Temple Grandin

As Grandin adjusts to the environment of her boarding school in New Hampshire, another event arises that fundamentally shapes her experiences. Her mother again displays her intuitive sense for what would be good for Grandin when she suggests that her daughter spend time at a ranch in Arizona. Indeed, Grandin thrives on the physical activity required at the ranch. The chance to work with her hands serves both her creative urges and the soothing effects of movement that were already suggested in the descriptions of Grandin’s twirling in the book’s earliest chapters.

Equally important to the physical activity, or even more so, the chance to work with animals on the ranch made a very strong impression on Grandin. She seemed to have a natural interest in animals, which Temple Grandin suggests in earlier chapters that discuss her liking to draw animals and to ride horses at boarding school. Yet the experiences at the ranch were even more hands-on, as Grandin had a direct role in caring for the cattle.

These activities led Grandin to discover an object pivotal in her life: the cattle chute. Her curiosity about this machine that gently squeezed cattle to keep them calm became a transformative moment, when the asked if such a device would be helpful to her. Grandin’s insight that the cattle chute could help her cope with her feelings of anxiety are yet another sign of her ability to overcome challenges in creative and unexpected ways. Yet the reactions others around her had to the contraption are additional reminders that Grandin and her ideas were not easily accepted. For example, the school psychologist at Hampshire Country School was opposed to Grandin’s plan to create her own cattle chute, calling it “the product of a ‘sick’ mind” (65). While Grandin was away from her mother at boarding school, she found a person who was just as supportive, in Mr. Carlock, her science teacher. Like Grandin’s mother, Mr. Carlock had an open mind, and was committed to finding ways to support Grandin.

Instead of viewing the cattle chute as a negative fixation, Mr. Carlock realized that it could motivate Grandin. Indeed, by encouraging her to approach the development of her own squeeze machine scientifically, Mr. Carlock helped Grandin overcome her academic struggles. She became more focused and successful in school, and later in college. Thus, when she began graduate school at Arizona State University, she built up the confidence to persist when her professors resisted the idea of her research project to study the behavior of cattle in chutes. At that point, Grandin emerged as a full adult, combining her knowledge, persistence, and creativity to find a unique solution to this resistance. By leveraging her association with the Arizona Farmer Ranchman journal, she gained access to the Scottsdale Feed Yard, which attempted to ban her from the yard, and thus could pursue her research. Grandin used her skills to persist when faced with discrimination at the Scottsdale Feed Yard and elsewhere. In this way, Grandin was as committed to fighting for her rights as a woman and person with autism as much as she was committed to learning more about animal behavior and improving the treatment of cattle.