I am much less autistic now, compared to when I was young. I remember some behaviors like picking carpet fuzz and watching spinning plates for hours. I didn't want to be touched. I couldn't shut out background noise. I didn't talk until I was about 4 years old. I screamed. I hummed. But as I grew up, I improved.
Temple GrandinWe found if you took the dog out for 45 minutes a day and worked with it that the solitary stress hormone, cortisol, went down. But then it went right back up again because they didn't keep doing it.
Temple GrandinThe people that were socially awkward from my generation, they all had paper routes and that taught them the discipline of work.
Temple GrandinI'm seeing too many smart kind of socially awkward kids, a lot milder than I was, not getting employment because they're not learning job skills.
Temple GrandinIf language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten.
Temple Grandin