Two Sides of the Spectrum

In this episode we deeply explore how therapists misunderstand kids who communicate using scripts, how traditional approaches just don’t work to support their language acquisition, and a totally new framework we can all use to support them in a meaningful way. Our guest, Alexandria Zachos, is a speech-language pathologist who has presented at ASHA and all over the world on delayed echolalia and gestalt language processing. She owns a private practice in Illinois called Social Butterfly Speech Therapy and runs Meaningful Speech, where she teaches an online course on gestalt language processing and shares tons of absolutely transformative content on social media. You can check out Alex’s online course at bit.ly/gestaltcourse.

Ido Kedar is an autistic-self advocate and the author of a two books. He is a non-speaking autistic person who uses a voice-output typing device to communicate. Listen to my interview with Ido as we discuss:

His experience with OT, speech, and ABA before he had a way to communicate when no one was presuming his competence

How learning to communicate changed everything, and why learning to spell and type isn’t a simple as it sounds

Why Ido doesn’t like labels like “high functioning” and “low functioning”

What sensory and executive functioning supports Ido found helpful in his journey, and what outdated strategies he wishes therapists would leave behind

Ido’s advice to therapists who write goals to suppress stimming

Ido’s concrete challenge to our listeners who want to better understand the perspective of our non-speaking clients

Kristie Patten is the chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy at New York University whose cutting-edge work focuses on using strength-based approaches in autism. Join us in this episode as we delve into:

How most OTs wound up using a deficits-based model with autistic kids and why this is not serving our clients well

Why we should move away from withholding kids' interests from them. We'll also talk about how first-then schedules and even limiting screen time may fall into this category

How we can support autistic clients to build from their strengths to support their joy and participation in life, leisure, and work

What we should be doing instead of social skills groups

Why it's really easy to be a bad therapist and really hard to be a good one (plus some concrete steps to take to help get us there!)

Jacquelyn Fede is a developmental psychologist and autistic self-advocate and Amy Laurent is a developmental psychologist and pediatric occupational therapist. They are the co-founders of Autism Level Up! where they challenge OTs to listen to autistic voices and level up our work with people on the spectrum. Join in the conversation as we:

Explore why the emotional model of regulation may not connect with many autistic people

Dive deep into how to support autistic clients using three the Autism Level Up tools: the Energy Regulator, the Person in Context, and the Power Plan

Breakthrough the myth that “calm” is the right energy state for every context, and get clear on what we can aim for instead

Move towards a context-driven and empowering model of intervention for self-regulation

Joy F. Johnson is a black, autistic behavioral therapist who runs Spectrum Support Services. She brings a new perspective to the podcast in so many ways. Join into the conversation as we discuss:

How joy uses her behavioral training to help keep black autistic kids safe when interacting with the police, and what strategies we all should be using to do the same

Joy’s take on behavioral strategies that we've been critiquing on this podcast like planned ignoring, using reinforcers, and using hand-over-hand assistance from her perspective person who is trained in ABA and also black and autistic

Joy's experiences with racism and ableism in the United States

Why Joy loves watching credits, the surprising doors her interests have opened for her in adulthood, and several important reasons why we shouldn’t withhold an autistic person’s interests from them