739 And in the movie, they've got a great scene in there, 00:03:05.763 --> 00:03:09.563 where the word "shoe" is said, and a whole bunch of '50s and '60s shoes 00:03:09.587 --> 00:03:11.253 pop into my imagination. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:11.648 --> 00:03:14.159 OK, there's my childhood church; that's specific. 00:03:14.547 --> 00:03:16.415 There's some more, Fort Collins. 00:03:16.439 --> 00:03:18.486 OK, how about famous ones? 00:03:18.510 --> 00:03:21.187 And they just kind of come up, kind of like this. 00:03:21.211 --> 00:03:24.122 Just really quickly, like Google for pictures. 00:03:24.146 --> 00:03:25.705 And they come up one at a time, 00:03:25.729 --> 00:03:28.680 and then I think, "OK, well, maybe we can have it snow, 00:03:28.704 --> 00:03:30.328 or we can have a thunderstorm," 00:03:30.352 --> 00:03:32.976 and I can hold it there and turn them into videos. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:36.213 Now, visual thinking was a tremendous asset 00:03:36.237 --> 00:03:39.039 in my work designing cattle-handling facilities. 00:03:39.539 --> 00:03:42.739 And I've worked really hard on improving how cattle are treated 00:03:42.763 --> 00:03:43.915 at the slaughter plant. 00:03:43.939 --> 00:03:46.435 I'm not going to go into any gucky slaughter slides. 00:03:46.459 --> 00:03:49.347 I've got that stuff up on YouTube, if you want to look at it. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:49.371 --> 00:03:50.412 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:50.436 --> 00:03:53.329 But one of the things that I was able to do in my design work 00:03:53.353 --> 00:03:55.976 is I could test-run a piece of equipment in my mind, 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.432 just like a virtual reality computer system. 00:03:59.448 --> 00:04:03.089 And this is an aerial view of a recreation of one of my projects 00:04:03.113 --> 00:04:04.475 that was used in the movie. 00:04:04.499 --> 00:04:06.510 That was like just so super cool. 00:04:06.534 --> 00:04:10.012 And there were a lot of, kind of, Asperger types and autism types 00:04:10.036 --> 00:04:11.984 working out there on the movie set, too. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:12.008 --> 00:04:13.184 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:13.208 --> 00:04:15.999 But one of the things that really worries me is: 00:04:16.023 --> 00:04:19.027 Where's the younger version of those kids going today? 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:22.015 They're not ending up in Silicon Valley, 00:04:22.039 --> 00:04:23.279 where they belong. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:23.303 --> 00:04:25.123 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:25.147 --> 00:04:30.055 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:33.660 One of the things I learned very early on because I wasn't that social, 00:04:33.684 --> 00:04:37.095 is I had to sell my work, and not myself. 00:04:37.446 --> 00:04:40.406 And the way I sold livestock jobs is I showed off my drawings, 00:04:40.430 --> 00:04:42.162 I showed off pictures of things. 00:04:42.186 --> 00:04:44.425 Another thing that helped me as a little kid 00:04:44.449 --> 00:04:46.678 is, boy, in the '50s, you were taught manners. 00:04:46.702 --> 00:04:49.741 You were taught you can't pull the merchandise off the shelves 00:04:49.765 --> 00:04:51.399 in the store and throw it around. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:51.423 --> 00:04:53.575 When kids get to be in third or fourth grade, 00:04:53.599 --> 00:04:56.427 you might see that this kid's going to be a visual thinker, 00:04:56.451 --> 00:04:57.716 drawing in perspective. 00:04:57.740 --> 00:04:58.938 Now, I want to emphasize 00:04:58.962 --> 00:05:01.885 that not every autistic kid is going to be a visual thinker. 00:05:02.452 --> 00:05:06.430 Now, I had this brain scan done several years ago, 00:05:06.454 --> 00:05:10.387 and I used to joke around about having a gigantic Internet trunk line 00:05:10.411 --> 00:05:12.338 going deep into my visual cortex. 00:05:12.362 --> 00:05:14.237 This is tensor imaging. 00:05:14.261 --> 00:05:18.113 And my great big Internet trunk line is twice as big as the control's. 00:05:18.137 --> 00:05:19.741 The red lines there are me, 00:05:19.765 --> 00:05:23.674 and the blue lines are the sex and age-matched control. 00:05:24.590 --> 00:05:26.612 And there I got a gigantic one, 00:05:26.636 --> 00:05:30.644 and the control over there, the blue one, has got a really small one. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:31.841 --> 00:05:33.976 And some of the research now is showing 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:38.031 that people on the spectrum actually think with the primary visual cortex. 00:05:38.055 --> 00:05:41.096 Now, the thing is, the visual thinker is just one kind of mind. 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:44.705 You see, the autistic mind tends to be a specialist mind -- 00:05:44.729 --> 00:05:47.342 good at one thing, bad at something else. 00:05:47.842 --> 00:05:49.596 And where I was bad was algebra. 00:05:49.620 --> 00:05:51.910 And I was never allowed to take geometry or trig. 00:05:51.934 --> 00:05:53.097 Gigantic mistake. 00:05:53.121 --> 00:05:55.556 I'm finding a lot of kids who need to skip algebra, 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:57.229 go right to geometry and trig. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:57.587 --> 00:06:00.187 Now, another kind of mind is the pattern thinker. 00:06:00.211 --> 00:06:01.450 More abstract. 00:06:01.474 --> 00:06:04.037 These are your engineers, your computer programmers. 00:06:04.061 --> 00:06:05.455 This is pattern thinking. 00:06:05.479 --> 00:06:08.364 That praying mantis is made from a single sheet of paper -- 00:06:08.388 --> 00:06:09.805 no scotch tape, no cuts. 00:06:09.829 --> 00:06:13.364 And there in the background is the pattern for folding it. 00:06:13.388 --> 00:06:15.033 Here are the types of thinking: 00:06:15.471 --> 00:06:18.023 photo-realistic visual thinkers, like me; 00:06:18.596 --> 00:06:21.976 pattern thinkers, music and math minds. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.588 Some of these oftentimes have problems with reading. 00:06:24.612 --> 00:06:29.093 You also will see these kind of problems with kids that are dyslexic. 00:06:29.117 --> 00:06:31.141 You'll see these different kinds of minds. 00:06:31.165 --> 00:06:34.739 And then there's a verbal mind, they know every fact about everything. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:34.763 --> 00:06:36.729 Now, another thing is the sensory issues. 00:06:36.753 --> 00:06:40.045 I was really concerned about having to wear this gadget on my face. 00:06:40.432 --> 00:06:42.586 And I came in half an hour beforehand 00:06:42.610 --> 00:06:45.593 so I could have it put on and kind of get used to it, 00:06:45.617 --> 00:06:48.355 and they got it bent so it's not hitting my chin. 00:06:48.379 --> 00:06:49.531 But sensory is an issue. 00:06:49.555 --> 00:06:51.704 Some kids are bothered by fluorescent lights; 00:06:51.728 --> 00:06:53.885 others have problems with sound sensitivity. 00:06:54.237 --> 00:06:56.410 You know, it's going to be variable. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:57.392 --> 00:07:00.812 Now, visual thinking gave me a whole lot of insight 00:07:00.836 --> 00:07:03.096 into the animal mind. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.553 Because think about it: an animal is a sensory-based thinker, 00:07:06.577 --> 00:07:12.774 not verbal -- thinks in pictures, thinks in sounds, thinks in smells. 00:07:12.798 --> 00:07:16.142 Think about how much information there is on the local fire hydrant. 00:07:16.166 --> 00:07:17.528 He knows who's been there -- NOTE Paragraph 00:07:17.552 --> 00:07:18.583 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:18.607 --> 00:07:19.764 When they were there. 00:07:19.788 --> 00:07:22.683 Are they friend or foe? Is there anybody he can go mate with? 00:07:22.707 --> 00:07:25.589 There's a ton of information on that fire hydrant. 00:07:25.613 --> 00:07:28.399 It's all very detailed information. 00:07:28.736 --> 00:07:32.975 And looking at these kind of details gave me a lot of insight into animals. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:33.428 --> 00:07:36.976 Now, the animal mind, and also my mind, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:41.569 puts sensory-based information into categories. 00:07:41.593 --> 00:07:43.296 Man on a horse, 00:07:43.320 --> 00:07:44.875 and a man on the ground -- 00:07:44.899 --> 00:07:47.684 that is viewed as two totally different things. 00:07:47.708 --> 00:07:50.207 You could have a horse that's been abused by a rider. 00:07:50.231 --> 00:07:52.501 They'll be absolutely fine with the veterinarian 00:07:52.525 --> 00:07:54.976 and with the horseshoer, but you can't ride him. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:58.175 You have another horse, where maybe the horseshoer beat him up, 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:02.194 and he'll be terrible for anything on the ground with the veterinarian, 00:08:02.218 --> 00:08:04.233 but a person can ride him. 00:08:04.257 --> 00:08:05.564 Cattle are the same way. 00:08:05.588 --> 00:08:09.513 Man on a horse, a man on foot -- they're two different things. 00:08:09.537 --> 00:08:11.493 You see, it's a different picture. 00:08:11.517 --> 00:08:14.638 See, I want you to think about just how specific this is. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:14.662 --> 00:08:18.049 Now, this ability to put information into categories, 00:08:18.073 --> 00:08:21.425 I find a lot of people are not very good at this. 00:08:21.449 --> 00:08:23.617 When I'm out troubleshooting equipment 00:08:23.641 --> 00:08:25.469 or problems with something in a plant, 00:08:25.493 --> 00:08:27.498 they don't seem to be able to figure out: 00:08:27.522 --> 00:08:29.222 "Do I have a training-people issue? 00:08:29.246 --> 00:08:31.681 Or do I have something wrong with the equipment?" 00:08:31.705 --> 00:08:35.399 In other words, categorize equipment problem from a people problem. 00:08:35.423 --> 00:08:38.519 I find a lot of people have difficulty doing that. 00:08:38.543 --> 00:08:41.107 Now, let's say I figure out it's an equipment problem. 00:08:41.131 --> 00:08:43.907 Is it a minor problem, with something simple I can fix? 00:08:43.931 --> 00:08:46.246 Or is the whole design of the system wrong? 00:08:46.270 --> 00:08:48.976 People have a hard time figuring that out. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:51.096 Let's just look at something like, you know, 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:53.366 solving problems with making airlines safer. 00:08:53.390 --> 00:08:54.976 Yeah, I'm a million-mile flier. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:56.826 I do lots and lots of flying, 00:08:56.850 --> 00:09:00.082 and if I was at the FAA, 00:09:00.106 --> 00:09:03.628 what would I be doing a lot of direct observation of? 00:09:04.197 --> 00:09:06.501 It would be their airplane tails. 00:09:06.525 --> 00:09:09.075 You know, five fatal wrecks in the last 20 years, 00:09:09.099 --> 00:09:10.874 the tail either came off, 00:09:10.898 --> 00:09:14.332 or steering stuff inside the tail broke in some way. 00:09:14.747 --> 00:09:16.800 It's tails, pure and simple. 00:09:16.824 --> 00:09:19.357 And when the pilots walk around the plane, guess what? 00:09:19.381 --> 00:09:21.432 They can't see that stuff inside the tail. 00:09:21.456 --> 00:09:22.893 Now as I think about that, 00:09:22.917 --> 00:09:26.376 I'm pulling up all of that specific information. 00:09:26.400 --> 00:09:27.573 It's specific. 00:09:27.597 --> 00:09:29.092 See, my thinking's bottom-up. 00:09:29.116 --> 00:09:32.813 I take all the little pieces and I put the pieces together like a puzzle. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:32.837 --> 00:09:36.604 Now, here is a horse that was deathly afraid of black cowboy hats. 00:09:36.628 --> 00:09:39.188 He'd been abused by somebody with a black cowboy hat. 00:09:39.212 --> 00:09:42.101 White cowboy hats, that was absolutely fine. 00:09:42.596 --> 00:09:45.146 Now, the thing is, the world is going to need 00:09:45.170 --> 00:09:49.259 all of the different kinds of minds to work together. 00:09:49.283 --> 00:09:52.474 We've got to work on developing all these different kinds of minds. 00:09:52.498 --> 00:09:55.040 And one of the things that is driving me really crazy 00:09:55.064 --> 00:09:57.411 as I travel around and I do autism meetings, 00:09:57.435 --> 00:10:00.576 is I'm seeing a lot of smart, geeky, nerdy kids, 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:02.775 and they just aren't very social, 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:05.890 and nobody's working on developing their interest 00:10:05.914 --> 00:10:07.289 in something like science. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:07.666 --> 00:10:10.353 And this brings up the whole thing of my science teacher. 00:10:10.377 --> 00:10:13.485 My science teacher is shown absolutely beautifully in the movie. 00:10:13.509 --> 00:10:15.995 I was a goofball student when I was in high school. 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:18.047 I just didn't care at all about studying, 00:10:18.071 --> 00:10:21.300 until I had Mr. Carlock's science class. 00:10:21.324 --> 00:10:23.696 He was now Dr. Carlock in the movie. 00:10:24.097 --> 00:10:29.976 And he got me challenged to figure out an optical illusion room. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.715 This brings up the whole thing of you've got to show kids 00:10:32.739 --> 00:10:33.896 interesting stuff. 00:10:34.314 --> 00:10:37.627 You know, one of the things that I think maybe TED ought to do 00:10:37.651 --> 00:10:40.966 is tell all the schools about all the great lectures that are on TED, 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:43.477 and there's all kinds of great stuff on the Internet 00:10:43.501 --> 00:10:44.873 to get these kids turned on. 00:10:44.897 --> 00:10:47.383 Because I'm seeing a lot of these geeky, nerdy kids, 00:10:47.407 --> 00:10:50.591 and the teachers out in the Midwest and other parts of the country 00:10:50.615 --> 00:10:52.553 when you get away from these tech areas, 00:10:52.577 --> 00:10:54.589 they don't know what to do with these kids. 00:10:54.613 --> 00:10:56.634 And they're not going down the right path. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:56.658 --> 00:10:58.440 The thing is, you can make a mind 00:10:58.464 --> 00:11:01.189 to be more of a thinking and cognitive mind, 00:11:01.213 --> 00:11:03.688 or your mind can be wired to be more social. 00:11:03.712 --> 00:11:06.343 And what some of the research now has shown in autism 00:11:06.367 --> 00:11:09.837 is there may by extra wiring back here in the really brilliant mind, 00:11:09.861 --> 00:11:11.774 and we lose a few social circuits here. 00:11:11.798 --> 00:11:14.749 It's kind of a trade-off between thinking and social. 00:11:14.773 --> 00:11:17.365 And then you can get to the point where it's so severe, 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:20.245 you're going to have a person that's going to be non-verbal. 00:11:20.269 --> 00:11:21.976 In the normal human mind, 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:25.622 language covers up the visual thinking we share with animals. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:25.646 --> 00:11:28.337 This is the work of Dr. Bruce Miller. 00:11:29.496 --> 00:11:33.228 He studied Alzheimer's patients that had frontal temporal lobe dementia. 00:11:33.252 --> 00:11:36.275 And the dementia ate out the language parts of the brain. 00:11:36.299 --> 00:11:38.570 And then this artwork came out of somebody 00:11:38.594 --> 00:11:40.562 who used to install stereos in cars. 00:11:41.567 --> 00:11:45.233 Now, Van Gogh doesn't know anything about physics, 00:11:45.257 --> 00:11:48.578 but I think it's very interesting that there was some work done 00:11:48.602 --> 00:11:51.325 to show that this eddy pattern in this painting 00:11:51.349 --> 00:11:54.497 followed a statistical model of turbulence, 00:11:54.521 --> 00:11:56.540 which brings up the whole interesting idea 00:11:56.564 --> 00:12:00.302 of maybe some of this mathematical patterns is in our own head. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:00.326 --> 00:12:01.879 And the Wolfram stuff -- 00:12:01.903 --> 00:12:06.469 I was taking notes and writing down all the search words I could use, 00:12:06.493 --> 00:12:09.820 because I think that's going to go on in my autism lectures. 00:12:09.844 --> 00:12:12.271 We've got to show these kids interesting stuff. 00:12:12.295 --> 00:12:14.562 And they've taken out the auto-shop class 00:12:14.586 --> 00:12:16.686 and the drafting class and the art class. 00:12:16.710 --> 00:12:18.976 I mean, art was my best subject in school. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.859 We've got to think about all these different kinds of minds, 00:12:21.883 --> 00:12:24.663 and we've got to absolutely work with these kind of minds, 00:12:24.687 --> 00:12:26.975 because we absolutely are going to need 00:12:26.999 --> 00:12:29.520 these kinds of people in the future. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:31.779 And let's talk about jobs. 00:12:32.264 --> 00:12:34.457 OK, my science teacher got me studying, 00:12:34.481 --> 00:12:36.895 because I was a goofball that didn't want to study. 00:12:36.919 --> 00:12:39.264 But you know what? I was getting work experience. 00:12:39.288 --> 00:12:42.752 I'm seeing too many of these smart kids who haven't learned basic things, 00:12:42.776 --> 00:12:46.224 like how to be on time -- I was taught that when I was eight years old. 00:12:46.248 --> 00:12:48.803 How to have table manners at granny's Sunday party. 00:12:48.827 --> 00:12:51.012 I was taught that when I was very, very young. 00:12:51.486 --> 00:12:56.463 And when I was 13, I had a job at a dressmaker's shop sewing clothes. 00:12:56.487 --> 00:12:59.075 I did internships in college, 00:12:59.099 --> 00:13:02.302 I was building things, 00:13:02.326 --> 00:13:05.343 and I also had to learn how to do assignments. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:05.367 --> 00:13:08.957 You know, all I wanted to do was draw pictures of horses when I was little. 00:13:08.981 --> 00:13:11.809 My mother said, "Well let's do a picture of something else." 00:13:11.833 --> 00:13:13.997 They've got to learn how to do something else. 00:13:14.021 --> 00:13:15.865 Let's say the kid is fixated on Legos. 00:13:15.889 --> 00:13:18.586 Let's get him working on building different things. 00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:22.206 The thing about the autistic mind is it tends to be fixated. 00:13:22.230 --> 00:13:26.108 Like if the kid loves race cars, let's use race cars for math. 00:13:26.132 --> 00:13:29.572 Let's figure out how long it takes a race car to go a certain distance. 00:13:29.596 --> 00:13:32.709 In other words, use that fixation 00:13:32.733 --> 00:13:36.589 in order to motivate that kid, that's one of the things we need to do. 00:13:36.613 --> 00:13:39.701 I really get fed up when the teachers, 00:13:39.725 --> 00:13:42.527 especially when you get away from this part of the country, 00:13:42.551 --> 00:13:44.931 they don't know what to do with these smart kids. 00:13:44.955 --> 00:13:46.118 It just drives me crazy. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:46.142 --> 00:13:48.384 What can visual thinkers do when they grow up? 00:13:48.408 --> 00:13:51.357 They can do graphic design, all kinds of stuff with computers, 00:13:51.381 --> 00:13:54.764 photography, industrial design. 00:13:56.383 --> 00:14:00.315 The pattern thinkers -- they're the ones that are going to be your mathematicians, 00:14:00.339 --> 00:14:02.846 your software engineers, your computer programmers, 00:14:02.870 --> 00:14:04.833 all of those kinds of jobs. 00:14:04.857 --> 00:14:08.429 And then you've got the word minds; they make great journalists, 00:14:08.453 --> 00:14:10.976 and they also make really, really good stage actors. 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:13.392 Because the thing about being autistic is, 00:14:13.416 --> 00:14:16.247 I had to learn social skills like being in a play. 00:14:16.271 --> 00:14:18.644 You just kind of ... you just have to learn it. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.976 And we need to be working with these students. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.108 And this brings up mentors. 00:14:24.132 --> 00:14:27.232 You know, my science teacher was not an accredited teacher. 00:14:27.256 --> 00:14:28.976 He was a NASA space scientist. 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.404 Some states now are getting it to where, if you have a degree in biology 00:14:32.428 --> 00:14:33.699 or in chemistry, 00:14:33.723 --> 00:14:36.560 you can come into the school and teach biology or chemistry. 00:14:36.584 --> 00:14:38.110 We need to be doing that. 00:14:38.540 --> 00:14:40.330 Because what I'm observing is, 00:14:40.354 --> 00:14:42.403 the good teachers, for a lot of these kids, 00:14:42.427 --> 00:14:44.075 are out in the community colleges. 00:14:44.099 --> 00:14:46.635 But we need to be getting some of these good teachers 00:14:46.659 --> 00:14:47.810 into the high schools. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:47.834 --> 00:14:51.390 Another thing that can be very, very, very successful is: 00:14:51.414 --> 00:14:53.522 there's a lot of people that may have retired 00:14:53.546 --> 00:14:55.368 from working in the software industry, 00:14:55.392 --> 00:14:56.780 and they can teach your kid. 00:14:56.804 --> 00:14:59.613 And it doesn't matter if what they teach them is old, 00:14:59.637 --> 00:15:02.364 because what you're doing is you're lighting the spark. 00:15:02.388 --> 00:15:04.852 You're getting that kid turned on. 00:15:04.876 --> 00:15:08.291 And you get him turned on, then you'll learn all the new stuff. 00:15:08.315 --> 00:15:10.579 Mentors are just essential. 00:15:10.603 --> 00:15:14.336 I cannot emphasize enough what my science teacher did for me. 00:15:14.944 --> 00:15:17.976 And we've got to mentor them, hire them. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:20.808 And if you bring them in for internships in your companies, 00:15:20.832 --> 00:15:23.305 the thing about the autism, Asperger-y kind of mind, 00:15:23.329 --> 00:15:25.297 you've got to give them a specific task. 00:15:25.321 --> 00:15:27.163 Don't just say, "Design new software." 00:15:27.187 --> 00:15:29.454 You've got to tell them something more specific: 00:15:29.478 --> 00:15:31.375 "We're designing software for a phone 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:33.199 and it has to do some specific thing, 00:15:33.223 --> 00:15:34.976 and it can only use so much memory." 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.427 That's the kind of specificity you need. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:37.451 --> 00:15:39.310 Well, that's the end of my talk. 00:15:39.334 --> 00:15:41.577 And I just want to thank everybody for coming. 00:15:41.601 --> 00:15:42.976 It was great to be here. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:50.000 (Applause) 00:15:54.526 --> 00:15:56.717 (Applause ends) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:56.741 --> 00:15:58.566 Oh -- you have a question for me? OK. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:58.590 --> 00:16:00.987 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:01.011 --> 00:16:03.039 Chris Anderson: Thank you so much for that. 00:16:03.063 --> 00:16:05.389 You know, you once wrote -- I like this quote: 00:16:05.413 --> 00:16:09.974 "If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the Earth, 00:16:09.998 --> 00:16:12.975 then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire 00:16:12.999 --> 00:16:14.340 at the entrance to a cave." NOTE Paragraph 00:16:14.364 --> 00:16:15.392 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:15.416 --> 00:16:18.652 Temple Grandin: Because who do you think made the first stone spear? 00:16:18.676 --> 00:16:19.834 It was the Asperger guy, 00:16:19.858 --> 00:16:22.411 and if you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, 00:16:22.435 --> 00:16:26.100 there'd be no more Silicon Valley, and the energy crisis would not be solved. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:26.124 --> 00:16:27.465 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:27.489 --> 00:16:29.719 CA: I want to ask you a couple other questions, 00:16:29.743 --> 00:16:33.507 and if any of these feel inappropriate, it's OK just to say, "Next question." 00:16:33.531 --> 00:16:37.145 But if there is someone here who has an autistic child, 00:16:37.169 --> 00:16:41.910 or knows an autistic child and feels kind of cut off from them, 00:16:42.533 --> 00:16:44.380 what advice would you give them? NOTE Paragraph 00:16:44.404 --> 00:16:46.733 TG: Well, first of all, we've got to look at age. 00:16:46.757 --> 00:16:50.706 If you have a two, three or four-year-old, no speech, no social interaction, 00:16:50.730 --> 00:16:53.019 I can't emphasize enough: Don't wait. 00:16:53.043 --> 00:16:56.173 You need at least 20 hours a week of one-to-one teaching. 00:16:56.352 --> 00:16:58.845 The thing is, autism comes in different degrees. 00:16:58.869 --> 00:17:02.376 About half of the people on the spectrum are not going to learn to talk, 00:17:02.400 --> 00:17:04.501 and they won't be working in Silicon Valley. 00:17:04.525 --> 00:17:06.975 That would not be a reasonable thing for them to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:06.999 --> 00:17:10.076 But then you get these smart, geeky kids with a touch of autism, 00:17:10.100 --> 00:17:12.580 and that's where you've got to get them turned on 00:17:12.604 --> 00:17:14.093 with doing interesting things. 00:17:14.117 --> 00:17:17.132 I got social interaction through shared interests -- 00:17:17.156 --> 00:17:21.113 I rode horses with other kids, I made model rockets with other kids, 00:17:21.137 --> 00:17:23.115 did electronics lab with other kids. 00:17:23.139 --> 00:17:27.390 And in the '60s, it was gluing mirrors onto a rubber membrane on a speaker 00:17:27.414 --> 00:17:28.595 to make a light show. 00:17:28.619 --> 00:17:30.841 That was, like, we considered that super cool. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:30.865 --> 00:17:31.871 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:17:31.895 --> 00:17:33.392 CA: Is it unrealistic for them 00:17:33.416 --> 00:17:38.156 to hope or think that that child loves them, as some might, as most, wish? NOTE Paragraph 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:40.414 TG: Well, I tell you, that child will be loyal, 00:17:40.438 --> 00:17:43.813 and if your house is burning down, they're going to get you out of it. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:43.837 --> 00:17:47.496 CA: Wow. So most people, if you ask them what they're most passionate about, 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:50.368 they'd say things like, "My kids" or "My lover." 00:17:51.010 --> 00:17:52.762 What are you most passionate about? NOTE Paragraph 00:17:52.786 --> 00:17:55.817 TG: I'm passionate about that the things I do 00:17:55.841 --> 00:17:57.878 are going to make the world a better place. 00:17:57.902 --> 00:18:00.124 When I have a mother of an autistic child say, 00:18:00.148 --> 00:18:02.210 "My kid went to college because of your book 00:18:02.234 --> 00:18:03.434 or one of your lectures," 00:18:03.458 --> 00:18:04.609 that makes me happy. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:04.633 --> 00:18:07.346 You know, the slaughter plants I worked with in the '80s; 00:18:07.370 --> 00:18:08.687 they were absolutely awful. 00:18:08.711 --> 00:18:11.987 I developed a really simple scoring system for slaughter plants, 00:18:12.011 --> 00:18:13.563 where you just measure outcomes: 00:18:13.587 --> 00:18:14.829 How many cattle fell down? 00:18:14.853 --> 00:18:16.601 How many got poked with the prodder? 00:18:16.625 --> 00:18:18.656 How many cattle are mooing their heads off? 00:18:19.018 --> 00:18:20.352 And it's very, very simple. 00:18:20.376 --> 00:18:22.353 You directly observe a few simple things. 00:18:22.377 --> 00:18:23.541 It's worked really well. 00:18:23.565 --> 00:18:25.904 I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff 00:18:25.928 --> 00:18:28.648 that makes real change in the real world. 00:18:28.672 --> 00:18:31.421 We need a lot more of that, and a lot less abstract stuff. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:31.445 --> 00:18:32.596 CA: Totally. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:32.620 --> 00:18:37.703 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:18:37.727 --> 00:18:40.826 CA: When we were talking on the phone, one of the things you said 00:18:40.850 --> 00:18:42.052 that really astonished me 00:18:42.076 --> 00:18:45.237 was that one thing you were passionate about was server farms. 00:18:45.843 --> 00:18:46.994 Tell me about that. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:47.018 --> 00:18:50.395 TG: Well, the reason why I got really excited when I read about that, 00:18:50.419 --> 00:18:52.075 it contains knowledge. 00:18:52.099 --> 00:18:53.757 It's libraries. 00:18:53.781 --> 00:18:57.300 And to me, knowledge is something that is extremely valuable. 00:18:57.324 --> 00:19:00.440 So, maybe over 10 years ago now, our library got flooded. 00:19:00.464 --> 00:19:02.515 This is before the Internet got really big. 00:19:02.539 --> 00:19:05.220 And I was really upset about all the books being wrecked, 00:19:05.244 --> 00:19:07.220 because it was knowledge being destroyed. 00:19:07.244 --> 00:19:11.657 And server farms, or data centers, are great libraries of knowledge. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:11.681 --> 00:19:12.972 CA: Temple, can I just say, 00:19:12.996 --> 00:19:15.082 it's an absolute delight to have you at TED. 00:19:15.106 --> 00:19:16.257 Thank you so much. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:16.281 --> 00:19:18.176 TG: Well, thank you so much. Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:23.436 (Applause)