AASR Live

Please join us for “All Our Instincts About Behavior Are Wrong” with Diane Gould.

Diane Gould is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who specializes in serving autistic individuals. As the Executive Director and Founder of PDA North America, she founded the annual PDA North America conference held in Chicago which has changed the lives of hundreds of PDA families.

Currently, Diane has a private practice in the suburbs of Chicago, where she serves neurodivergent children, adults, and their families. Over the last 40-plus years, she has worked for both private agencies and school systems. Diane was the Childhood Disability and Family Support Specialist for the Jewish Children’s Bureau for over a decade. She created many different types of programs and support groups, family camps, and parent education. She also established inclusion consultation and home visiting programs. She also has worked for two special education cooperatives which resulted in working in 14 schools during her career.

She served on the Professional Advisory Board of the Autism Society of Illinois for many years. Diane also facilitates a program to improve relationship skills for teens and adults.

She has served as a consultant and guest lecturer for many area school districts, parent associations, and private agencies.

Diane provides assessments and consultations to families and school districts and frequently attends school meetings. Diane has always been interested in human behavior and works with individuals, parents, and schools to create support plans that increase emotional regulation. She has been vocal with her concerns that our commonly used practices increase dysregulation and make behavioral challenges worse. She fights against punitive practices including seclusion, restraint, suspension, and expulsion.

It was the understanding of behavior and support in the PDA literature that first drew her to learn more about PDA. And learning about PDA, led her to begin the new PDA movement in North America. Diane formed PDA North America at the first American PDA conference in March 2020. She has written a book with Ruth Fidler on Navigating PDA in America which will be published in June 2024.

She is making it part of her life’s mission to gain more awareness and understanding of PDA in North America through this non-profit organization.

Support the show

Dr. Lori Desautels has been an Assistant Professor at Butler University since 2016, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education. She was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for eight years, where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium. Currently, the Symposium is in its 10th year and is sponsored by Butler University College of Education. Through these conferences and symposiums, educators, parents, and the community learn deeply about how adversity, trauma, and resiliency impact the developing nervous system, helping our students to feel a sense of autonomy and purpose along with social, emotional, and cognitive well-being. Because of her work, Dr. Desautels has been able to attract the foremost experts in the fields of developmental, relational, and social neurosciences, which significantly grow the conference each year.

Dr. Dustin Springer has been an educator for 27 years and is currently an elementary school principal in Kansas. Additionally, he serves alongside Dr. Lori, Angie Zara, and Rob Beltz as affiliate faculty at Butler University in the Applied Educational Neuroscience certification program and as a consultant for Revelations in Education. Dr. Springer is married with three children and actively pursues any opportunity to watch live music to bring calm to his nervous system.

Crystal Williams is a 7th-grade Social Studies teacher at Belzer Middle School. She began at Belzer in the Alternative to Instruction classroom in 2015 as an Instructional Assistant (IA). While as an IA, she returned to school to obtain her Master's in Education. She has obtained the Applied Educational Neuroscience Framework Certification program with Dr. Lori Desautels. Crystal has had the pleasure of presenting at the Lawerence Learning Summit, Lawrence Advance Academy, and the Butler Neuroscience Symposium; Crystal is on a mission to help adults and children become aware of themselves through Educational Neuroscience. She aims to teach others how to integrate educational neuroscience in the classroom.

Born and raised in the heart of Washington, DC, Angelina Zara found her passion in education in 2015, serving students and caregivers in her hometown. As an elementary school teacher in a Title 1, full-inclusion classroom, Angie learned early on about the power of research-based, trauma-informed strategies, and her philosophy was forever changed. She has first-hand experience of the impact of trauma-informed education and the direct correlation to powerful relationships and increased student achievement in diverse learning communities. Angie completed Applied Educational Neuroscience Certification from Butler University in 2021, and has had the privilege to work closely with Dr Lori Desautels. These collaborations include designing and incorporating various applications within her Applied Educational Neuroscience (AEN) Framework.

Robert Beltz is a dedicated educator and consultant based in Oakland County, Michigan, and he also teaches the graduate Applied Educational Neuroscience program at Butler University. With an extensive background that spans over 20 years in the field of education, Robert has served in various roles as a teacher, ELD specialist, and trauma-responsive coach. He holds multiple certifications in areas such as Trauma-Responsiveness, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Applied Educational Neuroscience, and English as a Second Language (ESL). His primary focus is on enhancing social-emotional learning and promoting brain development, specifically for students who have been impacted by trauma.

Support the show

Please join us for “Offering Support to Caregivers and Children During a Challenging Moment” with Nancy L. Weaver, PhD. MPH.

Dr. Weaver has a keen interest in promoting emotional health and working with schools and agencies to nurture the growth of all kids and adults using strength-based methods. She consults in the areas of messaging, community and team engagement, teacher training, strategic planning, and program design and evaluation. Dr. Weaver is also a performer and improvisational theater coach, and she uses tools from applied improv to strengthen collaboration and innovation in work settings.

As a tenured, full professor of Behavioral Science at Saint Louis University, her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among others, and has led to the widespread dissemination of effective parenting programs. Most recently, she launched Support Over Silence (supportoversilence.com) to provide bystander training to support parents and children struggling in public. Dr. Weaver is Co-director of the Community Engagement Core of the Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Using a systems lens, Dr. Weaver grounds her research, teaching, and practice in the rigor of the scientific approach, the art of storytelling, and the importance of connection across people and sectors.

Support the show

Please join us for “Bolstering Self-Regard: the Energetics of Helping Children Thrive in Negative Classroom Environments” with Erin Grimm.

Erin Grimm comes from a long line of educators. She has over ten years of experience teaching world languages and English and now owns her own business "Seahurst Learns Together," which is dedicated to academic coaching of students with what she calls "alternative emotional intelligence."

Support the show

Author Katie Pagnotta joins us to talk about: "Brain and Body-Aligned Responsive Systems of Excellence.”

Katie Pagnotta is a licensed clinical mental health counselor, functional success educational consultant, parent coach, and author. She is also the creator of the Brain- and Body-Aligned Responsive Systems (BBARS) of Excellence framework. She guides educators, administrators, and school staff in strengths-based approaches that leverage the human design and empower the development of the necessary mindsets and habits that lead to re-envisioned success, success balanced with wellness and goal attainment.

Katie’s recently published book, Empowered by the Human Design: Utilizing the BBARS of Excellence Framework to Foster Student and Educator Success, includes interview segments from 18 experts within the fields of education, psychology, and neuroscience. The book is a work of collective wisdom grounded in Polyvagal Theory and synthesized in a user-friendly way to facilitate practical application for educators. Its reviewers have called it, “a powerful and practical new model for regulation and resilience”, “required reading for all educators”, “a gift to the field”, and “a game-changer”. Throughout the book, Katie combines the wisdom of her interviewees with her own research as well as her years of experience as a former K-12 NH public school counselor.

During her time as a school counselor, Katie was witness to a pattern in which educators were working passionately, and students were doing the best they could with the skills and support they had. And yet, the educator attrition rate, as well as the youth mental health crisis, were continuing to be on the rise. Knowing that when educators and school systems as a whole are given the right tools, they can provide fertile soil to nurture the environments, relationships, and supports necessary for students to thrive, Katie left her role as a school counselor to become an educational consultant who provides these tools through the BBARS of Excellence framework.

Support the show