Mary Temple Grandin, born August 29, 1947, is an American professor of animal science at Colorado State University, a best-selling author, an autistic activist, and a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. She also invented the "hug box", a device to calm those on the autism spectrum. Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Eustacia Cutler and Richard Grandin. She was diagnosed with autism in 1949 at the age of two. When a doctor suggested speech therapy for Grandin, her mother hired a nanny to assist in the child's development. The nanny would spend hours playing turn-taking games with Grandin and her sister. Grandin did not begin talking until the age of four. Grandin states that junior high and high school were the most unpleasant times of her life due to her poor conversational skills. After she graduated in 1966 from Hampshire Country School, a boarding school for gifted children in Rindge, New Hampshire, Grandin went on to earn her bachelor's degree in psychology from Franklin Pierce College in 1970, a master's degree in animal science from Arizona State University in 1975, and a doctoral degree in animal science from the University of Illinois in 1989.
Temple Grandin invented improvements to the animal handling systems found in meat plants that decreased or eliminated the fear and pain animals experienced. According to her website: "Dr. Temple Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and an Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling."
The life lesson of all this is that just because someone has autism or some type of illness, doesn't mean that they cant do anything to help the world and others around them. Temple invented a way to keep animals calm before their death. She said that we have to do it right.
Temple Grandin invented improvements to the animal handling systems found in meat plants that decreased or eliminated the fear and pain animals experienced. According to her website: "Dr. Temple Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and an Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on their animals during handling."
The life lesson of all this is that just because someone has autism or some type of illness, doesn't mean that they cant do anything to help the world and others around them. Temple invented a way to keep animals calm before their death. She said that we have to do it right.