Sarah and Donna

Fri, Jan 20, 2023 2:41PM
58:31
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
autistic, people, kids, parents, strengths, autism, important, child, teacher, social skills, talking, camouflaging, world, person, book, professionals, sarah, helpful, class, conversation

01:07
All right, here we go. Welcome to the show. I'm excited that you are both able to take time outof your busy schedule and talk with us and shed some light on better supporting our studentsand talking about is this autism. And so welcome. And I'd love for both of you to introduceyourselves and give us a little bit of brief background of how you got to strategizing andsupporting students.
01:36
So my name is Sarah Weyland. I am a special needs care navigator, certified RTI consultant and parenting coach.
01:46
I have a PhD in cognitive psychology and did research for a number of years. And then because of my own children got very interested in neuro divergence, and realize that if it was as hard tonavigate things for them, with my background, I could help other parents navigate withoutmaking all the mistakes I've made. So that's that's how I got to where I am. And I'll let Donna explain how she and I became part of the same project. Oh, yeah, that's a good story. So it's funny, you said that you your family helped you sort of get to where you are professionally. I think mine is the opposite. I became a licensed psychologist. I've been one for over 30 yearsand was doing neuro psychological evaluations for children who have all kinds of learningdifferences, ADHD, other things, including autism, and gradually realized, wait a minute, I havea neuro diverse family. And so my my professional life taught me about my home life. And however you come to it, I think they just end up blending together and you learn from bothright. And Sara and I have known each other professionally and personally for years, and I hadan idea for a book to help people recognize the less obvious presentations of autism, and knewI needed a co author because of my own ADHD, and spent about a year sort of looking ateverybody in my life wondering like that old PDE spin book or you my mother, or you might goout there, you might go out there and one day it became so clear. Yes, there is holding up the book. Now. You might like Thera Weyland is my co author.
03 26

I love that what a great story. And it is very true. I feel like in the world of special education andneuro divergence I had always roads lead us here for a reason. And so let's hop in can you firstdefine autism through your professional scope? Sure, I can take that one. I think that beingautistic at its core means having a different kind of nervous system than most people have.And if you have this different kind of nervous system, you're going to experience and processand respond to the world differently from non autistic people in a lot of ways. And this can include differences in your experience of external sensations like noises and textures, yourexperience of internal sensations like hunger or pain, your movement patterns, yourcommunication, and your information processing. And, and that's sort of the core of autism. But then there are layers on top of that, because having a different kind of nervous system is not aproblem in and of itself, except that autistic people have to live in a world that is reallydesigned largely by and for non autistic people. And so it can be incredibly stressful for them.And there's this mismatch between their nervous system and the world, which leads tooverwhelm it leads to misunderstandings and being misunderstood. It leads to social problems and anxiety.
05:00
And so it's, it's complex.
05:06
It is complex. And I think that's the importance of your book that's coming out. And we're going to talk about that as well. And just for parents and professionals to really understand that, andI, and I love how you worded it as using the nervous system, and I think that really gives peoplethis scope of kind of where students may be coming from, can you share with our listeners,what you see as a strength of autism?
05:37
Sure.
05:39
Sorry.
05:43
She is not taking no for dance.
05:46
Okay, that

05:49
makes me so happy.
05:54
Okay, strengths of autism. So one of the chapters, we wrote in our book, it was very importantto us to not just address, you know, sort of the diagnostic criteria, but we also wanted to helppeople understand that being autistic means there are certain things you do incredibly well.And, and so some of the things we noticed, were, for example, those sensory differences thatDonna was talking about, you know, they can be a weakness, if you're like, in a, you know,you're sensitive to sound, and you're in an overwhelming environment, like a cafeteria, or aconcert or something like that. But it can also be a gift. So for example,
06:36
you know, audio engineering, or musicians, like being very sensitive to sound means that youcan hear and process sound in a way that other people may not be sensitive to, you mightnotice visual details that other people miss, or you might be good at diagnosing a mechanicalproblem, like by listening to a motor and hearing that it's running differently, for example, youknow, having an incredible sense of smell, can help you detect a gas leak, or, you know, alsolike people work in the perfume industry, or, you know, and then taste, you know, so being anincredible chef, right, like, you can taste things and know which flavors will go together andwhich won't, you know, touch just feeling the texture of things. So, you know, being working intextiles or woodworking to know what the, you know, what it feels like. And likewise, you know,proprioception, which is just your body's, you know, your sense of your body, and how it'spositioned and all those things. If you know, you're under sensitive to that you could wearclothing that other people wouldn't tolerate, and look awesome in them. Or you could be reallygood at certain athletic things, because you know, exactly how to move your body. So, youknow, these are all sensory differences that in the right context can be incredible strengths.
08:05
There's also ways of thinking that can be
08:10
and by the way, these are individual differences. So not every autistic person is going to havethis right it's these are just things to look for, in the person, you know, that's in front of you. But um, you know, in terms of thinking there's increased intense attention to and memory for verydetailed information. So it's common to have autistic people who have memorized a trainschedule or, you know, really know all these incredible baseball statistics, for example, or, youknow, a comprehensive knowledge of history, things like that.

08:47
They're very good at making associations between things, some, some people very good atmaking associations and seeing patterns that other people might not notice. And that pattern finding ability is something we see in a lot of autistic people. And it can be a real strength, ifyou're trying to figure out is something going wrong here, or what is the pattern to this,
09:11
you know, a narrow and intense focus of attention allows you to deep dive on something you'relearning about. And so you can develop this incredible comprehensive knowledge of a topic,which means you can be a real expert at something. And because you have that ability to focusand pay attention for a long time, that can be really a problem in the classroom when you'rerequired to, you know, shift constantly between things. But if you are, you know, studying atyour desk, and you are really interested in the history of the Vietnam War, then you're going todive into that and be able to to, you know, know everything you want to know about it.
09:55
So there's another concept called Systemising. And that's really that pattern.
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recognition I mentioned but also just putting things
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in, I guess cataloging is what I'll call it. But figuring out the structure in order to things whenmaybe other people don't see a structure in order to things, and just logically reasoningthrough problems. So scientists and engineers, you know, they need to be very logical andcomprehensive and thorough. So you know, that that particular skill can be useful in that context. And you know, these intense interests, which both define it,
10:36
as, you know, part of the diagnostic criteria, but it means you could be an amazing expert.
10:42
And
10:44

another thing, like some autistic people are really good at organizing things, and being superconsistent about something. So if you, you know, a job that some autistic people really lovehaving are like, you know, straightening up grocery store shelves, right, because they're verygood at making them organized, and neat, and looking good. And, you know, and they mightshow up to work at, you know, exactly right time every single day. So, you know, that consistency in some jobs is super helpful.
11:18
The last few things that we found that I find interesting, so because of the socialcommunication challenges that some autistic people are navigating, then they they actuallyhave their own style. There, they're often very straightforward and honest about what they see.So if you want the straight scoop on what's going on, Ask an Autistic person, because they'regonna give it to you. And I think Greta tunberg is a good example of that. She just calls it like, she sees it, and I love her for it, you know, a strong sense of integrity. So you know, fighting forthings that they think are important social justice causes, you know, just calling out when yousee something wrong happening, and really fighting for it. And, you know, that's, that's, weneed people like that in the world, less susceptible to peer pressure. So you know, if everybodyelse is jumping off a cliff, they'd be like, I'm not sure I want to jump off that cliff. So like, as a parent, I never had to worry that my kids were going to be doing that. That's awesome.
12:25
Except accepting of differences, because they have spent their lives being different, beingrejected for those differences, they're very sensitive, can be very sensitive to others.
12:38
And the fact that if somebody is different, that doesn't make them somehow less than it justmeans they're different.
12:46
And just very, this, this one is often misunderstood, very keenly attuned to the emotions ofother people, so tuned into the emotional valence in the room. And a lot of people will say,Well, my child can't be autistic, because she's so sensitive to, you know, the emotions going on.And we like to talk about the difference between an effective empathy so that sensitivity to theaspect in the room versus cognitive empathy, understanding why someone's upset, so youknow, but knowing that someone's upset is the first step to figuring out that someone's upsetand you need to figure out why. Um, another one is a sense of humor. So a lot of autistic people love wordplay. So puns and just silly word games.
13:42
And also very irreverent. So you know, and so comedians, in Oh, there are a number of

And also very irreverent. So you know, and so comedians, in Oh, there are a number of comedians who who are autistic and identify as such. So, you know, that's, that's, I think it's a real gift. And people don't recognize that. And the most important one is resilience and grit.These These people have had to navigate a world not built for them, and they show up everyday. Anyway. It's a huge deal.
14:13
Wow, wow.
14:16
You got me a little motional over here. So
14:20
you did an excellent job of painting these strengths? How do we as parents, and evenprofessionals or educators, help support our children? Right, because you gave some awesomeideas in terms of what you could be in the world in terms of careers and future thinking asadults. How do we nurture this when they're young, to not to kind of help relieve some of that
14:56
pain that you know, trying to align in a world that's not built for them?
15:01
So I'm gonna start with parents.
15:05
So what parents can do. So the first thing is to make sure your kid has time to do what theylove and enjoy every day. So one thing that happened to me, frankly, as a parent is I was sofocused on making sure that my kids were getting the help they needed for the things thatwere hard for them, that initially, I forgot that they have interests and passions, and they'reamazing. And I needed to make sure they had time to do that. So I hired a science tutor for myolder son, who came every Saturday, and they just did science and engineering kinds ofexperiments every weekend, and he looked forward to that a lot.
15:47
So you know, just making sure your kids have time to do what they love and enjoy.

15:53
You know, something I used to do, and still do actually, with my kids is I brag about my kidsbehind their back, like if they're in the other room, I'll say to my husband, oh, you know, whatmy kid did today? You know, guess what? And, and so they can hear me talking about it, butit's not direct praise. That's one of my favorites.
16:11
So no, and this gets to noticing what they are doing well. So really make sure you're focusingyour attention on what's going well for them, what's what they're doing, right, acknowledge it.It's important to customize that because some kids don't want you to like directly praise themor have big effusive. Wow, you're amazing, like, so you know, just make sure that you knowhow your kid likes to get praise. And, and, you know, expose them to things also that you think they might enjoy. So kids only know what they know. So you want to try to expose them to lots of things. There's a story about my, my older son who loves music, and I thought, Oh, he loves music. So what do I do, I take him to an orchestra concert, where they're performingStravinsky's Rite of Spring, not a good plan, he was under, under a chair the whole time. And we finally had to go out into the lobby, because a it was too loud, but be like, the music was sounfamiliar. And then like a month later, my husband took him to the gamers SymphonyOrchestra at University of Maryland, and he had a blast. And so you have to think about how you're doing the exposure. But you know, just think about, you know, how can they learn aboutthings that are fun for them?
17:31
With teachers, what you want to do is think of ways to incorporate strengths, that child'sstrengths into the lessons so the child can demonstrate their expertise.
17:42
And I also think it's really important. I mean, when you heard me talking about the strengthsthere, I was talking about some things that are hard, but in the right context, they're actually agift. So reframing your thinking, and instead of focusing on a negative interpretation ofsomething like, this kid's always correcting me, right? You can reframe that as he has a strongsense of integrity and wants to make sure it's right. Right. So reframing how you think about what's going on there can be very helpful. And in front of the other kids in the classroom, notice what's great about this kid, you know, so when he does something really amazing, and noticessomething that other people aren't noticing, you can say, Wow, your attention to detail isincredible. So the other kids here, oh, this kid has a strength, that
18:33
that's important. And make sure you give them an opportunity to deep dive on topics that theyenjoy, just like I said, for parents.

18:43
And using their interests to help them learn things they might not otherwise care aboutexample of that is Temple Grandin talked about a third grade teacher who wanted them tolearn about poetry, which she really didn't care about. So the teacher went and found a bunch of poems on doors, and just, you know, gave her all these poems about doors and TempleGrandin love doors, and so she was able to learn about poetry through her interest in doors.
19:10
So, you know, that's really important. Also, like showing them that they can be leaders and they can be helpful. So for example, having them help a younger child at recess or something like that. And when they self advocate, make sure you respond, don't just say, oh, that'sridiculous. You shouldn't, you know, need to go take a break right now or, you know, don'tdon't, you know, dismiss their attempts at self advocacy. Very often. We think kids are trying toget out of something, when in fact what they're trying to do is self regulate. So allow them to self advocate.
19:52
Can I Can I ask you, so can you convey us we kind of talked about what parents could dowhatever
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educators could do
20:02
as you are testing a child, and an adult, an individual, how do you convey through your reportthose strengths and the strategies or accommodations that may best suit this individual. And again, we're just talking about school aged children. So,
20:25
to start, whenever I'm talking to anybody about the child, whether its parent, teacher and otherhealth care professional, the child themselves, I'm actively looking for strengths. I'm actively asking, you know, what are this child's strengths? What's great about this child,
20:44
rather than just sort of letting them you know, come up, naturally, I'm gonna go and look forthem. And then I make sure to include a section in the report that is a specific list of this child's strengths. And that includes their any cognitive strengths. And Sara gave such a tremendous, you know, list of possible strengths. But you know, maybe this child has a great ability to hyperfocus and do a deep dive on a topic, maybe they have really, really strong working memory ora great memory for facts. It includes their academic strengths, you know, are they atremendous reader, are they really great at math.

21:23
But most importantly, it includes their personality strengths, like their compassion, or theirsense of humor, or their grit, I mean, those are the strings that I really love to get into, becausethose are the ones that are easy to overlook. And so just explicitly putting a list of those strings in the report. And I always sort of have a secret goal for myself of making the list of stringslonger than a list of weaknesses. And pretty much every time I'm able to do that, if I just sitthere and think about the child, it's easy to do that.
21:57
And then as a parent, I'm thinking through kind of a parent lens.
22:03
And just as a parent being on both sides of that IEP table, and then also a former specialeducator, you know, as our children go into middle school, we go into high school beyond theirtask with several different types of teachers, right, and, you know, going through their schoolday and changing classes and stuff. What advice do you have for parents to continuously kind of express to a teacher?
22:33
You know, that here are the strengths? And how do you kind of take your your parent heart tosay, here's my baby, and this is who they really are. And kind of in your word, Sarah, they'renot just trying to get out of something, but they genuinely need this. So how can we as parentsdo the right job with our child when we're going? Changing yours to different teachers? Yeah,so I mean, the first thing I always remember is that teachers are people to write they arepeople who are overwhelmed. They are, you know, handling one of the hardest jobs in theworld, and often balancing that with their own families and life stressors. And they don't have time to go off and read everybody's neuro psych evals. And every page of every single IEP, that's just not realistic. What I always did for my own kids was at the beginning of the year,made a brief connection with each teacher through an email. So I wasn't taking up a lot of theirtime, and expecting them to pay a lot of attention to me, but giving them a one page, verybrief cheat sheet. Not a lot of words on it. Look, here are the great things about my kid, hereare the things that my kids struggling with. And here are like the top three ways you cansupport my kid, and making it very, very clear. If you have any concerns at all. Reach out to me, however you want phone call, email text, I will be very responsive and very collaborativewith you. We're on the same team. And just trying to make it easy for the teacher to get toknow my kid and to know how to support my kid. I think that's really important.

24:09
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.
24:12
And just just to add to that, something I did, I did the same thing, a cheat sheet that I gave atthe beginning of the year. And as my kids got older, than I asked them to give the sheet to theteacher, so that you know, the teacher and they would help me write the cheat sheet.
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So you know, basically shifting the load from me to them. So that they they knew that this was something that they had communicated to the teacher
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and what a great advocacy skill that's going to then carry with the students beyond you know,even when they're in a job, whether it's a part time job, during you know, whether in school orwherever, life will lead them to be able to advocate and say here are the top three things thatwork really well for me
25:00
I'm actually really awesome. And here are my three things of why and, and just to be able toadvocate and I think we want that for all of our students, that advocacy piece.
25:10
Yeah.
25:11
What type of tools or reward systems can be built in to connect with students with autism.
25:19
So I think it's maybe less than tools and reward systems and more about how we interact withthem is if we're talking about connection, right. And so one thing I would say is to meet them where they're at. So for example, my son who is just loves history, particularly military history,which I do not find interesting at all, I just cannot wrap my brain around why that would be interesting to somebody, because we all have different interests, right. But I'm really gratefulthat I somehow found the patience and the motivation to spend many, many hours letting himtalk with me about history. And we would take long walks, or bike rides, or whatever, and hewould go on and on about history, because that really helped us connect, I needed to sort ofmeet him where he was that and over time, those conversations led to other conversations, history would be a jumping off point to have other conversations. And I did learn a lot about history. And that was fun. Sometimes with some autistic kids, it has to be more about activities than conversation itself. And you know, sometimes we as parents want to get intoconversations with our kids, how was your day? Tell me about your friends? What are you doingthis weekend, what's your favorite class, and a lot of adolescents don't want to engage in thatconvert that sort of conversation, but particularly a lot of autistic adolescents, it won't comenaturally to them, that sort of conversation, just for conversations sake, is not as intuitive formany of them. And so instead of trying to force that conversation, find activities that aremutually enjoyable, and do those activities together, even if they're quiet, I used to dosomething with my son. And it's so funny, I'm blanking out on what it was right now. But we had one activity we did for a couple of years, where it was pretty much silent, we would dosomething together and absolute silence. And yet, it was a deep, deep way of connecting. And I'm appreciate appreciative of that. Another thing is to be aware of your expectations of yourchildren in the home, particularly if you're not autistic yourself, so I don't happen to be autistic.So for example, I really like eye contact, and I sort of expect eye contact as sort of part oftypical interactions. And my kids taught me, actually fairly recently, a year or two, that it's kindof unfair for me to expect them to always make eye contact with me, just because I like eye contact. As they said to me, Hey, we have to make eye contact out there in the world all day long. And we do it because we know we have to, but we shouldn't have to do it in our own home. Right. And so it was just that was a real learning experience for me about being openand having open dialogue about the autistic preferences, the non autistic preferences and howwe can sort of bridge that gap. I think Sarah was it didn't stay something here.

28:22
Yeah, I wanted to mention, like, we spend a lot of time in our house literally just sitting togetherin the living room, reading or on our computers or whatever, and then sharing what we findamusing. Because my husband's often reading Twitter or something like that. But, you know, like, last night, my my son, you know, sends me a text message. He's like, mom, so one of our favorite podcasts is 99% invisible, and the podcast host is named Roman Mars. And Oliver sends me this message, Mom, I just realized that Mars is the Roman god of war.
28:59
But you know, just sharing these little things. And it's just because we spend time sittingtogether, each of us doing kind of our own thing, but we're together. Having that and Donna,one of the things you were talking about with iContact, like something that's such a highpriority in our house is that home has to be a safe space. Yes, has to be a safe space for kids.And so whatever I need to do to make home feel safe for them is my highest priority. It's so true. And you and I, Sarah talked about this all the time when people ask us what's like ournumber one tip for parents, the number one parents thing parents can do, not only to connectwith their kids, but to make their kids feel supported. To bring down the emotional level during hard moments is validation. There is nothing as important as validating your children,particularly your autistic children because they get inadvertently invalidated over and over andover again throughout their lives. And that does something to it.

30:00
person, so you don't have to validate their perceptions because you might really disagree withtheir perception of a situation. But you can always validate their feelings no matter whatthey're feeling, you can help them understand, yeah, you're feeling he'll be really pissed offabout that. And I get it. If that happened to me, I'd be really pissed off, do I get it truly, youknow, that kind of validation will never lead you wrong. And so when you're in a roughparenting moment, or good parenting moment, any parenting moment, and you're not surewhat to say, always lead with validation, it will never steer you in the wrong direction. And it will always help you connect with your child.
30:40
Yes, and then sometimes I with my own personal children, when you validate, especially mymiddle son, he'll say, thank you. Yeah, just thank you. Like, I just need it to be her like it could be, you know, this huge emotional situation. And I'll just say, Thanks, Mom.
31:01
I mean, even as adults notice the next time you're upset about something, notice what youneed, and what makes you feel better. It's when somebody validate to write. And I've noticed this, my kids move through adolescence, and then young adulthood, which is a time when it'ssometimes harder to keep that strong connection with your children.
31:22
We were able to keep the strong connection. And I credit that to validation, it keeps themcoming back to you over and over and over again, it keeps them talking to you know, Iremember, I'm embarrassed to admit that I did spend a fair amount of my children's earlychildhood, invalidating their experiences trying to help them see other perspectives, and theninadvertently invalidating their perspective. And I remember learning about validation being like, oh, that sounds interesting. So I tried it with my younger son, he was upset about something. And I just, you know, validated. Yeah, that sounds really frustrating and upsetting. And I would be upset too. And I remember he kind of leaned back in his bed, and he looked at me, and he said, you really get it.
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And I was just like, and it just stopped his meltdown. It just stopped it. So you know, it was just so powerful. And I didn't actually agree with what he was upset about. But, you know, I did see why he was upset. I definitely understood why he was upset. And he was just so blown away by that. So yeah, you know, it's it is super powerful. Yeah, there's a great book called The Power of validation. If parents want to learn more about this, it's a small book. So it's not overwhelming. And I think the author's name is Karen Hall. And I would highly recommend it because it helpssort out the nuances, for instance, between encouraging a child and validating a child becauseit's easy to get those two things confused, right? Because encouraging is, you can do it.Whereas validating is, this is really hard. You know, and you still you want, you still want to addthe encouragement, but you can't skip over the validation, you want it to be this is really hard.And you can do it.

33:17
And what an easy, it doesn't take a lot of time, right? So you can do it. Even if you're a professional in that setting. If you're a teacher, you can take that step. And what a terrific resource that you just shared. How do parents highlight strengths, especially when life can behard, and sometimes those bad things outweigh the good?
33:42
So I would
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one of the things that I think is important is that,
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you know, your kid has bad moments, but I tried to separate the the bad moments from whothey are as a person. Right. So, you know, I, Donna actually was telling me a story about howone of her kids was being a pill. And then, you know, she came back later and was being really nice. And Donna said, you know, this is, you know, this is the real you I really appreciate thereal you. And I think that's so wonderful.
34:23
What I would often say for my kids is,
34:28
you know, I would say you know, so my younger son has a lot of shame, about his behaviorduring meltdowns and so on. So he feels tremendous shame. And one of the things I talked to him about is the fact that the world is harder for him. It is harder for him. It is he is dealing with a lot more than I ever have to deal with just because of how he's wired. And so, you know, I really emphasize his grit and his resilience and

35:00
You know, I say it's harder for you and you're learning. And he'll say things like, I don't want to talk about my past self. And I always say, you know what your past self is part of who you are now. And even though you don't think that that person was behaving the way you wish youwere, you've overcome that. And that's a big deal. So just trying to help him understand that,you know, I think kids think we're all the same, right? Like, you know, grownups are the sameas me, like, they just think we're all the same. And so they don't realize that they arenavigating more than I ever had to navigate as a child.
35:38
I think that's such a good point, Sarah, and I just want to build on that whole that concept of thereal you, I think it's important to help kids learn the difference between their character andtheir behavior. Because you can be a really, really, really good person. And pretty much I thinkevery kid is a really, really, really good person, and still behave badly sometimes. And we all do, I mean, show me a parent who hasn't lost it with his or her kids, right? I mean, we allbehave badly. Sometimes. That doesn't mean we're bad people. That's the difference between character and behavior and helping them see that is important.
36:15
How can we help our students or our children practice social skills?
36:25
So like, how can we kind of help them?
36:30
Navigate I guess, I'm not really sure I'm framing this the right way. But how can we help them navigate a world that's not wired? for them?
36:41
It's such a tricky question. Because traditionally, people think, Oh, your child has autism, youput them in a social skills group and teach them social skills. But it's so much more complexthan that, because there are a lot of kids who are autistic and are camouflaging too much tothe point where they're stressing themselves out making themselves anxious. And they're notdeveloping a sense of self a sense of who they are, because they're so busy pretending to besomebody else all day long. And so part of the trick with all of this is true for all of us, and all ofour kids, but particularly true for autistic kids.

You want to find that balance between putting on that mask when you need to, to cope withdifferent social situations. Hey, we all do it, right? We I in theory, I'm not but in theory, I could be doing it right now. Like I can be dealing with a massive migraine right now. But sort of managing it to do this podcast interview, right, we can all relate to something like that. But also being able to drop the mask and know who you really are as a person and to have safe placesand safe people where you can just completely be yourself no matter what that looks like,right? So a kid who doesn't flap all day long at school, because he's learned, flapping makesother kids make fun of me, that comes home and is able to, you know, flap for an hour or pacefor an hour to self regulate and get it out of the system. And trying to find a balance in theirlives between you know, the camouflaging and the non camouflaging, I think helps if a kidreally does want to improve their social skills. Depending on the kid, sometimes a social skills group can be the right fit. But for a lot of these kids who are very verbal and early, have goodbasic social skills and needs sort of a higher level of conversational skills. Improv classes can actually be quite helpful. Because, you know, they've already learned the basics. They don't need somebody to sit there and practice. You know, when somebody says, how are you? Yousay, Fine, and how are you right there past that. But the core tenet of improv is to pay attention to what the other person says. And to say yes, and to build on what the other person is saying.And so I have found that improv classes can actually be really helpful for some types of autistickids, and frankly, non autistic kids as well to get better social skills going. And I'm just going tobuild on that, I find that there are some kids who really do want to know what the rules are,like, they really, really, really want to know. And so for those kids, those social skills classes can be super helpful.
39:27
And, but I do think that what Donna said, is really important if the kid, you know, is asking for itor frustrated about the fact that you know, other kids aren't interacting with them. Like youwant to make sure that they think that the reason you're doing this is not because you thinkthey're broken, but rather to help them navigate the world so they can feel better about beingin it. So I one thing that does happen is the kids get the mess.
40:00
Ah that, you know, if you don't interact like other people, you're a broken person. And that's, that's a hard message. The other thing I'm going to just touch on is that a lot of times thosesocial skills, classes, build our teaching, sort of what I call higher level things like, please, andThank you and hello, and goodbye, and, and you know, just just the social conventions. But there's a deeper level of social interaction, which has to do with reciprocity, for example. So, you know, for a kid who monologues a lot, right, who just loves telling you about their favoritething, because they know you'll love it as much as they do, if you just know about it,
40:46
they might need to understand that some people really don't want to hear about that, right.And so helping them understand the back and forth of conversation, and to feel good with thatback and forth rhythm. For some kids, that rhythm is actually extremely overwhelming.

41:05
And so you know, thinking about how you co regulate with another person, just noticing howwhat you're doing is landing on them. And that and understanding that your own behavior canhave an impact on how they are feeling. So helping kids understand that it's so fundamental,and often something that needs to be explicitly taught. So, you know, there are a lot ofunderlying skills, you know, another one we talk about is joint attention that if I'm looking atsomething, it's probably important that you both be looking at it too. And the example I'll giveis, like, I'm sitting here in my office, if you were with me, and I suddenly whipped my headaround and looked out the window, you would probably look out that window too, because youwould know that something, I thought something was important enough to look out thatwindow, maybe there's a bear, who knows, you know, and so, like that, that concept that whatone person is attending to, might be an important thing for you to be attending to, you know,these are, these are more fundamental skills, that reciprocity, that joint attention, those thingsare really important. And I do find a lot of social skills classes actually don't touch on thosefundamentals as much. And so, you know, thinking about those kinds of things is also helpful.And understanding that it can be overwhelming, I had a kid on my caseload who, you know, wewere working on just a simple motor back and forth. And we were doing Row row row yourboat, and it was a, you know, an action like this, he could handle two iterations of that beforehe got totally overwhelmed and needed to leave and regroup. Right so. And many years later,now, he loves it, he loves taking walks with his parents, he loves, you know, all these things,but it took a long time for him to be able to even tolerate that back and forth.
43:05
In and out, just want to add, again, going back to that idea of validation, as we do all of this,remembering, there's no right or wrong way to have a conversation and talking to kids about,you know, the artistic style, preference and or style, and the non autistic style. And the non autistic style of conversation is very back and forth. I talk, you talk I talk, you talk on the same topic, right. And you know, 97% of the world prefers that style of conversation, which makes usfeel like it's the right way to do it. But a lot of autistic people might prefer I'm going to infodump on you for a really, really long time. I don't need you to look at me or not, or say anything. I just want you to listen. And then you can info dump on me if you want. And I'm not going to necessarily look at you or not or say anything, but I'll listen. Right and that's not wrong. It's just different. And just remembering that it's I have to sort of keep pushing myself toremember that there's no right or wrong here. You know, it's interesting because my younger son does info dump. And he says it's because he's so excited about it that he wants me to knowabout it too, because he knows I'll be just as excited as him once I know it all. So I think framing the info dump that way is very helpful to me. But the other thing is you said you don't necessarily have to listen for him. If I'm not listening and responding. And if I don't remember having helped me in the future, he's gonna be mad. And and he used to do things like grabbed my face and yank it towards him. But when I was kind of spacing out during that, so, you know, kids are different about that. And people are different about that he really wanted me to be inthere engaged and remembering
44:49

a bell about things that I knew nothing about. So I was having to do a lot of learning.
44:57
What accommodations have you seen in
45:00
In schools that have worked really well that are out of the box, you know, that somebody maynot typically think of that are absolutely easy to implement within a school day or within yourhome.
45:14
Yeah, so for school accommodations, you know, we see the same ones over and over again,things like priority seating, I call it strategic seating, and explicitly say that the student shouldhave a big say in where they sit in each class, because in one classroom, they might want to beright near the front of the room for some reason, in another class, they might feel like nope, bythat point of the day, I'm stimming, a little bit and I want to be in the back where nobody cansee me, they might want to be by the door, so they can make a quick exit because they'reanxious about getting to their next class on time. And so it's not as simple as put them in the front of the classroom, right?
45:52
There are a lot that I often recommend that I don't see. So don't call on them unless their hand is raised, that can be really helpful for kids who have social anxiety, or for kids who can't havea hard time dealing with the unexpected, you know, unexpectedly be called on if they know,the teacher is not going to call on me unless my hand is raised, they can relax, and just listento the lesson and stop worrying about that. Maybe having a private space for lunch, either bythemselves or with a friend or two if they won't, because the cafeteria might cause so muchsensory overwhelm agony, I don't eat in those cafeterias, I get into sensory overwhelm if I haveto walk into one, but that could set them off for their whole afternoon. So instead of makingthem sit in a cafeteria in the middle of the day, let them sit in a quiet private space for lunch.Um, same thing for pep rallies or other large assemblies that can cause neuro crash or sensoryor social overwhelm. If they want to go Sure, by all means have at it, that if they find that that'soverwhelming, let them just go to the media center and read a book during large assemblies.Same thing for field trips, field trips, not only takes a kid out of their regular routine and makesthem miss other classes, which can be stressful for some kids, that there are sensory demands,and a lot of social demands on field trips. And they might prefer to just skip it.
47:16
Definitely supporting them more during group projects, or sometimes giving them the option todo a solo project in lieu of a group project if, if that's going to work better for them. As they get
ld d illill dKid i dd l iiiF older, and particularly in college, and Kids start getting graded on class participation. For some kids, that's not really fair to grade them on class participation and giving them another optionto show that they're really engaging with the material, but not necessarily requiring them totalk in front of class in front of the whole class and other things that college, definitely a privatedorm room can be helpful, but also the placement of the dorm room. So in a quiet dorm if thereis one, but if there isn't one, then not right across from the elevator or the community roomwhere there's noise at all hours of the day and night, and letting them move into the dormearly a few days, you know, before everybody else when the RAS and the band and everybodymoves in, and it's still quiet and they can adjust to their surroundings before it gets reallychaotic. So those are some things that come to mind.

48:25
There, do you have anything to add?
48:28
Um, I loved what Donna said about the seating and also the importance of letting kids youknow, take a break. She she said that? You know, don't call on them unless their hand is raised. But something and I do see this one. So these things that Donna was talking about, I don't often see. But one that I really find a lot of kids do find helpful as the teacher says ahead oftime, I'm going to I'm going to ask you a question about whatever, like before the class starts,so they have time to compose their answer. And then the teacher says I will call on you about this. And so that way the child has time to compose the answer.
49:11
Another one is giving the kid time to process. So I a lot of autistic people need time to compose their thoughts. That's not because, you know, they don't know what to say. It's literally because they're sorting through so many different options. And so giving them time to sort through the options and come up with an answer. This can be very hard in a classroom setting, especiallywhen the kid next to him is going no or whatever, but giving them time to process and then getit out is really important and also very hard. But those are two things that I you know, those areoften in IEP s or whatever, but it's just they're so critical.
50:01
We talked about tips for parents briefly, you've mentioned that and one of your first tips wasvalidation. Do you have any other tips for parents that they could take away from ourconversation today?
50:16
So one of them that I would, I would just think we all know this, but unconditional love, and true acceptance. So kids feel that so deeply. And there is nothing more powerful than that feeling that my parent gets me, they value me as I am. And it's just, it's a huge deal. And it's not an that my parent gets me, they value me as I am. And it s just, it s a huge deal. And it s not an easy journey, I will say, as a parent, I definitely shift in and out of that. I hate it when I'm not in the acceptance mode. But it is such a powerful, powerful feeling to know that your parentreally, really gets you and loves you exactly as you are.

51:07
Also, remembering that your kids are doing the best they can, right. So don't assume they'rebeing oppositional just to be a little jerks or something, they really may not understand whatyou want them to do, or why it's important. So you know, just assume that they're doing the best they can.
51:28
And, you know, we talked about the importance of home being a safe place, that's part of thatunconditional love and acceptance. And I think that's just so so important. And you know, a sidebar to that is is your goal is not to make them look non autistic. Your goal here is for themto figure out how they can be and honor themselves, right, in a world that's not built for them.
51:56
But make sure that they have places where they can be who they are without having tocamouflage and without having to make excuses. You know, spending time by yourself issomething a lot of kids really need autistic kids need a lot of time to themselves, some of them,not all of them. And so making sure you don't judge that I used to judge that in my older son, Iused to be like, No, you need to go out and be with friends. And he was just like, Mom, I really, really just need to hibernate for a while. And just honoring that and not making him feel badbecause he needed that that was really important. So those are a few I can think of.
52:36
And what would you say your three tips would be for professionals.
52:41
So I'll take this one. One would be to consider your own emotions around autism. So many professionals are intimidated by autism. So many of us did not get enough training, or gotminimal training about this unbelievably complex entity. And a lot of people, a lot ofprofessionals I've met just communicate to me I'm embarrassed, I feel like I should understandautism, but I really don't. And it's it's a real problem. And then other professionals think of autism is sort of categorically bad and avoid it. So just consider your own feelings. And if youfeel intimidated or unprepared or like you don't know enough about autism know that you'renot alone. That's actually really common. And there's research that's our Sarah's in mind clinical experience. And there's actual research now showing that we're not getting enoughtraining about autism. Next, I would say to remember that many autistic kids camouflage at school that pay a huge price for it in the rest of their day. And so when you have a kid who'sdoing well in the classroom, whether you're a teacher or a professional working with that kid,and then the parents tell you, but seriously, he or she is losing it after school every single day,and it's a disaster, believe that parent, that is not a parenting problem. That is that the child was camouflaging all day, and they can't sustain it. And that means that the adjustments need to be made at school. Even if there are no overt academic or behavioral problems at school, theemotional cost to the student is just too high to sustain it. So just remembering that we'redealing with a whole person here, not just not just the school day. And finally, I would just reallyencourage all professionals, educators and healthcare professionals to update their knowledgeabout autism. Our understanding of autism has expanded dramatically over the past decade,particularly in regards to Autistics who camouflage so well, that they can sort of pass as nonautistic, which you know, this this population has been a particular interest for me and Sarah,and so it's essential for people

55:00
to update their knowledge about this group of people
55:04
as we wind down, is there anything that I didn't know enough that I should have asked?
55:11
Why you asked so many great questions, Wendy.
55:16
I feel like we could talk all day about this. We sure could. Absolutely, absolutely sure could. So my final question to you both, is if you had a billboard with one saying, what would it be andwhy?
55:32
Oh, my goodness.
55:36
I mean, I'll say something that feels cliche at this point, but it's what popped into my mind. If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. And just like non autisticpeople, each one is completely unique and get to know that person, both their challenges andtheir strengths.

And I think mine would be, I hope, that difference can inspire curiosity, instead of judgment.
56:09
Oh, excellent. Excellent. Well, this was quite a real and raw conversation that I know is going tobe impactful for folks that are listening. And this stems from your book, is this autism, a guidefor clinicians and everyone else? Can you let us know when it's coming out? how folks can findyou and all the good stuff, so they can get more of both of you?
56:41
So we've
56:45
Sorry, I'm just not sure what to. Okay. I hate constantly sending people to Amazon, becauseyou know, Amazon, but you want to take it there. Because, sure. So on Donna's website, she has a blog post called, I wrote a book
57:05
in there,
57:07
and, and it's got a picture of our cover, which actually has a lovely painting on it.
57:13
By an autistic artist called my amazing team. The reason we wanted that partly is it's an awesome painting. But we had an amazing team helping us with this book, amazing team,clinicians, artistic people, friends, colleagues, I can't even it's so so many people helped us withthis book. It is due to be released on June 5.
57:38
And we actually just got an email with the production schedule yesterday. So that that's it's really getting real.
57:46

And you can pre order it on Amazon. I don't know if you can pre order it on Barnes and Noble,but I have seen it on Barnes and Noble it is there.
57:56
And so, so there you go. That's what I can take home. I hope many people are preordering.There's going to be terrific insight, especially if you loved this conversation. It's going to go way deeper and supportive of autistic individuals. And so I again am very thankful and grateful for your time and having this
58:21
poignant conversation today.
58:24
Thank you for having us one day. It was really a pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you to Pat