Temple Grandin

I chose Temple as my hero because she has autism but is successful and very intelligent while I do not have autism, because of that she inspires me to become very successful.

Temple is the daughter of her mother Eustacia Cutler (who was a writer, singer, actress, and had her maiden name being Purves) and her father Richard Grandin (who was a real estate agent). Temple was born August 29th 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts, the United States. She only started talking at age 4. Temple was educated in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Arizona State University, and Franklin Pierce University.

I think Temple’s aunt and uncle’s farm animals and her autism changed her life. First, her autism completely changed her life from being the same from most people by her thinking in different ways. Because of that she had a connection to the animals and wanted to help them from stress.

Temple’s main obstacle was autism itself. Through middle school and high school people made fun of her because she had autism. She surpassed it by using it to think through pictures in her head and invent humane, livestock handling equipment. People touching (hugging) her was one of her obstacles. She overcame it by inventing the squeeze machine for people, which is a very important thing.

Temple has many achievements. She became a professor of animals and designed livestock handling facilities. She invented the squeeze machine that squeezes people that have sensory processing dysfunction to release stress. Temple Grandin’s achievement of overcoming autism was great. She also has many other accomplishments.

Temple is a hero to animals but mostly to people with autism. She designed systems for livestock which reduced their stress by a lot compared to the ones from her past. People see her as a hero because she does so much for the world in her condition.

‘A treatment method or an educational method that will work for one child may not work for another child. The one common denominator for all of the young children is that early intervention does work, and it seems to improve the prognosis.’ Temple Grandin

Temple has many character traits. Here are a few of them:

1. Temple has courage because she did things with autism even though people made fun of her.

2. She is caring because she cared about the livestock and her design of the livestock handling facilities when her co-workers broke it.

3. Her empathy is shown by her thinking about how the cows would feel when designing the handling facilities.

4. She is cooperative because she was happy to start working with the livestock in one of her first jobs.

Temple is my hero because she helps animals in so many ways with autism. She influenced me to be a better person that is more intelligent and successful because she has autism and I do not. She is so helpful with autism, so I want to be almost as helpful as her, if not as helpful as her but without autism.