April 1, 2025 • 15 mins
This Q&A chat is all about how to work alongside other professionals when your approaches to supporting an Autistic child don’t quite align.
I'm sharing a live Q&A on Instagram (@play.learn.chat) every day Mon-Fri this week (31st March - 4th April) - share a Q by DM or email me! Ask Qs about Neurodiversity Affirming Speech Therapy support for Autistic Children, or Qs about my course Affirming Communication for Autistic Children!
“There is no point just telling people stuff, talking at them, when you know you're disagreeing... You may not actually be meeting them where they are or answering the questions or the fears that they actually have, or teaching them in the way that they actually learn.” - Adina Levy
Answering Qs and sharing thoughts about:
• What to do when another therapist on the child's team isn’t affirming
• How to approach sticky collaboration conversations with curiosity, not judgement
• My PLAN framework for preparing, listening, adding your insights and finding next steps
To get deeper and more actionable support around these topics and more, join me in my course!
The Affirming Communication for Autistic Children Course is NOW OPEN for enrollments! Doors close on Friday 4th April, 1pm Sydney time (AEDT)
All the info is here:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello folks.
(00:01):
It's Wednesday.
Had to check that.
We're just gonna be on for about 10minutes because I am honoring my capacity.
I'm tired.
I'm really tired.
I've done a lot this week.
I have worked really, really harddoing a whole lot of things across both
my businesses and I'm really tired.
So I am gonna honor that bydoing a shorter q and a today.
(00:23):
I'm popping up on Thursday and Friday aswell this week with, uh, you know what?
What's going on?
What's going on for all of you?
I am here doing these daily qand as this week to share what is
affirming communication support forautistic children, and share any
clarification about my course AffirmingCommunication for Autistic Children,
(00:45):
which is for speech therapists.
It's open right now and closes on Friday.
So two days from when I'm recording this,two days and one hour 49 hours away.
That's why I'm here.
Just clarifying.
You know, I, I put out a lot of stuff,podcasts and webinars, um, you know,
training, things like that, and there'sall these questions that come up.
I can't always get to it, so, uh, yes.
(01:06):
Happy yellow day.
I love that.
Thank you.
Michael.
I am wearing yellow.
I don't own much yellow.
I love colors.
I love bright colors.
Yellow is not my main color.
Like it probably doesn'treally bring out my complexion.
Um, anyway, here I amin my one yellow jumper.
Uh, so I have to acknowledge ittoday is World Autism Day and I,
I've just put up some stories.
(01:27):
I'll pop it on my, uh, Instagramlater, which is just clarifying some
of the imagery around autism andWorld Autism Awareness Day and so on.
There's language clarification to be done,but I just had to start with the imagery.
Uh, basically puzzle pieces.
Out, uh, infinity symbols in blue as acolor to represent autistic people out.
(01:49):
Red is good.
There's a, a whole campaign,uh, go red instead.
And, uh, I prefer yellow go yellow.
Representing and, uh, supporting yellowladybugs who are a fabulous organization
that I love and support and have spoken attheir conference for the last two years.
And I've already recordedmy third year conference.
Um.
Well, the sidebars, but it's justsuch an important week to acknowledge.
(02:12):
So yeah, if you wanna know moreabout that, I'm gonna leave it to
my Instagram post, uh, to kind ofexplain the why behind all of that.
But if something's popped up inyour brain and you think, oh gosh,
I told everyone to wear blue today.
Um, just pause, go, go and hit up myInstagram soon, I'll put the post there,
or, yeah, it's in my stories right now.
Okay, so what are we talking about today?
(02:33):
I have two questions here.
One is a question about my course thatI got an email yesterday, and one is,
uh, a really cool question that cameup during yesterday's live that I
thought that's a topic for another day,meaning now the, uh, course question
really quick and easy to answer.
So, uh, I had a therapist message me.
And ask if my course for speech therapistis going to open again this year?
(02:58):
The answer is very likely yes.
It's only April now, so probably yes.
Do I know when do Ihave the plan for when?
No, I dunno.
When.
Um, so what happens is it's all on demand,so you get 12 months access if you are
thinking, I'm keen, I'm interested, I justdon't have the time right now to do it.
Probably best to register.
Now you've got the 12 months, you've got,you know, school holidays ahead of you.
(03:20):
You've got different times that youcan go and, uh, you know, do that
course along the 12 month journey.
Also, I've now added a podcast versionto make it, basically the videos are
there, but also, um, people can listen.
You can listen to the wholecourse in your ears as well.
I know that I've heard that frompeople, that it makes it more accessible
for them to actually be able tojoin in, participate, and often in
(03:42):
many cases re-listen to the course.
So I hope that helps.
Thinking about the timingof registering or not.
Like I said, it's open for 49hours for when I'm recording this.
Um, but yes, it will open again.
I'm not saying it's a never, it's justI don't know when, what the plan is.
I need to like map it out.
That's the course question done.
(04:02):
So.
How do I model for others if theyhave a non neuro affirming therapist?
That is our question.
It's a collaboration question,and I adore it, and it's something
I think I talk about a lot.
In fact, last week I gave akeynote presentation to Noah's
Arc, a fantastic organization.
I will tag them later in this post,uh, uh, all about collaboration.
(04:24):
So it's all on my mind and I'm like,okay, what's the, the quick version
for how I'm gonna break this down toa little bite sized session today.
Um.
Now the context.
This came up in terms of a, it's an otI know who asked this, thinking about,
okay, you approach your care and supportfor your autistic clients or students
in a neurodiversity affirming way.
(04:45):
Maybe you've done the training,you've done the learning, you've done
the thinking, and you, you get it.
You understand what neurodiversityaffirming approaches are.
Awesome.
And yet the kids you support, theymay be in teams where not everybody in
that support team, whether it's anothertherapist or a teacher, and you know,
parents as well sometimes and caregivers.
But in this case we're thinking,what if another therapist in
(05:07):
that child support team is not?
Neurodiversity affirming, or they'redoing practices that we know are
not neurodiversity affirming, maybenot in that child's best interests.
Maybe they are very behavioral.
Maybe they're not honoring the child'strue deep needs or understanding what
is really going on for the child.
So what do we do there?
(05:29):
Well, I have a sip of water.
I'm just gonna do mylittle teaching moment.
I always make things work choppy.
Um, I want you to justtake a sec and think like.
Has this happened to you?
Have you been in a support teamwhere you are not aligned, all
the grownups are not quite alignedwith how to best support the child?
Has that happened to you?
What's the situation?
Maybe you've been an adult in that careteam as well, or like at the center of it?
(05:53):
So what I suggest here,there's a couple of angles.
I'm talking to you asprofessionals who support kids.
One angle is to do this kind ofconnection and discussion and
exploration directly with thatother therapist or with that other
professional in the child's care team.
And a second angle is to do that withthe parent and empower and support the
(06:14):
parent to eventually discover who do theyreally want in the child's care team.
And, um.
Uh, to, to help the parent understandwhat is the impact or what are the
different approaches that that child isbeing exposed to by all the different
people who are supporting them.
We might.
Often forget that many parents don'tknow that they have a choice in
(06:37):
what kinds of support they access.
Parents may not really understandwhat is the approach, what is the
type of support, or somebody mightsay they're doing a kind of support.
They might say they're neurodiversityaffirming, but what they're doing
in their actions is not, is not thatthat happens unfortunately, all too
often, one of you says yes, currentlyin this situation with your child's
(06:57):
teachers, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Um, you're finding that schoolsettings aren't and de affirming.
It's such a mixed bag.
It really is.
Um, yes.
So thank you for sharing thatand feel free to share more.
Uh, if you want to, I won't name you.
You know, I think, um, you happyif you're happy to share what's
going on in that situation.
We can kind of real thismake it a little real and so.
(07:20):
I have a four step process, whichis an acronym, and it's the only
way I remember it and it's the onlyway you'll remember it, I think.
And the four step process for dealingwith these, I call 'em like sticky
conversations or tricky situationswhere you and somebody else, like
usually it's an adult who you arecollaborating with, you're just not
quite aligned and you think, oh, Igotta have that tricky conversation.
(07:44):
So the acronym is four letters.
Plan is the acronym.
And the first P is to prepare,which is prepare yourself
to have that conversation.
Part of that is to thinkthrough, what do you want to say?
What are you going to ask?
What is the purpose of it?
And another part of that P, thatpreparation is regulating yourself
(08:05):
before you enter that conversation.
If it means.
Not replying to that email thatday, waiting till the next day,
you know, write the draft job andwait till the next day to respond.
If it means, uh, giving yourself areal grounding practice that is going
to calm your nervous system, beforeyou enter that house or enter that
meeting, you need to do what you need.
(08:25):
You need to recognize what youneed to help yourself feel your
best in preparation for that.
So that's the p. L is listen, andthis part gets missed way too often.
The listen is about deeply trying tounderstand what is going on for that
other person that leads them to bewhere they are or do what they do, or
(08:47):
say what they do, say what they say.
Um, listen to, to understandwhat is their, what are their
beliefs, what are their biases?
What are their, uh, practices?
What are their fears that haveled them to do what they do?
And only once you listen andthat takes some questions.
A lot of like really goodquestioning with an open mind.
With a curious mind, with a humble mind.
(09:09):
Once you do that listening,then A is our third step.
A is add on your own ideas.
There is no point just tellingpeople stuff, talking at them.
When you know you're disagreeing,but you're just saying your
stuff again and again and again.
But you may not actually be meetingthem where they are or answering
the questions or the fears that theyactually have or teaching them in
(09:32):
the way that they actually learn.
So all of that said, you know, it isvaluable to share your insights, your
perspective, but you've gotta startfrom a place of trying to understand
where is that other person coming from?
That's a n is.
Next steps N is to collaborativelyfigure out with that other person
(09:53):
what the next steps will be.
It is not top downtelling them what to do.
It is deciding with them what is theapproach next, and it might be an
an information gathering next step.
It might be a step away andhave another meeting later.
It might be.
Bringing another person into the team.
If this is the case where you're havingthis conversation with a parent of
(10:15):
a child and you are supporting thatparent to understand what really is
going on with the whole Care team, I.
There is sometimes a case toadvocate for a parent to step
away from a care provider.
There is sometimes a case foryou to, you know, stop working
with a particular family.
If you have tried, you've hadthis open-minded conversation
and it's just not working.
(10:35):
So I think it's always worthtrying to find that middle
ground, that collaborative.
Middle ground you can agreeon, but it doesn't always work.
Um, so there's still a point where wecan say, okay, we are not aligned here.
Um, so I just need tovalidate that point as well.
Um, I share a whole lot more aboutthis in my affirming communication for
(10:56):
Autistic Children course, includingan AI tool that I am gonna demonstrate
in a video I'll share later today.
Um, which basically you can come tothat AI tool and tell it, this is the
situation I'm having with a parent.
Here's.
The challenging situation.
And uh, I need to know what to ask thatparent so I can do that l step, the
listen step, give me some ideas of whatare the questions I can ask that parent
(11:20):
to understand their perspective better.
And so this tool aims to really be likeyour clinical supervisor in robot form.
It's kind of, uh, you know, there toguide you with the exact situations
that you're having rather than youhaving to take what I teach and.
Only kind of do the, turn it intoreal action, uh, in your own brain.
(11:41):
You've got this tool toguide you through it.
So that's why I created it.
I am gonna head to the comments now'cause there's some really interesting
comments and I don't wanna miss them.
One of you said, I've been thetherapist who was giving non-affirmative
practice due to not knowing better.
This was a long time ago.
Thank you for coming.
Clean on that.
I think we were all there to some degree.
You know, we're, we're all on a journey.
There's probably things we'restill going to be changing.
(12:03):
Um, you know, from where we are now.
The child psych asked to join mysession with the child via telehealth.
The psych modeled affirming language.
It changed my whole practice.
I love that.
So you were the person who made theshift, and I appreciate you for being
open to, to do that, to listen, to learn.
Honestly, as professionals, wehave a, an ethical obligation to
(12:23):
continue learning, to continuelistening, to adapt our practice.
This is an ethical obligation.
We can't step away from that.
And so you thank you for sharing this.
Um, it's phenomenal.
And that example is, you know, sometimesjust being in the moment, having
shared moments and whether it's in ameeting or in a joint session, um, and
(12:43):
modeling affirming practice, that mightbe enough to make the shift for some.
Let's say professional pairings where thatdifference of opinion or perspective or
practice is so big, maybe just modelingwon't be enough, and that's where.
The listening, the discussing, andsometimes helping a family advocate
to leave a non-affirmative service,not as our first line, but you
(13:07):
know, if that's just not gonna workout, that might be appropriate.
But I love that just being in that momenttogether, observing that more affirming
approach helped you change your practice.
Thank you for doing that.
Um, now the other one, uh, whoshared about schools earlier.
You've said, I'm a parent and aspeechy my child's school and most
of the schools in our town continueto use behavioral approaches.
(13:27):
I'm gonna just sigh here 'cause it's,it's still incredibly common and yes.
So many use dojos.
So like Class Dojo app I think it is.
Which is a reward punishment based system.
My Andy children and clients seeother children being reprimanded.
For the adjustments or accommodations?
Oh my gosh, that is, I,I hate that that happens.
I know it happens and I hate it so much.
Um, it doesn't feel safe for thekids to advocate for the needs.
(13:48):
I'm really, really sorry to hear that.
And, um.
If, if you want, I'm gonna inviteyou to send me a question, like if
there's, uh, sort of anything you'dlike me to give some suggestions on in
tomorrow's chat, perhaps I could do that.
Um, I'd be really, really open to that.
You're welcome to justDM me if you want to.
I really appreciate.
Yeah.
(14:09):
You sharing.
This, it's vulnerable.
It's, it's horrible that it happens.
The reality is we have so much morework to do to shift the world to
neurodiversity affirming practices.
Sometimes I'm in a littlebubble where I see and hear only
neurodiversity affirming things.
And honestly, I'm lucky in that, uh, theschool that my daughter is at is fabulous.
They are so collaborative,they're so open-minded.
(14:30):
They're teaching, uh, about brainsand how brains work to all kids,
and it's just really, really cool.
It happens.
It can happen.
There are sparks there.
It's not everywhere yet.
So let's keep at it.
And I thank everybody for beinghere, listening, being open-minded,
being curious to, you know, whatare the practices that we can shift?
What is the best for the kids?
(14:51):
What is literally going to bethe best for the neurodivergent
kids that we are supporting?
Um, you've said hard to know what to ask.
Yeah, look, honestly,feel free to message me.
I'm actually gonna screenshot 'causemaybe I'll think of like how to
address it further tomorrow as well.
Anyway, I said I was gonna be 10 minutes.
I've been 16.
Classic.
yeah, really, reallygreat to have you here.
I'll be popping up on Thursdayand Friday at the same time.
(15:14):
The recordings go out on thepodcast and on Instagram.
I hope you have a beautiful day andaffirming day if you are autistic.
I hope you are especially lookingafter yourself today on autism
world, autism Day, autism awarenessday, whatever you wanna call it.
But, um, you know, not just today,but every day, this can be a hard day.
It can be a confronting day.
It can also be anexciting celebratory day.
(15:36):
So thank you, and I'll catch you tomorrow.
Bye.
Hello folks.
(00:01):
It's Wednesday.
Had to check that.
We're just gonna be on for about 10minutes because I am honoring my capacity.
I'm tired.
I'm really tired.
I've done a lot this week.
I have worked really, really harddoing a whole lot of things across both
my businesses and I'm really tired.
So I am gonna honor that bydoing a shorter q and a today.
(00:23):
I'm popping up on Thursday and Friday aswell this week with, uh, you know what?
What's going on?
What's going on for all of you?
I am here doing these daily qand as this week to share what is
affirming communication support forautistic children, and share any
clarification about my course AffirmingCommunication for Autistic Children,
(00:45):
which is for speech therapists.
It's open right now and closes on Friday.
So two days from when I'm recording this,two days and one hour 49 hours away.
That's why I'm here.
Just clarifying.
You know, I, I put out a lot of stuff,podcasts and webinars, um, you know,
training, things like that, and there'sall these questions that come up.
I can't always get to it, so, uh, yes.
(01:06):
Happy yellow day.
I love that.
Thank you.
Michael.
I am wearing yellow.
I don't own much yellow.
I love colors.
I love bright colors.
Yellow is not my main color.
Like it probably doesn'treally bring out my complexion.
Um, anyway, here I amin my one yellow jumper.
Uh, so I have to acknowledge ittoday is World Autism Day and I,
I've just put up some stories.
(01:27):
I'll pop it on my, uh, Instagramlater, which is just clarifying some
of the imagery around autism andWorld Autism Awareness Day and so on.
There's language clarification to be done,but I just had to start with the imagery.
Uh, basically puzzle pieces.
Out, uh, infinity symbols in blue as acolor to represent autistic people out.
(01:49):
Red is good.
There's a, a whole campaign,uh, go red instead.
And, uh, I prefer yellow go yellow.
Representing and, uh, supporting yellowladybugs who are a fabulous organization
that I love and support and have spoken attheir conference for the last two years.
And I've already recordedmy third year conference.
Um.
Well, the sidebars, but it's justsuch an important week to acknowledge.
(02:12):
So yeah, if you wanna know moreabout that, I'm gonna leave it to
my Instagram post, uh, to kind ofexplain the why behind all of that.
But if something's popped up inyour brain and you think, oh gosh,
I told everyone to wear blue today.
Um, just pause, go, go and hit up myInstagram soon, I'll put the post there,
or, yeah, it's in my stories right now.
Okay, so what are we talking about today?
(02:33):
I have two questions here.
One is a question about my course thatI got an email yesterday, and one is,
uh, a really cool question that cameup during yesterday's live that I
thought that's a topic for another day,meaning now the, uh, course question
really quick and easy to answer.
So, uh, I had a therapist message me.
And ask if my course for speech therapistis going to open again this year?
(02:58):
The answer is very likely yes.
It's only April now, so probably yes.
Do I know when do Ihave the plan for when?
No, I dunno.
When.
Um, so what happens is it's all on demand,so you get 12 months access if you are
thinking, I'm keen, I'm interested, I justdon't have the time right now to do it.
Probably best to register.
Now you've got the 12 months, you've got,you know, school holidays ahead of you.
(03:20):
You've got different times that youcan go and, uh, you know, do that
course along the 12 month journey.
Also, I've now added a podcast versionto make it, basically the videos are
there, but also, um, people can listen.
You can listen to the wholecourse in your ears as well.
I know that I've heard that frompeople, that it makes it more accessible
for them to actually be able tojoin in, participate, and often in
(03:42):
many cases re-listen to the course.
So I hope that helps.
Thinking about the timingof registering or not.
Like I said, it's open for 49hours for when I'm recording this.
Um, but yes, it will open again.
I'm not saying it's a never, it's justI don't know when, what the plan is.
I need to like map it out.
That's the course question done.
(04:02):
So.
How do I model for others if theyhave a non neuro affirming therapist?
That is our question.
It's a collaboration question,and I adore it, and it's something
I think I talk about a lot.
In fact, last week I gave akeynote presentation to Noah's
Arc, a fantastic organization.
I will tag them later in this post,uh, uh, all about collaboration.
(04:24):
So it's all on my mind and I'm like,okay, what's the, the quick version
for how I'm gonna break this down toa little bite sized session today.
Um.
Now the context.
This came up in terms of a, it's an otI know who asked this, thinking about,
okay, you approach your care and supportfor your autistic clients or students
in a neurodiversity affirming way.
(04:45):
Maybe you've done the training,you've done the learning, you've done
the thinking, and you, you get it.
You understand what neurodiversityaffirming approaches are.
Awesome.
And yet the kids you support, theymay be in teams where not everybody in
that support team, whether it's anothertherapist or a teacher, and you know,
parents as well sometimes and caregivers.
But in this case we're thinking,what if another therapist in
(05:07):
that child support team is not?
Neurodiversity affirming, or they'redoing practices that we know are
not neurodiversity affirming, maybenot in that child's best interests.
Maybe they are very behavioral.
Maybe they're not honoring the child'strue deep needs or understanding what
is really going on for the child.
So what do we do there?
(05:29):
Well, I have a sip of water.
I'm just gonna do mylittle teaching moment.
I always make things work choppy.
Um, I want you to justtake a sec and think like.
Has this happened to you?
Have you been in a support teamwhere you are not aligned, all
the grownups are not quite alignedwith how to best support the child?
Has that happened to you?
What's the situation?
Maybe you've been an adult in that careteam as well, or like at the center of it?
(05:53):
So what I suggest here,there's a couple of angles.
I'm talking to you asprofessionals who support kids.
One angle is to do this kind ofconnection and discussion and
exploration directly with thatother therapist or with that other
professional in the child's care team.
And a second angle is to do that withthe parent and empower and support the
(06:14):
parent to eventually discover who do theyreally want in the child's care team.
And, um.
Uh, to, to help the parent understandwhat is the impact or what are the
different approaches that that child isbeing exposed to by all the different
people who are supporting them.
We might.
Often forget that many parents don'tknow that they have a choice in
(06:37):
what kinds of support they access.
Parents may not really understandwhat is the approach, what is the
type of support, or somebody mightsay they're doing a kind of support.
They might say they're neurodiversityaffirming, but what they're doing
in their actions is not, is not thatthat happens unfortunately, all too
often, one of you says yes, currentlyin this situation with your child's
(06:57):
teachers, I'm so sorry to hear that.
Um, you're finding that schoolsettings aren't and de affirming.
It's such a mixed bag.
It really is.
Um, yes.
So thank you for sharing thatand feel free to share more.
Uh, if you want to, I won't name you.
You know, I think, um, you happyif you're happy to share what's
going on in that situation.
We can kind of real thismake it a little real and so.
(07:20):
I have a four step process, whichis an acronym, and it's the only
way I remember it and it's the onlyway you'll remember it, I think.
And the four step process for dealingwith these, I call 'em like sticky
conversations or tricky situationswhere you and somebody else, like
usually it's an adult who you arecollaborating with, you're just not
quite aligned and you think, oh, Igotta have that tricky conversation.
(07:44):
So the acronym is four letters.
Plan is the acronym.
And the first P is to prepare,which is prepare yourself
to have that conversation.
Part of that is to thinkthrough, what do you want to say?
What are you going to ask?
What is the purpose of it?
And another part of that P, thatpreparation is regulating yourself
(08:05):
before you enter that conversation.
If it means.
Not replying to that email thatday, waiting till the next day,
you know, write the draft job andwait till the next day to respond.
If it means, uh, giving yourself areal grounding practice that is going
to calm your nervous system, beforeyou enter that house or enter that
meeting, you need to do what you need.
(08:25):
You need to recognize what youneed to help yourself feel your
best in preparation for that.
So that's the p. L is listen, andthis part gets missed way too often.
The listen is about deeply trying tounderstand what is going on for that
other person that leads them to bewhere they are or do what they do, or
(08:47):
say what they do, say what they say.
Um, listen to, to understandwhat is their, what are their
beliefs, what are their biases?
What are their, uh, practices?
What are their fears that haveled them to do what they do?
And only once you listen andthat takes some questions.
A lot of like really goodquestioning with an open mind.
With a curious mind, with a humble mind.
(09:09):
Once you do that listening,then A is our third step.
A is add on your own ideas.
There is no point just tellingpeople stuff, talking at them.
When you know you're disagreeing,but you're just saying your
stuff again and again and again.
But you may not actually be meetingthem where they are or answering
the questions or the fears that theyactually have or teaching them in
(09:32):
the way that they actually learn.
So all of that said, you know, it isvaluable to share your insights, your
perspective, but you've gotta startfrom a place of trying to understand
where is that other person coming from?
That's a n is.
Next steps N is to collaborativelyfigure out with that other person
(09:53):
what the next steps will be.
It is not top downtelling them what to do.
It is deciding with them what is theapproach next, and it might be an
an information gathering next step.
It might be a step away andhave another meeting later.
It might be.
Bringing another person into the team.
If this is the case where you're havingthis conversation with a parent of
(10:15):
a child and you are supporting thatparent to understand what really is
going on with the whole Care team, I.
There is sometimes a case toadvocate for a parent to step
away from a care provider.
There is sometimes a case foryou to, you know, stop working
with a particular family.
If you have tried, you've hadthis open-minded conversation
and it's just not working.
(10:35):
So I think it's always worthtrying to find that middle
ground, that collaborative.
Middle ground you can agreeon, but it doesn't always work.
Um, so there's still a point where wecan say, okay, we are not aligned here.
Um, so I just need tovalidate that point as well.
Um, I share a whole lot more aboutthis in my affirming communication for
(10:56):
Autistic Children course, includingan AI tool that I am gonna demonstrate
in a video I'll share later today.
Um, which basically you can come tothat AI tool and tell it, this is the
situation I'm having with a parent.
Here's.
The challenging situation.
And uh, I need to know what to ask thatparent so I can do that l step, the
listen step, give me some ideas of whatare the questions I can ask that parent
(11:20):
to understand their perspective better.
And so this tool aims to really be likeyour clinical supervisor in robot form.
It's kind of, uh, you know, there toguide you with the exact situations
that you're having rather than youhaving to take what I teach and.
Only kind of do the, turn it intoreal action, uh, in your own brain.
(11:41):
You've got this tool toguide you through it.
So that's why I created it.
I am gonna head to the comments now'cause there's some really interesting
comments and I don't wanna miss them.
One of you said, I've been thetherapist who was giving non-affirmative
practice due to not knowing better.
This was a long time ago.
Thank you for coming.
Clean on that.
I think we were all there to some degree.
You know, we're, we're all on a journey.
There's probably things we'restill going to be changing.
(12:03):
Um, you know, from where we are now.
The child psych asked to join mysession with the child via telehealth.
The psych modeled affirming language.
It changed my whole practice.
I love that.
So you were the person who made theshift, and I appreciate you for being
open to, to do that, to listen, to learn.
Honestly, as professionals, wehave a, an ethical obligation to
(12:23):
continue learning, to continuelistening, to adapt our practice.
This is an ethical obligation.
We can't step away from that.
And so you thank you for sharing this.
Um, it's phenomenal.
And that example is, you know, sometimesjust being in the moment, having
shared moments and whether it's in ameeting or in a joint session, um, and
(12:43):
modeling affirming practice, that mightbe enough to make the shift for some.
Let's say professional pairings where thatdifference of opinion or perspective or
practice is so big, maybe just modelingwon't be enough, and that's where.
The listening, the discussing, andsometimes helping a family advocate
to leave a non-affirmative service,not as our first line, but you
(13:07):
know, if that's just not gonna workout, that might be appropriate.
But I love that just being in that momenttogether, observing that more affirming
approach helped you change your practice.
Thank you for doing that.
Um, now the other one, uh, whoshared about schools earlier.
You've said, I'm a parent and aspeechy my child's school and most
of the schools in our town continueto use behavioral approaches.
(13:27):
I'm gonna just sigh here 'cause it's,it's still incredibly common and yes.
So many use dojos.
So like Class Dojo app I think it is.
Which is a reward punishment based system.
My Andy children and clients seeother children being reprimanded.
For the adjustments or accommodations?
Oh my gosh, that is, I,I hate that that happens.
I know it happens and I hate it so much.
Um, it doesn't feel safe for thekids to advocate for the needs.
(13:48):
I'm really, really sorry to hear that.
And, um.
If, if you want, I'm gonna inviteyou to send me a question, like if
there's, uh, sort of anything you'dlike me to give some suggestions on in
tomorrow's chat, perhaps I could do that.
Um, I'd be really, really open to that.
You're welcome to justDM me if you want to.
I really appreciate.
Yeah.
(14:09):
You sharing.
This, it's vulnerable.
It's, it's horrible that it happens.
The reality is we have so much morework to do to shift the world to
neurodiversity affirming practices.
Sometimes I'm in a littlebubble where I see and hear only
neurodiversity affirming things.
And honestly, I'm lucky in that, uh, theschool that my daughter is at is fabulous.
They are so collaborative,they're so open-minded.
(14:30):
They're teaching, uh, about brainsand how brains work to all kids,
and it's just really, really cool.
It happens.
It can happen.
There are sparks there.
It's not everywhere yet.
So let's keep at it.
And I thank everybody for beinghere, listening, being open-minded,
being curious to, you know, whatare the practices that we can shift?
What is the best for the kids?
(14:51):
What is literally going to bethe best for the neurodivergent
kids that we are supporting?
Um, you've said hard to know what to ask.
Yeah, look, honestly,feel free to message me.
I'm actually gonna screenshot 'causemaybe I'll think of like how to
address it further tomorrow as well.
Anyway, I said I was gonna be 10 minutes.
I've been 16.
Classic.
yeah, really, reallygreat to have you here.
I'll be popping up on Thursdayand Friday at the same time.
(15:14):
The recordings go out on thepodcast and on Instagram.
I hope you have a beautiful day andaffirming day if you are autistic.
I hope you are especially lookingafter yourself today on autism
world, autism Day, autism awarenessday, whatever you wanna call it.
But, um, you know, not just today,but every day, this can be a hard day.
It can be a confronting day.
It can also be anexciting celebratory day.
(15:36):
So thank you, and I'll catch you tomorrow.
Bye.
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