Temple Grandin and Overcoming Autism by Brian Hill

Temple Grandin overcame severe autism to have a successful career as a designer of livestock equipment.  She was born on 29 August, 1947, at 2:30 p.m. in Boston, Massachusetts. Grandin also earned a doctorate in Animal Science and was an Associate Professor at Colorado State University.  She has written extensively about autism, and this has served to illuminate it to the public in general and educators in particular.

In Temple’s horoscope, interestingly enough, the Sun, Mercury, and Venus are all conjoined in the early degrees of Virgo.  A Sun/Venus conjunction is said to confer charm and warmheartedness, yet “a failure to develop appropriate peer relationships” is one of the characteristics of Asperger’s Disorder, kind of high functioning autism.  (Reid and Wise, DSM-IV Training Guide, p. 49).  How best to explain the discrepancy?

Autistic people have decreased parts of brain tissue in parts of the cerebellum.  This part of the brain is at the base of the skull, and it plays a role in cognition and social interaction.  (Internet:  www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-structure-changes-in-autism-explained)

In Grandin’s horoscope Saturn, the planet of restriction, is in the 8^th House of growth and regeneration.  It is conjoined with Pluto.  Pluto there gives “analytical ability and a keen sense of logic and intuition if shown by other planets.” (Parker, The Compleat Astrologer, p. 104)  Virgo is a highly analytical sign.

Temple’s Saturn/Pluto conjunction may have caused frustration but the driving obsessional tendencies probably aided her in breaking out of her cognitive prison.

Grandin’s Moon was in Aquarius.  This often gives scientific ability and ingenuity. (Ibid, p. 89)

Temple’s interest in higher education is shown by her stellium in the 9^th House and by Sagittarius, her rising sign.   The 9^th House also rules long distance travel, and Grandin has gone round the world to design and build humane cattle and hog pens.

Temple’s chart emphasized both the global (Sagittarius) and detail (Virgo).  She has avoided intimacy and concentrates on her work.  The above two have been called the bachelor signs.  Aquarians are known to favor  independence.

Temple has written extensively on what it is like to be autistic, the challenges she faced, and how she overcame them.  As a child, she understood everything said to her but could not get words out.  She screamed to let it be known she did not want to do something.

Grandin said her hearing was like having a hearing aid stuck on super loud.  It picked up everything.  She can either leave it on or turn it off completely.  She cannot talk on the phone in a noisy environment like an office or airport.   (“An Inside View of Autism” by Temple Grandin,  Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Indiana University)

Temple’s sense of touch was impacted by tactile sensitivities.  Her Sunday clothes felt different than everyday ones.  They itched and scratched.  It took her several days to adjust. She now wears clothes of the same texture.  (Ibid.)

Both children and adults need to be hugged. They need to feel the warmth of human touch.  In a study of rhesus monkeys, baby monkeys were given the choice of a cloth monkey, a wire monkey, or isolation.  The baby monkeys invariably favored the cloth monkey to cling to with or without food.  Babies reared in isolation clutched themselves, rocked, engaged in self-mutilation, were very inadequate mothers and  highly neurotic. Mothers smashed their babies’ faces into the floor.  (Simply Psychology, Attachment Theory, Harry Harlow, “Harry Harlow, Monkey Love Experiments,” by Saul McLeod, published 2020)

Grandin built a squeeze machine lined with foam rubber to give herself succor.  The amount and duration of pressure can be controlled.  The machine not only helped soothe her, it gave her the ability to feel empathy toward others. (Grandin, “An Inside View of Autism”)

All of Temple’s thinking is visual.  To understand some religious expressions such as “the power and the glory” as a child, she thought of a picture of a high tension electric tower and a rainbow sun.”  The word trespasses in the Lord’s Prayer became a picture of a No Trespassing sign nailed to her neighbor’s tree.  If someone says the word cat, Temple sees cats she has known or read about. (Ibid)

Grandin was naturally good at building things, but when she built a house for her aunt and uncle she had trouble relating the symbolic marks on drawings to the actual construction.  After learning drafting by copying a skilled draftsman’s style, Temple is now able to translate a drawing into a finished image of a structure. (Ibid)

More information about Temple Grandin can be obtained at her website Temple Grandin, Ph.D., www.templegrandin.com. She has been named one of the top ten college professors in the country.  Her website notes 1/59 U.S. children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder, and ASD is 4.5 times more common in boys than girls (1/42 to 1/189).

Temple Grandin’s Horoscope was created from software developed by John Halloran called AstrolDeluxe Platinum.  It was also recently added to a file of over 5,000 famous people there.

 

Brian Hill