Athens State University is pleased to welcome Dr. Temple Grandin, Autism Self-Advocate and Animal Scientist, to campus for “An Evening with Temple Grandin” on January 13 at 7:00 pm in Carter Gymnasium. The program is featured as part of Athens State’s Athens Forever Bicentennial Series of Events.
Dr. Grandin is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. As a prominent author and speaker on autism and animal behavior, she inspires and motivates others through her own story. Until she began to talk at three-and-a-half years old, Dr. Grandin communicated her frustration by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She recounts “groping her way from the far side of darkness” in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book that stunned the world because until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.
Even though she was considered “weird” in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States and has consulted for firms such as Burger King, McDonald’s, Swift, and others.
Dr. Temple Grandin currently works as a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling.
Her current best-selling book on autism is The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s. She also authored Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships; Animals Make Us Human; Animals in Translation; Thinking in Pictures; and Emergence: Labeled Autistic.
This event is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required. For more information, please visit www.athens.edu/templegrandin.