Temple Grandin emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing different thinking styles, as they contribute to diverse talents and careers.
Growing up, Temple Grandin believed everyone thought in pictures and only realized the diversity of thinking styles in her late 30s.
Deep dives
Temple Grandin's Journey and Visual Thinking
Temple Grandin, an industrial engineer, PhD animal scientist, and autism activist, discusses her unique visual thinking and how it has shaped her life. Born in the 60s when autism was largely misunderstood, Grandin was initially nonverbal but developed a strong interest in animals. Mentored by various individuals and influenced by her own sensory thinking, Grandin became an expert in designing systems to manage animal behavior. She invented the squeeze machine to alleviate anxiety and tension, which is still used today. In her new book, Visual Thinking, Grandin explores the three distinct ways human brains create minds: verbal thinking, object visualizing, and visual spatial thinking.
Differences in Thinking Styles and their Benefits
Grandin explains that there are different thinking styles, including object visualizers like herself, who think in photorealistic images and discern emergent associations. She also mentions visual spatial thinkers who imagine in patterns and abstractions and notice systems and rules. Verbal thinkers, on the other hand, use language to form mental abstractions and often think in a linear manner. Grandin emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing different thinking styles, as they contribute to diverse talents and careers, such as engineering, art, mechanics, mathematics, and more.
Challenges and Advantages of Visual Thinking
Grandin shares her personal experiences and challenges with visual thinking. Growing up, she believed everyone thought in pictures and only realized the diversity of thinking styles in her late 30s. She highlights the importance of understanding and embracing different ways of thinking, including visual thinking, to create a more inclusive educational system. Grandin also discusses the benefits of visual thinking, such as its applications in design, problem-solving, and perceiving associations between seemingly unrelated things.
Promoting Career Opportunities for Different Thinkers
Grandin advocates for exposing kids to a wide range of interests and subjects early on, allowing them to gravitate towards their passions and talents. She believes that practical hands-on classes, such as woodworking, auto shop, sewing, and more, should be reintroduced into schools to provide opportunities for different thinkers to explore and excel. Grandin also emphasizes the importance of mentoring in developing talents and finding careers that align with individual thinking styles.
Temple Grandin was born in 1947 at a time when words like neurodivergent and neurotypical had yet to enter the lexicon, at a time when autism was not well understood, and since she didn’t develop speech until much later than most children she might have led a much different life if it hadn’t been for people around her who worked very hard to open up a space for her to thrive and explore her talents and abilities. In this episode we discuss all that as well as her latest book, Visual Thinking, all about three distinct ways that human brains create human minds to make sense of the world outside of their skulls.
