Temple Grandin spoke at the Google office in Colorado and was video recorded for the Authors@Google program--Google shows the videos of book author talks on YouTube for free online viewing by the public. This talk was recorded on December 2, 2008.
Although the lecture is labeled as being a lecture for her book tour for the book being released on January 6, 2009 "Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals", I have watched this video and can report that it doesn't seem that the content of the new book is in this exact lecture. (That book was released today and I have not read it yet but the book description does not match the content of this online talk.)
Tonight I had planned to attend her live lecture in Westport Connecticut but snow, rain and freezing temperatures with predicted icy driving conditions are keeping me from attending. Tonight's lecture at the Westport Barnes & Noble is the first stop on her national book tour to promote her new book "Animals Make Us Human".
Topics touched upon in this lecture off the top of my head are-- (not in order and not complete---
Brief explanation of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome
Sensory issues in all types of people and how the workplace can negatively affect some workers and how some accommodations can be made
Mentioned visual processing disorders at 16:00
Referred people to read a book "Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Extraordinary Autistic Savant" by Daniel Tammet, for educators especially to read.
Worried of the mindset of today's educators regarding children on the Spectrum (39:00 mark)
Some people use Irlen lens glasses with success (colored lenses) (about 17:00 mark)
About visual thinking in general
How Temple Grandin thinks and how information is filed in her mind
Early intervention of Autism Spectrum disorders is vitally important
Autistic kids should not just be allowed to watch TV
Teens with Autism are not being taught job skills and are instead being guided toward being on disability as adults
How to interact with co-workers or subordinates in the workplace who are on the Spectrum including Asperger's even if the worker has never told anyone they have the diagnosis
How people on the Spectrum can get around poor social skills in an interview for a job
Temple Grandin's story of dip vats and cattle and how she came to think of her invention for the cattle chute
How she acted as a child before her diagnosis and what her early treatment was (note this was discussed at length in her book "The Way I See It")
Who her mentors were and how they influenced her
That teens with Asperger's that are being teased and bullied in school might look to enroll into community college instead of only taking high school classes.
Her belief that Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla were on the Autism Spectrum and their discoveries were important and due to their condition and worries that if they were born today and went through the American system would they have been changed or thwarted from realizing their potential?
Said near the end that her concern right now is that the American education system is not training kids on the Spectrum to be able to work as adults. Said Asperger kids graduating from college and never even mowed a lawn in their life. Referred to the fact that kids not working outside the home is not helping them in adult years when they are supposed to go into the workforce.
At the end she discusses building education on the child's fixations and obsessions by connecting real life meaning to the narrow interest. She said first give formal instruction through classes and direct teaching although the class attendance may not be desired it will teach 'discipline of learning in order to learn how to work in the workplace", then find a mentor who knows about that field and can connect school type learning to real life work, then the child's interest will spark. After the child is more curious and open to learning let them take off with buying books and materials to learn niche topics and even more obscure things like how to access technical information by teaching them to research in certain journals. The child (or teen) can then teach themselves and expand their knowledge, grown and broaden their horizons. She said children on the Spectrum often have to be pushed by the adults in their lives to do things they don't want to do and they should "drag them out" to do new things, take classes and such. Prior to this there was a discussion of how often kids on the Spectrum resist change or fear new ventures and instead would like to obsess on video game playing. Grandin urged parents to push the kids and not let them seclude themselves in fun games (I used my own terms but that is what she meant). Regarding where to find mentors she said to look to people who are now retired who worked in those careers like engineering.
She said she looked into the backgrounds of successful Silicon Valley computer people and they all had mentors in their lives to bridge school experiences to what they wound up doing for a life passion (computer field). I could be wrong but I felt the gist was the kids were not just making a transition from school to a successful career that they had to be pushed by their parents to do some things in life and that the mentors in their field of interest were pivotal to their successful careers in adulthood.
This idea of mentors and using obsessions was discussed in her 2008 book "The Way I See It" which I reviewed here.
Lastly I want to mention that this way of teaching, making larger connections, building upon interests of the child is very similar to what many homeschoolers do, including those who call themselves "unschoolers" and those doing "unit studies". So homeschoolers are already doing some of these type of learning experiences with kids both on the Spectrum and not on the Spectrum. Many teens who are homeschooled also attend community college prior to age 18, some in my area are as young as 12 when they first enroll.
She also mentioned HBO is making a movie about her right now!
The lecture is the first 19 minutes. The question and answer session runs from 19:00 to the end (about 53:00).
Book Notes---
Temple Grandin's latest book on animals released January 2009
Temple Grandin's latest book on Autism and Asperger's released in 2008 (read my book review here)
Temple Grandin's book about visual thinking is excellent--"Thinking in Pictures". (I read it and was moved by it but have not published a book review of it or I'd link to it.)
"Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet. Now I want to read this!
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