Temple Grandin's Animals In Translation

In the book Animals In Translation by Temple Grandin has two overall messages. One of these overall messages is the idea of the why people with autism function, the next message is that animals need to be treated humanely and ethically. Temple Grandin starts off the book by explain how she came about this idea that people with autism think in pictures rather than in words. She explains how when she was younger she went to a special school where they had animals and everyday she would go out to the animals and she would spend hours with them just thinking how they were thinking. In the book Grandin said that she literally had to be drug back inside. One day her parents had bought her a saddle and she was so excited but the horses they had were not very nice. She got on one of the horses and it had bucked her off, and she thought about why the animal would do that. She realized that the animal was scared because they other children weren’t always nice to them so she got on the horse's level and started to identify all the things that would scare her if she was a horse. This is …show more content…
The words that are said are like a language she doesn’t understand, but when she puts these pictures together of the things that she has seen they become like a movie to her. So when she is spoken to the words and translated into pictures that she visualizes as picture that are “stored” in her mind. Every image she see she makes into a memory that she can bring into use when something is said that is relevant to that picture. Having this ability she says gives her the gift to think like an animal. Being a visual thinker allows her to see all the things that frighten an animal such as shadows, bright lights, dark places, loud noises, people walking around, and things that may be flapping in the