Aliah Lawson
 

    When Temple Grandin was an infant, she tells how “she started to stiffen in her mother’s arms, at ten months to claw her ‘like a trapped animal”(Sacks 254). This shows her hypersensitivity to touch from others at an early age. As she got older, Grandin developed the ability to concentrate intensely on one thing and and that thing only, and as a result practically erasing all other things from her life (Sacks 254). She did not develop her speech until she was three years old with the help of a speech therapist (Sacks 255). During her time with Sacks, Grandin explained that she believes that children are already highly developed when it comes to understanding other people by the age of three or four, something that she claims she has never and will probably never understand (270). This very fact, along with others, contribute to why Grandin struggled to make friends in her adolescence.

    Grandin desired friendship growing up, but her lack of effective social and communication skills often left her excluded from her peers (Sacks 272). While her peers had a good understanding of social cues and codes that made it easy for them to communicate with others, these factors completely went over Grandin’s head. Grandin also had a vividly visual thinking process, which is an advantage to her when she is designing livestock living plans, she can imagine her creation in action and analyze it to make sure it was exactly the way she wanted it. However, Grandin realized that most people did not have the same thinking abilities as she did, which was something else that she felt excluded her from those around her (Sacks 284). Finally, Grandin had a hard time understanding emotions; she expressed that she had never “been in love” or “cared for anyone” in the way that she believes is supposed to, and that she “thinks that lots of times there are things missing from my life” (286).

All of these aspects of Grandin’s life, while not detrimental, have hindered her from developing her complete identity through social interactions. Autism Spectrum Disorder makes it hard for people to develop adequate social and communication skills, but a large part of identity building is reliant upon interactions with others, as can be seen in Grandin’s case.