{"id":109616,"date":"2015-09-10T19:45:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T01:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/temple-grandin-plans-september-visit-to-flc\/"},"modified":"2015-09-10T19:45:02","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T01:45:02","slug":"temple-grandin-plans-september-visit-to-flc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/temple-grandin-plans-september-visit-to-flc\/","title":{"rendered":"Temple Grandin plans September visit to FLC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Temple
Temple Grandin pauses as she observes the cattle-operating facilities at the Beebe family ranch outside Ignacio in 2011. Grandin will speak this month to coincide with Fort Lewis College\u2019s Common Reading Experience.<\/span>Shaun Stanley\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Revered animal scientist and Colorado State University professor Temple Grandin is slated to speak about autism during a series of events at Fort Lewis College this month.<\/p>\n

Grandin\u2019s appearance coincide with the college\u2019s annual Common Reading Experience, which this year focuses on Grandin\u2019s 1995 book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism.<\/p>\n

Grandin was diagnosed with autism, a neurodevelopment disorder, at age 2 and struggled as a result with social interaction growing up and in her adult life.<\/p>\n

But an interest in animal science, animal behavior and the humane treatment of livestock trumped her social difficulties. Grandin is credited for designing one-third of all livestock-handling facilities in the United States. Her inventions are also found in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

One of her earliest developments was invented when she was still in college. The \u201chug box,\u201d or \u201chug machine,\u201d is a device that administers pressure and relieves stress in hyperactive individuals. Those with autism often struggle with sensory issues, and the pressure has a calming effect.<\/p>\n

Grandin\u2019s sensitivity to those matters led her to ground-breaking work in developing humane livestock facilities for handling, transporting and restraining cattle and pigs at meat plants.<\/p>\n

She received her doctorate in animal sciences at the University of Illinois in 1989. That year, Grandin wrote a thesis linking animal stress with poor meat quality and reduced productivity. Since then, Grandin wrote multiple journalistic essays promoting the importance of humane handling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe themes she raises, particularly in this one book, address both autism and the challenges of living with it in our society today, as well as how humans work with animals and livestock and treat them humanely,\u201d said Cynthia Dott, FLC biology professor and Campus Reading board member.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought her expertise would be of great interest here, given the amount of ranching and diverse group of people who live here,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought her work would really appeal to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandin\u2019s work was honored by the 2010 biographical film \u201cTemple Grandin,\u201d which received five Emmy Awards. The film will be shown at 4 and 7 p.m. Oct. 14 in the Vallecito Room in FLC\u2019s Student Union.<\/p>\n

Grandin will hold a free, presentation and signing of her book, Helping Different Kinds of Minds Solve Problems, beginning at 7 p.m. Sept. 30 in Whalen Gym.<\/p>\n

Common Reading Experience is designed to inspire literary conversation among FLC students and the community. A complete schedule of this year\u2019s events can be found at www.fortlewis.edu\/common-reading-experience.<\/p>\n

jpace@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renowned autism activist to speak about her new book<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5843],"tags":[132,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109616"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}