Re: Guest Speakers? Temple Grandin?
Under the category of the Weird and/or Wonderful People. Maybe we could extend an invitation to Temple Grandin, she seems to be one of us in her own unique way(?)
below are a couple of youtube links to videos as well as a short bio...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgEAhMEgGOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ycu3JFRrA
Grandin was diagnosed as autistic in 1950. Having been labeled and diagnosed with brain damage at age two, she was placed in a structured nursery school with what she considers to have been good teachers. Grandin's mother spoke to a doctor who suggested speech therapy, and she hired a nanny who spent hours playing turn-based games with Grandin and her sister.
At age four, Grandin began talking, and she began making progress. She considers herself lucky to have had supporting mentors from primary school onwards. However, Grandin has said that middle school and high school were the worst parts of her life. She was the "nerdy kid" the one that everyone teased and picked on. She would be walking down the street and people would say "tape recorder", because she would repeat things over and over again. Grandin states that "I could laugh about it now, but back then it really hurt."
After completing her schooling in the 1960s, attending the Hampshire Country School in Rindge, New Hampshire, Grandin went on to college. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College (also located in Rindge) in 1970, her master's degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975, and her PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.
[edit]Career, celebrity, advocacy
Grandin became well known after being described by Oliver Sacks in the title narrative of his book, An Anthropologist on Mars; the title is derived from Grandin's description of how she feels around 'neurotypical' people. Grandin has also been featured on major television programs, such as ABC's Primetime Live, the Today Show, and Larry King Live, and written up in Time magazine, People magazine, Forbes, and The New York Times.[1] She was the subject of the Horizon documentary "The Woman Who Thinks Like A Cow", first broadcast by the BBC on June 8, 2006 and Nick News in the spring of 2006.[2] She has also been a subject in the series First Person made by Errol Morris. She is the focus of a semi-biographical HBO film, currently titled Temple Grandin Thinking in Pictures, starring Claire Danes as Grandin. The film is slated for release in 2009.[3]
jk
(I'm no expert)
