Temple Grandin

I have been raving about the HBO movie Temple Grandin to anyone who gets close to me on the street. I am practically accosting people. I just can't rave enough about this movie and the incredible job Claire Danes did in her depiction of Temple Grandin. I have been fortunate to have met Temple and listen to her speak. She was very memorable and inspirational. This movie was so motivating and inspiring and yet agonizing for me to watch. Claire Daines did such an incredible job that you truly forget she is just an actress and not Temple herself. If you are interested, Temple Grandin is also featured in a BBC documentary and has written numerous books on her life with autism and her passion for the humane treatment of cattle. She is a pioneer in so many things, and yet the doctors told her mother to institutionalize her as a child. Not only did her mother refuse to send her away, but she refused to believe that she somehow caused Temple's autism from lack of love. "The Refrigerator Mother" was an absurd and brutal theory in the 1940s-1960s that blamed mothers for causing their child's autism by being distant and unloving. Thankfully, It was the work of scientist and father of an autistic child (the inspiration for the character in the movie "Rain Man") Dr Bernard Rimland that changed the thinking of the world at large and opened the door to the hope and belief that autism is biomedical and treatable.