Emergence: Labeled By Autistic

By Temple Grandin

Summary 

• Emergence: Labeled By Autistic is a story written by an autistic individual named Temple Grandin.
• The story is about her personal life experiences growing up as an autistic person.
• Her perspective in the story is both of being autistic is both personal and observations that she made about other autistic individuals.
• She walks us through each stage of her life and the challenges she faced and how she overcame them.
• She finds that like many autistic people she does not tolerate physical touch from other people. She struggled with this most of her life.
• She created a machine called the ”Squeeze Machine”  that helped her deal with touch (for animals and individuals with ASD)
• The story is about her personal life experiences growing up as an autistic person.
• Her perspective in the story is both of being autistic is both personal and observations that she made about other autistic individuals.
• She walks us through each stage of her life and the challenges she faced and how she overcame them.
• She finds that like many autistic people she does not tolerate physical touch from other people. She struggled with this most of her life.
• She created a machine called the ”Squeeze Machine”  that helped her deal with touch (for animals and individuals with ASD)
• The story is about her personal life experiences growing up as an autistic person.
• Her perspective in the story is both of being autistic is both personal and observations that she made about other autistic individuals.
• She walks us through each stage of her life and the challenges she faced and how she overcame them.
• She finds that like many autistic people she does not tolerate physical touch from other people. She struggled with this most of her life.
• She created a machine called the ”Squeeze Machine”  that helped her deal with touch (for animals and individuals with ASD).

Main ideas

• The main ideas of the book are that autism does not set limitations for these individuals. Autistic individuals can overcome challenges they face in different ways and at a different rate from individuals that do not have ASD. One of the challenges is social interactions. Like temple, other autistic children struggle with social interaction (talking, eye contact, touch, etc). Autistic children should get the love and support from the people they are surrounded by. With this support and love, children will succeed. Temple's mother pushed her and didn’t give up on her. Although an autistic individual may not be the best in social settings, they are good at other things. Whatever a child with ASD talent/interest is, we should nurture it and let it grow. Temple's mother is a great example of how she always believed in her.

How this book contributes to the world of ASD  

• This book gives us insight into what people with autism go through. It gives us a better understanding of how people with autism feel or act the way they do. Temple goes into great detail about her experiences and what she felt exactly at each moment.
• You can see that she was faced with many challenges that other individuals with autism face. People with autism should not be looked at being disabled but as unique individuals who overcome challenges uniquely. For temple, she had to walk through “doors” to overcomer challenges in each stage of her life. This book high lights her fears, struggles, self-doubt and her success.
• This book gives us insight into the challenge that an autistic person faces growing up and how they can become successful adults.
• The way we can help them is to believe in them and trying to understand them.

How your perspectives about ASD did or did not change and why?

• I have been working with autistic children in a school environment for over a year and my perspective has changed after reading this book. I feel that I have gained a better understanding of autism. 
• I did notice repetitive behaviors and sensitivity to touch for these children I work with.
• This book gave me a better idea of what children with autism are feeling and experiencing. I can see the frustration that children experience when they don’t succeed right away and how they can’t express it well enough. 

What “group” you think this book would be appropriate for     

This book is appropriate for parents and siblings of autistic children. 
Professionals that work or plan to work with this population should also read this book. This book gives us more inside of what an autistic individual voice is but not always heard. Also, this books gives us the inspiration to keep trying different methods and making different modifications to help children with ASD succeed inside and outside the class. 

Would you recommend this book?I would definitely recommend this book to others. This book is great for parents with autism children and individuals who work with them. 
Although this book is short, Temple shows us many different doors at different stages of her life.
Her experiences highlight with other individuals with autism experience. 
The book also has good ideas of how she over came to her challenges she struggled with everyday.

Creative Project

Students will create a short picture book. Students will get paper and markers. Students will draw a door of each challenge Temple Gradin went through.Underneath each door students will explain the significance of each challenge. Students have to use visuals and symbols to represent each symbol.

Students will also draw a door for a challenge they were faced with and overcame. Then they will come present their challenge and visual drawing to the class. Students will explain what each symbol/drawing represents, why it was a challenge, how'd the overcame it, did they overcome it in one try or had to try multiple times. Later we will make a collage of all the students doors