Education | Books
Animals in Translation
Decoding animal behavior through autism
The Author
Dr. Temple Grandin is a prominent author and speaker, a professor of animal science, an activist and proponent of animal welfare, has an Emmy and Golden Globe award winning movie made on her life, has been featured on Time magazine and Forbes, with several appearances on other forms of media as well. She also didn’t talk until she was three and a half years old, was teased and bullied in school and college, has undergone immense speech therapy from her early years, and was told to be institutionalized for her autism. Her only solace was animals and science.
Today Dr. Grandin is known for her trailblazing work as a spokesperson for individuals with autism, her work towards autism rights and neurodiversity, and her lifelong initiatives as an animal behaviorist. As an author, her books have stunned the literary world, which saw mostly scholarly articles and no mainstream literature until the publication of her first book. She has written numerous books and scientific papers since then, and has been one of the first and few people on the autism spectrum to document insights from her personal experiences alongside neuroscientific research.
The Book
“Autism made school and social life hard, but it made animals easy. Animal behavior was the right field for me, because what I was missing in social understanding I could make up for in understanding animals”,
writes Grandin at the beginning of the book. Animals in Translation is a literary treasure that helps us understand animal behavior through the eyes of an individual with autism, and also explains autistic behavior through the lives of other species.
Why are Labradors getting lazier? How do animals react to reflections and shadows? Why do whales form delinquent gangs? How has domestication changed animals from their ancestors? Why can’t humans hear elephants roaring? What’s common between the cheetah and the greyhound? Why is riding a horse like ballroom dancing? Why do dogs bark and wolves don’t, and why are dogs easier to domesticate than cats?
Some of the behavioral traits characteristic of autism include a lack of speech, repeating words or phrases, hypersensitivity to sounds and lights, avoidance of physical contact, preference for certain textures, and visual and auditory fixations. Through decades of experiences, observations, research and work on both, her own life with autism and her work with animals, Grandin proffers groundbreaking perspectives into how people with autism often think the way animals think.
Bringing together Autism and animal cognition
An absence of talking does not mean a lack of communication, not showing emotions is not the same as not feeling emotions. Grandin serves as a guide into a world of fear, love, pain, anger, community, friendships and relationships, communication and intellect, as she breaks down why animals behave the way they do, and also helps us understand autism and its spectrum disorders, by addressing the commonalities in processing information.
How animals perceive, their feelings and thoughts, their pain and suffering, their genius and the trouble they cause, when and why human companionship and socialization with other animals is important, high visual acuity, low pain sensitivity, location of the eyes in prey and predator animals, learned behavior versus instinct, the role of night vision and color differentiation, the left and right brain, mixed emotions versus open emotions, the significance of novelty, pictures as a language instead of words, facial recognition versus other forms of remembering, exploration in strange environments, importance of play, the similarities between animals, children, and autistic people — Animals in Translation is a smorgasbord of research and experience-backed information presented for the reader. Through stories of her own pets and anecdotes about the pets’ of friends and animals she has worked with, we are taken on a neurological trail across cattle and poultry, reptiles and rodents, elephants and giraffes, birds and humans.
Animals in Translation is a smorgasbord of research and experience-backed information presented for the reader.
Why you should read this book
April is dedicated to World Autism Month, and the 2nd of April celebrated as Autism Awareness Day, with a focus on sharing stories to increase understanding of individuals on the autism spectrum. Written in a refreshing, matter-of-fact style, Temple Grandin helps us explore emotion, cognition and consciousness in both animals and autism. A fascinating book that educates on so many levels, while raising questions and starting discussions to foster support and acceptance. It also highlights the importance of non-fiction books and mainstream literature in making serious subjects educative, entertaining, and accessible to all readers, in contrast to scholarly articles and academic books that limit themselves only to professionals in the field.
