Our World: Temple Grandin: different, but not less

TEMPLE

GRANDIN

Hi friends!! A couple weeks ago I saw a WONDERFULL film called Temple Grandin, I just fell in love with this masterpiece...

This film tells the amazing biography of a woman with autism named Mary Temple Grandin, who I didn't know before watching the movie, but, now, after seeing the film and searching for some information about her amazing life, I consider an idol to follow.

-PLOT-

As a child, Temple (Claire Danes) was an uncommunicative girl, she didn't want people to hug her or touch her and she also was prone to tantrums. When her mother, worried, brang her to the doctor, Temple was diagnosed with autism: a illness seeing, at that time, like a kind of schizophrenia resulting from insufficient maternal affection.

Her mother, hurt by thinking that was her fault that her daughter had autism, refused to believe that she wouldn't speak and never be part of the society. So, she decided to help her daughter as much as she could. (At age of 3, Temple knew hot to speak thanks to her mother's help).

As a teenager, Temple traveled to her aunt and uncle's ranch to work in summer. There, she observes the cows being placed into a squeeze chute to calm them, to her, it seems really interesting.

There, during an anxiety attack, she uses the machine for cows to calm herself.

Doing this, she discovered a new method to calm herself during stressful situations: her hugs machine. Although autistic people don't support the contact with people, that doesn't mean that they do not like hugs, therefore, Temple looked like an "escape" her machine; it gave hugs but without beeing a person.

When her mother went to the ranch to brings her to college, Temple refuses her idea. She wanted to stay with cows, with her machine.

Temple doing her study

Temple's machine

However, Temple went to college inspired by her teacher, Dr. Carlock, where

she develops a version of the ranch's machine.

Despite all the problems that emerge when they discovered it (Her college misinterprets the use of the machine as a sexual act and forces her to remove it), she get to keep it after doing a study, exploiting all his amazing knowledge, that scientifically explained that the machine actually was a purely therapeutic device.

Finally, Temple graduates with a degree in psychology and pursues a master's degree in animal science.

Temple seeing cows

Temple decided that her future was in the world of cattle ranching.

Unfortunately, while she tried to intregated in there, she faces the sexism of the time and the inability of people to understand her illness.

Temple, by observing the cows' behavior, started looking for a way to improve a structure used to lead cows to an antiparasitic bathroom. The men of that place didn't understand its design, her point of view. Still, she gets it through.

When it was constructed, the workers considered it a stupid way to waste time and they modified it, causing the drowning of some cows. Temple became furious, but she got fix her design, which started to be considered a masterpiece by a cattle magazine.

She began to be respected and to had success.

In the last scene of the film, we can see Temple with his mother at a conference of autism, where she, to the astonishment of all, confesses to being autistic and have been very lucky in having his mother...

Take a look:

-KNOW MORE ABOUT HER-

"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect."

—Temple Grandin

Do you want to know more about Temple?

Well, don't worry, here it is:

-She was born August 29 (1947).

-Although, she is known by beeing a livestock industry consultancy and an autism rights activism, actually, she also is an American professor of animal science at Colorado State University and she has written a lot of books, that has become into best-selling.

-"The part of other people that has emotional relationonships isn't part of me" she said.

So, she hasn't married or has children.

-Temple also has her own web site about autism, where you can find some interesting information about it. http://www.templegrandin.com/

-Temple decided to study psychology and specialize in animal behavior because of her close relationship with animals. In adolescence, part of her therapy consisted of riding and take care of horses. Soon, she found that they also had emotional problems, which inspired her to devote her life to improving animal welfare.

-Talking about her hug machine, I can say that it's real. Temple inveted it whit 18 years old. It helps her to understand better people's feelings and, when she built it, the machine encouraged her to go to college. Temple spent a long time using it, until, in February 2010, she said:"It broke two years ago, and I never got around to fixing it. I'm into hugging people now."