Episode 199: Cindy Gelormini - Improving Inclusion Through Storytelling

This week, Rachel interviews Cindy Gelormini, parent of an autistic person and author of a series of children’s books about autism called "Robbie's World and his Spectrum of Adventures". Previously, Cindy built a following on YouTube making videos about her son and their life together. Cindy shares about her son’s journey as a communicator, and some of the challenges he faced not having a method of communication beyond PECS and gesture. Tragically, her son passed away, and Cindy discusses why she wanted to write and illustrate a series of books to carry on Robbie's memory and to help others understand autism a little bit better.

Before the interview, Rachel and Chris discuss their upcoming presentation on Coaching at ASHA 2021! They will be presenting together on November 19th, from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm. Chris will also be presenting on gaming and communication on Saturday, 11/20 at 9:30 am, and presenting on robots and communication on 11/20 at 4:30 pm! 

Key ideas this week:

🔑 Without a good foundation of communication, people can become much more frustrated and there can be more behaviors. In some cases, this frustration and stress may lead to other health problems.

🔑 If seizures are happening to a client or someone in your family, start tracking what happens before the seizure, what happens after the seizure, and what it looked like. This information can be very helpful down the road.

🔑 For some people, AAC is important because they know what they want to say, but the right words aren’t being articulated.  For example, Rachel shares about a client that answered every preposition question with the verbal answer “under” but, when given an AAC device, was able to select the correct answer every time, indicating he knew the correct preposition even if he couldn’t say it.

Links:

Cindy's YouTube Page (includes episodes of her podcast and videos of Robbie): Robbie and Me: Autism Reality