Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89820092
EAN num: 9780679772897
ISBN number: 0679772898
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: October 29, 1996
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: October 29, 1996
Sale Popularity Level: 63821
Studio: Vintage
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Product Description:
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism because she is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin writes from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person. She tells us how she managed to breach the boundaries of autism to function in the outside world. What emerges is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who gracefully bridges the gulf between her condition and our own while shedding light on our common identity.
'There are innumerable astounding facets to this remarkable book...Displaying uncanny powers of observation...[Temple Grandin] charts the differences between her life and the lives of those who think in words.'--Philadelphia Inquirer
Amazon.com Review:
Oliver Sacks calls Temple Grandin's very first book--and the very first picture of autism from the inside--'quite extraordinary, unprecedented and, in a way, unthinkable.' Sacks told part of her story in his An Anthropologist on Mars, and in Thinking in Pictures Grandin returns to tell her life history with great depth, insight, and feeling. Grandin told Sacks, 'I don't want my thoughts to die with me. I want to have done something ... I want to know that my life has meaning ... I'm talking about things at the very core of my existence.' Grandin's clear exposition of what it is like to 'think in pictures' is immensely mind-broadening and basically destroys a whole school of philosophy (the one that declares language necessary for thought). Grandin, who feels she can 'see through a cow's eyes,' is an influential designer of slaughterhouses and livestock restraint systems. She has great insight into human-animal relations. It would be mere justice if Thinking in Pictures transforms the study of religious feeling, too.
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Rated by buyers 
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This book I had to read for a class, but it really did open my eyes about autism and how people with autism function. It is not a "fun" read, but very informative and enlightening.
Rated by buyers 
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thank you. temple. for the priviledge to commuicate. it was an honor reading ALL your books, especially when it's about animals. i'm in love with horses, cows , etc too!
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Although I have read a number of very interesting and informative (biographies and auto-biographies) books about autism before I picked up Ms. Grandin's book -- I never beheld the WHOLE picture regarding Autism, nor did I see the WHOLE scope of possibilities out there for autistic individuals -- until I read this particular book.
Temple Grandin - you are to be commended for your tenacity, confidence and will power, surviging and prospering and going forward, in the face of great odds. My kudos to your Mom as well!!
Not only were the passages about the "Doors" highly intereseting, but the chapters about the physiology of the autistic brain and nervous system, and Medications and their uses should be required reading for all Interns, Psychoanalists, Psychiatrists and those (including Teachers) who counsel and work with autistic individuals.
Although I found a FEW generalizations about modes of thinking and creativity that Temple appeared to exclusively ascribe to autisic or asbergian individuals, some of what she indicated left ME wondering about myself .... and especially my mathematical genius sister.........
And as for the inference in this book (from quotes) that if all the recessive genes were eventually kept from being passed on to the subsequent generation, it would then indeed become a sad sorry world full of unimaginative, unemotional people... I tend to agree with that!!!!
This book, "Thinking in Pictures", if consulted and referred to by the medical and counseling profession would, IMHO bring to many previously given-up-for-lost Autistic and Asbergian individuals, children OR adults -- the PROMISE of a MUCH MORE successful life as a functioning individual whose talents CAN and WILL be recognized AND utilized. It would also take a HUGE load off these individuals' parents or guardians, who would then be much more able to work with their children/wards with far less personal anguish on both sides.
AND -- Thank you Temple for not only writing this incredible book, but for doing so much for promoting and creating a safer and more humane method of handling animals in slaughterhouses.
Rated by buyers 
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Yes, it is remarkable that an autistic person has written a book about autism and how autistic people see the world and process information.
But that's the only thing that makes it remarkable - if the book were written by a non-autistic person, it wouldn't have found a publisher, at least not without some serious editing. The subject is highly interesting, and the ideas in the book are really thought-provoking, and it's too bad that as a reader I found it hard to get really engaged in the book. It is sometimes rambling, with choppy sentences, and frequently highly repetitive -- sentences that are almost the same are repeated, ideas are restated over and over. It got to the point that I felt while the book could have been condensed into a fascinating article, as a book it was frustrating and bloated, and needed a good editor to prune it by at least a third. Maybe the stilted prose and repetition are meant to provide a valid simulation of how an autistic person actually speaks, but it doesn't make a book readable to the rest of us.
Don't get me wrong, I think Temple Grandin is an amazingly successful person and she should be commended for sharing her world and knowledge with us. I just wish the quality of the final published version had been better - she deserves it.
Rated by buyers -
As you would expect from a book subtitled And Other Reports From My Life with Autism, Temple Grandin gives us a fascinating inside view of what it's like to be autistic. What you might not expect is how deftly she weaves neuroscience, animal behavior, humane practices in America's animal processing facilities, biochemistry, and even religion into this bestseller.
In contrast to the "experts" who tell us that there can be no true thinking or tool building without language, she's here to tell us that her visual, computer-like method of solving problems and getting along in the world are just as valid as any language-based solutions. Inspired by the opening lines of the Lord's Prayer, for example, she explains that she grew up with a very clear image of God working at an easel.
What's not obvious from the title is that she holds a Ph.D. in animal science and has designed one third of all the livestock handling facilities in the United States. Sometimes her beliefs about her charges' thoughts and feelings would appear hard to confirm. However, when she applies her ideas to the many facilities she has designed, the animals become calmer and step through their paces more easily. Some readers may find her more gruesome slaughterhouse experiences hard to stomach. But she seems to be stressing the vast improvements she has made rather than trying to gross out her audience.
Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and often insightful, Thinking in Pictures is a treasure for anyone who wants to learn more about these topics.
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