Temple Grandin Visits Fargo | Video

Kristi Larson | 1/25/2013

She`s a doctor of animal science, a writer, and also a movie star. That`s how Temple Grandin describes herself, before saying she`s autistic.

Temple Grandin is perhaps the most well known adult with autism. Today she spoke to a large crowd in Fargo, who gave her a standing ovation.

"There`s different kinds of minds, and those different kinds of minds need to work together, because they could complement each other," she said.

Minds like Temple`s see things differently, but to her that means gifted people will be better at different things. "Visual thinking minds, they will be really good at things like art and graphic design, sort of more patterned mathematical minds will be really, really good at mathematics."

Temple identifies herself as a scientist who happens to have autism, a gift she says that has helped her.

"I`m an extreme visual thinker, so autism helped me with my work with cattle because, my very early work I wanted to get down in the shoots to see what the cattle were seeing, and people thought that was kind of crazy in the beginning. But it turns out these visual distractions that most people don`t notice, have a big effect on how the cattle behave."

She`s written a book about how to handle cattle along with seven others about animals and autism. Today she shared her work with an audience of around 800 in Fargo.

Professor of Animal Sciences at NDSU, Charlie Stoltenow said, "It`s wonderful to get Temple back, she`s world famous. Over half the cattle that are handled in slaughter plants in the United States are in systems that she designed."

An accomplished woman, who is trying to make a difference for anyone with a different mind.

"She relates to people, this is how I did it, ah, these are the people I want to thank who helped me through it. And her message is, you know what if I can do it you can too, I want to encourage you," Stoltenow adds.

A little more than two years ago, Temple Grandin was featured in Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. The movie "Temple Grandin" was released in 2010 on HBO. It starred Claire Danes and won five Emmy Awards.

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