Understanding and embracing neurodiversity with Temple Grandin, Steve Silberman, and Barry Prizant

Intro how might the unique minds of Andy Warhol Nicola Tesla and Albert Einstein reveal the potential of neurodiversity very often when we have different brains it leads to exceptional abilities neurodiversity is the idea that there are different types of brains different ways of thinking this conversation not only defies the traditional conventional and deficit model for autism but it also provides practical insights into how communities teachers and parents can unlock the potential of every Learner in this episode we talk to autism experts Temple grandon Steve Silverman and Barry prant so without further Ado what is neurodiversity neurodiversity is the What is neurodiversity idea that there are different types of brains different ways of thinking and that the best world that we could have is one in which every person with every type of brain is given the best chances of success and we all work together Temple grandon has been talking about this for years she talks about how when she read about the collapse of a hotel lobby I think it was in the news some years ago she almost instantly knew why it had happened and that it was her autistic ways of thinking that allowed her to uh get to that so quickly so neurodiversity basically says that diversity of kinds of Minds is as essential to the success of human civilization as biodiversity is in a rainforest this is not a radical idea you know yeah and this really gets to We all have different brains the neurodiversity movement let's understand that we all have different brains and I have a different brain than you so neurodiversity spans and blends into soall neurot typicality and because we have different brains we view the world socially in a different way so I'm the kind of person you may not believe it now but I'm kind of person who is more skewed towards liking more alone time and I don't like being around a lot of people and having to schmoo and make small talk if you take that to to the extreme many autistic people say that it's a waste of time why do I need to do that okay um so if we look at the fact that we have different brains we process the world we process Sensations differently um to an extreme in autism some people with Autism are hyper sensitive overly sensitive to touch or to sound or visual stimulation and we say it's a difference then that allows us to be more respectful and so the analogy that's often given is we have embraced biodiversity for so long right and why don't we look at the fact that our neurological systems even within our species are so different from each other and our brains are so different from each other that we need to look at those differences which results in different behaviors and different behavioral patterns as something to understand and respect and not to pathologize by saying okay that's just less than and that's just something in some cases that we have to kind of discourage that behavior um or discourage the way that person is in the world I love that because I mean study Neurodiversity in thinking after study shows that the more diverse a system is the more complexity that exists the stronger that system is so of course that must hold true for thinking we don't want everybody trying to think the same way what fun would that be right might you speak to that of some of the the opportunities that come with having those different frames of thinking of having I know diverse representation on the Spectrum for example when I worked on my visual thinking book I wrote the rough drafts and Betsy my verbal co-author kind of straightened out my kind of associative not very linear writing so that's different Minds working together one example of neurodiversity that I think would be really helpful for kids to hear about is Big Cats the more yes yeah there's a really interesting paper it's called solitary mammals as a model for autism all right let's take the cat family especially the big cats lions are more social than Tigers leopards or Panthers and there's some overlap here with autism genetics is a panther got a disability you see in the milder forms it's just a personality variant the lions are more social and the Panthers and the leopards are more solitary and there's over genetically some of the hormonal stuff with autism and I think in its mildest forms it's a personality variant now obviously if a kid has no speech game changer that's obviously a disability but some of the non-verbal individuals with autism can learn to type independently and that is something that needs to be done I love it the other big aha for me from your book beyond like just the history of autism was the connection between ADHD autism and genius might you speak to that a little bit Autism and ADHD become obvious that in some ways these atypical brains can work better um for you know Sant abilities have been talked about autism for a long time where somebody could you know instantly calculate the value of pi to hundreds of digits yes that's interesting but there are other abilities within autism that uh are you know not quite as like spectacular as somebody calculating the value of Pi but that could still be useful skills and are still just cool in a sense even the autistic ability to hyperfocus a word invented by neurotypicals the the autistic Community uses the word monot tropism for that hyperfocus and you know people with ADHD have been studied and are known to know how to for instance delegate tasks to other people so ADHD a lot of entrepreneurs who are successful it it turns out have ADHD to me these diagnostic terms like autism and ADHD are it's like they're not as clean and crisp as in life as they are in a book so that you know these are basically Concepts that we stamp onto human behavior and a lot of people are now you know there's a very popular hashtag on Tik Tok a DHD for people who have you know are somewhere in the margins between Autism and AD ADHD I think this is very common and something that Asperger wrote that I've never been able to get out of my mind because it's so true is he said once you learn to recognize the distinctive traits of autism you see them everywhere and that is certainly true and you know you even see them on you know pop culture shows on TV now you know well every book you read and every interaction you go oh okay I I think the notion that autism is not rare needs to be expanded to include the idea that autistic traits are very common but that does not mean that everyone who has autistic traits needs a diagnosis basically if you're um really struggling in your life uh in ways that services that could become available to you as an autistic as a formally diagnosed autistic person then it's worth seeking out a diagnosis but in many places in the world not just America um diagnosis is a very arduous and expensive process there's you know waiting list that can last for years they can it can be very expensive so for people who are you know not upper middle class diagnosis can be really um hard to get um and so now there's the phenomenon of self- diagnosis people self diagnosing via Tik Tok I wonder if it's almost more of like a mindset shift of just being curious about your neurot Tendencies of removing the idea that there is a neurotypical and just recognizing that there's there a Continuum of habits and traits and skills and ways of processing and you know you're going to fall at different points in that Continuum right and I think just having a more open and curious dialogue about that because that's how we compensate Learners versus stigma them that's very well said and one of the most pointed things that Lura Wing told me when I interviewed her you know I mean she you know based on Asperger's work she literally came up with the concept of the spectrum and I I asked her whether there was any misconception about the Spectrum as she conceived of it and she said oh yes the problem is people think of the spectrum as linear running from less autistic to more autistic um she said it's not supposed to be linear it's supposed to be three-dimensional so that every individual occupies a unique point on various axes in these continua so I I think people are discovering that they have autistic traits they have traits of ADHD is there any are there any kinds of accommodations or support that could help them you know work with the way they're mind how your brain ticks your brain ticks differently than mine let's figure out how it ticks and it's not bad or good so if a student is a visual learner they can use visual media to teach that lesson if they're an auditory learner and I'm not you know carving students up into these convenient categories but uh you know for instance I don't like listening to audio books you listen to my book on audio I've never even done that actually believe it or not um but some people really absorb the material in books better through their ears I do it through my eyes all my I have to get new reading glasses it's getting hard but uh but anyway so yes why not take the natural diversity of the universe and the natural diversity of human minds and give everyone the best chance of success Depathologizing autism yes I think for such a long time the language around autism was let's find a cure yes right and like you said we're shifting away from that we're depathologizing it how do we help our community to catch up and move away from that deficit thinking and really understand that yes yeah um and and of course since you uh had an interview uh with Steve Silberman let's go back to Steve okay uh one of the beauties of neurotribes is that he talks about people even before the word autism was used as a diagnosis who clearly were on the Spectrum right and and the great incredible benefits that they offer to society whether it's a Nicola Tesla uh invented alternating currents something that we all use every day the Albert Einstein the temple grandons um and and just going on and on talking about that very often when we have different brains it leads to exceptional abilities um but I just don't want to give examples you know of people who have very high level exceptional abilities there are many autistic people who really contribute in other ways um in employment with strong very strong visual spacal skills so when you get people who and I I love this quote you know people say well a lot of autistic people think out of the box and then some of us who've been around autism for a while we say well it's not that they think out of the box they don't even know there's a box there so you get people who are incredibly creative who come up with in everything from Finance to Art come I mean Andy Warhol was clearly on the Spectrum um some people believe Bob Dylan um is on the Spectrum uh I'm not diagnosing I'm just saying yeah if you Google this you'll see all these names these are people who have been in incredibly creative in their line of work an example from an everyday person um Carly at is um an autistic woman late diagnosed as many women are in her late 20s and she is a vice president in the Bank of America because and we interviewed her on our podcast and she's a friend um and Carly says I just found out once I was diagnosed that I have a brain that comes up with very Creative Solutions to financial problems and luckily she had mentors who saw that and she was nurtured within an organization that valued that and and she after this is not new news you know she's written about it she talks about it on our podcast after being severely depressed and suicidal because she didn't understand why she was so different in how people were treating her once she got the diagnose diagnosed in her late 20s and got the support she blossomed she flourished and I see this over and over and over again that once we see the unique differences in autistic people it very it often opens up all kinds of of possibilities for them in their lives I think honestly this has been my biggest aha of the year like between looking more into autism and just generally education and AI it's this this understanding that we need to move away from deficit thinking in general in education and move towards these rigid young xia calls it the rigid profile of student strengths and passions yes right there are aspects of autism that are disabling there's no doubt about that we're not sugar coding autism but there are aspects of autism that are potential strengths and enabling and so moving away from a deficit checklist approach get away from the deficit checklist approach let's have a balanced view of a person and let's see those seeds of potential because it's not just oh it's nice he pays more attention to that or he likes to do that it's supporting her mental health so that child who is demonstrating that passion that enthusiasm that relative strength it needs to be Nerf in many cases it's not going to happen on its own beautiful I wonder so I'm wondering if The beauty of diversity you have any other advice for teachers or School leaders out there if you wish everyone knew something about autism is there another message that you'd have or would that be it just the the beauty of diversity yes the I think one of the main messages is that my research into the history of autism in a way showed generations of parents learning the same lesson over and over again and that was the dire predictions that even your most trusted um you know pediatrician tells you about your kid with autism they often turn out not to be true and if you give the kids the resources they need they often turn out to be in much better shape than predicted and I'll give you a huge example in the introduction to my book neurot tribes I talk about uh a girl who was her father was told by her p ician when she was diagnosed with autism there is very little difference between your daughter and an animal we have no idea what your daughter is going to be capable of well what that young woman was capable of was she just got a master's degree so you know and then I interviewed an autistic guy um who had been diagnosed by Leo Connor himself wow and and he told me he said Connor told my mother to put me in an institution so she did Yale so I'm not saying that all autistic people turn out to be Geniuses or anything I'm saying that all autistic people deserve the chance to live up to their Highest Potential and uh the predictions made early in autistic lives often uh turn out to be needlessly dire this is really important sorry um you know sometimes times people will say they'll look at Temple you know she's a very articulate self-possessed woman she's written several best-selling books she's on top of her field of industrial design and they'll say my kid is not like Temple grandon my kid smears poop all over the walls you know how how can you even say that you know Temple grandon and my kid have the same condition here's the thing you're not seeing Temple grandon when when she was five right when when Temple grandon was five she was being dragged out of church for having meltdowns because the skirt she was wearing which was wool for Sunday church services was itchy you're not seeing her being thrown out of schools you're not seeing uh her being recommended for lifelong institutionalization and her mother objecting to that uh you're not seeing her figure out with the help of a science teacher what she was really into and that's what got her out of being institutionalized and so people tend to look at older autistic adults who hello develop like older ner typical adults and as teachers I think we need to hear that that yes that it will be challenging there are going to be challenging moments but the solution isn't okay we'll just lock them away in an institution it's said right it how do we lean into this how do we make opportunity to embrace those passions and that unique way of thinking versus just trying to get them to think and act like everybody else yeah that there is there's Beauty and genius at the edges of our understanding and so it might be scary but just open up lean in tune in because that passion is what's going to I think ultimately is what's going to save Humanity I don't know if I'm too Eternal of an optimist there no no absolutely you know and you know sorry to keep coming back to this but you know I mentioned that my husband and I were watching this documentary about Wayne shorter who seemed very spectr to us this new documentary called zero gravity and there's a moment when he's going to elementary school when he starts cutting class because he goes to the local movie theater where they had big bands playing you know and so he gets into trouble you know Wayne please come to the principal's office you know Etc and a a very wonderful teacher um said you know what are you doing why why are you going to that theater instead of class it's like I like the music you know so what the teacher recommended was instead of disciplining you know this boy put him into a music class with a really good teacher he ended up becoming one of the most influential people in the history of jazz you know imagine if that teacher had not existed or had instead said this kid has to learn to buckle down he's a problem put him in right exactly exactly and so you know one teacher cannot just make a difference in an individual life they can make a difference in world history uh by supporting kids [Music] interests