Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism

Grandin’s understanding of animal behavior influences the livestock systems she designs. By challenging the unfortunate use of force to change an animal’s behavior, she advocates for humane treatment, and applies this value in her work. Though small environmental details that create fear and hesitancy in cattle often go unnoticed by others, Grandin’s desire to take on their viewpoint creates a more effective and relaxing experience for the cattle. “I have to follow the cattle’s rules of behavior. I also have to imagine what experiencing the world through the cow’s sensory system is like” (168).

A commonality between animals and those with autism is the experience of fear. For animals, fear serves as a survival strategy in a prey-predator context. In those with autism, fear can result from a fear association, change in schedule, or sensitive sensory reaction. “Like cattle, a person with autism has hypervigilant senses” (169). Sound is one example of the heightened sensory experience; in particular, high-pitch sounds that can bother certain animals and children with autism.

Grandin continues to make connections between animals and those with autism. Attention to changes in their surroundings is another commonality, one that Grandin ponders in regard to an evolutionary purpose: