Episode 308: Breea Rosas: Neurodivergent Affirming Practices for School-Based Practitioners

This week, we share Rachel’s interview with Breea Rosas! Breea is a school psychologist who works with educators on how they can implement neurodiversity affirming practices and neurodiversity affirming psychoeducation! Breea shares about the neurodiversity affirming approach and three key areas she works with educators and practitioners to address: 1) What assessments are we choosing; 2) How are we writing assessments; and 3) What are we communicating to the families in meetings?

Before the interview, Chris shares his discomfort with using descriptions that label people as “typical” when the concept of “average” does not really capture the nuances that make up a person and could even be reductive.

Key Ideas this Week:

🔑 Breea always writes reports as if the child will read it in 10 years, and she asks herself “How would it make them feel?”

🔑 We should be thoughtful about the assessments we are choosing. If you know, “Kids with ADHD, they are always bombing assessment X,” then consider giving a different assessment! You don’t always need to get the same tests to every student.

🔑 Parents have a lot of voice in IEP meetings - if as a parent, you hear a goal that doesn’t align with your philosophy, you can say, “This doesn’t align with our goals as a family. We don’t agree with this, we want something more creative.” As a parent. if something feels wrong, you should say something!

Links from This Week’s Episode

“The Myth of Average” Tedx Talk: https://youtu.be/4eBmyttcfU4?si=XcuHQrYCTEznV0iR

Neurodiversity Affirming School-Based & Consulting Practitioners Facebook Group

Autism Level Up: https://www.autismlevelup.com

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:09
Welcome to Talking with Tech. I'm your host, Rachel Madel, joined, as always, by Chris Bugaj. Hey, Chris.

00:00:14
Hey, Rachel. All right, I got something for you today.

00:00:16
Awesome.

00:00:17
So, full disclosure to the listening audience. We recorded a banter for this particular episode, and I wrote you, you, rachel, not the listeners. And I wrote you, rachel, and said, you know what? I want a mulligan. I want to do this over.

00:00:36
I think there's a better way to express what I was trying to express. And you were gracious enough to say, yeah, okay, let's do it. If you don't want to put that one out, let's. Let's redo it. So this is actually a redo of one we've already done.

00:00:47
So thank you for, you know, for. For agreeing to do that, rachel. I appreciate it, because I know time is valuable, but. But I felt like there's a better way to express, and so this is the better way. Okay.

00:00:58
This is me having thought about it for a while, which is even more pressure now, right?

00:01:02
And everyone's like, what is he saying and thinking before?

00:01:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, just to be clear about that, the banter wasn't bad. I don't think it was. I just felt, like, in the realm of, like, trying to express a point, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, I can be. I can be clearer about my thought process here.

00:01:24
But it wasn't bad. It wasn't, like, offensive or anything.

00:01:26
Right?

00:01:26
It was just. I wasn't feeling like it was coming across that with. With the clarity that I wanted to. So let's dive in. Okay.

00:01:35
Have you ever seen the TEDx by Todd Rose called the myth of average?

00:01:42
No.

00:01:43
No. Okay, so I'm going to take. And maybe some of our listeners right now are like, what's that? And other people are like, oh, my gosh, Chris. Yes.

00:01:51
I love this. Okay, so this is one of those TEDx talks that are life changing, right? He's probably seen some, and they stick in your brain, and you're like, oh, that really kind of changed my thinking. This one was, for me, not so much that it, like, changed my thinking, but so much it solidified my thinking. Like, yes, this is exactly.

00:02:11
This person has encapsulated it so much better than I've been articulating it. So here's the quick my apologies to Todd Rose. I am going to try and do a Cliff notes synopsis version, okay. Just so we can have a conversation around the content and the point that he was trying to make, because it really gets to my thinking here. Okay, so here's the quick story.

00:02:34
So he comes out on stage and he tells, he just gets right into it. He says, you know, back in the 1950s, the United States Air Force had a problem. They were spending all this money on jets and fighter pilots, and they were realizing that their performance was going down or wasn't what they thought it could be. It could be better. And what they were sort of realizing was that the problem was with the relationship between the pilot and the, the cockpit.

00:03:10
Okay, so the cockpit, they go and they ask, okay, hey, how are these cockpits designed? Well, they're kind of designed for the average pilot, right? And so the, they said, okay, let's do a study. Or they looked at a study where somebody looked at 4000 pilots and said, okay, let's see what the average pilot like. What is the profile of the average pilot?

00:03:36
Right? And so they measured all sorts of different things like the pilot's height and all these, these 4000 pilots, their height, their weight, their arm length and so on and so forth, right? You can imagine these maybe nine to ten criteria that they were all measuring. And certainly taking 4000 pilots and looking at each individual criteria, height, weight, arm length, so on, there are averages in there. But when you layer all of those on top of each other, guess how many pilots were average.

00:04:09
All of them or most of them? None of them. I don't know. I don't know, Chris.

00:04:15
Well, that's it. That's exactly what he said. He's like, intuitively, you think, well, yeah. If we're designing the planes for the average pilot, then we would imagine most pilots after doing this study would fall on this midline of being average. But it's just the opposite.

00:04:32
The answer was zero. So yes, you could average out each individual criteria that they were measuring. But when you layered them all on top of each other, there wasn't a single pilot that was completely average. There was no average Joe, if that makes sense, right? 4000 people, no average.

00:04:49
So they said, and this was really powerful because I think it really impacts what we do as educators is they said, okay, if there's no such thing as the average pilot, then we are banning the average. Hey, companies that we buy airplanes from, we are not going to buy airplanes from you if you design cockpits for an average that doesn't exist. So instead we want you to design to the edges. Well, meaning what are the edges of these bell curves for each criteria? And the only way to do that was to design a cockpit that was flexible, where you could move a seat forward, you could move the steering wheel contraption thing.

00:05:38
Like, you could make some adjustments based on all these different parameters so that no matter how tall you were or how short you were or how much you weighed or all these different metrics, you could still access the controls in a way that was comfortable for you. And that then changed once they did that. That forced the manufacturers of the airplanes to redesign their airplanes. And then that they saw they could draw from a wider pool of people to be pilots, including women. Like this was back in the 1950s, right?

00:06:12
So, hey, now we can say there is no average. Why don't we open up our pool for all sorts of people, right? With different sizes and backgrounds and abilities, right? So that's where he goes, right? And then he's like, so what does this have to do with education?

00:06:31
He's like, most of us aren't going to sit in a cockpit of a fighter jet, right? But almost all of us have sat in a classroom where we've sat in the same desk in rows, and the instruction has been delivered to us in the same way. Instruction and the instructional materials and even the space are all designed for the average student. And there is no such thing as an average student. Again, if you were to layer all of these criteria, and he even has some criteria that he talks about, and I'm going to talk, I'm going to say what they are right now, if you were to think of a student, every student could be plotted on a bell curve for their long term memory, their short term memory.

00:07:24
Now, all sorts of things could impact where their long term and short term memories are, right? So you got memory, then you got language abilities. And of course, we would say expressive and receptive language abilities, their knowledge base, their background knowledge, their reading abilities, and all the different factors that layer in on top of reading, like reading fluency, reading comprehension, their ability to segment out sounds and so on and so forth. I won't read them all because you're getting the idea. And even if you think back, Rachel, when we interviewed doctor prizant, we went into this realm a little bit where we talked about, like, how there's all these different criterias and there's little bell curves.

00:08:08
So my point being, and where I'm really going here and why I wanted to explain it this way, is that there is no average student and there is no average person. We're all diverse. And yes, you could plot individual abilities on some sort of diagram. Again, let's say language abilities on some sort of diagram. But.

00:08:37
But when you, every person is made up of a complex algorithm, soup of abilities. Right. And so there is no typical person. Okay. And so that's kind of, well, one, I want to invite everybody to go watch that TED talk.

00:09:00
Right. Luke, for sure, will have it linked in the show notes and where I was going with that. And what I'm bringing it back to you now is I want to sort of picture all of these abilities as a radar chart or a spot spiderweb graphic. So if you think, like, put a student at the center of a radar, like you can picture a radar, again, kind of going back to the airplane analogy. So there's a center of a radar, put a student at the center of the radar, and then all these circles that go out, or these spokes that go out make like a wagon wheel, or again, like a spider web.

00:09:35
If you think of the center of a spider web and spokes going out, all those spokes could be different abilities again, like someone's receptive language, someone's expressive language, and it could be even more nuanced than that. Right. Those are big topics, but there's a lot that goes into your receptive language. There's lots that goes into your expressive language. So all that to say, you know, a thing with me, Rachel, you know, a thing with me is sort of describing people in broad strokes by putting some sort of adjective in front of them.

00:10:15
You know, I'm this type of learner. For instance, you've heard me sort of push back against that notion before. And I think a better way to describe people and their abilities is by the supports they need or prefer or have expressed that they express that they need or prefer. And, yeah, I guess that that rather. And realize that every single individual is made up of a nuanced set of abilities and backgrounds and experiences.

00:10:55
And it's not fair to anybody if you have a disability or if you don't have a disability to paint somebody into a broad strokes like that. I just want to also explain before we go on, Chris, why are you so nervous about this? Why did you feel like you need to do this do over? Because I get very nervous that by describing that, that I don't, that based on this research and based on this TED talk, that everyone is diverse and made up of these complex abilities and backgrounds, that some people have identified themselves or identify with some sort of adjective that goes in front of themselves. And I don't want to deny anybody their identity if that has made you feel better and that is how you think of yourself and that you've been able to find others by using an adjective like that, then all the better.

00:11:51
Right? Like, that's a good thing. And I don't want to steal that from anybody, and which is why I get nervous about mentioning it in front of thousands of people on a podcast. But I would also invite for people to reflect, is there a better way to describe my abilities? Is there a more, without just putting one word in front of it, can we.

00:12:13
There's no shortages of words that we could use. Right. We can describe with whole sentences and whole phrases and whole. I guess that captures the nuance of who someone is in a more descriptive way.

00:12:30
I think you're totally right, Chris. I think that when we try to put labels on individuals, I think that one us kind of going in that direction and going to say, like, this person and then describing them, you know, especially when we're, again, putting that adjective in front of the person, I think is just so oversimplified. And I think that's kind of what you're getting at, is that it doesn't encapsulate all of the unique differences that we bring to the table. And I also think in kind of the work that we do, it's oftentimes so focused on differences and challenges, and I think we have to be really careful. But what I'm hearing you say also is that some people identify with some of these labels and language, and we would never want to deny someone that, because I think there's this kind of middle ground where there are some benefits to identifying in a certain way and feeling like you belong in a community of people who also identify similarly to you.

00:13:57
So, yeah, it's a really interesting thought process and conversation because the language we use really does matter. And I think what I've learned in the last couple years, especially, is that I'm always open to using language that feels better or more fitting for someone if they simply share that with me. And I've learned a lot about and thought a lot about, how am I talking about the students that I work with in an IEP meeting, when I'm talking with a family, when I'm writing about them in a report? So I think this is a good conversation because it does matter. The language that we use.

00:14:38
And I think that that has been a little bit of a tricky space to navigate in a lot of ways, especially as things are changing and evolving. And it's like, oh, like, okay, now, I don't say with autism. I say autistic. And, you know, it's interesting because I've been in situations where, you know, individuals will kind of push back and say, well, that's not how I identify. I'm like, okay, awesome, like, thank you for telling me.

00:15:03
But it just does make it kind of tricky to navigate. And I think the best thing we can do is just be really open and open to learning. And I think at the end of the day, if we have conversations with people, and sometimes that can feel a little uncomfortable, that's how we continue learning and growing and doing the least amount of harm.

00:15:23
Where I see this particularly influential is in social media because I tend to see. You see it, right. Social media is generally shorter chunks of information, and so people often do use brevity to convey their message as opposed to giving a much more rich, descriptive. Use more just rich, descriptive terminology to describe somebody's makeup, for lack of a better word.

00:15:58
Yeah, I mean, it kind of. It's reminding me of, we just had an internal meeting for my team on our social media, and we're like, oftentimes we do a lot of recordings of my sessions, my coaching sessions, my therapy sessions. We're recording a lot and then choosing what kind of snippets are we going to share? And one thing we kind of realized we had an aha moment as a team yesterday. You know, when I share a clip from a coaching call, it's like we have to share it in a super fast, abbreviated way because people's attention spans on Instagram are so small and short, and we're just not really doing it justice.

00:16:44
I'm like, this doesn't. It's not. What we landed on was like, it's just not the format for this. And people, when they're on social media, are really just looking for quick information. And I'm like, we're missing so much context here in this coaching moment that, like, it's not even really landing in the same powerful way that it would if you watch the whole clip, and I feel like what you're talking about nods to that.

00:17:09
Some situations, we just can't do it justice, so we try our best. Right. But it's like having all of the context, having more is sometimes what you need in order to be clear, concise, and really sharing in a way that feels complete.

00:17:32
Yeah, I think something that's sort of adjacent to that is the term spectrum or continuum. So if I said to you the word spectrum, what jumps in your mind is a word association or as an image in your mind? Yeah, like the light spectrum. That's how I first remember learning it, too. So you tend to think of this.

00:17:54
Like, you start at one place and things change to the other. Or so you might be on like a. Or like a gas tank. You're either empty or you're full and you're somewhere in between with this. With your needle.

00:18:07
Right. And again, I feel like that is.

00:18:10
There's.

00:18:11
There's some truth to that. I had very finite abilities, so my ability to segment certain sounds, let's say, okay, there might be a spectrum, but to just say, like, there's a spectrum of receptive language, it feels to me that it's not nuanced enough that there needs to be more complexity around that, which is why I like that radar chart or that. That graphic in my mind of a radar chart or a spiderweb graphic where I could visualize all the nuances around one of those abilities and plot somebody's, I don't know, again, score as like a. Where they are. Where they land on all these individual threads around that ability.

00:19:01
And that, to me, feels like a much more complete. And if you don't do that, then I'm nervous that it's actually reductive.

00:19:09
Yeah, I completely agree. And then I also had the thought, because if we think about. If we have a student at the center of one of those radar charts and all the different prongs. Right. It also becomes really important to ask the question, like, what does this student care about?

00:19:29
You know? So it's like. And I think that that's where oftentimes we're seeing, you know, some of our students, they have intense passions and curiosities, for one thing, or, you know, one area where they are incredibly robust and excelling. And so it's just interesting to think about when we are choosing to build up certain skills. I always think about that as a therapist.

00:19:55
I'm like, it feels like we wield so much power. We're like, okay, now we're going to teach you this thing. I'm going to bestow upon you this skill. Right. And I feel like it's missing the mark in some ways because it's like, am I thinking about this student at the center of this?

00:20:13
And, you know, what's going to really make an impact for this individual? Like, what skills do they want to focus on? Do they want to grow? And I feel like as students get older, we start to kind of loop them into the process more and consider them because they're becoming closer to adulthood. But how can we start thinking through that lens, even with young children?

00:20:34
You know? And I think having conversations with families is one way to do that too, before kids are able to like communicate, communicate those things to us. But it also lends itself to thinking. What areas do we want to spend energy on?

00:20:49
Yeah, there's a lot to that because they're kids, right. And so they might not really know, like, I don't care about reading. Let's make the least dangerous assumption that you do care about reading or that you, you can, we can, you just don't care about reading yet because you, for whatever reason, for whatever those abilities are. So we'll make the assumption that we're going to teach you how to read, right? Like that.

00:21:16
There's no negotiation about it so much as. But, but what that means is maybe we'll lean into preferences for your choice of materials and topics and not force you to spend time reading on the drudgery that you don't find interesting, right. So there's nuances in all of that and there's assumptions we can make that are least dangerous for everybody. Is that fair?

00:21:40
Yes.

00:21:41
I love that. And just like thinking about organic opportunities for students to practice some of these skills, things that come up in their everyday life that motivate them and create an aha. Moment, like, yes, I actually do want to learn how to read because this thing that I'm super excited about, I want to learn more about, or I want to be able to play this game more independently, or I want to be able to search on Google to learn more about this thing that I am obsessed with. So I think that that is where we as educators can come in and really cultivate organic experiences to help teach a lot of what we're teaching in.

00:22:23
Classrooms, organic and authentic. And I think that radar chart and if you think of someone can be plotted on it. So you pick an individual ability, let's say kicking a ball. And there's off the spoke, there's kicking a football, kicking with your right foot, kicking with your left foot, kicking a soccer ball, kicking it straight, kicking it far. Like there's all these different spokes.

00:22:52
You could plot somebody on that. Where are they right now? And then our mission as educators is to help them move that bead farther, farther out, meaning grow those, all those different skills again with some least dangerous assumptions that they can learn how to do it right. So that's just something I wanted to talk about and get off my chest and share a resource because it's so fundamental for me in my thinking and my actions and the words I use and my practice in general is thinking of people as there is no average and just to be really clear about that, I don't know what a typical learner is. I've not met one and I certainly am not one.

00:23:50
And my kids aren't certainly a typical. I don't know. I've not never met one. Everyone is different.

00:23:58
Yeah, totally. It leads us perfectly into our interview today. Chris, I had the pleasure of interviewing Breea Rosas. Chris and we had an amazing conversation all about neurodiversity affirming practices. Brea is a psychologist, and so we kind of dive in to the assessment process and how we have to look at things very differently as a field.

00:24:21
And brea talks all about her evolution into neurodiversity affirming practices and a really vulnerable way that I really appreciated. And I'm really excited to share this interview that I did with Breea Rosas.

00:24:42
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00:25:05
Wed so very much appreciate it. Now lets get back into the episode.

00:25:18
Welcome to talking with Tech. I'm your host, Rachel Madel, joined today by Brea Rosas. Brea, I'm so excited to have you here.

00:25:24
Thank you.

00:25:24
I'm super excited to be here.

00:25:26
So just start off by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do.

00:25:31
Sure.

00:25:31
Well, I am a school psychologist, and I work in the Los Angeles area. And so primarily I work with elementary school students, and I do all of the things a school psychologist does, evaluations for special education services, consultation and collaboration with staff, working with kids directly, writing IEP goals, all of that good stuff. And then I also just opened my own business, my own practice as a licensed educational psychologist. And through that lens, I work with educators primarily on implementing neurodiversity affirming practices, understanding how they can implement it with their students within their school systems, as well as providing neurodiversity affirming psychoeducation.

00:26:21
Perfect.

00:26:22
Yeah. And we've definitely seen a shift in the way that educators are viewing neurodiversity and shifting their practices. And we're really excited on this podcast who have covered neurodiversity affirming practices before. But I'm really excited to kind of dive in through your lens as a psychologist. Oftentimes we are as slps working on multidisciplinary teams and, you know, we're alongside of psychologists and Ot and PT and, you know, educators.

00:26:55
And so I think it's really great to have kind of your lens, especially given how much, I mean, I'm sure you do a lot of kind of assessments and then goals and recommendations and IEP meetings. Am I right?

00:27:07
So many, yes, absolutely. Exactly.

00:27:10
So I guess let's start off by just, I'm curious through, I always ask him when we're talking about this topic, for the, um, for you to just define what is neurodiversity affirming mean? Because I think a lot of people know, but I also think it's, it's not one of those things that is easily defined. And I'm just curious what your definition would be.

00:27:33
It's so funny because I think my definition shifts every time someone asks me this question. And I think that's kind of the, um. The nature of neurodiversity affirming practices is being super reflective and shifting as things change. Um, it really, just to me, means honoring all neurotypes, understanding that neurotypes, neurodiversity is a natural form of variation, and accepting our kids and people who are neurodivergent, understanding their unique strengths, but also finding ways to support them that feels authentic to them and not infantilizing, just really supporting them as a whole person rather than that deficit based model. So, yeah, in a nutshell, that's really what it means to me.

00:28:23
And then I think also, like the reflective piece, constantly reflecting on why make decisions, what's really going to be best for the kid? Why do I have that expectation for a child? What can be shifted? What ways can we support the regulation, their self advocacy, their autonomy? Yeah, just tons of reflection is another big piece of what it means to be a narrow, diversity affirming practitioner.

00:28:49
To me.

00:28:50
I'm really happy you brought up the idea of reflection because I feel like it's so important in just the work we do as educators if we want to get better at anything that we do. The best way to do that is to reflect on what we're doing and how we're doing it. I think we're living in a time where it's so information is so easily accessible, and listening to the voices of neurodivergent individuals, you know, particularly autistic individuals, is so accessible. And so I think that we as educators have really been learning so much. I know for myself, clinically, I have learned so much, but part of actually integrating what we've learned is thinking about what we do and asking ourselves, why are we doing that?

00:29:39
What expectations do we have, and can we challenge that in a lot of ways? And what does that look like, and then how do we move forward? Um, and so I'm really curious, from your lens, how has this evolved for you as a clinician, and what types of things do you do for yourself to really reflect on what you're doing and how you're doing it?

00:30:02
That's a great question. So, gosh, it all starts well. It starts in multiple ways for me. I think kind of the first thing is, my youngest brother is autistic. He's 21 now.

00:30:18
But I just remember him growing up and me being really involved in everything and supporting my mom, because, obviously, I'm a school psychologist. I have that background. I've been doing this now for eight, nine years. And so, you know, he's going to school, all of that good stuff, and just listening to him talk about how much he hated going to speech therapy because they worked in social group, that's what he did in his. In his speech.

00:30:50
And I was like, this doesn't make any sense to me. Don't you want to learn social skills? Don't you want to learn how to interact with others? And he's like, no, he didn't. That didn't feel authentic to him.

00:31:01
Yeah. And I was like, that was mind.

00:31:03
Blowing to me because that's not what I had ever been taught. So when he was in high school, middle school, high school, starting to tell me these things, that was kind of like my first clue into, oh, maybe this is being done all wrong. And then, as all good things do, it took time, and I didn't really get exposed to the neurodiversity affirming movement until I think it was September 2021. That sounds right. Yeah.

00:31:34
And my SLP, Alyssa, who now works for you, love Alyssa.

00:31:39
Let's give Alyssa a big shout out. She's amazing.

00:31:43
Shout out to Alyssa. She was working at my school, actually, at the time, and it was one of our professional development days, and she was like, hey, I found this PD from Playspark. It's about working with autistic kids.

00:31:57
Let's do it.

00:31:58
For one of our PD times.

00:32:00
I was like, great. Sounds awesome.

00:32:03
And it was neurodiversity affirming, and she didn't know that, and no one in the group knew that that was going to be happening. And the tension in the room, you could probably cut with a knife because everyone was going through a huge learning process altogether, collectively realizing like, whoa, we have been doing everything wrong. Or they're saying, we've been doing everything wrong. Have we been doing everything wrong? I love autistic kids.

00:32:33
I have not a sick brother. Like, what you feel very called out. And it was interesting to have that collectively. But we did it and we talked about it and we all felt like, you know what? We're not doing this anymore.

00:32:54
We're not going to be doing the compliance based things we used to do. We're not doing these behavior charts. We're not doing these token boards. We're going to change things. And that's what really started for me and our teams, thankfully, my team was like all on board.

00:33:08
Everyone was like, yes, we're going to go. We're going to go for it with this newer diversity affirming stuff. So I'm very, very lucky. I'm grateful to just work with very open minded educators. But for me after that, it was all about just jumping in and learning.

00:33:26
So joining Facebook groups, following people who were posting all about neurodiversity affirming practices, neurodivergent voices, huge for me. So just really consuming as much information as I could, and that's kind of where I started consuming, joining all the groups, following all the pages, just getting as much information as I could and then starting to take some trainings. So whatever trainings that were offered, I've taken a lot of them. I've taken, like, Rachel Dorsey, she's a great autistic SLP.

00:34:01
Rachel Dorsey's been on our podcast. Yes.

00:34:04
Yes. She's amazing. And so, like, I took one with her. I took one from Joel Schwartz, who is a neurodiversity affirming psychologist. And I just really, like, dove into it.

00:34:17
But what was funny is what I.

00:34:19
Was finding is that there wasn't a.

00:34:23
Lot for educators, there was a lot for people in private practice that weren't bound by the legal requirements and the attorneys and the advocates and all of those things that bound special education practices in this really tight box. And so kind of from there, then I started, I ended up starting a Facebook group for neurodiversity affirming educators and consulting practitioners. That's what it's called. It's still up and people still join it, which is amazing. And we get new people joining and asking questions and collaborating constantly.

00:35:03
And I was like, this is amazing. But after about a year of having.

00:35:08
That group, I was like, there's still.

00:35:11
So much of a need. And I was continuing to consume information, trainings, all that good stuff.

00:35:18
But I was responding to all of.

00:35:23
These amazing questions from educators, and I was like, there's a gap. There's a gap here for how we can do neurodiversity affirming practices in schools because it looks different than what it looks like in private practice. So then I started my Instagram page and just started putting out information as much as I could. Some things that were basic, some that were more complex, like how to conduct neurodiversity affirming evaluations. What is neurodiversity affirming mean?

00:35:56
What kind of language should we use? How can we support Gestalt language processors? All sorts of things like that. And, yeah, just kind of evolved from there and continuing to take education. I'm really excited.

00:36:10
In February, I'm going to be taking another course on supporting complex communicators through a neurodiversity affirming lens.

00:36:17
So just that's kind of like the.

00:36:19
Long winded version of my journey through neurodiversity affirming practices. And I feel really honored, too, that now through my private practice, I've been able to work with some school districts and providing professional development for them. I'm going to be presenting at the New Jersey Speech and Hearing association in January.

00:36:43
So just as and as I prepare.

00:36:48
These presentations, I still learn more constantly. Every time I get on instagram, I learn something new. And that's where all, like, that neurodiversity affirming movement, it's so grassroots, and that's where it's coming from. So, yeah, that's just kind of my journey for how I kind of got to where I am now.

00:37:09
I love that. And I love, I love your honesty, honestly, in how it feels really uncomfortable at first when you start to.

00:37:25
The.

00:37:25
Veil is lifted, right? So all of a sudden, you start seeing things through a completely different lens, and it's, like, hard to kind of wrestle with the things that we've done, maybe in some cases haven't been supportive. And really the worst scenarios have been traumatic. And so it's like a really tough pill to swallow. And so I'm happy that you kind of shared that perspective because I think it's a part of the process, and the reason I'm kind of calling it out is because I think that when we have people who aren't adopting new practices and aren't really evolving, part of that has to do with this cognitive dissonance of, like, I can't have been doing this wrong this whole time.

00:38:11
And I think it takes a really strong, brave person to say when I know better, which I know now, I do better, right? And I shift and I evolve and I'm flexible and I recognize that I don't know it all. And so I'm really happy to hear that perspective because I think it's part.

00:38:29
It'S part of the process.

00:38:30
It's part of the process of continuous evolution and growth, really, as professionals.

00:38:38
Absolutely. I totally agree. And it was really hard. It was really hard. And I also didn't become a neurodiversity affirming practitioner overnight.

00:38:50
That's not what happened. It's the you sit in the discomfort dealing with that, just wrapping my head around it, and then small baby steps like, okay, maybe I can change some language in my reports, okay, maybe I can start thinking, you know, presenting my results at IEP meetings a little different. Maybe I can adjust accommodations, maybe I'll adjust some goals. It really was a process over the years to the point where now I feel confident in saying I'm neurodiversity affirming, but I still wouldn't even consider it like a specialty or an area of expertise because I'm never going to be an expert in this area. I will constantly be growing and there will constantly be changes to my practice that need to be implemented.

00:39:38
So it's definitely a process. It takes time. And I feel for people who have been in this field for 2030 years and are now trying to figure this out. I mean, yeah, I felt super called out. I felt super uncomfortable, and the guilt and shame was tremendous.

00:39:58
I mean, I feel, like, emotional even thinking about it because I've worked with autistic kids for seven, eight years before I even learned about this. I have an autistic brother who. What kind of harm have I caused by trying to help him conform into our neurotypical world? So it's definitely a lot. It's a lot, and it's a lot to go through, but it's worth it and it has to be done.

00:40:24
Absolutely. And I'm really happy that more people are stepping into those leadership roles to really guide this change and evolution. I'm curious, from your perspective, you had mentioned assessments, and I feel like that's one tricky area in our field because we're oftentimes required to do standardized assessments for students that we're working with. I'm curious if you could talk about that a little bit and how that's kind of shifted and evolved. Obviously, there's parameters that we have to still kind of abide by within those parameters of the standardized assessments.

00:41:06
But I'm curious, your take on how can we start shifting our assessment process to be more neurodiversity affirming?

00:41:16
Yeah.

00:41:16
So there's kind of a few. I view it as, like, one, choosing assessments. Which assessments are we picking? Two, how we're administering the assessment, and then three, how we're writing the reports and communicating with families. So I think the first one, how are we choosing assessments, is so important?

00:41:40
You should be able to understand all types of assessments, standardized or not. Right. And don't just give the same assessment over and over again to a kid. Whatever kid it is. Any kid gets the same assessment.

00:41:56
You should really be thoughtful in how we're choosing the assessments that we're using. And if, you know, oh, man. Kids with ADHD, they always bomb this assessment.

00:42:07
Don't give that assessment.

00:42:09
Give something else. Give something else. That's just, like, a huge one for me. So I really put a lot of thought process into, okay, what assessment's actually going to be a fair measure for this child that's not just going to focus on their deficits and the things that we know that they struggle with. So that's kind of the first part is like, planning for the assessment, making sure that it's suitable for the child.

00:42:37
The second is how we administer assessments.

00:42:40
This one is tricky because some people.

00:42:43
Are like, it has to be standardized. Like, you know, in a clinic, well lit, blah, blah, blah.

00:42:48
Okay, you only say it one time.

00:42:51
Yeah.

00:42:52
And look, I do a lot of.

00:42:56
The assessments standardized, but you come into my office, and when you come into my office, it's not the first time you've been into my office. It's not a brand new place. And this is when I'm doing school based assessments. The lights are dim. I have fidgets.

00:43:12
I have weighted blankets.

00:43:13
I have sensory spaces.

00:43:15
You want to sit in the bean bag chair? Great. I'll be on the floor, and I'm flipping the easel for you. So how we deliver assessments is really important. Or maybe the kid doesn't want to come to my office.

00:43:28
Maybe I do it in their classroom. There's a quiet space in their classroom, and that's where they want to be, in their little cozy corner.

00:43:34
Amazing.

00:43:35
That's where we're doing the assessment that day. They come in, and they're super dysregulated.

00:43:39
Cool.

00:43:40
We're not doing it today, you know, so. Really? Yeah. Meeting kids where they're at, not just being like, well, they refused to come to my office. So we didn't do the assessment.

00:43:50
That's not affirming.

00:43:52
That's not giving the kid a fair chance. So I think that's kind of the second piece for me is how we're delivering that, making sure that we're giving kids breaks. We're picking up on their signs of dysregulation because testing is stressful, it's overwhelming, and it's kind of boring. So we have to be aware of that.

00:44:12
It's boring for the adults, too. Like, I hate giving.

00:44:17
It's boring.

00:44:18
So, yeah, just really picking up on cues from kids and trying to reduce the sensory demands because we're asking them to do a lot in our settings or in their settings, wherever they are. And then I think the third piece is our reports. This is probably, like, the hardest part of doing neurodiversity affirming assessments because we were all trained. Everyone was trained in a medical model. That is how we write reports.

00:44:46
We write reports by tests, and we're not looking at the whole child, and we're not looking at it through a strength based lens. And that's not to say that these kids don't need supports, but how could we be strength space and also talk about the supports that they need and the supports that we gave them. So that's a big thing, too. Like, in my, when I talk about testing observations, I say specifically what accommodations I gave during testing so that everyone knows when I do, when we make these adjustments for them, that's when they perform best.

00:45:24
I'm, like, such a stickler about that in my own clinical work. Meaning when I'm reading one of my therapist reports or I have a student or whatever, I'm like, we need to include the supports, the specific supports that we utilize to increase accuracy. Right? Like, that's so important. Like, what are the specific things that help students perform better, and especially during these, you know, assessments, but just in general, like, what helps them learn?

00:45:54
Seeing, like, min men to mod prompts, I'm like, what does that mean? Like, I want specifics, you know?

00:46:01
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:03
No, absolutely. So part of it is just the.

00:46:06
Actual report itself, and I've changed a.

00:46:10
Lot of language in my report. So you're not going to see things like clinically significant externalizing behaviors or clinically significant. I don't know. I'm trying to think of an example, like social emotional reciprocity delays or things like that. I've changed a lot to be, you know, thinking about things in terms of differences or just even how I word things.

00:46:38
It's just, I think of it.

00:46:42
I write my reports as if this child is going to read this in ten years, and what will they think of themselves when they read this report? What would I think if I was reading this report about myself? That is really. What would you think if you're reading this report about your baby? Your child?

00:47:01
I have been doing that for a long time. I always write my reports thinking through the lens of the parent, because I know these parents, they read the reports. And it's just like, how heartbreaking. Like, so many of my families just come to me in tears after an IEP meeting where they just sat for hours listening to all the things that their child wasn't able to do. And, you know, it was just so defeating.

00:47:24
And so the words we use matter. And I've definitely been thinking through the lens of parents, but I love the suggestion of, like, think about this student in ten years from now reading this report, because it is part of their record and. Yeah, how is it? How does that make them feel? And I just.

00:47:41
I love that. That's a great suggestion. Yeah.

00:47:44
I mean, look, my mom saved all of my report cards, and not too long ago, I read through some of them, and I was like, wow, this teacher hated me. He hated me. How can you write things like this? I mean, you know, but when you think about it through that lens, like, this child, what if the parent puts it in a box and saves it for their, you know, who knows? They might read this someday.

00:48:10
So it's important. And I think there's a balance there, too, of, like, making sure that you're communicating about the needs, but not in a negative way, because you also don't want to go too far to the other end when you're like, oh, they're great. They're making progress on their IEP goals. Everything's lovely. And it's like, okay, yeah, but they also have needs.

00:48:31
So let's talk about that, too. But not in a way that is negative. That's super deficit space. There's just a way to communicate it. And then also just in IEP meetings, how we're communicating with families.

00:48:47
We don't need to be reading through every line of our report. Please don't.

00:48:51
Thank you for saying that.

00:48:53
I'm like, you know, people do. This is so.

00:48:56
I'm like, I always, like, just cringe when that happens in IEP meetings. I'm like, everyone can read the report themselves. Take this as an opportunity to really teach this group about what you learned about the student and how we can support them in the future to be successful. You know, it's just like, we don't need to have someone read a report out loud. No, thank you.

00:49:18
Yes, well, and I think that's also part of being neurodiversity affirming is recognizing that sometimes the parents are neurodivergent themselves. And how much information are we putting on them that is really confusing. We use so much jargon and so much really technical language. I mean, even yesterday we were in a meeting and we're talking about pragmatic language, and I stopped and I was like, pragmatic language is like social language, like how we're communicating interpersonally with others because people don't understand what. I wouldn't understand what that meant.

00:49:53
I didn't know what until I was a school psych and another SLP was talking to me about pragmatic language.

00:49:59
I define all those things in my reports. I'm like, you know, I e or eg. Just because you're right, jargon just doesn't resonate with. With people who aren't educators and parents. Like, it's really important for them to read and understand all of these reports we're spending so much time on.

00:50:18
Totally. So, yeah, I think in IEP meetings.

00:50:22
It'S tricky, because to be eligible for.

00:50:25
An IEP, we think about deficits. We think about they're not accessing the education and why. But you can still make that point and speak in a way that's relatable, that parents feel like you get their kid. That's a really big thing for me, too, especially our complex communicators, because they don't get to go home at the end of the day and tell their parents what happened at school that day. So it's really important that parents feel and understand that you care for your kid.

00:51:00
I tell all my kids I love them, and so it's important that parents feel that from you and that you get it. You get their kid, you get their unique, amazing abilities, and you get where they need support, too, and that you've got their back, always. So.

00:51:16
So, yeah.

00:51:17
So, evaluations for me, it's.

00:51:20
It's, you know.

00:51:23
How would I say that?

00:51:24
Like, multi, multi tiered, really. There's different levels of how we can. How we can adjust our evaluations to be more affirming.

00:51:34
Let's talk a little bit about goals, because I feel like that's another area where we have the ability to change the way that we word our goals. We also have the ability to change the goals that we are prioritizing and working on. So can you talk to this idea of goals and how we can create more neurodiversity affirming goals?

00:51:59
Yeah.

00:52:00
So I love, I consume like resources from everything. I believe it's autism level up that has the narrow diversity affirming like guidelines. I see you nodding yes, love autism.

00:52:15
Level up for sure. We're linking to that in the show notes, please. If you haven't seen that website, go right now.

00:52:21
Yeah, it's amazing. But they have a really great guide that I like to reference. And the biggest thing is that the goal has to be meaningful for the child. So for exchanges on a non preferred topic, please tell me how that's meaningful and impactful for the child. It's not.

00:52:43
I'm not going to have four exchanges, me as a grown adult who has no difficulty with social communication, I'm not gonna have four communicative exchanges on Star wars. Not interested in Star wars, never watched it, never liked it, not gonna talk about it. So, you know, some of these things are just completely unfair. I mean, we wouldn't expect that for a neurotypical person. But I think a big part of it is like making sure that the goals are authentic for the child if you can, including student voice in it.

00:53:16
Obviously.

00:53:17
Sometimes, especially for our complex communicators, that's a little trickier. But not always. Some of our kids, it's like, wow, you know what this girl is? Every time I come over to her, she's like trying to push me away. Right?

00:53:32
Why don't we give her some self advocacy things on her AAC so she could tell me, leave me alone, go away, stop.

00:53:39
Right.

00:53:39
So sometimes it's just basic things like that. Sometimes it's more complicated, especially when we're talking about behavior for our kids who have self regulation difficulties. And in those situations, I really, I write the goals in a way that focuses heavily on the supports that adults are providing. And so, you know, one thing that kind of gets to me is that we write these goals for kids and we expect so much of them, we expect them to be able to recognize when they're starting to get upset and choose a coping skill and use it to calm down. Look, I've written goals like that, okay, I'm fully guilty of it.

00:54:28
But now I'm like, this is wild. Why am I. I don't do that.

00:54:33
I was going to say I have a hard time when I'm upset, recognizing it and coping adequately.

00:54:38
Yes, it's really hard. It's a super hard goal. And so what are the supports in the environment that we can put into place to support co regulation with a kid? So lots of things like that. And just, again, really listening to kids, are they totally fine being on their own during recess?

00:55:00
They have no problem sitting on the ground and doing their Minecraft drawings.

00:55:07
Great, then that's how they want to.

00:55:09
Spend their leisure time. But if they're actually trying to interact with other kids, they want to be out there, but they're feeling that social rejection and they want to make friends, then that's a great opportunity to help them with friendship skills and do that coaching and writing goals around that, but just really thinking about what's authentic for that kid and how can we write goals that are still holding the adults accountable so that we're providing the support that they need?

00:55:37
I have, I completely agree. I have been in so many IEP meetings where I listen to goal recommendations and the first question I ask myself is like, is this student interested in this? Especially when it comes to social pragmatic goals? I'm curious because I'll see goals like will greet appear, you know, in four out of five opportunities or, you know, will initiate play with a peer and all of these kind of social pragmatic types of goals that aren't really meeting students where they're currently at. But of course, we, you know, as the adults on the team, really, and especially parents want our student to be doing those things.

00:56:29
Right.

00:56:29
Like most parents want to see their child initiate, play with a peer or greet the teachers when they come into the classroom or when they leave. So how do we navigate these kind of adult expectations, particularly with parents who want these things, and balance that with neurodiversity affirming types of practices?

00:56:53
Yeah, that's a really good question because I've experienced that too. Obviously, we all have.

00:56:59
And I think one thing that's been.

00:57:01
Actually really successful for me is telling parents that they don't need to, just helping them. Doing a lot of psychoeducation with parents and talking about, I mean, I pretty much start most of my meetings and it's in my reports just stating that I'm a neurodiversity affirming practitioner and this is what that means. And so it's really getting parents to understand.

00:57:29
If they don't greet me, that's fine.

00:57:32
If their greet is a half sideways, look at me. Amazing. I don't take offense to it, and that's okay. And that's just how he communicates and interacts with the world or she or whoever it is. But, yeah, I think it's a lot of just, like, coaching parents.

00:57:49
And honestly, what I have found is that parents feel kind of relieved that they don't have to have their kid do these things. They don't have to do everything right. We can just kind of accept them for who they are. And so a lot of it is just kind of coaching parents, and some of them still feel strongly that their kid should play with someone at recess or, you know, something like that.

00:58:15
And sometimes it's just about trying to.

00:58:18
Dig a little bit deeper and getting at, like, the root of what they really want for their kid and coming to a middle ground of, like, what's authentic for that child. And sometimes, like, I've written goals that, you know, are something like, they'll work collaboratively in a group or decline using a neutral phrase, like, I'd like to work on my own.

00:58:41
Right.

00:58:41
That's a great goal. That's self advocacy. That student gets an out. They can have their need met, but we are trying to support them in working with the group when they want to. So, um, a lot of it is just helping parents and teams understand what it means to be neurodiversity affirming and helping them just, like, get a little breathing room.

00:59:05
Like, your kid isn't neurotypical, and that's okay. And sometimes even, like, calling out the amazing things that their child does or a funny anecdote or things like that, like, they do have that social. That social reciprocity when they feel connected with someone, just helping them to kind of understand that their kid isn't neurotypical. Things might be done different, and that's okay. There's not that pressure that they have to say hi.

00:59:33
You know, the greeting thing is hard for me, too, especially with our kids, who are, like, using AAC when that's a goal. I'm like, nobody does that. Like, verbally, I don't greet four out of five people I see verbally. Like, I might give a pass. I might maybe smile, something like that.

00:59:52
It's like, that's wild, and, oh, gosh, yeah, goodness gracious.

01:00:00
Years aren't walking up to each other saying hello. They're just, like, diving into conversation. And so, yeah, I really struggle with the greetings. Fun. So I brought it up because I'm like, oh.

01:00:10
Also, like, I'm just thinking through the lens of, you know, are. Are they interested in saying hello? Like, are they really excited? Some kids are very socially motivated, and they're really interested, and they. They don't have the language skills yet.

01:00:24
And so, like, yes, like, let's teach you how to say hello and goodbye and all those things. And sometimes, you know, kids will use other types of language. Like, you know, that they obviously need those greetings because they're kind of using compensatory strategies to communicate, and it's not totally being understood by a listener. So there are opportunities where it absolutely makes sense, but it feels like kind of just one of those standard things that, like, we see in ieps as recommendations for goals. And I'm just like, I always question, like, why?

01:01:00
You know? And I'm not saying sometimes I'm like, yes, it totally makes sense here. But other times, I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know if this makes sense based on what I know about this student and what they're interested in communicating, you know?

01:01:12
Oh, absolutely. And, like, sometimes, you know, obviously, our Gestalt language processors, they might use a phrase repetitively to initiate, and it's not really a phrase that makes sense. Like, I work with one student who will always ask, what's your name? Even though she knows my name very well, but that's what she's trying to say. Hi.

01:01:35
And so I tell her my name, I do the Gestalt back to her, and then I do a new one. Good morning. Or, you know, something like that. So that they have another model of what they're trying to express, or it's good to see you, or whatever it is, so that they have some variety in their gestalt. So, yeah, that's the other important thing.

01:01:56
You make a really great point. Some kids, actually, they do want to do that. If they're clearly trying to initiate, then that's a great goal for a kid who wants to initiate and just doesn't have the language either, you know, through AAC, through gestalts, through any other way. So. Yeah, that's a great point.

01:02:14
Yeah, it's. I used to have a student who would always ask, what car do you drive? When I was moving. And, like, obviously, he knew what car I drove, but that was his way of saying, like, you're leaving now, like, goodbye. So that was another example of how it's like, okay, it makes sense.

01:02:30
And. And for so long, before I understood Gishant language processing, I was just like, dude, you already know what car I drive. Like, we don't ask the same question that we already knew the answer to. You know, I'm saying things like this, and I just, like, cringe thinking about that. Because I'm like, now I understand through a different lens.

01:02:48
This was a student that was desperately trying to communicate and that they were locked into this script that was familiar and routine, and that was their way of communicating. Goodbye, you know?

01:02:58
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

01:03:02
So I'm really curious because, you know, one of the. So we kind of have talked about some of the roadblocks that we face when we're thinking about neurodiversity affirming practices. I feel like one of the big ones is behavior, right. And behaviorism and working alongside of behaviorists. And I'm curious if you have any recommendations.

01:03:25
I know a lot of our listeners out there are really upset with the types of things that are happening when we're thinking about behavior. The things that are in IEP is the goals that are written for behavior. So can you speak a little bit to behavior? And when you're kind of butting heads with a team, you're trying to show up as the best neurodiversity affirming clinician as you can be. But there is these barriers of, you know, behaviorists and behavioral goals and compliance based types of practices.

01:04:00
So I'm curious what your thoughts are there.

01:04:04
It's so complicated. I have a very, like, extensive behaviorist background. Most school psych training programs are very behavior focused. So. And I work with behaviorists, and one who has, like, fully converted now into neurodiversity affirming, still a behaviorist, but has made just leaps and bounds of progress and reflection in that area.

01:04:37
I think a really hard thing for me, and still is a hard thing for me is you can only control what you can control, and I'm not going to be able to change every single person's mind. People have values and practices that are deep rooted. I can say my piece. I can make suggestions for a goal. If I'm on a team and someone's presenting a goal, I have a voice.

01:05:05
I'm part of this team. I can say, I wonder if we.

01:05:09
Can change that goal to, I wonder if we can adjust the wording to, you know, things like that. So as an educator on the team, and especially for me as a school psych, because my overlap is in lots of different areas. Right. So if there's a speech therapist working on pragmatic language, for example, I can be like, you know what? I partner with you on that goal, but I'd like to tweak it a little bit.

01:05:37
So trying to work on things through that way, through more of a, like, collaborative way. But again, understanding that I'm not going to change everybody's mind, and all I can do is say my piece in a way that's still respectful of that provider who I believe that all people are good and everyone does that the best they can with the information that they have. That's the only way I can go into these team meetings. So I'm just trying to come at it from more of a collaborative lens and voicing my own opinions. If something's really egregious, I mean, I've had teachers or parents want a goal that is super compliance based, and I will just say, like, I'm a neurodiversity affirming provider, and ethically, that just doesn't.

01:06:28
That just doesn't jive with me. I don't feel comfortable writing a goal like that. What if we wrote a goal like, and then maybe provide another suggestion?

01:06:39
As a parent, though, parents have a.

01:06:41
Lot of voice in IEP meetings. They don't always use it, but they do have a lot of voice in IEP meetings, and they very much can be heard. And it is perfectly acceptable. If you hear a goal in an IEP meeting or you hear something in a behavior plan that does not align with your philosophy, it is totally within your right to say, this doesn't align with our goals. As a family.

01:07:06
We don't agree with this. We want something else. We want something more creative. We want collaborative problem solving, we want more sensory strategies, we want co regulation, whatever it is. That's completely your right as a parent.

01:07:23
If there's a goal for work completion.

01:07:26
And you're like, what?

01:07:28
I care if my kid does the work? If he's going to have a meltdown, that's not a fair trade for me.

01:07:33
Say that.

01:07:35
If something feels wrong, say it. As a parent, obviously, as service providers, we have to walk a little bit more delicately because we're co workers, we're colleagues, we're on a team. But parents definitely have a voice and don't always use it and definitely should.

01:07:51
Yeah, I think that's a really good point, is it can feel. I think it can feel scary at an IEP meeting to kind of take a stand and to be a leader in this way. I think I'm guessing just based on my own experience, but just also in general, I think it makes a lot of sense that you're saying, you know, being really explicit about saying that you're a neurodiversity affirming therapist. Um, I wonder if there's a lot of imposter syndrome out there, though, like, have I learned enough to call myself a neurodiversity therming therapist. Like, I can totally see people listening, being like, am I though?

01:08:31
Like, I want to be, but, like, do I know enough to call myself that? So I'm curious what your thoughts are.

01:08:37
Yeah, I mean, the other thing is saying, like, I like to practice from a neurodiversity affirming lens, and that feels a little bit better. And honestly, that's probably more of what I say anyway.

01:08:49
Yeah.

01:08:50
Like, our team practices through a neurodiversity affirming lens, and that can feel a little more, like, digestible.

01:09:00
Right?

01:09:00
Like, okay, that's true. I do. I do do that. So there's no. It's also, like, there's no credential to be neurodiversity affirming.

01:09:12
There's no, like, stamp of approval. You don't take a course and get a certificate.

01:09:16
So it.

01:09:19
It does, but, I mean, I still have it. And, like, that's my bread and butter. I mean, like, my private practice is neurodiversity affirming school psychologists, but it still.

01:09:28
Feels like I'm not an expert, nor.

01:09:33
Will I ever be. But that's my lens, and that's how I operate, and that's how I like to practice. Does it always come out the right way? No. Do I always say the right thing?

01:09:45
No. Do I still use ableist language sometimes? Absolutely.

01:09:50
It happens.

01:09:51
It's just. It's so ingrained in us. But, yeah, I think maybe if you're having that disconnect and imposter syndrome, definitely just being like, I practice from a nardiver state affirming lens and then talking a little bit about that.

01:10:07
Yeah, I think that's definitely what I have shared. You know, I'm thinking I'm reflecting as we're doing this interview on my own practice, and, you know, I am 100% on board and have been like, you, learning as much as I can, following all the accounts, doing interviews like this on our podcast. And one thing I haven't done has been just taking the opportunity at every IEP meeting to share about neurodiversity. Because I think one of the things that's really helpful is to just talk about it more, you know? And I talk about it when I'm, like, up against a goal that I'm like, absolutely not.

01:10:45
And here's why. You know, obviously, I don't use that language. I'm softer about it, but. But I talk about neurodiversity affirming, but it feels like we have an opportunity to start just talking about it in general during IEP meetings and weaving it into these types of situations where we really have an opportunity to teach and empower because it is a reasonably new movement in the sense that it's finally gaining traction. And I feel like maybe you can relate to this.

01:11:15
I'm in my own little bubble where all of the people that I follow on social media and all of the people that I'm talking with, we're all in this bubble together, but the bubble is actually smaller, I think, than I realize. And so then I'll see an IEP or I'll be in a meeting and I'll realize, okay, my bubble is actually smaller than I thought. And so how can I expand that to start including and educating, educating and empowering other teams, you know? Um, and so I think that that's something too, that I've realized that, you know, just talking about it. And also the other part of that is really explaining the why behind things, because I think that we give goals and we have a really awesome opportunity to, to share the why.

01:12:00
Like, here's why I think this goal is so important. Here's why I worded it the way that I did. Um, or conversely, here's why I have issue with this goal. And here's the specific wording that I wonder if we can change. And so I think just like really thinking through that why lens is really important too.

01:12:18
And also just for parents to understand. Because parents listen to all of us educators during these meetings, and they're like, okay, the speech therapist thinks that we should do this and ot thinks that we should do this. And it's like they don't really get the why behind it. And we as therapists understand the why, which is what's driving us to create the goal and recommendations to begin with. But I think sharing that why is something that I've also started to prioritize during meetings, especially just so people understand, like my thought process.

01:12:46
I like, there's an opportunity for education there, too.

01:12:51
I totally agree. I try to share as much as I can. And after meetings I have like a little parent neurodiversity affirming parent resource guide. And I send that to parents too, so that they can learn more about, more about that. But I think just kind of as we're talking, I'm thinking about the goals that we write for kids and the collaboration.

01:13:10
And I think it's so important when we write goals that we actually collaborate on the goals among service providers. I just wrote a goal for a kid. And everyone is on the goal. I'm on the goal. Ot's on the goal.

01:13:26
Speech is on the goal. Special ed teachers on the goal. All of the service providers are on one goal. And it's so important that we don't work in silos, that we work all together, because that's what it is to be neurodiversity affirming that you're looking at the child from multiple viewpoints and you're supporting them all the way around, not just in this little narrow band of speech, right. Not just in this little narrow band of OT or social skills or whatever it is that we're really looking at the child altogether and everyone's working towards a common goal.

01:14:00
That's how we're going to make progress with these kids. Totally.

01:14:03
Totally. I'm like, I mean, I'm talking all about this kind of IEP process. I am in private practice, but I do so much advocacy in IEP meetings. I'm like, not in every. I'm thinking about all the families in our practice, and I don't go to every IEP meeting, but I go to a lot of them.

01:14:20
And so this is a huge part of what I do. And, you know, from my lens to your point, can we as a team get more strategic about what we want to see change that would really make an impact for the student and then all hop on board. So there ends up being less goals. Because I get it. Like, you know, if you already have three or four speech goals and then you're added to this goal and that goal, all of a sudden it becomes really overwhelming.

01:14:47
But how can we get really, really strategic about what we want to see change? And then together we can make that effort so we can actually see change happen. Because like you said, if we're in silos and we're all targeting, you know, three or four individualized goals, like, we just don't have the power that we have as a team and we don't have the embedded collaboration that we need to actually see the needle move. And so in my ideal world, you know, we're having ieps that have less goals, but we all are working towards those goals and seeing a lot more progress a lot faster.

01:15:23
Totally.

01:15:24
And I think getting everyone on board with neurodiversity affirming practices is also just a really important thing. And, like, if you're a parent and you want that, start consulting with people. Like, you can get things written into ieps. You can get consultation written into ieps.

01:15:45
Yes. That's my role. I come in as the private. I'm like, guess what? We're getting that written into that accommodation section.

01:15:52
Yeah, no, absolutely. And, like, that's, you know, a service that I provide, too.

01:15:57
Like, let's help educate that or put.

01:16:01
That in the IEP. You can get so much in ieps, you guys, if you're a parent and you're listening, you can get so much written into ieps, and you can have 60 minutes a year of neurodiversity affirming training for the team written into an IEP pretty easily. So just, just, just think about those things.

01:16:23
Don't be afraid to ask.

01:16:25
I know it's hard when there's all these professionals, like, trying to tell you what to do, but you're the expert on your kid, and you got to do what feels right for you, for your baby.

01:16:34
I totally agree. Yeah, you can get a lot more written into ieps than you think. And I know because I help advocate for that. I love it. Is there anything else that we haven't covered, Breea, as far as.

01:16:47
I mean, I know it's like such a huge, vast topic, but anything else that has kind of come to mind during our conversation today that we, you.

01:16:55
Know, we haven't talked about, the one thing that we didn't talk about was another big one for being neurodiversity affirming. And that's presuming confidence, especially with our kids, who are complex communicators. I think really easily we think they're not producing verbal language. They are having, you know, they're experiencing really significant intellectual disabilities or things like.

01:17:21
That, and maybe they are, but that.

01:17:24
Doesn'T mean that they can't learn, and that doesn't mean that we should just completely write things off for them or exclude them from things always coming from a place of presuming competence and then providing the support where we're seeing that they need it. So I think that's the other thing that we didn't really get into today, but that's another really important thing for me when I'm working with all kids, but especially our AAC users and any other complex communicators.

01:17:53
Yeah.

01:17:53
One of my favorite things to do, kind of rooted in a growth mindset, is whenever I'm talking about something that a student isn't doing, I always add yet. So I'm like, oh, we're not typing yet, but we need to think about having a system that has a keyboard just embedding yet into the things that we're talking about, about really has that underlying presumption that the student is going to type, is going to read, is going to fill in the blank, whatever that thing is. Right. Um, and so that's something that I've been kind of embedding into. Um, a lot of the language that I use during team meetings and things like that.

01:18:32
And, you know, as a parent, I've had parents be like, I never thought that they would type or I never thought that they would read or. And it's just like, it reveals, I believe that they will learn how to do these things. And I feel like that energy is so important in the work that we do, particularly with complex communicators, because so many people don't believe that children who use AAC, who might have intellectual disability diagnosis or whatever, the thing is, there's a lot of limiting beliefs around what is possible for these students. And we have the opportunity as educators to completely change the narrative around what we think is possible. And if the professionals on a team think, yes, a student will communicate, yes, a student will read, yes, a student will write.

01:19:25
All of a sudden, parents start believing that, and everyone starts believing that. And then we actually afford students the opportunity to learn those skills. But it all starts with the belief that it's possible.

01:19:35
Totally. Absolutely amazing.

01:19:38
Brea, it's been so great talking to you. Where can people find you if they want to learn more?

01:19:44
Definitely.

01:19:45
Instagram. That's the best place to find me. My Instagram handle is ndaffirming sp and on there you'll see all the content that I post, and I also have links to my website, other podcasts I've been on, all of that good stuff.

01:20:03
Amazing. We'll definitely link to that in the show notes. Thank you again for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom. I'm super excited to share this episode.

01:20:11
Thanks.

01:20:12
Thanks. For Talking with Tech, I'm Rachel Madel, joined by Breea Rosas. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.