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Temple Grandin is
proud of her newest release, Unwritten
Rules of Social Relationships,
winner of the prestigious Foreword Book of the Year Award 2006.
Publishers submitted over 1700 books in the competition. A jury of librarians,
booksellers and reviewers selected winners based on editorial excellence,
professional production, and originality.
Unwritten
Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique
Perspectives of Autism won the Book of the Year’s Silver Medal
Award in the family and relationships category.
This book focuses on the life experiences of two people who grew up
“outside the norm.” The book offers insight into the unwritten social rules of our
society as well as the way someone with autism interprets or misinterprets those
critical rules.
Unwritten
Rules is written by Dr. Temple Grandin with co-authors Sean
Barron and Veronica Zysk.
"In 1986, a quite extraordinary, unprecedented and, in a way, unthinkable
book was published, Temple Grandin's Emergence: Labeled Autistic. Unprecedented
because there had never before been an 'inside narrative' of autism; unthinkable
because it had been medical dogma for forty years or more that there was
no 'inside,' no inner life, in the autistic. . .extraordinary because
of its extreme (and strange) directness and clarity. Temple Grandin's
voice came from a place which had never had a voice. . .and she spoke
not only for herself, but for thousands of others. . .
Oliver Sacks
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is inarguably the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. She has been featured on major television programs, such as "ABC's Primetime Live", the "Today Show", "Larry King Live", "48 Hours" and "20/20" and written up in national publications, such as Time magazine, People magazine, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and New York Times. Among numerous other recognitions by media, Bravo Cable did a half-hour show on her life, and she was one of the "challenged" people featured in the best-selling book, Anthropologist from Mars.
Dr. Grandin didn't talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping and humming. In 1950, she was labeled "autistic," and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She tells her story of "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed being diagnosed "autistic" was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.
Dr. Grandin has become a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism because "I have read enough to know that there are still many parents, and, yes, professionals, too, who believe that 'once autistic, always autistic.' This dictum has meant sad and sorry lives for many children diagnosed, as I was in early life, as autistic. To these people, it is incomprehensible that the characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled. However, I feel strongly that I am living proof that they can." (Taken from Emergence: Labeled Autistic)
Even though she was considered "weird" in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor, who recognized her interests and abilities, which she later expanded into becoming a successful livestock handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift and others.
She presently works as an Associate Professor at Colorado State University but also speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling.
Dr. Grandin's current best seller is Animals in Translation. She also authored the best seller - Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports From My Life With Autism and produced videos - "Visual Thinking," "Careers" and "Medications" VHS; and Dr. Temple Grandin (DVD), which can be obtained from Future Horizons. At every Future Horizons' conference on autism, the audience rates her presentation as 10++. Her books have drawn equally-superlative reviews, some of which are included below:
"An insight into autism that very few people have been able to achieve."
Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.,
Institute for Child Behavior Research,
San Diego, CA
"What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity."
Deborah Tannen, author of
You Just Don't Understand
"Remarkable. . .Displaying uncanny powers of observation. . .(Temple Grandin) charts the differences between her life and the lives of those who think in words."
Philadelphia Inquirer
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LINKS:
New
Temple
Grandin
Interview
'Autism no obstacle'
NPR Interview: Temple Grandin - A Key to Animal Behavior
The
Squeeze Machine
Autism
Society
of America
Cure Autism Now
