Thinking in Pictures

Thinking in Pictures is a book written and largely edited by Temple Grandin, first published in 1995, documenting much of her life with autism. Grandin is an individual often marked with the title of "high functioning" autism, as she has accomplished quite a lot by anyone's standards and works as a professional in her field as well as a professor and lecturer. The title of the book comes from Grandin's own experiences of actually thinking in pictures, where she states that words come as a second language to her. Many instances in the book recount her work on cattle farms and how she sees images in her mind of prototypes of machines and edits them before building even occurs.^[1][2]

Self editing

Not everyone on the spectrum of autism thinks in pictures, nor do individuals think the same way even if they did think in pictures. Individuals with autism occupy a very wide array of differing symptoms and neurological patterns and deficits. This means that one single uniform edit, akin to that of other published novels, would not necessarily be beneficial or easily understandable by those with autism, reading this book. Grandin took it upon herself to edit her own work, as she felt that even if one edit would not do the best job for everybody who would come to read the work, she felt that she would at least have a better chance at editing the book for anyone on the spectrum to understand it easier.^[3]

Visual thinking applications

Grandin recounts various instances in which she was reminded that her way of thinking does not quite mesh with that of the average ranch hands she would work with. Grandin brings up early in the book, a situation in which cattle were afraid to step into a pool for cleaning. Because of this, Grandin thought of a ramp for cattle to walk down and into the pool, that would prevent panic from setting in by implementing a slight incline. Grandin edited the design in her mind. The ranch hands could not understand what she was doing or how, and Grandin was once again reminded that other people do not think in the same way that she does and that she understands the minds of cattle more than those of her human counterparts. She designed and built the ramp in her head, then came the physical piece. The ramp was just metal, and the ranch hands believed that the ramp would be too slick and cattle would not get their footing. They covered the ramp in rubber, which led to multiple cattle falling into the pool in a panic, and drowning. Grandin was furious and ordered the rubber to be removed, which led to the ramp working perfectly.^[4][5]

Relating to cattle

As briefly mentioned above, Grandin found it much easier to not only relate to cattle, but to really get into their minds and understand them more than other people. This is most likely the leading reason for her success in the field of animal rights and cattle farm innovations. Even though Grandin finds it difficult to relate to other people, she understands that it is necessary and helpful in many cases. Grandin admits to people that she cannot quite understand them unless they are very straightforward and speak what they mean. She works with people constantly in her endeavors as a professor and lecturer.

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