World Renowned Speaker Coming to USU

Bestselling author Temple Grandin.

She’s been featured in The New York Times, People, and Forbes. She was listed in Time’s list of 100 most influential people in the world under heroes. A movie based on her life earned 15 Emmy nominations.

Yet Temple Grandin is far from a billionaire. She’s an expert on livestock and animal behavior, a bestselling author and a professor of animal science at Colorado State University.

                                   

Oh yes, and she was born with high-functioning autism.

Diagnosed at 3 years old, Grandin’s mother was told that she had brain damage and should be institutionalized. At a time when little was known about autism, her mother scoffed at the suggestion, and instead began a journey to ensure her daughter had the best opportunities possible. She was placed in a nursery school from the time she was a small child. Her mother hired a one-on-one speech therapist helping Grandin learn to communicate. She graduated from Hampshire Country School, a private school focused on giving gifted children specialty education, in 1966.

Lecturing Around the World

Lancy on his birthday vacationing in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy.

USU Professor David F. Lancy, 2001's Carnegie Professor of the Year, is spending much of the fall on a lecture tour in Europe at some of the world's most prestigious institutions. 

He delivered his first lecture, on the nature of apprenticeship, in early October at the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past Conference at Cambridge University. He will give a keynote address at a conference on the anthropological study of schooling at Brunel University in London in early December. 

He has also been invited to consult and speak at Osnabrück University and at L’ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociale in Paris. He will be speaking on his research on children’s work. The specific topic will be “Les Tâches Ménagères, Agricole et Butinage:  L'éducation Avant la Scolarisation” (Household chores, Agricultural and Foraging: Education Before Schooling). Dr. Lancy is the 2011 D. Wynn Thorne awardee at USU, a prestigious honor that recognizes faculty for outstanding research throughout their career.  

It takes all kinds of minds: Dr. Temple Grandin sheds light on autism at USU

Dr. Temple Grandin

Dr. Temple Grandin will soon visit Utah State University. She’s coming to discuss animal handling, a field she’s revolutionized. She’ll also talk about Autism Spectrum Disorder.

She’s on the autism spectrum herself, and her life experience gives her a refreshing, insider’s approach to the topic. On November 2 she’ll deliver a free public lecture: “All Kinds of Minds Need to Work Together.” She speaks at 4 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center ballroom.

If anywhere needs more frank discussion about autism, it’s Utah. Nationwide, one in 110 children is diagnosed with ASD. In Utah, the rate is one in 77. That means that two of every 150 babies born in the state will experience the significant challenges in communication, behavior and getting along with others that come with ASD. The cost of treating autism can total $3.5 million over a child’s lifetime, according to a 2006 Harvard study—including medical care, prescriptions and intervention.