Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to ditchability empowerment now, season four. I'm your host, Keith Murphy Diginsini. Today I'm talking to returning dads and friend of the show, doctor Temple Grandin. Temple, welcome back to the show. Would you introduce yourself?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Tevil Grandin. I am a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. I had no speech until age four.
All the symptoms of really severe autism. I was very lucky to get into a very good early education program by two and a half. Lots of speech therapy, lots of emphasis on learning how to wait and take turns at games, then skills, teaching skills, such as getting dressed. So it was very good that I had, that I had teachers that always helped me improve my abilities and things like art. Also super important. I can't emphasize how important good teachers are in autism. I'm also a big proponent of building on the kids strengths. A lot of the kids like me are very good at building things and mechanical things. Then you have the math kids. You might have a little fourth grader who's brilliant in math. He needs to be moved ahead in math or she needs to be moved ahead in math. You know, we need to build on the strengths.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: So today we're talking about your book that came out eleven years ago, aptly titled the Artistic Brain. If there's anyone who's an expert on the autistic brain, it's you. So please take us inside the autistic brain and what it is like to be inside a MRI machine and learn about your brain.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Well, people with autism are often more interested in things that they do rather than in social, emotional. And one of the things that made my life interesting, worthwhile is having an interesting career and working in. I've worked with some of the computer people and the tech companies. A good portion of those I think are autistic also, I've worked with equipment designing and building equipment in the cattle industry. And I worked with people that owned their own machine shops and welding shops, had multiple patents that were definitely undiagnosed autistics. And I want to see autistics achieve those things. Today I'm seeing too many voice, verbal autistic kids, teenagers, where they're not learning basic skills like shopping, they're not learning academic skills. They'd rather have got this wrong. They're learning academic skills, but they're not learning job skills. And job skills are a different type of skill. I have grandparents that come up to me all the time and that grandparent, it finds out they're autistic later in life, but they have decent jobs like pharmacist, computer engineer, really good jobs. And where that diagnosis later in life helps them is with the relationships. In fact, I've got a book called different, not less 18 adults later in life telling about getting diagnosed later in life. But all of these people that had successful jobs learned working skills when they were young. They had paper routes. Now I know that's no longer exists, but let's say for eleven year olds now, church volunteer jobs, helping out an elderly neighbor. They need to start learning how to do something on a schedule for somebody outside the family.
That's the boss. Really important thing to learn. They're legal, they need to be getting real jobs. And I kind of would forget the interviews. Just use your connections in the neighborhood to get them into real jobs and to make those jobs successful. I want to avoid multitasking chaos at the McDonald's takeout window. That's not a good place to go.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: And then the other thing, any task that has sequence, give them a pilot's checklist of the steps. For example, this is how you clean the McDonald's ice cream machine. Take it apart, 1234. Clean it, 1234. Bullet points reassemble just like a pilot's checklists.
That would help on many jobs. Long sequential verbal instructions do not work.
So what were pointers right there.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Thank you. So what would you like riding your book, the artistic brain and seeing images of your own brain.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Well, that was interesting. And one of those images shows very, very big visual thinking circuits.
And that was kind of blew my mind when I saw that huge visual thinking circuits. But for me, I'm really terrible in abstract math. Can't do algebra. And that's screening a lot of kids out of really good jobs like real high end skilled trades jobs like being an electrician, being a person who invents and builds industrial equipment.
See, autism comes in different types, but they tend to be specialized. You can have the object visualizer like me who's going to be good at art and mechanical, fix anything. And we have a huge need for people to fix things. As I travel around the country, I am finding broken elevators everywhere I go.
That's a great job for the visual thinkers. Then you have another autistic mind. That's your mathematical thinker. Those are going to be a computer, programmers, they're going to be physicists, chemists, these kinds of jobs. And then the third type of autistic is a word, fact mind. They love facts. They're often attracted to history and the type of job that they can be very good at is specialized retail. Selling new cars has been very successful in several cases because they know every feature of every car on the lot. Selling specialized business, insurance, selling office supplies. These are things where specialized knowledge can be very helpful, and these are examples of successful jobs. Now, going back to my kind of mind, the visual thinkers, we get addicted to video games. I'll tell you how to get them off the video games. Car mechanics. Car mechanics. There's been five or six successful young adults getting rid of the video games and becoming car mechanics. But the thing is, you got to introduce them to it.
And they find out that motors are more interesting than video games.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Obviously, the artistic brain, words ridden.
Eleven years ago, and there have been a lot, I would imagine, advancements in, uh, medical thinking. Uh, if you want to write a updated version of the artistic mind, what would you include in it that wasn't readily available to you in 2013, I believe.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Well, I do have a sequel, visual thinking, the hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns and abstractions. And it basically supports just about everything I said in the autistic brain. But where I just was a discussion that I do in the new book, visual thinking is I make it very plain to business people that we need the skills somebody needs to fix broken elevators. They are just everywhere now, and they are mechanical devices. We're having more and more computer problems.
Like the whole Microsoft debacle shut down every airport in the world. Yeah, that's totally horrible.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that is.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: We're going to need their minds. Let's take food processing, which is my industry. We don't make the equipment for poultry and pigs anymore. It's all coming from Europe.
Yeah, that's because in Europe, kids can either go to university or they can go tech, and they don't look at the tech as a lesser form of thinking. Now, I spent 25 years in heavy construction, supervising, putting in equipment that I had designed, and I worked with brilliant visual thinkers who could not do math, that were inventing equipment and patenting it. And it's equipment that the industry is still using. These weren't frivolous patents, and we need the skills. It's that simple. Would you like the water system to work? Would you like the electric power to work?
Need the skills of some of these autistic individuals. And that's what I discuss in this book in visual thinking.
And it's actually some new research that just came out in 2024. It's not in any of the books that words are not required for thought. Brand new research was published in the journal Nature and mathematical thinking and visual thinking. You do not need language. And that's some of the very latest research. And that supports both the autistic brain and my new art book, visual thinking.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Wow.
My brain just exploded metaphorically with that knowledge.
What a game changer. When you eventually write about that topic, what do you hope that it will motivate people in the way they think about verbal vintage nonverbal communication?
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Well, some, okay. Autism comes from. Goes from Einstein, no language till age three, to somebody who can't speak and maybe can't dress themselves. So you have this big range. But some of the non speakers can learn to type independently, completely independently, and actually get college degrees, but they have to be introduced to typing. And I want to give you a little hint here to help them to learn how to type. Use a tablet. And the reason why a tablet's important is because the print appears next to the visual, to the keyboard. Like, if I use this desktop that I'm on right now, I have to look way down here to press the letter, then way up here to see it on the screen. You have to make a big attention shift. They can't do that.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: And so if you use a desktop, you got to put the keyboard up on a box.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: So the print appears next to the top of the keyboard.
That's really, really important.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: But some of them can learn to type completely independently, and they. There's some very good books. Tito Makapatahe. How can I talk if my lips don't move? Then there's that book, the reason I jump by the japanese boy. And it has a sequel. The sequel. The second book is actually better because he's older with a lot more insight. And there's discussions of things like not being able to control their movements, vision being scrambled, sensory scrambling.
If you're working with nonverbal older children and adults, those books are must reads, and they are available on Amazon.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: So one of your newer books is aimed at parents understanding their newly diagnosed artistic child. I believe I recall the title.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: It's called autism and education. It's a little small book, and parents like three year olds, four year olds really like that book because it tells them a lot of things they need to know and without overwhelming them with a huge dictionary sized book.
But I can't emphasize enough the importance of early invention. I got it.
I'm seeing bad things out in certain parts of the country where a three year old might be on a two year wait list. That's absolutely unacceptable. You've got to start working with a two year old right now. I was in therapy by two and a half.
Really, really important.
And the other problem is we've got kids growing up today where they're just doing stuff on their phones. They're not getting introduced to tools, cooking, sewing, all the hands on things.
I'm seeing too many kids today growing up who've never used a tool. They might be still doing Legos as a teenager and this be a person that should be fixing cars or fixing elevators. And these are jobs that are not going to go away, the art jobs. I'm concerned about artificial intelligence, but elevators are not going to get fixed by robots anytime soon and they are mechanical and they're going to be mechanical for that foreseeable future.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So you travel around a lot, uh, giving lectures and talks?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: How long have you been doing that? And take goods through a ordinary day when you're traveling?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Well, I've been doing some autism talks since the eighties, but I also been very much doing my. I'm a college professor. I'm going to have my first class today. I'm a livestock handling class. I may have to cut this interview a little short because we have a parking problem on campus. We've got more students than we've ever had. I was just frantic yesterday. The second parking garage was just about almost full. I didn't know where I was going to park and.
But we need the skills of the autistic people. That's the reason why I wrote the second book.
We're getting more and more computer messes. We're going to need brilliant people to figure that out. That's not my kind of mind. That's going to be more the pattern thinkers. But when these systems come back up online, like the AT and T crashed right now, the circuits overloaded at school and my phone wouldn't even work in my building yesterday. I don't think 5G is a good thing. It seems to be worse because it's high frequency.
But when the AT and T crashed, came back up online, it broke my United text messaging system in a very weird way. It works in some cities but not in others.
Wow, that's very, very weird. Tells me something about the architecture of AT and T's system. I've been tracking it, but we're going to be having more things. And on the Microsoft debacle, things came back up online. I started seeing more stuff going wrong with the electronic signs at the Denver airport. Like the sign saying the plane's boarding now and it's not even there.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah. It did not do that before.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: No.
And so how long have you been a teacher and how a college professor, and how do you balance the busyness of your professional life?
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Well, I've been a professor for 34 years. I'm a part time professor. I've never been a full time professor. Professor.
And so, still doing my livestock training. I just had a call this morning to do training for animal welfare auditors in the meat industry. Just set it up for put on the calendar this morning. I think it's important that I still have a job that has nothing to do with autism.
I do lots of advocacy for autism, but I tell a lot of advocates. You're going to be a better advocate if you can tell how you got this job and how you managed to keep it.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you will. You right on the money.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: I think another thing is seeing back doors in the HBO movie Temple grand. And there's a scene where I walk up to the editor of our state farm magazine and I get his cardinal, because I knew if I wrote for that magazine, that would help my career.
And I had the guts to go up and get the card because when I was a little kid, we had to learn how to talk to people, sell candy for charity, dress up in your good clothes at parents parties and greet the guests, taught a few social skills. So I went up to them, I got the card, produced an article, and became livestock editor.
That's an example of seeing a back door into job and then acting on it. And I did that.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Why do you think that a lot of the misconceptions about autism and people with autism remain to this day? That you're unsolcial, unfunny, non friendly, you are savage, don't like other people, modes of which are totally incorrect from the onset. Why do you think that these horrendous misconceptions about autism and autistic people have remained so prevalent throughout the years?
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Well, one of the problems I have with real fast social conversations, I simply cannot follow them. But also, I'm a good example of an autistic person who has friends who shared interests. Autistic people tend to get their friends. It might be computer programmers, computer programming club, a math club, a chess club, the school band. For me, it's animal behavior specialists. And then we can talk about animal behavior. When I was in high school and I was being bullied, friends who? Horses. Riding horses, showing horses, model rocket club, those were places where I had friends. Friends who shared interests is extremely important.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: How much time do we have? Because I want to make sure you get.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: I can go until 845, and then I have to go because I'm very concerned that if I can't get into the second parking garage, I'm really in trouble. I can't believe how. How. We've got hundreds of new students right now. I just heard on the radio last night they're putting them up in hotels, and I hadn't planned on this for the beginning of school.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
So you have been called the.
One of the original disability advocates.
How did that make you feel?
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Well, I want to see the people that think differently and get out and get good jobs. I worked with a lot of undiagnosed autistic people that were very autistic. One of the people I worked with, I had to help him when we were at this meat plant, not getting a fight with the plant engineer. I had to prevent that. That could have jeopardized our project. I remember dragging him out of the shop one day so he wouldn't get in a fight with him, because I wanted the project to come out right. And this man was very talented. Very talented. Brilliant inventor of mechanical equipment.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: And so you mentioned a little about it before.
What would be some advice you would give audience to people who really want a job but are having a hard time finding a job or getting through the interview process?
[00:21:36] Speaker B: I like to job. Let's use the back door. The other thing is this is, these are drawings in my book, visual thing in my book, thinking and pictures of projects. And what I learned to do was to sell my work instead of myself. There are a lot of autistics, and the people I worked with that had machine shops, had their own independent businesses. This is often a good route to go. And I would sell jobs based on showing the work off. And there's a lot of opportunities in industrial things for doing this, where you simply show off the work. You do a project, then you write about it. I used to write about my projects. This also happens in jobs like fixing computers and fixing computer systems.
Having your own business avoids some of the social problems, but you make yourself good at a skill other people want. When I was a teenager, I had a little sign painting business, and I had to learn how to make signs that other people would want. And my first sign was for a hair salon, and I didn't think they would like cattle or flying saucers on it, so I put the breck shampoo lady on it because I figured a hair salon would like that, because sometimes in the artwork, they just make artwork that they want to do the same cartoon character or whatever and make yourself really good at something. A really good mechanic. Yeah, you can be weird. See the visual thinkers, I'd go with the mechanical and the math thinkers.
There's lots of computer programming stuff, places where you can show your code off. One time a mom showed me an Android phone where her son had. I totally made a new interface on it. It was quite impressive. That's the sort of thing that you could just show off.
The other problem I'm seeing is too many parents overprotect their teenage kid. They aren't learning bank account shopping.
They need to be getting volunteer jobs when they're eleven years old. On real jobs, instant illegal.
There's too much overprotection. I want to avoid the multitasking chaos. We're not going to go to the crazy takeout window that's to be avoided. But there's lots of other jobs that will work.
And what happens with a lot of parents is they get so stuck on the autism they can't think their kid is even capable of doing anything. There were a lot of people that thought I was stupid because I couldn't do higher math. And when I designed the projects that were shown, the HBO movie, I did those when I was in my twenties. One of the things that motivated me, I wanted to prove that I was not stupid.
And I remember looking at my drawings, a drawing I did in 1978, and I'm going, I guess a stupid person wouldn't have drawn this. This came out really nice, but there needs to be a lot more emphasis on what they can do. And for us visual thinkers, I'm going to really push the mechanical, fixing cars, fixing elevators because AI will not replace those jobs. I'm watching AI very carefully. And for the mathematical minds there's a lots of things in programming, just troubleshooting computer systems. I heard about a guy at one of the airports, he was hired as a baggage handler and one day the baggage handling system computer went crazy and stopped working. And he goes over and he fixed it. Now he runs it for the whole airport.
That's just an example of the back door and using the skill area. And the other area that's been very successful has been what I call quiet specialized retail where you work with one customer at a time to find the right car. Not the most expensive car, the right car help them find the right printer. Not the most expensive one, the right printer. Help find the right specialized business. Insurance. I did a Zoom call with a bank, a big major bank, and they had two or three autistic people selling financial products I don't even understand.
And they would have been more the mathematical minds. Those are examples of successful jobs. And then, of course, I got Silicon Valley. There's heads of big companies that are on the spectrum. You all know who they are.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: You've made your life studying a lot of things, but what do you, what do you wish that people, particularly the non disabled people, would know and really understand about autism and autistic people?
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Well, I'm saying they have no empathy. That's nothing true. See, one of the big problems is processor speed. Brain processor speed. You have lots and lots of memory. But one of the reasons why the takeout window is a problem is it's fast multitasking. The problem with fast chit chat conversation, it goes too fast. I have problems with interrupting you, and I know it's rude, but I have problems with the timing. I still have that problem.
Sometimes it will take longer to train an autistic person, but using a checklist solves the problem of the angry employee going, well, I already showed him how to work that machine. Is he stupid? Well, this is where making the checklist right in the beginning, like, for example, I have a five item checklist for hard reboot on the computer. And Chris, my computer guy, said, well, you just do this. Yeah, I can't follow that. I've got to write it down and I have it on the. Fastened to the bookshelf. Hard reboot on the computer. You know, they hold the switch down, then you momentarily touch the switch, and then you do this.
That's the sort of thing that I have to write it down. And I have a five item checklist for hard reboot on the computer. That's the very simple example of having a checklist. It's a five bullet point checklist.
But when the computer's really messed up, you can hopefully fix it with a hard reboot. And then if that doesn't work, then I got to call my computer guy.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Yeah, we all do every now and then. Besides not having any empathy, which it's, of course, the modes forge thing. Uh, what are some other things that you wish that non disabled people would know about?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Things I'm trying to do is assume that we need the skills. I'm a big NASA fan, and just a few weeks ago, I went to the Johnson Space center, and they've completely refurbished the old control room that we used to go to the moon. Oh, and you sit in this gallery and all the screens light up and you can hear the astronauts talking and that was just so cool because they had let it kind of fall into ruin. And it was so nice to see that all refurbished now, like in a museum. We had to walk up five flights of stairs at the Johnson Space center because the elevator was broken. And one of the reasons why I'm really pushing that and escalator fixing, I did a gigantic education conference out in Las Vegas.
They had like 2000 people there and three broken escalators.
They were not happy.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: No, I imagine not.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: And these jobs are not going to go away.
And these are completely mechanical things.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: And you would think that they would be the thirds jobs that AI would be able to do.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: A not going to take a big chain conveyor apart on an escalator anytime soon because I've seen them take them apart at the airport and I go, oh, looks like stuff we have at the meatpacking plant.
It is strictly mechanical devices, you see. And that's where my kind of mind could have job security. Then you have the more mathematical people, okay, so they might be computerized controls on the elevator. That's where you need the more mathematical mind.
But right now, elevators aren't getting routine maintenance. I'm hearing scraping in the tracks. They haven't like there's things where they can adjust the rails to keep them straight. Well, that's not getting done.
And then you have your mathematical mind and then you have your history lover. And they're not going to be good at fixing elevators. You see, this is a, the kind of thinker is its word. And they're going to be very good at what I call quiet specialized retail, where you kind of work with one customer at a time and find the right specialized product. And I already told you some of the jobs that were successful. New car sales, banking products, office supplies, business insurance. These are actual examples of successful, successful jobs.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: What do you wish that advocates with disabilities, but non autistic would know, would understand about uh, audit people and well, one of the things late to them.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: Vague instructions don't work. Something saying something. They. You're not a team player. That's too vague.
Okay, a more specific instruction. Would you call Jim a jerk at the project meeting? And you're going to have to apologize.
That's the kind of direct feedback they should be getting.
Also, there's some things on hygiene where you're going to just have to clean it up. That's another area where we're going to have to conform some, but vague instructions do not work. You have to be specific.
You have to have the right boss. Another thing I found on the job front, changing bosses is a dangerous time.
I almost lost my magazine job when we got a new boss. When the magazine was sold, he thought I was weird and was going to get rid of me.
And the way I saved the job was showing a portfolio of all my articles. Changing bosses. I'd recommend anyone who's autistic and a good job. You keep all your performance reviews hard copy in paper. At home, you keep copies of projects you've done because you may need these materials to get another job. You keep it in hard copy. That means paper at home, period.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Is there anything you haven't done that you wish you could or that's on the horizon for you but like to.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: Do, like do an orbital space trip. I'd like to do that. It's probably nothing. Not really a reasonable thing. The other thing that a lot of autistic people have problems with at work is they think that the ideal workplace should be perfect.
And I went through this. Every workplace, even the best ones, will have some problems. The difference between the best workplaces and the worst workplaces is the best places have fewer problems. But even the best places are going to have stuff wrong with them.
And you kind of just have to, you know, learn to accept that.
And that that was something I had to go through, that there's always going to be something wrong. But the worst places have much more things that are wrong.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: How? How would you recommend parents with authentic children who are non verbal or mainly nonverbal, prepare them not only for life, but also to get a volunteer position and later a job?
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Well, one of the things let's introduce typing. That's one of the things I would do. Now, not all of them can do it, but that's something I'm a big proponent of, teaching non speaking to type. We have to look at what they can do. They might be able to do a job like folding laundry at a hotel, you know, rolling silverware at a restaurant. There's a lot of things that they can do. Stocking shelves, snacks and things like that in a grocery store. And they could come in at night when the store is not busy. You see, now, being a visual thinker, I'm seeing these jobs, but these are things that they could do. And it's very important for them to be given useful work, not busy work. Useful work.
Okay. The guests are going to appreciate folded, nicely folded towels. That is useful work.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. And I.
So what is your next book going to be about?
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Well, it might have something to do with animals.
Right now I've got a very heavy travel schedule.
I got a drive up to Wyoming tonight and then I'll be talking to agriculture students would be one of the things I'll be doing. I'm also going to be talking to first responders and one of the things that they need to know is that sudden surprises scare.
Like you might have a fireman all dressed up in a Scott Air pack and the autistic kid goes and hides from him because he's terrified of the Martian.
Well, one of the ways to help prevent this kind of problem would be to bring that equipment into the school and demonstrate it to the kids. Let them put the mask on and he's not a Martian or robot maybe there to rescue you.
Sudden surprises scare. That's a real basic principle.
You need to understand some of the sensory problems in autism, okay? They get blasted in a siren, then the person goes into sensory overload.
They don't understand that a sound that would be merely annoying to most people hurts the ears like a dentist drill hitting a nerve.
They just don't understand that. But just explain some of those things.
There's some good, there's a guy named Xavier up in Michigan who's doing a lot of work with first responders and that's important so they understand what's going on.
See, this is the problem you've got with autism. You see, you have something like dyslexia, okay? You have problems with reading a ADHD, you know, kind of shifting attention all the time.
Yep, I'd be a terrible air traffic controller. And I've heard that ADHD ad people make great air traffic controllers. In fact, I looked at the test for the air traffic controller. I go, no, no, no, that's not for me.
I'd rather lay out the airport and design the airport. That'd be something I'd be good at. You see, this is where different kinds of minds are good at different sorts of things.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Edge we wrap up the episode cause I want to respect your time and make sure you get to the school.
Add my dads and I really appreciate you coming back.
Is there any final thoughts or words of advice you would give either parents or fellow autistic people who are trying to get a job? Trying.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: I think we need to be finding a lot more just connections in the community for getting jobs. I want to start off with what I call the paper route substitutes with the eleven year olds church volunteer jobs. 112 year old was very proud that she was the coffee lady for their church. This is an example of something you just set up in the neighborhood, but they're working for somebody outside the family, or maybe there's an older person, they can help them walk their dog, help them with stuff in their house. When I was 13, mother got me a little sewing job that I did, and I loved it. And I worked for seamstress that just worked out of her home that was just set up in the neighborhood. And motherhood seamstress and I did that two afternoons a week during the summer. When I was a teenager, I was cleaning horse stalls. We need to just be finding things in the neighborhood they can do. And then different states, different ages for doing jobs, but they have to learn how to do a task on a schedule where family is not the boss, it's somebody outside the family.
And I'm just saying, moms, when I suggest that their kids should go in a store by themselves and buy something, they just can't let go.
Like I suggested to one mom that go to their neighborhood gas station, and when she's pumping gas, give the kid a five dollar bill, send them in the shop to get a jug of milk, and she says, I don't know if I have the guts to do that. No, I'm talking about in the daytime neighborhood gas station.
You're right there. You can see in the shop windows. You're putting the gas in your cardinal. And things that simple are not getting done because I was shopping at a little post office candy store we had where we went. Where we went in the summer when I was seven and eight years old, I'd buy popsicles and Cokes and I learned to save my money then. If I spent all my money on cokes and popsicles, then I wouldn't have money to go buy a kite.
I was learning that when I was 8910 years old, very, very young childhood.
Wow. Yep. I got fifty cents a week and I knew exactly what I could buy with it. And if I wanted a 69 cent airplane, I had to save for two weeks.
I was learning that as a very young child, this was not expensive, this was not fancy stuff.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: One last question.
Why do you think parents, some parents, not all parents.
Why do you think some parents are so afraid that they can't let go?
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Well, and I'm talking about innocent stuff here.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not talking about doing anything dangerous, but they, they get so locked into the autism diagnosis that you might have a kid as an honor student. I'm seeing kids graduate from college with honors and do horrible in the workplace because they haven't had any, any job, you know, experience.
You know, there's. Yes, academics are important, but you also have got to learn life skills and they just, it has to do with letting go. My mother had a very good sense of stretching me, not forcing me into something horrible like a busy takeout window, but having me doing a seamstress job, going in stores myself and buying things.
She had a very good sense of how much to stretch me. She also gave me choices too.
You know, the parent can say it's Walmart or target and we'll go when it's not so busy.
And one, just a few words on sound sensitivity.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: All right. If the kids afraid of the vacuum cleaner, let them turn it on and off. Let the kid or the adult control the noisy thing. Okay. Tools in the shop, like an electric drill, go down in the shop and drill holes and all kinds of stuff where they're making the noise. If they make the noise, they turn the thing on and off. It's often better, better tolerated. And don't wear headphones all the time. It'll make sound sensitivity worse. But you can have them with you all the time.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: And then if there's some horrible noise, you can put them on, have them with you. Gives you control. That's often helpful. And I think I am going to have to go because situation on campus. But thank you very much for having me on your show.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: You had been listening to disability empowerment. Now I would like to thank my guests, you, Oledzina, and the disability empowerment team that made disability podcable. More information about the podcast can be found at Disability empowerment empowermentnow.com or on our social media ad disability empowerment. Now the podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts or on the official website. Dont forget to read, comment and share the podcast. This episode of Disability Empowerment Knowledge, copyrighted 2024.
