April marks World Autism Month. It also marks the annual Promising Pathways: The Road to Best Practice in Autism Spectrum Disorder Conference at Florida Gulf Coast University. This year’s event, which can be attended in person and virtually, runs from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 9. Registration for the free event remains open.
This year’s conference will see prominent autism author, advocate and speaker Temple Grandin, Ph.D. return to deliver the keynote address.
Dr. Grandin is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Her insights on animal behavior have revolutionized the livestock industry. More than half the cattle in North America are raised and processed in systems designed by Grandin.
As a child, though, Grandin was non-verbal until she was 3.5 years old. At that time in the 1950s, kids like her were often simply placed in institutions. Luckily, that was not the case for Grandin.
Her early published books like “Emergence: Labeled Autistic” provided what at the time was an unprecedented exploration of how people with autism think and perceive and navigate the world.
Through her work in autism and the livestock industry, Grandin has garnered a celebrity status and remains a widely sought-after author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
We’ll listening back to our 2012 conversation with Grandin when we discussed her own upbringing, her revolutionary work in the livestock industry, her advocacy and insights on raising children on the autism spectrum and what’s behind the growing prevalence of autism spectrum disorder diagnoses.
