Mallori King wasn't sure what to expect from the guest speaker at this year's Virginia Wesleyan College Convocation on Thursday.

She knew Temple Grandin had a doctorate and had published a few books - one of which she'd read in a psychology course.

She also knew Grandin was autistic. That made her nervous.

King asked herself: Will I be able to understand her? Will she understand me?

Grandin's talk is the first of a series of presentations to Wesleyan freshm en this year examining the question "What is normal?" The seminar is meant to prompt larger questions about what it means to think like a human, and how preconceptions about "normal thinking" can turn into roadblocks.

Speaking to hundreds of students, faculty and staff, Grandin challenged them to think differently - something that has distinguished her from peers all of her life.

She was diagnosed with autism - a brain development disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication - when she was a toddler.

By age 3, she had not uttered a word and her parents were advised to put her in an institution.

Today, she teaches animal science at Colorado State University and specializes in the humane design of farms, corrals and slaughterhouses.

"My mind works like Google Images. If I don't see a picture, I don't have a thought," Grandin told the crowd. "That helps me with animals because in order to understand animals, you have to get away from language."

Animals think in pictures, by smells and through feeling, she said.

"There's a whole world where language just isn't part of it."

Grandin worries that today's students aren't developing the critical-thinking skills they need.

She shared a story from one of her own classes, in which she quizzed students studying livestock on the proper feed for cattle.

A computer in the classroom said to feed the cattle 50 percent salt.

All the students agreed.

"How can you feed anything 50 percent salt?" Grandin asked in amazement. "That's just stupid - it would kill the cattle. Just because the computer said it, they believed it. They didn't think."

Part of the reason that students lack these skills, she argued, is because high schools are taking hands-on courses - art, wood shop, auto mechanics, welding - out of the curriculum. These are courses that let students experiment and "figure stuff out."

After Grandin's lecture, King and a handful of other students got to chat with her in the campus dining room. King found herself taking notes on Grandin's words of wisdom.

"You have to make a portfolio of your work," Grandin told them.

"People thought I was weird at first. But when I pulled out my drawings, their opinion of me changed."

After the students shared their career goals with Grandin - one wants to be a sociologist and another, an environmental scientist - she told them to keep their options open.

To read more....

© AutismFamilyOnline.com