Hello Group,

I listened to an interview online at "blogtalkradio" with Temple Grandin.  I appreciate the practical experiencial advise that she offers.  She is frank, basic, and constant.  Her approach is grounded in practical methods of raising disciplined productive citizen's.  So, not only will our aspie's benefit they seem to be logical parenting techniques across the board.

Speaking of the HBO special, I do not have HBO but I will for that day.......... have it already keyed in for reminder.

Be well......

Marian. The smile was a bit puzzling to me also. I just watched a 90 minute speech Temple gave, and she is quite restrained in her expressions. My son has HFA, and he has a 1800 watt smile that can be pretty goofy, but it's ephemeral, and he knows he is being goofy when he does it. Most of the time, he is as restrained as Temple seems to be. I sure hope Claire Danes doesn't overdo it.

Absolutely! I'm greatly looking forward to watching this.

My family and I just watched the film out here in California. I'm wondering what people who saw this think about it.

One can nitpick about it, especially about what I suspect is some exaggeration of Temple's expressions and movements. (I'm thinking it can't be much as Temple herself likes the film.) But overall, I was moved to watch it and feel even more in awe of Temple that she was able to persevere. What a brave woman she is and was.

The scene that reduced me to a wreck was when Temple's mother was speaking to that horrible psychologist or neurologist, whatever he was. Although much more was known about autism by 1999, when my son was first evaluated, we were handed the bogus diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder, because my son is adopted. The advice we were given was completely unhelpful and sort of along the lines of what Temple's mother was told. "Any progress he will make will depend on your repairing his obvious lack of an attachment to you." Well, Temple's mother was also told her lack of attachment to her daughter damaged Temple beyond repair. At least I was given hope.

Just as Temple was attached to her mother, my son was attached to me. He just didn't respond the way specialists expected him to. OMG, that scene on the stairs with the picture cards. My son could talk, quite well, when he cared to, but I remember trying to get him to engage with me, play patty cake, stack blocks, do simple wood puzzles. Each new task he learned reminds me of that scene, how I would bring his face back around (He liked lights also), and over and over, try my best to teach him. Finally I learned what Temple's aunt intuitively understood, that if I allowed my son to show me what interested him and I joined him in that interest, I could bridge him to another task and then back again. The aunt was a lovely character, I thought.

Temple's own determination to learn and excel was remarkable. Given the short length of this film, the interactions she had in which she convinced people to take her seriously felt at times somewhat facile. Overall, though, I'd say the film was able to communicate the grit it took for her to persist, meeting each obstacle head-on. The cattle ranchers were particularly loathsome to her. And the sliding glass doors of the supermarket. I remember how those terrified me when I was little.

It was fun to see the costuming and sets that captured the feeling of the sixties and seventies. I grew up during that time.

Concerns over facial features are important; I merely felt the film is such a success in other ways, perhaps this is worth forgiving. In Temple's case, her expressions were appropriate. She was portrayed as having an expressive face (sometimes cartoonishly so), but mainly as not understanding her own reactions and those of others. Her aunt takes photos of her and Temple labels each emotion, learning to recognize each one. I've noticed that my son has a fairly expressive face as well, but that his responses can tend to be mere flashes at times. He is relatively restrained in expression the rest of the time. I'm told the same is true of me. There are a lot of photos and films of me looking pretty, well, over-animated. I didn't really know what else to do but mug for the camera. 

I know with my own facial expressions that I often look angry when I'm not. Temple complains in the movie that others say this about her; I would have liked to see that demonstrated more. 

Overall it was very well done.