An animal’s memory is not in words, they’ve got to be in pictures – it’s very detailed so let’s say the animal gets afraid of something. Like, for example you beat the dog up and they're looking at you and your Nike shoes or any sneaker or anything like a Nike, he's likely to be afraid of that - so anything without that Nike wingtip, he's likely to be fine. If you think about it, that's a different picture, than a Nike type shoe. Its specific because its sensory based.
Temple GrandinWhat would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.
Temple GrandinYou have to get autistic kids out and expose them to things, but do this without any surprises, so they know what to expect. You have to find skilled mentors to teach them things. For me, it was an aunt, and it was my science teacher. You need to find the things they're interested in and good at and expand on this.
Temple GrandinI can explain how a person with autism thinks. I am very, very interested in how people think. It's been a gradual process of learning more and more about how my thinking process is different. You know it's bottom up - you take specific examples to make concepts and then I put them in categories.
Temple GrandinCats are great with clicker training. There's a great video you can get called "Clicker Magic". There's a scene in that video where a cat is trained to go through a mini dog agility course - it's all done with food motivation and clicker training. You can train them to do all sorts of thing.
Temple Grandin