Sometimes we forget about common sense. Autism is used too much as an excuse for bad behavior.

The animal that I have worked with the most is beef cattle, so that's my favorite animal, but I like all animals.

You have got to keep autistic children engaged with the world. You cannot let them tune out.

Sometimes you have to go outside your field of study to find the right people.

Basically when it comes to autistic kids and animals there's kind of three ways that they work, some of them are instant best buddies, they understand a cat, they understand a dog - they're best studies with it, they just know how to communicate with it. Then there's other kids that begin with a little bit of fear of the cat or the dog, but then they begin to like it and then there are other kids where you have a sensory problem - the cat meows and it hurts their ears, so they want to stay away from the cat because you never know when he might meow.

By looking at autistic kids, you can't tell when you're working with them who you're going to pull out, who is going to become verbal and who's not. And there seem to be certain kids who, as they learn more and more, they get less autistic acting, and they learn social skills enough so that they can turn out socially normal.

Autism is part of who I am.