TED TALK: Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds

I think I'll start out and just talk a little bit about what exactly autism is. Autism is a very big continuum that goes from very severe -- the child remains non-verbal -- all the way up to brilliant scientists and engineers. And I actually feel at home here, because there's a lot of autism genetics here. You wouldn't have any... (Applause)

It's a continuum of traits. When does a nerd turn into Asperger, which is just mild autism? I mean, Einstein and Mozart and Tesla would all be probably diagnosed as autistic spectrum today. And one of the things that is really going to concern me is getting these kids to be the ones that are going to invent the next energy things, you know, that Bill Gates talked about this morning.

OK. Now, if you want to understand autism, animals. And I want to talk to you now about different ways of thinking. You have to get away from verbal language. I think in pictures, I don't think in language. Now, the thing about the autistic mind is it attends to details. OK, this is a test where you either have to pick out the big letters, or pick out the little letters, and the autistic mind picks out the little letters more quickly.

And the thing is, the normal brain ignores the details. Well, if you're building a bridge, details are pretty important because it will fall down if you ignore the details. And one of my big concerns with a lot of policy things today is things are getting too abstract. People are getting away from doing hands-on stuff. I'm really concerned that a lot of the schools have taken out the hands-on classes, because art, and classes like that, those are the classes where I excelled.

In my work with cattle, I noticed a lot of little things that most people don't notice would make the cattle balk. Like, for example, this flag waving, right in front of the veterinary facility. This feed yard was going to tear down their whole veterinary facility; all they needed to do was move the flag. Rapid movement, contrast. In the early '70s when I started, I got right down in the chutes to see what cattle were seeing. People thought that was crazy. A coat on a fence would make them balk, shadows would make them balk, a hose on the floor ... people weren't noticing these things -- a chain hanging down -- and that's shown very, very nicely in the movie.

In fact, I loved the movie, how they duplicated all my projects. That's the geek side. My drawings got to star in the movie too. And actually it's called "Temple Grandin," not "Thinking In Pictures."

So, what is thinking in pictures? It's literally movies in your head. My mind works like Google for images. Now, when I was a young kid I didn't know my thinking was different. I thought everybody thought in pictures. And then when I did my book, "Thinking In Pictures," I start interviewing people about how they think. And I was shocked to find out that my thinking was quite different. Like if I say, "Think about a church steeple" most people get this sort of generalized generic one. Now, maybe that's not true in this room, but it's going to be true in a lot of different places. I see only specific pictures. They flash up into my memory, just like Google for pictures. And in the movie, they've got a great scene in there where the word "shoe" is said, and a whole bunch of '50s and '60s shoes pop into my imagination.

OK, there is my childhood church, that's specific. There's some more, Fort Collins. OK, how about famous ones? And they just kind of come up, kind of like this. Just really quickly, like Google for pictures. And they come up one at a time, and then I think, "OK, well maybe we can have it snow, or we can have a thunderstorm," and I can hold it there and turn them into videos.

Now, visual thinking was a tremendous asset in my work designing cattle-handling facilities. And I've worked really hard on improving how cattle are treated at the slaughter plant. I'm not going to go into any gucky slaughter slides. I've got that stuff up on YouTube if you want to look at it. But, one of the things that I was able to do in my design work is I could actually test run a piece of equipment in my mind, just like a virtual reality computer system. And this is an aerial view of a recreation of one of my projects that was used in the movie. That was like just so super cool. And there were a lot of kind of Asperger types and autism types working out there on the movie set too. (Laughter) But one of the things that really worries me is: Where's the younger version of those kids going today? They're not ending up in Silicon Valley, where they belong.

(Laughter)
(Applause)

Now, one of the things I learned very early on because I wasn't that social, is I had to sell my work, and not myself. And the way I sold livestock jobs is I showed off my drawings, I showed off pictures of things. Another thing that helped me as a little kid is, boy, in the '50s, you were taught manners. You were taught you can't pull the merchandise off the shelves in the store and throw it around.

Now, when kids get to be in third or fourth grade, you might see that this kid's going to be a visual thinker, drawing in perspective. Now, I want to emphasize that not every autistic kid is going to be a visual thinker. Now, I had this brain scan done several years ago, and I used to joke around about having a gigantic Internet trunk line going deep into my visual cortex. This is tensor imaging. And my great big internet trunk line is twice as big as the control's. The red lines there are me, and the blue lines are the sex and age-matched control. And there I got a gigantic one, and the control over there, the blue one, has got a really small one.

And some of the research now is showing is that people on the spectrum actually think with primary visual cortex. Now, the thing is, the visual thinker's just one kind of mind. You see, the autistic mind tends to be a specialist mind -- good at one thing, bad at something else. And where I was bad was algebra. And I was never allowed to take geometry or trig. Gigantic mistake: I'm finding a lot of kids who need to skip algebra, go right to geometry and trig.

Now, another kind of mind is the pattern thinker. More abstract. These are your engineers, your computer programmers. Now, this is pattern thinking. That praying mantis is made from a single sheet of paper -- no scotch tape, no cuts. And there in the background is the pattern for folding it. Here are the types of thinking: photo-realistic visual thinkers, like me; pattern thinkers, music and math minds. Some of these oftentimes have problems with reading. You also will see these kind of problems with kids that are dyslexic. You'll see these different kinds of minds. And then there's a verbal mind, they know every fact about everything.

Now, another thing is the sensory issues. I was really concerned about having to wear this gadget on my face. And I came in half an hour beforehand so I could have it put on and kind of get used to it, and they got it bent so it's not hitting my chin. But sensory is an issue. Some kids are bothered by fluorescent lights; others have problems with sound sensitivity. You know, it's going to be variable.

Now, visual thinking gave me a whole lot of insight into the animal mind. Because think about it: An animal is a sensory-based thinker, not verbal -- thinks in pictures, thinks in sounds, thinks in smells. Think about how much information there is there on the local fire hydrant. He knows who's been there, when they were there. Are they friend or foe? Is there anybody he can go mate with? There's a ton of information on that fire hydrant. It's all very detailed information, and, looking at these kind of details gave me a lot of insight into animals.

Now, the animal mind, and also my mind, puts sensory-based information into categories. Man on a horse and a man on the ground -- that is viewed as two totally different things. You could have a horse that's been abused by a rider. They'll be absolutely fine with the veterinarian and with the horseshoer, but you can't ride him. You have another horse, where maybe the horseshoer beat him up and he'll be terrible for anything on the ground, with the veterinarian, but a person can ride him. Cattle are the same way. Man on a horse, a man on foot -- they're two different things. You see, it's a different picture. See, I want you to think about just how specific this is.

Now, this ability to put information into categories, I find a lot of people are not very good at this. When I'm out troubleshooting equipment or problems with something in a plant, they don't seem to be able to figure out, "Do I have a training people issue? Or do I have something wrong with the equipment?" In other words, categorize equipment problem from a people problem. I find a lot of people have difficulty doing that. Now, let's say I figure out it's an equipment problem. Is it a minor problem, with something simple I can fix? Or is the whole design of the system wrong? People have a hard time figuring that out.

Let's just look at something like, you know, solving problems with making airlines safer. Yeah, I'm a million-mile flyer. I do lots and lots of flying, and if I was at the FAA, what would I be doing a lot of direct observation of? It would be their airplane tails. You know, five fatal wrecks in the last 20 years, the tail either came off or steering stuff inside the tail broke in some way. It's tails, pure and simple. And when the pilots walk around the plane, guess what? They can't see that stuff inside the tail. You know, now as I think about that, I'm pulling up all of that specific information. It's specific. See, my thinking's bottom-up. I take all the little pieces and I put the pieces together like a puzzle.

Now, here is a horse that was deathly afraid of black cowboy hats. He'd been abused by somebody with a black cowboy hat. White cowboy hats, that was absolutely fine. Now, the thing is, the world is going to need all of the different kinds of minds to work together. We've got to work on developing all these different kinds of minds. And one of the things that is driving me really crazy, as I travel around and I do autism meetings, is I'm seeing a lot of smart, geeky, nerdy kids, and they just aren't very social, and nobody's working on developing their interest in something like science.

And this brings up the whole thing of my science teacher. My science teacher is shown absolutely beautifully in the movie. I was a goofball student. When I was in high school I just didn't care at all about studying, until I had Mr. Carlock's science class. He was now Dr. Carlock in the movie. And he got me challenged to figure out an optical illusion room. This brings up the whole thing of you've got to show kids interesting stuff. You know, one of the things that I think maybe TED ought to do is tell all the schools about all the great lectures that are on TED, and there's all kinds of great stuff on the Internet to get these kids turned on. Because I'm seeing a lot of these geeky nerdy kids, and the teachers out in the Midwest, and the other parts of the country, when you get away from these tech areas, they don't know what to do with these kids. And they're not going down the right path.

The thing is, you can make a mind to be more of a thinking and cognitive mind, or your mind can be wired to be more social. And what some of the research now has shown in autism is there may by extra wiring back here, in the really brilliant mind, and we lose a few social circuits here. It's kind of a trade-off between thinking and social. And then you can get into the point where it's so severe you're going to have a person that's going to be non-verbal. In the normal human mind language covers up the visual thinking we share with animals.

This is the work of Dr. Bruce Miller. And he studied Alzheimer's patients that had frontal temporal lobe dementia. And the dementia ate out the language parts of the brain, and then this artwork came out of somebody who used to install stereos in cars. Now, Van Gogh doesn't know anything about physics, but I think it's very interesting that there was some work done to show that this eddy pattern in this painting followed a statistical model of turbulence, which brings up the whole interesting idea of maybe some of this mathematical patterns is in our own head.

And the Wolfram stuff -- I was taking notes and I was writing down all the search words I could use, because I think that's going to go on in my autism lectures. We've got to show these kids interesting stuff. And they've taken out the autoshop class and the drafting class and the art class. I mean art was my best subject in school.

We've got to think about all these different kinds of minds, and we've got to absolutely work with these kind of minds, because we absolutely are going to need these kind of people in the future. And let's talk about jobs. OK, my science teacher got me studying because I was a goofball that didn't want to study. But you know what? I was getting work experience. I'm seeing too many of these smart kids who haven't learned basic things, like how to be on time. I was taught that when I was eight years old. You know, how to have table manners at granny's Sunday party. I was taught that when I was very, very young. And when I was 13, I had a job at a dressmaker's shop sewing clothes. I did internships in college, I was building things, and I also had to learn how to do assignments.

You know, all I wanted to do was draw pictures of horses when I was little. My mother said, "Well let's do a picture of something else." They've got to learn how to do something else. Let's say the kid is fixated on Legos. Let's get him working on building different things. The thing about the autistic mind is it tends to be fixated. Like if a kid loves racecars, let's use racecars for math. Let's figure out how long it takes a racecar to go a certain distance. In other words, use that fixation in order to motivate that kid, that's one of the things we need to do. I really get fed up when they, you know, the teachers, especially when you get away from this part of the country, they don't know what to do with these smart kids. It just drives me crazy.

What can visual thinkers do when they grow up? They can do graphic design, all kinds of stuff with computers, photography, industrial design. The pattern thinkers, they're the ones that are going to be your mathematicians, your software engineers, your computer programmers, all of those kinds of jobs. And then you've got the word minds. They make great journalists, and they also make really, really good stage actors. Because the thing about being autistic is, I had to learn social skills like being in a play. It's just kind of -- you just have to learn it.

And we need to be working with these students. And this brings up mentors. You know, my science teacher was not an accredited teacher. He was a NASA space scientist. Now, some states now are getting it to where if you have a degree in biology, or a degree in chemistry, you can come into the school and teach biology or chemistry. We need to be doing that. Because what I'm observing is the good teachers, for a lot of these kids, are out in the community colleges, but we need to be getting some of these good teachers into the high schools.

Another thing that can be very, very, very successful is there is a lot of people that may have retired from working in the software industry, and they can teach your kid. And it doesn't matter if what they teach them is old, because what you're doing is you're lighting the spark. You're getting that kid turned on. And you get him turned on, then he'll learn all the new stuff. Mentors are just essential. I cannot emphasize enough what my science teacher did for me. And we've got to mentor them, hire them.

And if you bring them in for internships in your companies, the thing about the autism, Asperger-y kind of mind, you've got to give them a specific task. Don't just say, "Design new software." You've got to tell them something a lot more specific: "Well, we're designing a software for a phone and it has to do some specific thing. And it can only use so much memory." That's the kind of specificity you need.

Well, that's the end of my talk. And I just want to thank everybody for coming. It was great to be here.

(Applause)

Oh, you've got a question for me? OK.

(Applause)

Chris Anderson: Thank you so much for that. You know, you once wrote, I like this quote, "If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the Earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave."

Temple Grandin: Because who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. And if you were to get rid of all the autism genetics there would be no more Silicon Valley, and the energy crisis would not be solved.

(Applause)

CA: So, I want to ask you a couple other questions, and if any of these feel inappropriate, it's okay just to say, "Next question." But if there is someone here who has an autistic child, or knows an autistic child and feels kind of cut off from them, what advice would you give them?

TG: Well, first of all, you've got to look at age. If you have a two, three or four year old you know, no speech, no social interaction, I can't emphasize enough: Don't wait, you need at least 20 hours a week of one-to-one teaching. You know, the thing is, autism comes in different degrees. There's going to be about half the people on the spectrum that are not going to learn to talk, and they're not going to be working Silicon Valley, that would not be a reasonable thing for them to do.

But then you get the smart, geeky kids that have a touch of autism, and that's where you've got to get them turned on with doing interesting things. I got social interaction through shared interest. I rode horses with other kids, I made model rockets with other kids, did electronics lab with other kids, and in the '60s, it was gluing mirrors onto a rubber membrane on a speaker to make a light show. That was like, we considered that super cool.

CA: Is it unrealistic for them to hope or think that that child loves them, as some might, as most, wish?

TG: Well let me tell you, that child will be loyal, and if your house is burning down, they're going to get you out of it.

CA: Wow. So, most people, if you ask them what are they most passionate about, they'd say things like, "My kids" or "My lover." What are you most passionate about?

TG: I'm passionate about that the things I do are going to make the world a better place. When I have a mother of an autistic child say, "My kid went to college because of your book, or one of your lectures," that makes me happy.

You know, the slaughter plants, I've worked with them in the '80s; they were absolutely awful. I developed a really simple scoring system for slaughter plants where you just measure outcomes: How many cattle fell down? How many cattle got poked with the prodder? How many cattle are mooing their heads off? And it's very, very simple. You directly observe a few simple things. It's worked really well. I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world. We need a lot more of that, and a lot less abstract stuff. (Applause)

CA: When we were talking on the phone, one of the things you said that really astonished me was you said one thing you were passionate about was server farms. Tell me about that.

TG: Well the reason why I got really excited when I read about that, it contains knowledge. It's libraries. And to me, knowledge is something that is extremely valuable. So, maybe, over 10 years ago now our library got flooded. And this is before the Internet got really big. And I was really upset about all the books being wrecked, because it was knowledge being destroyed. And server farms, or data centers are great libraries of knowledge.

CA: Temple, can I just say it's an absolute delight to have you at TED.

TG: Well thank you so much. Thank you.

(Applause)


我想我會以簡單談談 自閉症是什麼做為開場 自閉症是非常大的範疇 從非常嚴重　小朋友不會說話 到天才的科學家及工程師 事實上我覺得這裡像家一樣 因為在這有許多有自閉症基因的 各位不會有任何....

鼓掌

這是連續的特徵 一個書呆子何時變成 亞斯柏格　這只是中等自閉症 愛因斯坦　莫札特 和特斯拉在今日都有可能被診斷為 自閉症者 現在我真正擔心的一件事是 如何培育這些 負責打造未來的孩子們 這問題比爾蓋茲今早有談到

現在若你想了解 自閉症 動物 我要跟各位談談不同的思考模式 你必須忘記文字語言 我是以圖像為思考 我不以語言為思考 自閉兒的腦 是專注於細節 這是一個你必須選擇 大字母或小字母的測試 而自閉症的腦子 選出小字母比較快

正常的腦子忽略細節 若你要建造一座橋 細節是很重要的 若你忽視細節　橋會垮掉 我最大的疑慮是現今的多數的政策 使事物變得太抽象 人們漸漸遠離 親手實作 我真的很擔心許多學校取消了 動手實作的課程 因為藝術及這類課程 是我表現最好的課程

當我研究牛時 我注意到許多大部分人不注意的小事 那些會讓牛畏懼　比如像 獸醫中心前方飄揚的旗幟 這會讓牠們想把整座獸醫中心拆除 人們只需要遷移旗杆 快速的遷移 在70年代早期我剛開始時 　我親自去 陡槽觀察牛隻看到什麼 別人認為我很瘋狂　大衣掛在圍籬上會使牛群畏懼 陰影會讓他們畏怯 地上的水管也是 人們不去注意這些事 這些都是連鎖反應 電影裡都是美化的

事實上我很喜愛電影劇情中他們 複製所有我的研究專案的方式　那是我怪咖的一面 我的手繪圖也在電影裡客串一角 這電影叫做「天寶葛蘭汀」 不是「圖像思考」
所以 什麼是圖像思考　按照字面的意思是 你腦中的電影 我腦子的運作就像是Google搜尋圖片 當我還小時　我不知道我的思考和別人不同 我以為每個人都是以圖像來思考 後來當我寫「圖像思考」時 我開始訪談一些人看他們如何思考 我很訝異的發現我的思考方式 是非常不同的　就像我說的 「想像一下教堂的尖頂」 大部分的人得到的是一般普通的尖頂 或許對現場的各位不是如此 但在許多不同地方卻是如此 我只看得到特定的圖像 它們由我記憶中跳出 就像Google搜尋到的圖片 在電影中 有一幕很棒的場景 當「鞋」這一字被說出時 一大堆50及60年代的鞋子 就跳入我腦海中

這是我小時候的教堂 很明確 還有更多　像科林斯堡 那些有名氣的又如何呢 它們會出現 有點像這樣 只是非常快速 像Google搜尋圖片 它們一次出現一張 然後我會想 　或許我們可以有點雪 或是來場暴風雨 我們可以定格然後轉為影片

圖像思考在我設計牛隻管理中心時 是巨大的資產 我非常努力的在研究改良 牛隻在屠宰廠的待遇 我不會介紹任何噁心屠宰的幻燈片 若各位想看的話我把那些都放在Youtube上了 在我的設計工作中 我可以在腦海中直接測試 看它是否可行 就像一台虛擬實境的電腦系統 這是一幅娛樂中心的鳥瞰圖 在電影中有提到　它是我進行的其中一項計畫 這是非常酷的 有許多亞斯柏格症的人 和自閉症的人也在電影場景中工作 笑聲 其中有件事讓我很擔心的是 今日的孩子們將被帶往何處 他們不會被帶到矽谷　矽谷才是他們的地方 笑聲 鼓掌

我不是很社會化　所以我在很早期學到的一件事就是 我必須販賣我的作品　而不是我本身 我想獲得和家畜有關的工作 用的方式是展現我的繪稿　我用繪畫的說明 另一個對我有幫助的是　當我還小時 在50年代　你被教導要有禮貌 你被教導不能在商店裡隨便拿貨加上的商品 又隨處亂放

當小朋友在三或四年級時 你可以發現這小孩將成為一位圖像思考者 以透視法來作圖　我要強調 並非所有的自閉症兒 都是圖像思考者 我許多年前做過腦部掃描 我以前常開玩笑說 我有這條很粗的網路幹線 深入我的視覺皮層 這是張量造影 我的巨大的網路幹線 比控制組的大兩倍 紅線是我的 藍線是性別及年齡和我相符的控制組 我有這條巨大的幹線 對照組的是藍色線 很細

目前有些研究顯示 自閉症的人　以視覺皮層為主要的的思考 重點是 視覺思只是其中一種思考方式 自閉症通常擁有比較特別的心智 往往在某一方面很好　但在其他方面很糟 我的代數很糟　我無法選擇 幾何學或三角函數的課程 這是很嚴重的錯誤　我發現許多孩童需要跳過代數 直接學幾何或是三角函數

另外一種思考方式是模式思考者 更抽象 就像是工程師 電腦程式師 這是模式思考　那隻祈禱的螳螂 是由單一的一張紙做出來的 沒膠帶 沒裁剪 後面就是折疊的圖案 思考的種類如下： 圖像寫實視覺思考 像我就是 模式思考者 音樂家及數學家的心智 這類的人常有閱讀上的問題 你也會發現有朗讀問題的孩童 也會有這方面的特徵 你將發現這些不同種類的心智 還有口語的心智　 他們知道所有事情的理論

另一個議題是感知問題 我對必須戴這裝備很憂慮 我在開場前半小時就到場 將設備安裝好　並且習慣它 為了不要碰到我的下巴 他們還把它折彎了 感知是個問題 　有些孩童會被日光燈干擾 有些則有聲音敏感的問題 各類型的問題都有

視覺思考讓我了解很多 動物的想法 想想看 動物是一種以感知為基礎的思考者 不是以文字　而是以圖像 以聲音來思考 以氣味來思考 想想看　路邊的消防栓上有多少的資訊 牠知道誰去過那裡 知道何時去那裡 是友是敵 有誰可以當伴的嗎 消防栓有數以萬計的訊息 全都是非常細節的資訊 觀察這種細節 讓我更深入了解動物

動物的思考與我的思考 都是將感官的訊息 歸類處理 人騎在馬上 和站在地上 視為完全不同的事物 一匹被騎士虐待過的馬 獸醫檢查過沒問題 也可以釘馬蹄鐵　但你就是不能騎牠 另一匹馬　也許馬夫打過牠 牠將永遠對地上的事物感到恐懼 即使獸醫也不例外　但人們可以騎牠 牛隻也不例外 騎在馬上的人 與站在地上的人　被視為兩件絕然不同的事 你看這是不同的圖片 各位想想看　這是多麼具體的細節

這種將資訊歸類的能力 我發覺許多人並不擅長這種能力 當我去察看問題設備 或農場東西有問題時 他們似乎是無法發覺問題所在 「我有人力訓練的問題嗎？」 或是「我的設備有問題嗎？」 換句話說 將問題歸類於設備 或是人力的問題 我發現很多人不會這麼做 這樣說吧！這是設備問題 一個小的，簡單的我就可以處理的問題？ 還是這是整個系統的錯誤設計？ 人們很難分辨

讓我們來看看這個 如何解決問題讓飛機更安全 是的 我是個飛行常客 我常在飛行 我若是任職FFA 我會把觀察重點放在哪裡呢？ 飛機的機尾 過去20年間有5次嚴重的失事 不是機尾脫落就是機尾內導向的零件故障 形式不一 就是機尾 簡單明瞭 當駕駛員檢查時 他們就是看不出來 機尾的問題 現在當我思考那問題時 我提出所有確切的資訊 很明確的　所以 我的思考是從細節到全體 我將所有的小片段放在一起就像拼圖一樣

這是一隻非常害怕 黑色牛仔帽的馬 牠曾被戴黑色牛仔帽的人虐待過 白色牛仔帽則完全沒問題 這世界將需要 各種型態心智的人 一起合作 我們必須合力開發所有類型的心智 有件讓我真的很受不了的事就是 當我四處旅行 參加自閉症會議時 我遇到很多聰明 怪咖 書呆的孩童 他們只是不太懂社交 而沒有人對他們的興趣進行開發 像在科學方面

這讓我想到我的科學老師 我的科學老師在電影中被描述的非常美好 當我中學時　我曾是個傻瓜呆的學生 我對學習完全不關心 直到我上了卡拉克老師的科學課 就電影裡的卡拉克博士 他把我帶到一個 充滿視覺虛幻的房間 由此可知　大家必需展現有趣的事物 引起孩子們的興趣 有一件事我覺得TED應該要做 就是告訴所有的學校關於TED上面所有優秀的演講 以及網路上有各種好東西 吸引這些孩童 因為我遇到許多怪咖書呆的孩童 中西部及國內其他地方的老師 當遠離科技區域時 他們就不知道該如何對待這些孩童 他們並沒走在對的道路上

重點是你可以讓心智成為 屬於思考及認知的心智 或是變得更社會化 現今有些自閉症的研究指出 在天才的腦中有許多額外的連結 而我們只是缺少一些社交的連線 或許兩者是彼此消長 到達某種極端程度時 人就會變得無法言語了 在普通的人腦中 語言的區域覆蓋了視覺區域　後者我們和動物一樣

這是布魯斯米勒博士的作品 他研究有老人失智患者中的 額顳葉症呆患者 失智症侵蝕腦中語言部份 這藝術作品由一位安裝汽車音響的人所做的 梵谷對物理全然不解 但是我認為非常有趣的是 這幅畫裡 這些漩渦狀的圖案 遵循了亂流的統計模型 這引發了一整個有趣的想法 或許有些數學的模式 是在我們自己的腦中


而我記錄的Wolfram東西及 我寫下我能使用 所有搜尋的字 因為我認為將會用在我自閉症的教學上 我們必須展現給有趣的事物給孩子們 可惜的是學校竟然取消了工藝課程 繪畫課及藝術課 藝術曾是我在學校時表現最好的科目

我們必需考慮到有這麼多不同類型的心智 而且我們必需與他們一起解決問題 因為我們的未來 正需要這一類的人 讓我們來談談工作 我的科學老師讓我學習 因為我是個不想學習的傻瓜呆 但是各位知道嗎 我獲得工作經驗 我正看到太多這類聰明的小孩沒有學習到基礎的事物 例如如何守時 我8歲時就被教導要守時 以及如何在祖母的周日派對上有餐桌禮節 我在很小很小的時候就被這樣教導 當我13歲時 我在成衣廠工作 負責賣衣服 我在大學裡實習 製做物品 我也必須學習完成分配的任務

當我小的時候 我只想要畫馬的圖 母親就說「讓我們來畫點別的東西」 他們必須學習如何做其他事物 例如一個小孩專注在樂高上 我們要讓他蓋點不同的東西 自閉症的思緒 是傾向於專注 若一個小孩喜愛賽車 讓我們運用賽車來教數學 讓我們來算算一輛賽車行駛一段距離要多久 換句話說 運用專注力 來激勵這些孩子們　這是我們需要做的事 我真覺得很不妥　當那些老師們 尤其是遠離國家發展核心的偏遠區域 那裡的老師不知如何對待這些聰明的小孩 這會令我抓狂

一個視覺思考的人　長大後能做些什麼 他們可以從事圖像設計 或跟電腦有關的所有事 攝影及工業設計 模式思考者 他們將可以成為 各位的數學老師　電腦軟體設計師 以及電腦程式設計師　所有這類的工作 文字的思考者 他們可成為很優秀的記者 他們也可以成為很好的舞台演員 因為　身為自閉症者 我必須學習社交技巧如同身處於一齣劇中 你就是必須學習它

我們必須與這些學生合作 這就講到了導師的問題 我的科學老師不是一位有認證的老師 他曾是一位NASA太空科學家 目前有些州採取的方式是 若你有生物或化學的學位 你可以到學校教生物或化學 我們需要如此 我觀察到的是 對這些孩童有益的老師 都是在社區大學裡 我們的高中需要引進這些好老師

另一件可以非常非常成功的事是 有許多人可能從軟體業退休 他們可以教這些小孩 若他們教授的是很老舊的事物也沒關係 因為你所作的是點燃火花 你啟發孩子們 你開啟他們的視野　他們將學習所有的新事物 導師是至關重要的 我無法用足夠的形容 來說明我的科學老師對我的影響 我們必須引導他們 雇用他們

若你的公司雇用他們實習 關於自閉症 亞斯博格類的思考者 你必需給他們一項特定的任務　別只說「設計個新軟體」 你必須告訴他們更明確的東西 「好吧！我們正要設計一套電話軟體 它必須有一些特定的功能 而且它只能使用這麼多的記憶體」 你的指令必需明確

好了 這是我演講的尾聲了 我要感謝各位的蒞臨 非常榮幸能來到此

鼓掌

你有問題要問我 好的

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克利斯安得森：謝謝你的演說 你曾寫到 我很喜歡這段話 「若因為某些奇蹟 使得自閉症不存在在這世間 那人類還是會在洞穴口 進行社會化
天寶葛蘭汀：你認為是誰做了第一把石茅？ 就是亞斯博格患者 若去除所有自閉症遺傳 矽谷就不存在了 而且能源危機也無法解決

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克利斯安得森：所以我想問你其他問題 若你覺得不適當 只要說「下個問題」 若現場有人 有自閉症的小孩 或認識一個自閉症的小孩 覺得有些無法跟他們溝通 你會給他們什麼建議？

天寶葛蘭汀：首先 你必須看年齡 若你認識一個2 3或4歲的小孩 不會說話 不會互動 我一直強調 不能等　你每週需要至少20小時的一對一教學 重點是自閉症是有不同程度的 在自閉症的範疇裡大約有一半的人 將學不會說話 他們將無法在矽谷工作 這對他們來說並不是合理的事

但你也有聰明怪咖的小孩 他們有些自閉 你必須喚起他們的興趣 讓他們做有趣的事 這就是我藉由共同興趣而獲得社會化的互動 我跟其他小孩一起騎馬 我跟其他小孩一起做火箭模型 做電子實驗室 在60年代那是將鏡子黏在橡膠膜揚聲器 做出一個燈光秀 那時我們認為那是超級酷的

克利斯安得森：對他們而言 希望或是認為自閉症孩子 愛他們是不切實際的 少數可能 大多數則盼望


天寶葛蘭汀：我告訴你 自閉小孩是很忠誠的 若你的房子發生火災 他們會衝進去救你出來

克利斯安得森：哇 若你問大多數人 他們最有熱情在什麼事物上 他們會說 「我的小孩」或是「我的戀人」 那你最有熱情在什麼事物上

天寶葛蘭汀：我最有熱情的事物是 讓世界變得更美好 當我遇到有自閉症小孩的母親說 「我的小孩因為你的書　或是 你教授的一堂課而進了大學」我會很快樂
我合作過的屠宰廠 在80年代曾是相當的差勁 我針對屠宰廠開發一套非常簡單 只衡量結果的計分系統 幾隻牛跌倒 幾隻牛被尖物戳 幾隻牛被屠宰前哀叫 系統非常非常簡單 你直接觀察幾項簡單的事物 系統運作的很良好 在現實社會中 看到員工真正的改變讓我很滿足 我們需要更多這類的事物 少點抽象事物

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克利斯安得森：當我們通電話時 你所說的一件事　很令我震撼 就是你說你對伺服器農場很有熱情 談一談這個吧

天寶葛蘭汀：最主要的原因是當我聽到 它儲存知識 我就很興奮 它是圖書館 對我而言　知識是 極端的具有價值　約10年前 我們的圖書館淹水 這是在網路變得很普及前 我很氣所有的書因此毀了 因為那是知識被摧毀 而伺服器農場或資訊中心 是很好的知識圖書館

克利斯安得森： 天寶 真的很高興能邀你來TED

天寶葛蘭汀：謝謝你 謝謝各位 鼓掌