On Horses and Autism
March 22, 2011
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., uses her autism to gain insights into equine behavior.
By Christine Hamilton for The American Quarter Horse Journal
Temple Grandin is best known for her research on cattle. “A great deal of my success in working with animals comes from the simple fact that I see all kinds of connections between their behavior and certain autistic behaviors,” she wrote in “Thinking in Pictures.” Photo courtesy of Digigraphics LLC. Fort Collins Co.
Thinking Like Animals
“Animals and autistic people don’t see their ideas of things; they see the actual things themselves,” writes Dr. Temple Grandin in her book, “Animals in Translation.” Temple is an associate professor in livestock behavior and handling at Colorado State University.
“The brain of the horse is very specific,” she says. “If a horse gets a fear memory, it’s stored as a picture, a sound or a feel. It could be smell, but usually not. A real common thing is feeling: like bucking when you change gaits. A saddle feels different at each gait and creates a different feeling picture in the brain.
“Use a computer metaphor,” she continues. “The way the brain works is that fear memories can never be erased. You can train the horse to close the file on the fear memory, but you cannot delete it off the horse’s hard drive.
“You have some of the same problems with autistic children, especially if they’re nonverbal,” Temple says. “Let’s say a fire alarm went off and hurt the child’s ears. Now you can’t get him into a room where he sees a fire alarm; he sees the little red box and starts screaming.
“A high-functioning autistic can learn to deal with it, but a low-functioning autistic sees the red box and just panics.” Like a horse responding to its own fear memory.
AQHA Professional Horseman Curt Pate believes in using common sense horsemanship to train high-performance mounts. The first step to creating a top-notch riding horse is breaking him to a saddle. The “Low Stress Colt Starting With Curt Pate” DVD will give you an excellent introduction to Curt’s methods of training.
Training in Pictures
“One thing I’ve found with a lot of good (horse) trainers is they have a hard time explaining what they do,” Temple says. She likens it to an inability to express the details of the idea they have in their heads.
“We see details that make up the world, while normal people blur all those details together into a general concept of the world.”
According to Temple, behavior problems with horses typically begin with the development of a fear memory.
“They get an emotional feeling that a horse might overreact or blow up, but they don’t tell you the specifics of what that looks like,” she says. “They might not tell you to watch for tail switching or sweating.
“As an autistic person, I had to learn how to pick social cues up by consciously thinking things like, ‘Well, this person has his arms crossed (over his chest). OK, he’s not very happy with something I’m doing.’ And then I had to picture what was causing that reaction.
“Everybody I think about has to be compared to pictures. If somebody said, ‘Wait to halter break a foal until it is ready,’ I get a picture in my head of Ever-Ready batteries or something like that.
“But if you say, ‘Wait until you can go out in the corral and he comes up to you and you scratch his withers.’ Now I can see a picture of a colt doing that.”
Behavior Problems in Horses
“I think the biggest thing we’ve got to do with horses is to prevent behavior problems,” Temple says. Preventing behavior problems is an easy way to prevent some horses from becoming unwanted.
In Temple’s experience with horse processing plants, it’s not unusual to find horses with severe behavioral problems there; often, they’re the prettiest animals in a load.
Here are some key areas to focus on:
Training
Temple advocates gentler, slower training methods. Take, for example, a horse who’s afraid of black hats, because he remembers being beaten once by someone wearing a black hat.
“Some people would say, tie the horse up and throw it at him,” Temple says. “It’s called ‘flooding.’
“If you do that with a high-strung, slender kind of horse, you’re going to ruin the horse. It stays panicked and never habituates,” she continues.
“But you have to look at all the data. Unfortunately, rough training methods can work on calm genetics. I don’t like it, but you might get away with it on a calm, heavier-boned horse.
“But I don’t think it’s a smart thing to do with horses. As a species, they’re too high-strung.”
“The first 30-60 days of a colt’s life working with him creates so much of the horse in the future… Whether or not it be a world champion could be in the first ride,” Curt says. The “Low Stress Colt Starting With Curt Pate” DVD will put you on the right track with your young horse.
Management
“One of the problems with horses today is that they’re leading such sheltered lives,” Temple says. It leads to lack of socialization.
“When I bought a piece of land, it came complete with a horse on it,” she continues. “But it tried to kill any horse you put on that pasture; it tried to kick them to death and wouldn’t stop. That horse had lived alone its entire life. It hadn’t learned social rules.”
She also pointed out similar problems with stallion aggression.
“If you take a young stud colt and lock him up in a ‘super max’ (prison), you’re going to make him crazy. He’s going to fight every other horse because he doesn’t know any social rules.
“I’ve seen 50 stallions from the Bureau of Land Management in a pen together, and they were not fighting.”
Breeding
Temple also pointed out the link between genetics and behavior. She encourages horse people to continually work on an eye for what is good and bad in an animal, both in conformation and attitude, and to prevent “bad from becoming normal.”
“If you think about animal breeding, the old-timers didn’t know anything about genetics. But they looked at an animal and said, ‘That’s a good animal.’ They were using them, and animals had to be functional, physically and mentally.”
To develop an eye, Temple suggests getting out in the field, away from your own place and discipline, and see horses from different bloodlines, looking at how they act and perform along with their conformation.
Temple Grandin’s books, “Animals in Translation” and “Thinking in Pictures,” offer more insights into how horses and other animals think. Understanding the horse’s psyche can improve the way you train and ride.
Comments
20 Comments on “On Horses and Autism”
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March 22nd, 2011 at 8:41 am
how exactly do you STOP a horse from rearing?
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:32 am
Very informative article. Would like to read her books.
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:54 am
To stop a horse from rearing, stop doing whatever it is you are doing that is making it rear. If it is an object that is the cause of fear, desensitize the horse by calmly approaching the object in degrees while rewarding the horse for each step. Check your bit and saddle if this occures while mounted.
March 22nd, 2011 at 11:39 am
Ms. Grandin’s books and articles are insighful and well written. I learn from her every time I read something she has written. Thank you for all you do!
Also the movie based on her life is brilliant.
March 22nd, 2011 at 12:16 pm
What a wonderful wonderful viewpoint….it will be so easy to explain to students how the horse reacts to certain things as it does because it has a file of “pictures ” catalogged in its brain and make it easier for people to understand………everyone understands “pictures”…am buying her books
March 22nd, 2011 at 2:33 pm
This lady is very correct. I trained horses for 40 years. Many times someone would bring me a problem horse so I could correct something. When I saw how that person was using that horse, most times I would tell them to buy a new horse and not to use the new horse the way they had used the other horse. If I retrained their old horse, most of the time it didn’t do any good. The horse would work perfect for me, but would go back to the same old problems with the owner. Horses are smart and do not forget.
March 22nd, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Very interesting especially the fact that horses see everything in pictures – simplies things somehow. I carry out “natural horsemanship” didn’t know about this aspect of the horse’s brain, and I think this puts a new bias on everything for me.
Definitely going to buy one of her books.
March 22nd, 2011 at 6:04 pm
As parent of Autistic child, I see so many for her words of wisdom up close, she is the leader in both humane treatment of animals and in cutting edge help for kids with autism!!!!
March 22nd, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Good info. We see this often in our work with autism and horses. Great insights. Gives you a much better understanding of what is happening. http://www.special-ability-horsmanship.com
March 22nd, 2011 at 10:02 pm
I have been reading Grandin for some time. As I understand more about autism I think I understand more about the horse and its sensory issues. I have one now that displays some interesting behavior that we are working through. Could not hold her head still for rubbing, would not give you ‘two eyes’ (reminded me of the ADHD child who can’t be still or look you in the eyes). When we started handling her she exhibited extreme fear – shaking then going to a state of extreme anger and zoning out things around her. She displayed repetitive behavior (reminded me of a child banging its head against something) and during this time there was no connecting with her. She can stand for hours with the herd but when she is taken out (leaves her comfort zone) you can see the stress begin to build. She is teaching me to take things apart as far as training and put them together again. It is as if there is an extreme amount of energy coursing through her and she doesn’t know how to manage it. I can imagine some of what she may be experiencing in her skin since reading Grandin’s descriptions of her own issues.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Great reading. I work with Autistic kids and we do a first and then board with them when doing anything with them. Using pictures are great. So do baby step with the horses FIRST AND THEN. My horse will do anything for me because of it. She is 5 and only owner. Can’t wait to look for Ms.Grandin’s books.
March 25th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Wonderful article – not only does it explain horse behavior well -it gave me insight into autism. Passing the article on to a friend who volunteers in a Therupeutic riding program.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Roberta Smith asks how do you stop a horse from rearing. First off, you know enough to not get yourself into a position where you start to rear in the first place. Beginners or novice horse people should not be training novice or inexperienced horses. People should not think that they know when they clearly don’t. It must be a ego thing. Thje other problem is that how do you know if the person that you go to for help knows?
March 25th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
i have had the opportunity to work with Dr Grandin on large animal welfare issues,BLM horses and greatly admire her work. thank you for this wonderful article!
March 26th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
LOVE IT
March 29th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
[...] that are difficult to shoe in general, typically that comes about when the horse is afraid. That fear manifests itself differently with different horses. Some are very quiet; they hardly move. Some try [...]
May 31st, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Temple Grandin..
THANK YOU! For teaching us about animal behavior..for your insights. You have improved the social treatment of autism & also that of animals. May God Bless you.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:48 pm
[...] To view rest of article, click here: http://americashorsedaily.com/on-horses-and-autism/ [...]
September 8th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I read Animals in Translation in my senior english class and I loved it. If you think about it, everything she explains make sense. Just reading her book got me interested in animal and human behavior and I would love to go into this field now. Such an inspiration!
November 8th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I just finished ‘Animals in Translation’ and it has taught me so much. Not only has it given me terrific insight to working with horses, but it even taught me why my dog does the things she does too. I adore Temple and all she’s done to help us understand our animal friends.