Dr. Temple Grandin was born August 29, 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Grandin is widely known as a spokesperson on autism as well as a prominent consultant for the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter. During her childhood, Grandin was diagnosed with various conditions, however when her mother came upon a paper written by a renowned psychologist, she discovered her daughter’s symptoms were those of autism. The official diagnosis of autism wasn’t received until Dr. Grandin’s was in her 40’s. She is one of the first individuals to publicly share her knowledge on living with autism. Grandin received her Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College and went on to earn a Master’s degree in animal science from Arizona State and her Doctoral degree from University of Illinois in 1989. She has designed livestock handling facilities which facilitate reduction of stress for the animals as they are being transported to slaughter houses. Dr. Grandin has been on many television shows and wrote many articles and books on the topic of humane handling of livestock. Her experiences of living with autism she shared in a book entitled “Thinking in Pictures.” Her life story has been made into a movie titled” Temple Grandin” starring Clair Danes. Her work has received many awards, far too many to list here. In 2016 Dr. Grandin was inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Additional information about this extraordinary woman may be found at the following websites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin
http://www.grandin.com/
http://www.grandin.com/temple.html