Temple Grandin: Overcoming Autism

Reviewed by Jeanne

I watched the Emmy Awards a few weeks ago and discovered one of the nominees was a film about Temple Grandin called (fittingly) “Temple Grandin.” I’d heard about Grandin for years and had read parts of her books as well as the essay by Oliver Sacks, “An Anthropologist on Mars”—a phrase which summed up the way Temple felt about living among non-autistic people. She took notes on how others behaved, observed their actions, but somehow couldn’t interact with people as others did. She was one of the first autistic persons to be able to express what it is to be autistic and certainly one of the first to achieve a high level of social integration. When Temple was diagnosed back in the 50s, the suggestion was that she be institutionalized. It was believed that she could not learn anything, much less go to school and on to college. If it hadn’t been for her mother’s fierce determination that Temple could learn, could achieve, and could be independent, her fate would have been far different.

There were other mentors along the way, most notably a teacher who encouraged her interest in science and her aunt and uncle who owned a ranch. It was there that Temple found a connection to animals that was to set her life on course for a successful career in animal sciences.

But ultimately, Temple is the hero of her own life. Time after time, she picked herself up and tried again. In some ways her autism became an asset as she tried to move into the male dominated world of cattle ranching and slaughterhouses: she didn’t always realize how the men were mocking her or setting her up for failure.


Having an amazing story to tell doesn’t always translate into a good movie, however. The main character is a person most of us wouldn’t warm up to immediately. Temple is abrupt, both in her speech and movements; she doesn’t make eye contact; she’s very blunt, even abrasive. Her mind works differently from most. To make things more difficult, she works in an industry most people would find upsetting: the meat industry, where animals are taken to slaughter. These are hardly the ingredients for a successful film.

Remarkably, the filmmakers have overcome these difficulties while remaining true to the facts. Claire Danes does a magnificent job of portraying Temple, showing her tantrums born of frustration, her extreme awkwardness with people and her many idiosyncrasies while making her a sympathetic character. While we may not be able to fully relate to the way she sees the world, we can still root for her to succeed. The supporting cast is also fine, from Julia Ormond as Temple’s mother, Catherine O’Hara as Aunt Anne, and David Strathairn as Professor Carlock. The filmmakers also tried to show us how Temple thinks and why she sometimes reacts the way she does: it’s an amazing effort to let the viewer inside the head of an autistic person.

The movie was so intriguing that I did something I don’t often do: I decided to watch the commentary track. Most such tracks are fairly boring, I’ve found. I don’t really care about the lighting or that an extra walked through the scene incorrectly, and things I did want to know weren’t addressed. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement! This is one commentary track that really does illuminate and enlighten. Temple herself does the bulk of the talking, explaining what we were seeing, what was really happening at the time and even correcting a few liberties the writers had taken with her story. I found out what had happened to a couple of the characters in real life.

“Temple Grandin” won an armload of awards, including “Best Made for TV Movie” and “Best Actress.” It deserved every one of them.

The library owns the DVD version of “Temple Grandin” (DVD TEM Main) as well as a number of books by Dr. Grandin:

Emergence: Labeled Autistic (616.89 GRA Main) was Temple’s first book. It remains a milestone in the study of autism as being one of the first books by a severely autistic person trying to describe what it is like to be autistic.

Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports from my Life with Autism (616.89 GRA Main) is her second book, and she tries to explain further about sensory differences as well as the way in which autistics process information. She also discusses the relationship between humans and animals.

Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals (636.0832 GRA Main & Avoca; CD 636.0832 GRA Main) is Grandin’s look at the relationship between human and animals. Unlike most books which limit themselves to companion animals, Grandin look at animals we use as food sources or for labor as well. She challenges some conventional wisdom about animals, making us re-evaluate some assumptions. She also has some tips and ideas on interpreting behavior and training animals.

Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (591.5 GRA Avoca) is a reflection of Grandin’s belief that animals think in pictures much as autistic people do. She uses examples from her own research to bolster and explain how animals perceive the world, and gives readers some insight on how to see the world as animals do.