March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate trailblazing women who have shaped industries, changed lives, and inspired future generations. One such woman is Dr. Mary Temple Grandin, an Ag InnovatHER in her groundbreaking research on humane livestock handling and an esteemed voice in Breaking the Grass Ceiling on autism awareness.
As a woman blessed to work in agriculture and the proud mother of a young autistic girl born obsessed with cattle and other farm animals, I am so incredibly grateful to Dr. Temple Grandin for trailblazing a path for neurodivergent minds in agriculture and STEM and for giving me a blueprint for my daughter’s future success as she works to overcome her speech delay and learns how to thrive despite the realities of her diagnosis.
Dr. Grandin serves both of her passions equally. She even has two websites to share her ideas—one dedicated to her work on autism and the other an online guide to Livestock Behaviour, Design of Facilities, and Humane Slaughter.
FROM ‘LABELED AUTISTIC’ TO LEADING ADVOCATE
Grandin’s journey wasn’t easy. Born in Boston in the 1940s, she was diagnosed with “brain damage” as a child—long before autism was widely understood. While doctors and her father pushed for institutionalization, Temple’s mother sought innovative treatments like speech therapy and applied behavioral analysis to help her thrive. Only by chance was Temple officially diagnosed with autism as an adult.
While she admits that her middle school and high school experiences were challenging due to her autism, Grandin went on to become a foremost expert and a trailblazer for both understanding the disorder and succeeding despite it. Over the years, she’s authored dozens of scientific papers and three books about her experiences with autism, in addition to her scientific work in livestock management.
Grandin’s unique way of thinking, which she later described as “visual memory like a full-length movie,” helped her see the world—and animals—in a way others could not. Her two passions – understanding and documenting her neurodivergence and her love of animals — led to her invention of the “hug machine,” inspired by cattle squeeze shoots she saw on her aunt’s ranch in Arizona. This therapeutic device applies deep-touch pressure to hypersensitive people as a means of self-soothing and anxiety reduction.
In the forward of Grandin’s 1995 book Thinking in Pictures, neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote that Temple’s unique perspective provides readers with “a bridge between our world and hers, and allows us to glimpse into a quite other sort of mind.”
CARING FOR CATTLE: “ANIMALS ARE NOT THINGS”
Today, we have a firm understanding that cattle are extremely sensitive animals that can be easily stressed by heat, transport, and other external stimuli most humans do not notice. We know this, in large part, from the advances made by Dr. Grandin, who connected her sensory sensitivity as a person with autism to her observations of livestock.
“I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life, and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animals respect,” she said in Errol Morris’ series First Persons. “Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be.”
Dr. Grandin was one of the first advocates for the ethical consumption of animals for food and the humane treatment of livestock raised for slaughter. Her deep understanding of livestock behavior revolutionized handling cattle, reducing stress and improving animal welfare. Grandin has also been a vital source of boots-on-the-ground wisdom for ranchers worldwide — including our friend, RanchHER Mary Heffernan of Five Marys Ranch.
“[We] worked closely with Temple Grandin to design [our] barn– she is the gold standard in animal handling, and it was a special opportunity to get to talk through the design with her,” Heffernan explained to former RanchHER host Janie Johnson. “You know, [minimizing livestock stress] is important for a lot of reasons. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also impacts the quality of the meat. When those animals are stressed, they have stress hormones coursing through their body,” Heffernan says, “and if they are harvested at the time of that stress, you can get what’s called a ‘dark cutter,’ and the meat actually looks different.”
BREAKING THE “GRASS” CEILING
Grandin’s two passions – understanding and documenting her neurodivergence and her love of animals- led to her invention of the “hug machine,” inspired by cattle squeeze shoots she saw on her aunt’s ranch in Arizona. This therapeutic device applies deep-touch pressure to hypersensitive people as a means of self-soothing and anxiety reduction.
But the connections don’t end there. Grandin is also an outspoken advocate of agriculture as the perfect career path for others with autism and neurodivergence. She shared those feelings in her keynote address at the 97th National FFA Conference (in 2024).
“The thing I want to emphasize is we need the skills of people who think differently,” Temple told the FFA students. “I didn’t know that most people thought in words until I was in my late 30s. It was a big shock to learn that not everybody thought in pictures. […] Verbal thinkers tend to have big concept ideas. Still, they don’t know how to implement them — this is where we’re going to need our visual thinkers and our math thinkers working together to create different approaches to problem-solving: object visualizers see the risk, math visualizers calculate it, and verbal thinkers can discuss the risk. We need the people that think differently…we need their skills!”
But how do we open up more opportunities for children with autism and other learning disabilities on an individual basis and help them find their unique path to success? (I often wonder this, as a mother of a brilliant girl with autism trying to balance my desire to make her comfortable in this world without over-accommodating to the point she cannot thrive.)
Dr. Grandin advocates for several things, but among her ideas, she often cites increased educational flexibility, emphasizes early intervention, and encourages parents and teachers to have higher expectations of kids with autism that align with their interests and abilities.
“Parents get so worried about the deficits that they don’t build up the strengths, but those skills could turn into a job,” Grandin wrote in her book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum. “These kids often have uneven skills. We need to be a lot more flexible about things. Don’t hold these math geniuses back. You’re going to have to give them special-ed in reading because that tends to be the pattern, but let them go ahead in math.”
While she is not a huge proponent of late diagnosis and is weary of how stigmatizing labels like autism and ADHD can impact a child’s mental health and secure identity, Grandin does believe early intervention and diagnosis are critical for young children today. That’s because a diagnosis often opens the child to education programs and specialized therapies essential for lifelong success. Among those therapies, she advocates for Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), an intensive type of treatment for severe autism (but not the most severe cases).
“ABA is not the only effective program; it is one tool in the toolbox,” she said. “The best ABA programs are flexible and will use a variety of approaches.”
“It hurts because [parents and teachers often] don’t have enough expectations for the kids. I see too many kids who are smart and did well in school, but they’re not getting a job because when they were young, they didn’t learn any work skills,” Grandin said. “The parents think, ‘Oh, poor Tommy. He has autism, so he doesn’t have to learn things like shopping. In the 1950s, social skills were taught in a much more rigid way, so kids who were mildly autistic were forced to learn them. It hurts the autistic much more than it does the normal kids to not have these skills formally taught.”
However, she argues against ABA practitioners who are “forcing rigid compliance” as well as when the therapy is not phased out when it’s no longer helpful to the child and risks alienating them from mainstream experiences when they are ready.
“I like the logical way that I think, and I do not want to be cured,” Grandin once said.
EVERYBODY EATS
At the heart of every meal is a story—a tale of dedication, nurture, and the enduring spirit of those who tend the land. Everybody Eats is the place where the narratives of food and agriculture converge. In partnership with FarmHer, we meet courageous women who embody the power of nurturing and the strength of leading in transforming our food systems. They are the unsung heroes, educators, and compassionate souls with relentless commitment and extraordinary care embedded in cultivating our food. Feed your curiosity, nourish your understanding, and grow your appreciation for the stewards who ensure Everybody Eats.
Nationwide, a leading farm and ranch insurance provider, acknowledges that more than half of all farming operations in the United States have at least one female operator. These women constitute the fastest-growing segment of farmers and are known for their innovative approaches. Given the current challenging circumstances, assessing your insurance coverages and financial services is critical to ensure comprehensive protection and stability for your farm or ranch operations. Find a Nationwide Agent.