Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Shapiro, Kenneth J.
• Wedding, Danny

Titel

The Window of Autism: A New Start With Animals?

Ist Teil von

• PsycCritiques, 2005-05, Vol.50 (18), p.No Pagination Specified-No Pagination Specified

Ort / Verlag

American Psychological Association

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (see record 2005-00758-000) by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson is a great read for nonexperts interested in recent advances in cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and their synthesis. This book focuses on similarities and differences between humans, autistic people, and animals. In addition to results from existing literature in physiological psychology, comparative psychology, and biomedical research, Grandin relies on her extensive experience with animals and with her own autism, as well as on anecdotal experience both from professionals and from a neighbor who has a dog. Although in this popular account Grandin offers no Method section, her implicit method and approach are clear and consistent throughout the book. She makes a strong distinction between objectivistic and subjectivistic. Preferring the latter, she then claims that autistic people have privileged access to the experience of nonhuman animals. She writes that because of her autism, she is in a unique position to translate "animal talk". She finds evidence for this privileged access in the comparative neurology of humans, in humans diagnosed within the spectrum of autistic disorders, in nonhuman animals, and from her personal experience and the effectiveness of her innovations in the architecture of slaughterhouses. Her major contribution both to the debate and to changes in our treatment of nonhuman animals is her emphasis on fear rather than on pain. Here, again, she relies on her own experience, in which pain and nervousness are dominant emotions. The architecture of slaughterhouses embodies her effort to reduce those simple but powerful emotions in the final moments in the lives of the animals that some people still eat--the animals' demonstrable capabilities and occasional genius notwithstanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)