Grandin also developed an objective numerical scoring system for assessing animal welfare at
slaughter plants. The use of this scoring system resulted in significant improvements in animal stunning and handling during slaughter. This work is described in "Objective scoring of animal handling and stunning practices in slaughter plants",
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 212, pp. 36-39, "The feasibility of using vocalization scoring as an indicator of poor welfare during slaughter", Applied Animal Behavior Science, Vol. 56, pp. 121–128,
and "Effect of animal welfare audits of slaughter plants by a major fast food company on cattle handling and stunning practices", Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Vol. 216, pp. 848–851.
Grandin is the author or co-author of over 60 peer reviewed scientific papers on a variety of other animal behavior subjects. Some of the other subjects are: the effect of hair whorl position on cattle behavior, preslaughter stress and meat quality, religious slaughter, mothering behavior of beef cows, cattle temperament, and causes of bruising.
She has lectured widely about her first-hand experiences of the anxiety of feeling threatened by everything in her surroundings, and of being dismissed and feared, which motivates her work in humane livestock handling processes. She studied the behavior of cattle, how they react to ranchers, movements, objects, and light. Grandin then designed adapted curved corrals, intended to reduce stress, panic and injury in animals being led to
slaughter. This has proved to be a further point of criticism and controversy among animal activists who have questioned the congruence of a career built on animal slaughter alongside Grandin's claims of compassion and respect for animals. While her designs are widely used throughout the slaughterhouse industry, her claim of compassion for the animals is that because of her autism she can see the animals' reality from their viewpoint, that when she holds an animal's head in her hands as it is being slaughtered, she feels a deep, godlike connection to them.
[28]
Her business website promotes improvement of standards for
slaughterhouses and livestock farms. The 'squeeze machine' itself remains on sale at US$4525 each from Therafin Corporation.
[29] In 2004, she won a "Proggy" award in the "Visionary" category, from
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
[30]
One of her notable essays about animal welfare is "Animals Are Not Things",
[31] in which she posits that technically, animals are property in society, but the law ultimately gives them ethical protections or rights. She compares the properties and rights of owning cows, versus owning screwdrivers, enumerating how both may be used to serve human purposes in many ways, but when it comes to inflicting pain, there is a vital distinction between such "properties"; legally a person can smash or grind up a screwdriver, but cannot
torture an animal.
Grandin became well-known beyond the American autistic community, after being described by
Oliver Sacks in the title narrative of his book
An Anthropologist on Mars (1995), for which he won a
Polk Award; the title is derived from Grandin's description of how she feels around
neurotypical people. She first spoke in public about autism in the mid-1980s, at the request of
Ruth C. Sullivan, one of the founders of the
Autism Society of America (ASA). Sullivan writes:
“ I first met Temple in the mid-1980s [at the] annual [ASA] conference. Standing on the periphery of the group was a tall young woman who was obviously interested in the discussions. She seemed shy and pleasant, but mostly she just listened. I learned her name was Temple Grandin. It wasn't until later in the week that I realized she was someone with autism. I approached her and asked if she'd be willing to speak at the next year's [ASA] conference. She agreed. The next year Temple first addressed an [ASA] audience. People were standing at least three deep. The audience couldn't get enough of her. Here, for the first time, was someone who could tell us from her own experience, what it was like to be extremely sound sensitive ("like being tied to the rail and the train's coming"). She was asked many questions: "Why does my son do so much spinning?" "Why does he hold his hands to his ears?" "Why doesn't he look at me?" She spoke from her own experience, and her insight was impressive. There were tears in more than one set of eyes that day. Temple quickly became a much sought-after speaker in the autism community.
[32] ”
Based on personal experience, Grandin advocates early intervention to address autism and supportive teachers, who can direct fixations of the child with autism in fruitful directions. She has described her
hypersensitivity to noise and other sensory stimuli. She says words are her second language and that she thinks "totally in pictures," using her vast visual memory to translate information into a slideshow of mental images that can be manipulated or correlated.
[33] Grandin attributes her success as a humane livestock facility designer to her ability to recall detail, which is a characteristic of her visual memory. Grandin compares her memory to full-length movies in her head, that may be replayed at will, allowing her to notice small details. She also is able to view her memories using slightly different contexts by changing the positions of the lighting and shadows.
Her insight into the minds of cattle has taught her to value the changes in details to which animals are particularly sensitive and to use her visualization skills to design thoughtful and humane animal-handling equipment. She was named a fellow of the
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers in 2009.
[34]
As a partial proponent of
neurodiversity, Grandin does not support eliminating autism genes or treating mildly autistic individuals. However, she believes that autistic children who are severely handicapped need therapy with
applied behavioral analysis.
[35] However, she has claimed that she only will attend talks given by autistics that can hold down a career.
[36][37] By contrast,
Jonathan Mitchell describes Grandin as making generalizations about autistic people, saying that many autistics aren't visual thinkers and that her generalizations trivialize the difficulties associated with autism.
[38] The autism activist
Amy Sequenzia has criticized Temple Grandin for only focusing on and listening to high-functioning autistics, as opposed to low-functioning and non-speaking autistics. She has said that Grandin doesn't view those autistics as worthy of her attention.
[39][40]
In 2012, when the American beef industry was struggling with public perception of its use and sale of
pink slime, Grandin spoke out in support of the food product. She said, "It should be on the market. It should be labeled. We should not be throwing away that much beef."
[41]
