This book is mostly about the behaviour of domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, dogs and cats. Grandin discusses why animals behave specific ways, what the behaviour means, and what triggers the behaviour. Grandin also provides helpful tips on choosing and training pets. Interestingly, Grandin draws parallel between animals, autistic people and children. She discusses the similarities among all three from the behavioural neuroscience perspective (not cognitive neuroscience stand point).

This book is packed with research-based facts and observational notes from Grandin's experiences with animals. I especially like the checklist she designed for animal welfare audit at ranches and/or slaughterhouses. The philosophy behind this 10-item checklist was simple, concise, and remarkable. A 100-item checklist, developed by language-based thinkers, lacks the precision and sophistication of her 10-item checklist, developed by a visual thinkers (Grandin herself, who is autistic).

I think animal lovers, (perspective) pet owners, ranchers, nature lovers, hunters (sustenance and recreational), and parents could benefit from reading this book. It's a 3.5-star book for me.

This is a spectacular book for anyone interested in autism, the way animal brains work, helpful hints for training animals, and random psychological studies. I love the way Temple explains her autism and draws on her experiences as well as current and past psychological research results to illustrate her points. An excellent read.

This is just fascinating. Primarily an animal psychology book, the author offers useful comparisons and contrasts between animals, normal humans, and autistic humans while considering vision, brain structure, emotions, and other internal parts of life. She backs her assertions with current research, succinctly described. When no studies are available, she gives her opinions clearly. Temple Grandin is no Dr. Doolittle, but her experiences and studies make this a very enlightening book.

4.5 Stars for Animals in Translation (audiobook) by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson read by Shelly Frazier.
I find it fascinating getting to see the world through Temple’s eyes. Her understand of how animals think is amazing. This book is a great resource for everyone who has animals in there lives. From dogs and cats to horses and cows. This book explains how to provide a proper environment for the animals and how to correct their behavior in a humane way.

What an incredible book, I have studied and owned animals all my life and still flicked through learning interesting and more in depth perspectives. I would highly recommend this to anyone who owns or just likes animals, the concepts in this will truly help maintain our bond with animals for the future. Who knows what we may understand by then

Considering one of my favourite subjects is animal behaviour, I was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.

Grandin is an autistic woman with a Ph.D. in Animal Science, so I thought this book might have a somewhat scientific bent to it. Instead, it is written in a conversational tone, poor grammar and all. That aside, it has some other major problems: Namely, despite the book being about the similarities in behaviour between animals and autistic people, the author never defines or explains autism. She occasionally refers to autistic people perceiving the world in a particular way, but the reader is left wondering what exactly autism is.

In addition, all of Grandin's information about autistic people comes from her own experiences. Not that her experiences aren't valid, but we have no idea if they are typical. And she also paints a big line and places autistic people on one side, and non-autistics on the other, and infers that non-autistics just can't see what autistics do, and that's just not always the case; I notice some of the things she says "only autistics" do, and as far as I know, I'm not autistic.

In general, there is some interesting information in here, and there are bits worth paying attention to. However, had it been written "right," it could have been a great book.

I was actually really disappointed in this book. It seemed like just a collection of anecdotes. There was some science to back up her hypotheses but there wasn't that much. I was hoping for some better insights.
She also makes some crazy generalizations. For example the paint horse that was crazy and had whole body twitches every 30 seconds or so. She said it was Tourrett's like and was probably because he had a lot of white coloration. She never explored that maybe he received a physical head injury at some point or other nerve trauma. She just assumed it was white. I have never heard of this being common in any other paints or breeds that have a lot of white (Appaloosas, Lippazzaners etc).
I was expecting more out of this book because of all of the hype.
Read it for the few good ideas and some interesting parallels and correlations but there is actually very little concrete science or conclusions that could be drawn from any of this.

Just a hugely phenomenal book on the correlation between animals and autistics. It’s actually about more than just that - it’s about human nature and animal nature and how there are more perspectives than meet the eye. I feel like I learned more in this book than I have about anything in a really long time. Funny. Wise. And told from a place of quiet confidence. Every bit of information, every word, sentence, chapter, felt essential; nothing felt gratuitous. Read it. You won’t regret it

I hope this book will help regular people be a little less verbal and a little more visual. I've spent thirty years as an animal scientist, and I've spent my whole life as an autistic person. I hope what I've learned will help people start over again with animals (and maybe with autistic people, too), and begin to think about them in a different way.

I hope what I've learned will help people see. (26)

A book that was highly recommended to me in my undergrad days of studying Education and which I only now got around to reading. I wish I hadn't waited! By now I'm sure everybody knows the "hook" to this title: author Temple Grandin is autistic (her own words, no offense meant to anybody who prefers the Identity-First Language of "a person with autism" or "on the spectrum" or something similar -- I'm not very up-to-date on things like this and genuinely hope I don't offend) and so this book is both a sharp reminder that everyone has a valuable contribution to make of some sort or another as well as an illuminating look into animal behavior which is a fascinating topic in and of itself.

Grandin's writing is quaint, and patient, and precise. It's guileless. It's as if Kurt Vonnegut were writing a "how to" manual. And in learning about animal behavior, she asks us to consider our own in the process, making for a wonderful primer on foundational topics in psychology.

All in all this is a good book, but not perfect - it grows quite repetitive, and Grandin fires off a lot of trivia that is interesting but does not delve very deeply into the topics she shares. It's a really great introductory text to some basic principles of brain chemistry, developmental psychology, and of course behaviorism and animal husbandry. But while each page itself is full of fascinating tidbits, the book as a whole does not cohere.

3 stars out of 5. Both interesting and informative, which is what we all hope for in our nonfiction, but the length leads to repetition, the content doesn't delve all that deeply into these topics, and as other reviewers have noted there are some concerns about the scientific validity of some of her conclusions drawn on small sample sizes and anecdotal evidence. The best chapters, in my opinion, are "Pain and Suffering" and "How Animals Think" as they explore content I haven't seen as often in other works.

Ummm. So I liked this, then about halfway through it became one of those books I just wanted to be over. So, there's that. Also I generally have objections to the dominant "pack leader" theory of dog training / rearing. Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet, to me, provides a much more compelling model for thinking about dog behavior. If dogs are able to differentiate between other dogs and humans, as Grandin says that they are, why would they take rules that might apply to dogs living together and impose them on humans? To me it's not a compelling theory. However, most of the rest of the research she talked about (aside from the dog stuff), was really interesting and more about animals than autism which I enjoyed. She also reads as anti-Rottweiler/Pit-Bull, because she says they are innately agressive, and people who live with them and don't get bittern are apparently just lucky the dogs never attack. She doesn't so much say that outright, but something really close to that. /Shrug.

This is another exceptional read by Temple Grandin. Each book improves upon the last. I had a little trouble getting through it because it's very text heavy. This is not a complaint about the book, I just have trouble reading highly intelligent theories and thick content. Still I enjoyed it and I am ready to tackle her next book.

I first became aware of Temple Grandin and her work through Monty Roberts; when I took his Join-up workshop, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism was required reading.

Grandin uses her unique ability as an autistic woman to see things from the perspective of animals. Her humor and knowledge shine through on the page as she talks about how animals learn and what motivates them. Not only does Grandin employ documentable science (the book contains numerous pages of endnotes), but she also shares entertaining anecdotes from her work in agriculture.

I particularly enjoyed the stories of animals who learned things not expected of them, such as Alex the parrot. Alex had an extensive vocabulary, and was being taught the sounds various letters made by his owner. She used magnetic fridge letters in the process and he learned them phonetically. One day, when she was showing off his progress, he kept asking for his favored reward but was not receiving it. In frustration, he said "Want nut. Nuh. Uhh. Tuhh." No one expected that he would learn to spell.

Grandin also talks about how animal's different thought processes can apply to people living with autism, such as herself. This book was very insightful on numerous levels and I highly recommend it.