Sameer's Reviews > Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

This was one of the first research heavy books I decided to read, and it was definitely a tough one. The first 100-150 pages kept me intrigued as Temple Grandin made this comparison between the autistic and animal brain that I never had seen before. One of the key points being that us “normal” humans generalize the world while autistic people are incredibly “specialized”. This meaning that many of the small details in the world are only noticeable to autistic people and animals. Then Grandin goes into how this has helped her career into building and developing ethical farm systems that helps animals live a more enjoyable life. She also goes into how Skinner’s oversimplification of behavior has caused decades of behavior psychology to not be studied. Grandin took an approach to behavior in this book that was incredibly elaborate, and showed us that not everything is based off of positive and negative reinforcement. She also implements her own comedy into this book which keeps us as the audience like her even more of a person. My only person complaint for this book is simply as a person that’s not trying to be a behaviorist, the book is hard to get through at times as the research feels like it just keeps going in different directions. It did give me incredible insight and I would suggest this book to people that are more interested in Animal behavior. This book also did give me a greater interpretation of how I viewed autistic and disabled people. I used to feel pity for them but now I see that many of these “disabled” people have special talents that aren’t able to come out because our world is to generalized. Our world is designed for us “normal” people which just simply doesn’t give the capabilities for autistic people to shine. In conclusion, this book goes into many different directions that could be considered a difficult research book, but I do feel that it gets it’s central argument off in a way that is still entertaining. I will definitely be checking the movie out!