Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison and other renowned innovative minds were probably on the autism spectrum and would be in special education programs in today’s school system, autism advocate Temple Grandin said Thursday in a speech before a packed ballroom at The Mill Conference Center in Starkville.
Thomas Edison learned how to work at a young age, Grandin said, and children with autism can lay the groundwork for success in life by learning to “do a task, outside the home, on a schedule, where someone else is the boss” by the age of 11 or 12.
Grandin, 72, is one of the first people on the autism spectrum to share her personal experiences of autism with the public. She was the keynote speaker at Mississippi’s fifth annual Creating Your Own Path: Successful Transitions For Persons with Autism.
A “transition” in the autism community usually means from childhood to adulthood, but the conference seeks to address all transitions across an entire lifespan, said Pam Dollar, executive director of the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities.
“If it’s transitioning from the classroom to the lunchroom, or from elementary to middle school, or from school to college or a job or whatever, new things are hard for them,” said Dollar, whose 28-year-old son is on the autism spectrum. “Because of the sensory issues they deal with, when you have a new environment or situation, (they’re) dealing with the unknown.”
The Mississippi Statewide Autism Training Initiative hosts the daylong conference that also features small group discussions on a variety of topics of education for people with autism and their family members. The initiative began in 2012 and is a partnership between the state Department of Mental Health and the Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities.
Dollar is a member of a task force that provides free training all over the state for anyone who is looking for “a good foundational knowledge around autism,” she said.
Fostering skills
In addition to being internationally known for autism advocacy, Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and an animal behavior consultant to the livestock industry.
“Students get interested in stuff they get exposed to,” Grandin said in her speech. “I got into the cattle industry as a person from a non-ag background because I went out into my aunt’s ranch and I got exposed to beef cattle at age 15 and I was cleaning horse stalls at about the same age.”
The 2010 film “Temple Grandin” is based on two of her books about living with autism and depicts her work in the 1960s and 1970s to make the handling of livestock more humane.
She has no working memory, so any task involving a sequence initially requires a checklist because “long strings of verbal information do not work, period,” she said.
People with autism can be verbal, visual or mathematical thinkers, and each have different skill sets that families and educators can foster if they try, Grandin said.
Kimberly Sellers and Barbara Harrell, both high school special education teachers, drove to Starkville from Houston, Texas to hear Grandin speak and wait in line at her book signing after the speech. Many of their students with autism do not have hands-on jobs like the ones Grandin described, they both said.
“We’re trying to gain knowledge to go back and share with our community,” Sellers said.
Grandin emphasized helping students with autism become lifelong learners, and that should be the goal beyond just helping them pass tests, Harrell said.
The conference has not had many out-of-state attendees in years past, Dollar said, but “Temple is a big draw.”
When Dollar’s son was diagnosed with autism 26 years ago, much of the published information about the disorder focused on intellectual disability and possible institutionalization, she said.
“It was a really, really bleak picture that was being painted, and this was coming from national organizations,” Dollar said.
She started reading individual success stories, including Grandin’s book “Emergence: Labeled Autistic,” to find reassurance.
“It was very encouraging to me, and it gave me hope for my son,” Dollar said. “Hers was one of the stories that made me realize that the future’s not as grim as some were reporting at that time.”
Hands-on learning
Grandin said she hoped her speech gave the audience practical ways for people with autism to be successful. She recalled working with people in the livestock industry who made a living in skilled trades, and many of them had disorders like autism, dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she said.
“I think one of the worst things that schools have done is take hands-on classes out (of the curriculum),” Grandin said. “This starts with kids using scissors to make paper snowflakes. Kids are just not doing hands-on things. It teaches practical problem-solving skills.”
Retaining and bringing back classes such as woodworking, welding, art, cooking and music should happen one school at a time, not as a result of structural change, she said.
People tend to expect a person with autism to be unable to do certain things, she said. But that’s the wrong way to view the situation.
“We’ve got to start looking at what people can do,” Grandin said. “I really like what Stephen Hawking had to say. He basically said ‘Concentrate on the things your disability does not prevent you from doing well.'”
Sumrall native Taylor Carley, 26, said he appreciated Grandin’s focus on what people with autism can and should do in order to thrive. His high school teachers did not give him hands-on activities, and the only career options he seemed to have were construction and fast food jobs. He had reached “the cliff,” which Grandin mentioned in her speech, the lack of resources for people with autism after they finish high school.
The Institute for Disability Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi provided those options, and Carley now works for IDS and was in charge of its booth at the conference. People with autism need skills and resources to become self-sufficient, he said.
“Even though you need family and friends’ support, having independence makes you feel like you’re on top of the world and you’re your own individual,” Carley said.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.