bad opinion on temple grandin

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hi.
i read here alot but only now signed up. i have seen lots of videos of temple grandin. and today i saw the one on this forum.

i just want to know if anyone else thinks she's a bit wrong when she says some things about aspies. like gives them too much credit.

she always talks about famous people like einstein as if she knows they were aspies. but nobody really knows. it is wrong of her to spread rumour as fact.

same as when she talks about how aspies MUST have been the ones who invented hunting tools in caveman times because NT people are just too unrefined to come up with those kind of things.

it is ridiculous. for centuries non aspies have been coming up with many ideas and great inventions, i'm sure it was the same way in caveman times.

i just think she puts aspergers on a pedastal. i mean i'm all for being positive, but i still think you should keep it real and not just spread fantasy about what geniuses MIGHT have been aspie or what great inventions MIGHT have been designed by an aspie.

if she spoke about it as if it were a possibility i wouldn't care, but she speaks as if it is FACT and she could not possible know.

is everyone else cool with this?? do you guys just like that she's making aspies seem really special?? or do you think she might be going a bit overboard too??

whenever i see her in a video this is what i end up thinking and i wish she would shutup and not speak for the AS community.

A lot of people say Einstein and Newton are aspies or autistic. It doesn't bother me much.

yes but just because alot of people like to say it does not make it a fact so they shouldn't pretend that it is. and when people do pretend that it is it should really not be included in documentaries where people are after accurate information only.

I agree, a positive attitude is all well and good but distorting truth is going too far.

I didn't like it either for one reason: people then expect TOO MUCH out of me. When I told someone recently that I had autism (as a means of explaining why i prefer email interviews as opposed to telephone calls), they said "ohh... so you're like really talented at something, right? can you play the guitar? can you draw?" Geesh. I can't do any of that stuff. I have no great savant abilities and only about 1% of those with autism also have savant abilities.

When she (Grandin) points to Einstein or anyone else in that category (especially smart), it makes me feel worse because I am *not* and also, too, it takes away from those who truly are especially smart by commonizing it. Does that make sense?

I do not like it when *anyone* speaks as if something is fact when it is an opinion, but that's not limited to things regarding autistic qualities. That's throughout anything.

nice that i am not the only one who has these sort of thoughts.

and heatherbabes i hate when people use opinion like it's fact no matter what the situation as well. but i think it bothers me more with autism cause like you said it makes people think incorrectly about you/your condition.

you know what they say ... "When you've met one person with autism.... you've met one person with autism"

It's because autism is a spectrum, it affects personality, it is neurological.. SO with all those filters it will be expressed (manifested) differently for EACH individual. Period. Simple. Not that complicated to comprehend. Wish the rest of the world would get it

I guess it's a war of perceptions. Because some groups like Autism Speaks present a very negative view of autism, based on exaggeration and speculation, others on the autistic side may emphasize positive aspects, even if some of that is based partly on speculation and not on hard evidence.

I'd be unwilling to do Temple Grandin down, personally. She's done a lot for us as a community, even if some people have a problem with the specifics of the arguments she uses.

I think as things move forward people are becoming more careful in presenting savant or gifted abilities as part a wider context of diversity amongst us. A really good example of that is a recent documentary on Stephen Wiltshire, the autistic savant artist. Both the narrator, and two interviewees, pointed out that this is a rare gift and that other people with autism do not have such a gift that would enable them to succeed to his extent in the NT world. The director had obviously taken pains to get this point across, and although parts of the documentary featured interviewees who were still a bit patronizing, it was a comparatively well considered piece, coming from NT film-makers.

I agree with what you're all saying here though. Savants make great "human interest" stories of the kind the media are interested in. It's more unusual to find depictions of the experiences of average autistic people, because I guess we don't make very interesting TV. The BBC have made a fly-on-the-wall documentary about life for everyday autistic people, but that's the only one I know of.

If we're talking about a "re-education" project, it would be an awesome challenge for a film-maker to do perfectly.... but it's not impossible. It would be hard to balance an accurate portrayal of our obvious social difficulties and at the same time, show the skills that we have that are often wasted, but without exaggerating the case either way... and still make it interesting to watch from an NT angle. Let alone making sure the film emphasized our individuality within the spectrum.... all in the space of half an hour!! I know Alex the site developer is into making movies, and I know there are others out there who could contribute to that kind of project. Would be great to see it happen.

you have to also remember that just because someone has savant abilities that does NOT automatically mean they are also autistic. Just like not all autistic people are savants. They are two separate things, really.

And there's no reason why it should bother you, unless they're saying that everyone like Einstein and Newton must have been Aspies.

Temple Grandin is first and foremost an animal behaviorist and she is fascinating on that subject. Her experience with autism is personal and of course is going to be presented through that perspective. Of course she knows quite a bit about it, but she is not necessarily an expert. I respect her a lot but one thing she said in "Animals in Translation" that made me go was she said she didn't have a sub-conscious. How would she know?

Though I don't really believe the speculative armchair diagnoses being thrown around (e.g. Newton, Bill Gates, Einstein), there are enough remarkable people who have as far as I'm aware have actually been diagnosed. I mean, Richard Borcherds is certainly good enough for me.

about the savant thing in general. i don't really believe aspies can be savants. i believe people with aspergers who have savant like abilities would have these abilities if they did not have aspergers. the only thing that may be different is that they might become better at these abilities because of the obsessional focus that having aspergers offers.

the term savant is supposed be reserved for those people who have almost a complete inability to function in society but can perform a certain difficult task extremely well. that's why the term used to be idiot-savant. aspergers people with gifts are the same as neurotypical people with gifts. (please don't spout off daniel tammet references to me i have whole other ideas about him and his brain injury which may have caused his ability as brain injuries have been known to do for many years now).

i think alot of people that are aspies would like to believe some of their skills are savant like because it sounds very special and impressive. but if you look at the facts, you can't realistically be an aspie and a savant, it does not compute.

I've heard the one about aspies inventing the caveman tools too. It annoys me a lot when respected lecturers start spouting mush like this; there's no actual basis and it's almost as if we are not worth existing in our own rights.

When they dissected Einstein's brain the neurological structure resembled someone with autism.

Resembled someone with autism? Then why did the psychologist heap test upon test on me rather than just xray my brain?