{"product_id":"thinking-in-pictures-expanded-edition-isbn-9780307275653","title":"Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe 25th anniversary edition of this seminal work on autism and neurodiversity provides “a uniquely fascinating view” (Deborah Tannen, author of \u003ci\u003eYou Just Don’t Understand\u003c\/i\u003e) of the differences in our brains, and features updated research and insights. With a foreword by Oliver Sacks.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOriginally published in 1995 as an unprecedented look at autism, Grandin writes from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person to give a report from “the country of autism.” Introducing a groundbreaking model which analyzes people based on their patterns of thought, Grandin “charts the differences between her life and the lives of those who think in words” (\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFor the new edition, Grandin has written a new afterword addressing recent developments in the study of autism, including new diagnostic criteria, advancements in genetic research, updated tips, insights into working with children and young people with autism, and more.CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForeword by Oliver Sacks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Thinking in Pictures: Autism and Visual Thought\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2. The Great Continuum: Diagnosing Autism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3. The Squeeze Machine: Sensory Problems in Autism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4. Learning Empathy: Emotion and Autism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5. The Ways of the World: Developing Autistic Talent\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6. Believer in Biochemistry: Medications and New Treatments\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7. Dating Data: Autism and Relationships\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8. A Cow's Eye View: Connecting with Animals\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9. Artists and Accountants: An Understanding of Animal Thought\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10. Einstein's Second Cousin: The Link Between Autism and Genius\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11. Stairway to Heaven: Religion and Belief“A uniquely fascinating view not just of autism but of animal—and human—thinking and feeling, [providing] insights that can only be called wisdom.” –Deborah Tannen, author of \u003ci\u003eYou Just Don’t Understand\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are innumerable astounding  facets to this remarkable book. . . . Displaying uncanny powers of observation .  . . [Temple Grandin] charts the differences between her life and the lives of those  who think in words.\" –\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I hardly know what to say about this remarkable book. . . It provides a way to understand the many kinds of sentience, human and animal, that adorn the earth.” –Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hidden Life of Dogs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eTemple Grandin\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestsellers \u003ci\u003eAnimals in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAnimals Make Us Human\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Autistic Brain\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThinking in Pictures\u003c\/i\u003e, which became an HBO movie starring Claire Danes. Dr. Grandin has been a pioneer in improving the welfare of farm animals as well as an outspoken advocate for the autism community. She resides in Fort Collins, Colorado.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Thinking in Pictures\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Autism and Visual Thought\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I THINK IN PICTURES. Words are like a second language to me. I   translate both spoken and written words into full-color movies,   complete with sound, which run like a VCR tape in my head. When   somebody speaks to me, his words are instantly translated into   pictures. Language-based thinkers often find this phenomenon difficult   to understand, but in my job as an equipment designer for the livestock   industry, visual thinking is a tremendous advantage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Visual thinking has enabled me to build entire systems in my   imagination. During my career I have designed all kinds of equipment,   ranging from corrals for handling cattle on ranches to systems for   handling cattle and hogs during veterinary procedures and slaughter. I   have worked for many major livestock companies. In fact, one third of   the cattle and hogs in the United States are handled in equipment I   have designed. Some of the people I’ve worked for don’t even know that   their systems were designed by someone with autism. I value my ability   to think visually, and I would never want to lose it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    One of the most profound mysteries of autism has been the remarkable   ability of most autistic people to excel at visual spatial skills while   performing so poorly at verbal skills. When I was a child and a   teenager, I thought everybody thought in pictures. I had no idea that   my thought processes were different. In fact, I did not realize the   full extent of the differences until very recently. At meetings and at   work I started asking other people detailed questions about how they   accessed information from their memories. From their answers I learned   that my visualization skills far exceeded those of most other people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I credit my visualization abilities with helping me understand the   animals I work with. Early in my career I used a camera to help give me   the animals’ perspective as they walked through a chute for their   veterinary treatment. I would kneel down and take pictures through the   chute from the cow’s eye level. Using the photos, I was able to figure   out which things scared the cattle, such as shadows and bright spots of   sunlight. Back then I used black-and-white film, because twenty years   ago scientists believed that cattle lacked color vision. Today,   research has shown that cattle can see colors, but the photos provided   the unique advantage of seeing the world through a cow’s viewpoint.   They helped me figure out why the animals refused to go in one chute   but willingly walked through another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Every design problem I’ve ever solved started with my ability to   visualize and see the world in pictures. I started designing things as   a child, when I was always experimenting with new kinds of kites and   model airplanes. In elementary school I made a helicopter out of a   broken balsa-wood airplane. When I wound up the propeller, the   helicopter flew straight up about a hundred feet. I also made   bird-shaped paper kites, which I flew behind my bike. The kites were   cut out from a single sheet of heavy drawing paper and flown with   thread. I experimented with different ways of bending the wings to   increase flying performance. Bending the tips of the wings up made the   kite fly higher. Thirty years later, this same design started appearing   on commercial aircraft.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Now, in my work, before I attempt any construction, I test-run the   equipment in my imagination. I visualize my designs being used in every   possible situation, with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in   different weather conditions. Doing this enables me to correct mistakes   prior to construction. Today, everyone is excited about the new virtual   reality computer systems in which the user wears special goggles and is   fully immersed in video game action. To me, these systems are like   crude cartoons. My imagination works like the computer graphics   programs that created the lifelike dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. When I   do an equipment simulation in my imagination or work on an engineering   problem, it is like seeing it on a videotape in my mind. I can view it   from any angle, placing myself above or below the equipment and   rotating it at the same time. I don’t need a fancy graphics program   that can produce three-dimensional design simulations. I can do it   better and faster in my head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I create new images all the time by taking many little parts of images   I have in the video library in my imagination and piecing them   together. I have video memories of every item I’ve ever worked   with—steel gates, fences, latches, concrete walls, and so forth. To   create new designs, I retrieve bits and pieces from my memory and   combine them into a new whole. My design ability keeps improving as I   add more visual images to my library. I add videolike images from   either actual experiences or translations of written information into   pictures. I can visualize the operation of such things as squeeze   chutes, truck loading ramps, and all different types of livestock   equipment. The more I actually work with cattle and operate equipment,   the stronger my visual memories become.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I first used my video library in one of my early livestock design   projects, creating a dip vat and cattle-handling facility for John   Wayne’s Red River feed yard in Arizona. A dip vat is a long, narrow,   seven-foot-deep swimming pool through which cattle move in single file.   It is filled with pesticide to rid the animals of ticks, lice, and   other external parasites. In 1978, existing dip vat designs were very   poor. The animals often panicked because they were forced to slide into   the vat down a steep, slick concrete decline. They would refuse to jump   into the vat, and sometimes they would flip over backward and drown.   The engineers who designed the slide never thought about why the cattle   became so frightened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The first thing I did when I arrived at the feedlot was to put myself   inside the cattle’s heads and look out through their eyes. Because   their eyes are on the sides of their heads, cattle have wide-angle   vision, so it was like walking through the facility with a wide-angle   video camera. I had spent the past six years studying how cattle see   their world and watching thousands move through different facilities   all over Arizona, and it was immediately obvious to me why they were   scared. Those cattle must have felt as if they were being forced to   jump down an airplane escape slide into the ocean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Cattle are frightened by high contrasts of light and dark as well as by   people and objects that move suddenly. I’ve seen cattle that were   handled in two identical facilities easily walk through one and balk in   the other. The only difference between the two facilities was their   orientation to the sun. The cattle refused to move through the chute   where the sun cast harsh shadows across it. Until I made this   observation, nobody in the feedlot industry had been able to explain   why one veterinary facility worked better than the other. It was a   matter of observing the small details that made a big difference. To   me, the dip vat problem was even more obvious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My first step in designing a better system was collecting all the   published information on existing dip vats. Before doing anything else,   I always check out what is considered state-of-the-art so I don’t waste   time reinventing the wheel. Then I turned to livestock publications,   which usually have very limited information, and my library of video   memories, all of which contained bad designs. From experience with   other types of equipment, such as unloading ramps for trucks, I had   learned that cattle willingly walk down a ramp that has cleats to   provide secure, nonslip footing. Sliding causes them to panic and back   up. The challenge was to design an entrance that would encourage the   cattle to walk in voluntarily and plunge into the water, which was deep   enough to submerge them completely, so that all the bugs, including   those that collect in their ears, would be eliminated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I started running three-dimensional visual simulations in my   imagination. I experimented with different entrance designs and made   the cattle walk through them in my imagination. Three images merged to   form the final design: a memory of a dip vat in Yuma, Arizona, a   portable vat I had seen in a magazine, and an entrance ramp I had seen   on a restraint device at the Swift meat-packing plant in Tolleson,   Arizona. The new dip vat entrance ramp was a modified version of the   ramp I had seen there. My design contained three features that had   never been used before: an entrance that would not scare the animals,   an improved chemical filtration system, and the use of animal behavior   principles to prevent the cattle from becoming overexcited when they   left the vat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The first thing I did was convert the ramp from steel to concrete. The   final design had a concrete ramp on a twenty-five-degree downward   angle. Deep grooves in the concrete provided secure footing. The ramp   appeared to enter the water gradually, but in reality it abruptly   dropped away below the water’s surface. The animals could not see the   drop-off because the dip chemicals colored the water. When they stepped   out over the water, they quietly fell in, because their center of   gravity had passed the point of no return.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Before the vat was built, I tested the entrance design many times in my   imagination. Many of the cowboys at the feedlot were skeptical and did   not believe my design would work. After it was constructed, they   modified it behind my back, because they were sure it was wrong. A   metal sheet was installed over the nonslip ramp, converting it back to   an old-fashioned slide entrance. The first day they used it, two cattle   drowned because they panicked and flipped over backward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When I saw the metal sheet, I made the cowboys take it out. They were   flabbergasted when they saw that the ramp now worked perfectly. Each   calf stepped out over the steep drop-off and quietly plopped into the   water. I fondly refer to this design as “cattle walking on water.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Over the years, I have observed that many ranchers and cattle feeders   think that the only way to induce animals to enter handling facilities   is to force them in. The owners and managers of feedlots sometimes have   a hard time comprehending that if devices such as dip vats and   restraint chutes are properly designed, cattle will voluntarily enter   them. I can imagine the sensations the animals would feel. If I had a   calf’s body and hooves, I would be very scared to step on a slippery   metal ramp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There were still problems I had to resolve after the animals left the   dip vat. The platform where they exit is usually divided into two pens   so that cattle can dry on one side while the other side is being   filled. No one understood why the animals coming out of the dip vat   would sometimes become excited, but I figured it was because they   wanted to follow their drier buddies, not unlike children divided from   their classmates on a playground. I installed a solid fence between the   two pens to prevent the animals on one side from seeing the animals on   the other side. It was a very simple solution, and it amazed me that   nobody had ever thought of it before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The system I designed for filtering and cleaning the cattle hair and   other gook out of the dip vat was based on a swimming pool filtration   system. My imagination scanned two specific swimming pool filters that   I had operated, one on my Aunt Brecheen’s ranch in Arizona and one at   our home. To prevent water from splashing out of the dip vat, I copied   the concrete coping overhang used on swimming pools. That idea, like   many of my best designs, came to me very clearly just before I drifted   off to sleep at night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Being autistic, I don’t naturally assimilate information that most   people take for granted. Instead, I store information in my head as if   it were on a CD-ROM disc. When I recall something I have learned, I   replay the video in my imagination. The videos in my memory are always   specific; for example, I remember handling cattle at the veterinary   chute at Producer’s Feedlot or McElhaney Cattle Company. I remember   exactly how the animals behaved in that specific situation and how the   chutes and other equipment were built. The exact construction of steel   fenceposts and pipe rails in each case is also part of my visual   memory. I can run these images over and over and study them to solve   design problems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If I let my mind wander, the video jumps in a kind of free association   from fence construction to a particular welding shop where I’ve seen   posts being cut and Old John, the welder, making gates. If I continue   thinking about Old John welding a gate, the video image changes to a   series of short scenes of building gates on several projects I’ve   worked on. Each video memory triggers another in this associative   fashion, and my daydreams may wander far from the design problem. The   next image may be of having a good time listening to John and the   construction crew tell war stories, such as the time the backhoe dug   into a nest of rattlesnakes and the machine was abandoned for two weeks   because everybody was afraid to go near it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This process of association is a good example of how my mind can wander   off the subject. People with more severe autism have difficulty   stopping endless associations. I am able to stop them and get my mind   back on track. When I find my mind wandering too far away from a design   problem I am trying to solve, I just tell myself to get back to the   problem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Interviews with autistic adults who have good speech and are able to   articulate their thought processes indicate that most of them also   think in visual images. More severely impaired people, who can speak   but are unable to explain how they think, have highly associational   thought patterns. Charles Hart, the author of Without Reason, a book   about his autistic son and brother, sums up his son’s thinking in one   sentence: “Ted’s thought processes aren’t logical, they’re   associational.” This explains Ted’s statement “I’m not afraid of   planes. That’s why they fly so high.” In his mind, planes fly high   because he is not afraid of them; he combines two pieces of   information, that planes fly high and that he is not afraid of heights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Another indicator of visual thinking as the primary method of   processing information is the remarkable ability many autistic people   exhibit in solving jigsaw puzzles, finding their way around a city, or   memorizing enormous amounts of information at a glance. My own thought   patterns are similar to those described by A. R. Luria in The Mind of a   Mnemonist. This book describes a man who worked as a newspaper reporter   and could perform amazing feats of memory. Like me, the mnemonist had a   visual image for everything he had heard or read. Luria writes, “For   when he heard or read a word, it was at once converted into a visual   image corresponding with the object the word signified for him.” The   great inventor Nikola Tesla was also a visual thinker. When he designed   electric turbines for power generation, he built each turbine in his   head. He operated it in his imagination and corrected faults. He said   it did not matter whether the turbine was tested in his thoughts or in   his shop; the results would be same.Revised and Updated","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44885351825637,"sku":"NP9780307275653","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307275653.jpg?v=1767742452","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/thinking-in-pictures-expanded-edition-isbn-9780307275653","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}