Episode 287: Kimberly Neely: The Trauma-Informed SLP
This week, we share Rachel’s interview with "The Trauma-Informed SLP", Kimberly Neely! Kim and Rachel have a fascinating discussion about some of the neurological and physiological changes caused by traumatic experiences. They also cover the difference between repeated vs chronic trauma, why some people with chronic trauma have trouble with interoception (i.e.. identifying how they feel), the importance of feeling safe, and more!
Before the interview, Rachel shares about deciding to create some new materials about self advocacy, including social stories that discuss body parts using core language. She also relates this week’s interview to a previous episode with Chloe Rothschild about interoception and autism!
Key Ideas this Week:
🔑 Trauma is a physiological shift that occurs in someone that changes how they perceive the world and how they function. The things that heal trauma are the things that promote resiliency: a sense of safety; having a space to feel whatever emotions you are feeling; processing your emotions; and connecting those feelings back to your body.
🔑 Resilient people, communities, and families have a process they go through when there is loss, grief, or adversity - they usually gather to comfort each other and allow a safe place for everyone to feel what they feel.
🔑 Chronic trauma comes from being “saturated” in an unsafe, traumatic environment. This type of trauma wears down resiliency the most.
🔑 Alexithymia is a general deficit of interception, i.e. the inability to recognize their own emotions and the emotions in others. People with alexithymia might be able to notice their body feels a certain way, but they typically relate those feelings to things like hunger or fatigue rather than being caused by an emotion.
Links from this episode:
The Trauma Informed SLP Podcast
The Trauma-Informed SLP website
Transcript of the Episode
Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.
00:00:08
Welcome to Talking With Tech. My name is Chris Bugaj and I'm here with Rachel Madel. Rachel, what's going on?
00:00:13
Chris, I'm so excited. Can I tell you why I'm so excited?
00:00:17
I'm dying to know.
00:00:20
So we just all summer, my team and I have been working on resources. So many of you guys know I have a ton of resources, some of them free on my website, some of them are paid resources. You know, anytime I'm thinking, oh, I need this in therapy or I need this for a family that I'm working with, or what about this? We kind of create something and then I start using it in my own clinical practice and then I'm like, OK, might as well share it. So this summer, you know, my team got together and we're like, OK, we haven't made any new resources in a while.
00:00:53
So what should we do? And it was kind of a really blank slate because often times the the the genesis of the idea is like, I'm in the middle of a session and I'm like, oh, like this would be really great to have this specific resource for this kid. Or this family, right. And that's not kind of what happened. The process was like, OK, we we're going to build resources and it was really hard because we just didn't have any clue as to what we were going to do.
00:01:18
So we ended up landing on self advocacy because this is something that I've definitely been really incorporating more of in my practice. As I talk to more autistic adults and AAC users, I am really thinking about self advocacy and how important it is. And so there's not a lot of resources that are out there that help clinicians teach some of these skills. And so I'm super proud of my team. And the reason I'm so excited is today, Chris, we've launched our first resource in the series of resources and this specific one is all about body parts.
00:01:53
Because I find that, you know, of course we can teach kids the language of saying that they're hurt or they're tired or they don't feel good, which is awesome. But I think often times it starts with teaching kids about their body parts. Because if a child walks up to you with their AAC and starts saying stomach, stomach, stomach, stomach, stomach, it tells you like, OK, they they seem off today and now they're saying stomach. I think that there's something's wrong with their stomach. Versus if a child says, like, I don't feel good, I don't feel good, I don't feel good, and not knowing how to specify, that becomes problematic, right?
00:02:29
So kind of the first series that we've launched is on body parts and we've made these amazing social stories. To talk about parts of the body both external like arms, legs, nose and then also the internal. So it's kind of a two-part book. And the most exciting part to me is that we've prioritized core language. So embedded into the social stories, not only is it talking about the different parts of the body and things that you know, we might be feeling as far as sensations, but also in bold.
00:03:03
Really prioritizes core language. So as you're reading this with a child, you're able to then model core language on their AAC along with the body parts that should definitely be programmed into their AAC system. So we have the social stories and then also some companion activities with kind of interacting with like Johnny, you know is tired, he needs and then need is a core word. And then different kind of things, like a Band-Aid, a tissue box, a bed, right. So really excited about these resources.
00:03:33
I'm excited to just use them in my own therapy because I feel like they're going to be so powerful for some of my students. And I'm just really excited to be supporting this idea that we need to be teaching these things early and often to kids. Because I feel like. Body parts is one of those things where it's like, oh, when they're early in early childhood, we're like, where's your nose? Where's your eyes?
00:03:57
But then it kind of gets neglected. And, you know, sometimes it's not even included into an AAC system. And so that's the first step is making sure that that vocabulary is in there. But then also, we have to go out of our way to teach kids about their body and teach them where those words are.
00:04:15
What would you say to somebody that says, yeah, but Rachel, that's not core language. I focus on core language.
00:04:21
I would say there's an 8020 rule that we always talk about. 80% of the time we focus on core language, but 20% of the time we focus on fringe. And this fringe is actually really important, because circling back to that example I gave right at the beginning, if a child comes up to you and says I don't feel good, but then doesn't have the language yet to be able to explain with specificity what's going on, at least by. Identifying a body part, then we're kind of stuck in a situation where we can't really help that much.
00:04:51
I would also say this is a great reason why a core board is not enough. It's not. It's a tool. It certainly can be helpful, but it's not enough because where do you put the body parts on that core board, right?
00:05:03
Exactly one thing that also came up for us as my team was kind of putting this together was this idea of Inter reception. So understanding kind of these sensations in our body, and it really points me back to the episode we did with Chloe Rothschild. So Chloe Rothschild is a part time autistic AEC user and part of that interview she talks about, as an adult, navigating the space of understanding her own body and the sensations that were happening in her body and how challenging that was. And how beneficial and useful AAC was in really getting to the bottom of that interception piece. So I would highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode.
00:05:47
Super powerful and that has stuck with me this idea that you know it. Not only is sometimes challenging for our students to really understand what's going on in their body, but then the second piece is attaching language to that. And if we can make that easier by showing them, you know, an AAC system and having that vocabulary in there and really modeling that, then think about how powerful that is in really giving our kids the tools to better understand their bodies and better communicate about them.
00:06:18
What tools did you use to make these resources?
00:06:21
We use mostly. We are like masters of Canva. In fact, I was poking around in there. Sometimes I'll like, go in to look at something. And really what I try to do is just like, because I have so many things going on, I'll go in and I'll send a loom of kind of like, OK, this font needs to be changed.
00:06:41
This I think needs to be reworked a little bit. I'll kind of give just general feedback and then my team will kind of come in and and do it, and then we'll send different iterations and versions to each other. But sometimes I get kind of sucked in to like the Canva magic. And I like next thing I know, like an hour's past. And I've been like, tinkering around with like a line on a document and like, the font size.
00:07:05
And at at some level I come out of it, I'm like, oh man, that there goes an hour. But then I'm also like, this is kind of the creativity that, like, gets me in flow and gets me excited about these resources. And I also love that I really am a huge part of these resources, yes. They have a team that helps me, but it's a joint effort and we're all kind of going in there and really collaborating at a high level.
00:07:28
And yeah, it's just a really, it's really fun that really screams your own introception. Like for some reason, I kind of needed to just kind of mess with the lines and just sort of, I don't know, move things around to make them look the way I like to make them look. And it feels good, like you accomplished something right?
00:07:45
Yeah, well, I feel like how how often do we get the chance to really settle into creativity in what we're doing and have that creative outlet and that creative space? And I'll never forget this, actually. It was a graduate. No, it wasn't a graduate course. It was an undergraduate course I took in college, and it was all about it was all about creativity.
00:08:07
So like that whole class, it was a four credit class, not just three. It was a four credit class about creativity. And I was like, huh, I was like, I don't know what this is all about, but like, I'm in. And the class was so cool because we talked all about getting into a flow state and all the different kinds of ways that can happen. And my my favorite part about the course?
00:08:29
Besides getting to go to, like, lots of cool, like poetry slams and dance performances and all, like our field trips are really fun. But the biggest take away from that course was we all have the ability to be creative in whatever work it is that we're doing. And I feel like that always stuck with me because sometimes, like, I think it's easy to say, well, I'm just not a creative person. I'm not an artsy person, you know? And we all have the ability to bring creativity to whatever it is that we're doing, whether that's therapy or building a resource.
00:08:59
Or, you know, explaining something to someone in a creative way. And so that stuck. Like this idea that we're all creative and really allowing ourselves to tap into that space.
00:09:09
I feel like where do people get these resources?
00:09:12
My website, you just go to rachelmadel.com/shop, and yeah, there's going to be a whole lot more coming down the pipeline. And that's just the first kind of resource that we've. It's actually three resources but we've bundled it together for like body parts, like all inclusive. But yeah, throughout the rest of the year we still are finishing some things up. But I'm really excited to keep kind of sharing what we're doing and if you have any ideas on like oh I would love this resource or even feedback on our current resources.
00:09:42
We're always open and we're always kind of tweaking and. And changing things to kind of better meet everyone's needs. Our hope is just that these resources are really helpful for everyone and they kind of give something to anchor into. When you're in therapy, you're like, OK, today, like this is my plan. I'm going to read this, this story and then, you know, maybe send it home and then next week, you know, we can kind of keep kind of going through this.
00:10:04
I think sometimes it's like, Oh yeah, body part, self advocacy. That's really important to to teach my kids. But we don't really go out of our way to create those lessons, right? Like we have to do more than just, oh, my clients not feeling good today. So now I'll pull out the you like the device and model like, oh, you feel sick.
00:10:23
You know, it's just like those those instances are important to model language, but they're often times not enough. We need to create more opportunities for learning around those types of things, because otherwise it'll just be kind of a fleeting moment and it won't stick. Our kids need repetition.
00:10:40
Tell us about your interview today.
00:10:41
Well Chris, I had the amazing pleasure to interview Kimberly Neely. Kimberly is also known as a trauma informed SLP and so. This interview is really incredible. I love the conversations that we had. She also talks about the evolution of discovering her own neurodivergence, which I thought was a really great kind of add on bonus.
00:11:04
And we talk all about trauma and how it impacts our kids, what we're doing that might be viewed as potentially traumatic. And so it's a really great interview. I saw that she was interviewed I think on another podcast and I was like, oh, we need to cover this. I'm talking with talk. It's so.
00:11:21
Important because our kids are really in need of us understanding trauma and us being sensitive to that and then us giving them the tools to be advocates for themselves. And so I'm really excited to share this interview I did with Kimberly Neely. Hello, talking with tech listeners, I am Mindy Oakes and we are inviting you to join Dynamic Conversations with a community of people who are working together to make the world accessible for everyone at all times. And I'm mailing Chan and we're so excited to share the Exceptional Alliances, Epic Accessibility event to talk about all of the ways we can optimize how the world is experienced.
00:12:10
That's right, mailing accessibility isn't just about entry and curbs. It's about vocabulary, policy, innovation, research, how we access the world electronically, and so much. More Join Exceptional Alliances on October 20th and interact with intimate round table discussions about advancement and accessibility, and live experiences.
00:12:35
Registration's free and it's important to remember that just by registering you are actively supporting virtual event access, which demonstrates. The value and continued interest in virtual events and supports accessibility, so grab your free spot at exceptionalalliances.com and we look forward to chatting with you during the event. Welcome to Talking With Tech. I'm your host, Rachel Meadow, joined today by Kimberly Neely. Kimberly, I'm so excited to have you here.
00:13:08
Yeah. Hey, thanks. I'm really excited to be here too.
00:13:11
Awesome. So let's just start off by telling your listeners a little bit about yourself. OK?
00:13:16
So yeah, I'm Kimberly. I go by Kim, usually totally fine. Either way's fine. And I have been in the field, Gosh, this is a second career for me. So I started out in opera and I taught voice for a while, came into the field with a voice interest, of course, but ended up being a huge generalist.
00:13:36
So I did a couple years of a PhD program at University Arizona. Didn't finish it, which is OK. But then I worked in the Bay Area and medical and I did schools and I did private practice out there and then I sort of settled essentially into schools right before COVID hit. So I was doing a preschool then and then I did a couple years of a high school and right now I'm taking a break from schools just to get this whole Trauma Informed LLC thing going. The trauma Informed SLP.
00:14:12
I have a website, clinic outshoot is still in the works. I have a few people I'm going to connect with to get a bigger team together and see where we can take it. But I really wanted to start something. I took a graduate level course on Trauma Informed care during COVID shutdown because I'd already been looking into it. But given my ADHD and my nerd divergency I wanted to go deeper.
00:14:36
I kept finding little tiny like surface level things and I'm like no, no no no no. I need like I got to go really deep on this because I need to know it. So I took a graduate level course that was designed for social workers and I was the representing the SLPS in the world and and then after that I found online courses through the Arizona Trauma Institute Trauma Training Institute. And so now I'm a certified trauma support specialist through that that I maintain through ongoing trainings. And really I noticed it started to become a great conversation on it.
00:15:11
But I also wanted to get out there and start educating more on it because as I think in Wellness culture you know how diet culture got kind of the they Co opted Wellness as a term. I had a little concern. I had concern that like maybe I bet trauma informed care is going to become kind of Co opted and like get used in ways that's not quite accurate. So I wanted to make sure and also I find it to be I think it's part of my brain. I love finding big picture umbrellas where I can just kind of place everything and I honestly think everything in our field should just be under this trauma informed umbrella.
00:15:47
Like all of it really fits. It's a whole paradigm and it's just a shift in how we approach things. And so, yeah, so that's what I'm doing.
00:15:54
I I'm so excited, Kim, you're doing amazing work you know, for the field and I'm excited to kind of dive in I. Definitely ask you on this podcast because I think our listeners really need to hear this idea of trauma informed care. So let's just launch into it for people who are like, what is trauma informed care like, 'cause I think there's probably a lot of people out there who aren't sure even what that is. Can you just share what that is all about?
00:16:21
Yeah, sure. I could give you the short little by elevator speech version as kind of the tagline I use on my podcast, which is trauma. Informed care is a way of just promoting safety, emotional, physical, psychological safety and also empowering people through everything you do and all your interactions. And it also includes how you treat yourself and treating yourself with a lot of grace and compassion so that you create safety for yourself and you feel empowered to like, seek out your needs essentially. And so to be truly trauma informed, you do have to have some knowledge of what trauma does to a person, which for me, I like to focus on the Physiology side because I think obviously there's psychological impacts, there's emotional impacts, but it's all rooted essentially in neuroscience.
00:17:09
And that was kind of I did a lot of neuroscience classes in my PhD thing. So I get a little obsessed with that. But to understand that that it is a physiological shift that occurs in somebody and it changes how they perceive the world, it changes how they function in the world. And then also understanding the flip side of that which is promoting resiliency which is not just pushing through that's like kind of the toxic positivity side. That's kind of where it gets Co opted I guess I would say thinking of Co opting terms, but true resiliency is the ability to go through some level of adversity and not actually develop a traumatic response from that.
00:17:48
So in trauma literature, they have noted, psychologists have noted that you could have two people go through the exact same event, say a car accident, two people are in the same car accident, One could develop a trauma response from that car accident and one might not. And the one that doesn't is considered a resilient person. And they actually tend to be more statistical outliers. So of course of interest to psychologists because it's like what makes them so resilient and how can we promote that for healing purposes or to reduce trauma responses? And So what they found is essentially the things that heal trauma are the same things that promote resiliency in people.
00:18:28
And the first and foremost thing is has having a sense of safety, having a place, a space and environment, people around a community ideally where you can feel safe to feel whatever emotions you're feeling, process those emotions and sort of connect that back to your body. Essentially, that is one of the first steps to promoting healing. A lot of resilient people have and resilient communities as well. And families, they tend to have some type of process they go through when there's losses, when there's grief, when there's adversity where they all come together, they support each other and they also allow safe space for everybody to feel what they need to feel. And that's what's really one of the key elements.
00:19:15
So it's kind of nice because if you promote resiliency, you're also promoting healing at the same time. And when you look at this, of course, you know, it works on the individual level and you can also kind of zoom out to the sort of macroscopic like systems, social level. And that's where you start talking about intersectionality and social justice and equity and those sort of things. Because that's one of the things I've been reading about actually recently looking into what I was putting in my proposals for the next Asha, how I found this really fascinating article that said that internalized shame might actually be the main predict or main sign or symptom of chronic trauma. So how we characterize it.
00:20:05
So chronic trauma or sustained trauma is like you're saturated in this environment of constant traumatic messaging, perhaps emotional abuse, verbal abuse, who knows. But you're constantly in this environment. So children in abusive homes, domestic violence, things like that. I get lumped into there. So I guess I should back up.
00:20:29
Let me back up a second ADHD brain. Just realized I should probably give some background there. Hold on. So, so that's how we characterize trauma. We characterize it by single event.
00:20:43
So like a car accident, single event trauma or natural disaster or something like that. And then you have repeated traumas, which honestly describes most people once they hit a certain age, essentially most people will have some kind of what could be traumatic in their life. But repeated means the same person has experienced several adverse events throughout their life. So it could be they're in a car accident when they're younger, and then ten years later, maybe a natural disaster happens and they lose their home. And then maybe 10 years later they they lose a close loved one.
00:21:17
And you know this whole grieving process occurs that's repeated, it doesn't have to be the same type and then sustained or chronic, it's a type of repeated trauma, but it's when the environment itself is traumatic basically. So you're just I think of it kind of like a sponge you're just saturated in this unsafe environment essentially and we're lot of the literature is very focused on the chronic or sustained trauma because that is what wears down resiliency the most essentially. So when you see resilient people who are resilient against one event, that's one thing. But if you plop them in a unsafe environment, they might be resilient for a while. But it kind of makes sense, like you can only defend yourself so much against the feeling of not being safe.
00:22:06
And safety is the biggest, is the biggest thing I'll probably bring up the most. Because where the thought is that the scientific theory around where trauma responses come from is that it's this it it's it's couched in our survival modes which are fine to have our flight fight flight and freeze. So if we feel unsafe, our body gets sentenced in survival, our limbic system triggers. Like we get the adrenaline rush, we get all of that stuff. If we're given the safe space to sort of calm down and heal from that, we come out of that survival mode, no big deal.
00:22:47
You had an experience and you learn, you know, something happened and you're able to sort of move past it. But in a trauma response, what seems to happen is there's amygdala, which gets a bad rap. I like to call. People say it's the thing that makes you mad, but like, no, no, no, no. The amygdala's actual job, like neuroscience wise from what I learned in my grad class, was it places a value on the stimuli that we get.
00:23:13
So anything coming from our somatic sensory system, any of that, just what's happening in our body at the time our our autonomic system, sorry, yeah, gets labeled. So it just assigns a value to it. It just appraises essentially. And if it's going to label something as a threat, then it's going to trigger the survival modes. So that's what happens there.
00:23:36
The amygdala also then connects to our an area in our prefrontal cortex called the anterior cingulate gyrus or anterior cingulate cortex. That is where we become aware that we're feeling an emotion. So anything happening midbrain wise, we're not that aware of it. Once the message gets up there, we start to be aware that something's happening. And the anterior cingulate also can feedback to the amygdala.
00:24:00
So it can actually tell it if it's like, hey, that actually wasn't a threat by the way, you know, right. And kind of calm us down. That's that's its function there. But when we go into survival mode, and if we're in it for a long time, and if you end up developing A trauma response, what seems to happen is the frontal cortex gets down regulated basically. It's too slow to make decisions survival wise.
00:24:22
This is why people go into what they call like a tunnel vision, where it's like they're looking for the exit sign if there's a fire or something, right? Like your brain is just solely focused on survival. The decisions tend to be happening lower than the conscious part of our brain, little below that. And if the memory that's formed in that midbrain between the amygdala, the hippocampus, all of that because it has direct connections. So if a memory gets formed there that then can't integrate into our conscious thoughts, like it doesn't get all the way to the anterior cingulate.
00:25:00
That's where it seems to be. A trauma response forms because then when we experience something similar enough the amygdala will sign it as a threat, we go right back into that survival mode, anterior singlet's never getting to tell the amygdala whether it's true or not. So we're having this re experiencing of this threat, even if it's the tiniest. This is what's called a trauma trigger. So like a smell, Let's say somebody went through a fire, a house fire or something.
00:25:26
If they developed a trauma response, maybe the smell of smoke might trigger that survival mode. They might start feeling anxious and panicky, or they might start to shut down and feel kind of closed off, right. But they have a fear response that's coming from that. And so to heal from that, what's key is, and this is really the work that like truth, like this is where you need, like, psychologists and cancelling. But integrating that into your singlet, conscious awareness of what's actually happening at that moment with that trigger so that you essentially deprogram it.
00:25:59
So the anterior singlet's able to tell the amygdala we smelled smoke, but that smoke's actually safe. We're at a BBQ. There's really no worry here, right? You have to have that happen so the amygdala can calm down and start to notice that there's differences, right. The other interesting thing to me, especially when it comes to AAC and when it comes to neurodivergent populations and non speaking especially, is that anterior singlet has direct connections to brokers.
00:26:25
So in order of us to a label an emotion, we have to have it in the anterior cingulate to begin with. So if you have that disconnect happening, you can't label it. You don't know what you're feeling, which is, which is something called Alexa Thymia. And I don't know if you've heard of that, but.
00:26:43
No, I'm learning so much. Kim, tell us. Well, what? I don't even know what you just said.
00:26:48
Oh, my God, I love info dumping. Let's do it. OK, I love it. Alexa, Thymia is something that we see autistics tend to have at a fair amount, but also trauma. Trauma victims, you can have this alexithymia wherein essentially they're unable to recognize their own emotions and they might be unable to recognize emotions in other people too.
00:27:11
There's that piece of it as well, because you need some, There's a the insulin needs to be involved in some of that. But but essentially the thought is so a lot of times these people are having feelings. They might be able to notice their body feels a certain way, but they can't label it. So this is where, prior to me getting my own mental health treatment, honestly, I probably had a fair amount of it because I was pretty dissociated. That's how I that's how I got through grad school.
00:27:39
In this program, everybody's like, you look so calm and it's like the secret is you feel nothing and you look you look like you got it all under control. I don't recommend it. Side note, feelings are good, but what tends to happen is you might notice, like your stomach might hurt, you might have a headache, you might feel nervous, like your body feels jittery, but you can't label a an emotion to that. Like you can't say I feel anxious or I feel frustrated or I feel like you're not able to really connect that because it's not getting all the way up to that conscious area. The only thing that's really getting up there is, you know, when I pay attention, yeah, I feel kind of like fluttery and kind of in my body or I feel exhausted or I feel you get these somatic symptoms essentially of the feeling that's coming from the autonomic system.
00:28:31
But it's just not getting to our conscious thoughts and we're not able to really label it. And so that's the thought is why alexithymia seems to be in trauma victims. What's interesting is, you know, when we look at neurodivergence and we think of more societal things and we listen to autistic advocates who talk about maybe compliance based certain treatments and things like that where they were forced to do things and feeling inherently unsafe as children and then they end up having some level of alexithymia. So it's kind of that interesting. Like I don't know if it's chicken or egg, but it does seem interesting to me that there's a level of likely chronic trauma in that population and also common signs of alexithymia in it as well.
00:29:18
So it's just it's an interesting thing.
00:29:23
Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because I think that. I think that all of our listeners can probably relate to an experience they've had personally where they had this trauma trigger, right? We've all had situations where, like, why am I so upset about this?
00:29:38
Like why they didn't text me back.
00:29:41
Why does this like me so emotionally right now? And so I think that we can understand this idea of like. Oh, like this triggered something in my system and bringing that awareness to that trigger and you know, questioning that story, right, that we tell ourselves exactly underneath that feels like the process that you know, we we can go through to kind of heal and to move forward so that we're not so triggered by this type and event. So I think we can all understand that, which I think is is really helpful and then if we we understand it in ourselves, then imagine you know a scenario where like you mentioned we are.
00:30:24
Working with students who have had trauma right in ways that we can't even really even begin to fast might not even know. Yeah, it might not be.
00:30:33
Labeled that but right. It might not be labeled that. But again, from autistic advocates, we're hearing like that was traumatic and so we're all as a field I think really listening or. Many of ours are listening. I hope all of us are listening.
00:30:47
Unfortunately, I don't know that all of us are listening, but hopefully that changes. But you know, we're listening and we're realizing, you know, we need to be more careful about what we're doing, how we're doing it. And then I think that just the intersection with.
00:31:02
This idea of not being able to label my emotions first internally, but then also maybe I can internally label it, but I don't have the means to express it because no one ever taught me where that language is. And then you do. Oh yes, that's a whole. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it opens up this whole can of like can of worms, I guess, But this whole other possibility of like what language do people need in order to do this?
00:31:28
What do they need on their device to promote their own safety, to know about what they need for regulation, to be able to request those things, to be able to protest. That's a big one, A big, big, big one that often gets overlooked. So you know, and I think that that's the tricky part because giving easy access to that I think is so important, I started doing that. Unfortunately the preschool I was at, they didn't really have access to a lot of high tech things unfortunately. So I had like, I had like and dislike printouts and I had like, you know, low tech.
00:32:04
But maybe all this stuff like that and I actually had like a like dislike scale where it's like the the extreme dislike of like this makes me feel sick or this is painful like to some extent because even preschoolers can start to figure that out. And if it's like touching that play DoH is like physically repulsive to you. You can point that. It's like, I'm going to be sick if you make me do that right. And it's like that's a very clear advocate of like being able to advocate and say uh uh, not play DoH for me.
00:32:32
Please don't. Don't put my hand on that. Right. Yeah. So and I started doing with high tech, especially with my high schoolers.
00:32:40
I started trying to put in, particularly for one who like his. Well, his device needed to be reorganized, but he had a once in needs button that got him to pages, you know, on his main page, his first page on touch chat. But I put in a self advocacy button that he could access really fast and I put in full phrases that were very clear, like. So one of the things for him was he got, he had a lot of motor like comorbid motor things going on and he got physically redirected as we say by some of the pair educators. And now this is a fully grown teenage boy, like, he's taller than me, right?
00:33:25
But he's getting physically redirected and it always upset him and it always just regulated him. But they did it anyway, right? And so I put in a button that said I do not like to be physically moved. Like, I just put a nice, firm don't do this right. And when I showed him that button, he literally went around to every single parrot in the room and pressed the button in their face and stared at them like, I don't like to be physically moved.
00:33:54
And I was like, ah, yay, good. We needed that. I also put in a button that says, like, you know, I understand more than you think I do because people always assumed he didn't know what was going on. But I'm pretty sure he was pretty aware of what was going on. Most of the time he was just a teenage boy who sometimes was like, I don't want to, so exactly.
00:34:19
That's fair. So I put in things like that. I also put in I I asked him if he wanted a way to say that because I noticed at his IEP meeting, I don't think he liked the idea that we were talking about him and he wasn't in the room initially and he came in later. But I was like, would you like a button that says, please don't talk about me like I'm not here. And I was like, you know, And he like, nodded And I was like, OK, we'll give you that button that says don't talk to me like I'm not in the room or don't talk about me if I'm not in the room, like, like I'm not in the room or anything.
00:34:52
And so things like that, very useful, just to help give people a voice. And so obviously for younger kids it could be a more simplified message, but that's some of my ideas for advocacy anyway, 'cause.
00:35:06
That's a really big piece. I think that I want to call out this idea of using more specific language in in a phrase based way, because I think when we're thinking about self advocacy we need it to be fast because I need to advocate for myself before I become dysregulated and something happens that I don't like. And I love the idea of being specific because in that scenario where you programmed, you know I don't like it when you move my body. If if we had taught that student how to say I don't like it it. It could have been like, well, I know you don't like math, but like, we have to go to math, right?
00:35:42
And it can be totally misinterpreted and then negated, right? Like, I know you don't like to change seeds, but it's like, no, I don't like when you physically move me, right?
00:35:53
Like to be more specific to me instead exactly right.
00:35:56
Exactly. So I think that that's an important point is that. You know, I it it obviously it needs to start with this idea. And sometimes, I mean I do this with my own clients and students is like, I like it. I don't like it to kind of teach the framework.
00:36:09
But then if we have these situations that are coming up where it's like, OK, there's a very specific thing that you don't like, let me give you the specific language to communicate that. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that's why I did phrase base for that reason.
00:36:23
Like, especially for high schoolers, I feel like, let's give them a whole phrase. But even for preschoolers, I would probably give my thought with giving a phrase too, was I wanted to make them specific, but also so clear that if another staff member or faculty member overrode that request, it was a very clear, like, they did not care if they harmed them. You know what I mean? Like, I want it to be like this. Let's not pull any punches here.
00:36:49
Like, if you go ahead and do this anyway, you are harming them and you know you're doing it. And that's not okay, right? That's let's take out the Gray area.
00:36:58
Yeah, yeah, I I'm thinking about a specific example that I just was observing my student a couple weeks ago and he was just regulated. He was. Hitting lots of buttons. I think he I think when we we become dysregulated and we're not able to communicate about it, we start to get impulsive, 'cause we're like, I just want this to stop and I just need something to to happen here. And so he was hitting, you know, a lot of different words on his AAC system.
00:37:24
And then he found stop and he kept saying stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And he was saying it over and over again. And I'm just like observing and this kind of a it's a tricky case, 'cause it's like a legal case and I'm like not supposed to interject, but I'm like. I'm watching this and I'm like, they're not honoring his stop. Like, he's saying stop, but they're not stopping.
00:37:43
And it was a really uncomfortable moment for me, 'cause I'm not supposed to intervene, but I just had to. I was like, hey, just so you know, we're working on stop and go at home. And like, he's telling you stop.
00:37:54
I think right now, yeah, like stop is a pretty clear message. And and I think because it was like, well, he always just hits all the buttons and they're saying all these things and I'm just like, yes, but she.
00:38:06
Yeah, but he also just, like, landed on. Stop and just kept hitting it over and over again.
00:38:10
So, like, I think that that's the message he's shouting at you, basically.
00:38:15
Like he's yelling? Exactly. Yeah. So, so kind of to that point. Of let's give, you know phrase based language that's more specific.
00:38:24
I think that it's easy to just be like, Oh well they just said that one word once you know and it they also said it was some other words. And I just think that when you have a phrase that's like, I don't like it when you talk about me, I don't like it when you do this.
00:38:37
Like, I think that that is just like a lot more, it's a lot more apparent to all of the adults in the room, right? And honestly, if you look at speaking students, they say things like that and then they get their meat needs met. They say like, I don't like that, I don't like those chips, I don't like that drink. I don't I don't want to lay down there like they say specific things and then they get their needs met and then our non speakers don't have the same access to a quick way I was saying no thank you basically a quick and firm firm I have to include the firm don't don't even try to be polite when it's like dysregulating. But I love what you brought up too about how like yeah when you're in that meltdown panic attacky whichever way you want to say it kind of state you can't really functionally come access language you just it's it's starting to get so down regulated.
00:39:32
So I was actually just I was having a nice little like console kind of chat with another SLP the other day and I mentioned how so I get panic attacks. I take medicine so they've helped a lot but and honestly I'm still on the fence as to whether some of my panic attacks are actually meltdowns. I think sometimes they are sensory meltdowns and I also have sensory shutdowns for sure. Like when I'm in new environments and it's just a lot, I start to shut down a bit. But.
00:40:01
Like I've had panic attacks like 3 hours plus, if not longer. So when I'm under a lot of stress. For example, when I was in my master's program for. SLPI think we can relate to, you know, like that kind of happens, right? Yeah, The first spring semester, I went to University of Arizona at the time.
00:40:20
The first spring semester was just loaded with super hard classes. Like it was just so much and there was a week, I think it was like midterms week where I had like 5 midterms in four days and I was just like can't handle this. And I looked like I handled it fine because I just associated during the day. And then I went home at night and I would have like 3 or 4 hour long panic attacks which were just which also it got worse because it's like now I'm spending time panic attacking when I need to be studying. So it just kind of bed off each other itself and and it's kind of funny because my my husband and I, we needed to come up with a plan to help me because it's like I can't.
00:40:59
There's a certain point where I can't self soothe. It's just going to happen and it's going to be as long as it needs to be. And I can't stop it myself because there's a certain point where my husband has epilepsy so I often explain it to him as I feel like I'm having an emotional seizure, essentially. I know I'm not really like, I don't think it's actually, I know emotional seizures and things that happen, but it feels like my emotional system has taken over my body and I cannot stop anything. And I whack myself.
00:41:27
I start hitting my legs, I start hitting my head, I start trying to cause myself physical pain to like jerk out of it. And of course that disturbed him. So he's like, what's happening when that happens? Like, I want to can I help? Like, how can I help with that?
00:41:42
And so I told him, I said when I get to that point of no return, essentially what I start saying is I want it to stop. I want, I want it to stop. I want it to stop. And I'll just say the same phrase over and over again because it's the only thing I can think of, which is like, I want the feeling to stop, but I can't stop it. Like I can't stop, I can't stop.
00:42:00
I want it to stop, make the stop. You know, I keep saying that over and over again. And I said, so if I'm doing that, especially if I'm hitting myself and saying that, then I probably need some sort of external like for for me it really helps with like a really tight hug or something. Like something really starts to pull me out of it if it's like an external stimuli. So that became his cue of like, OK, let me like grab her and hold her and let her like hear, listen to my heartbeat.
00:42:25
And that helped me calm down a lot at that point. And so it's funny to me because for me as a graduate student, as a functional adult, you know, as we would say, or whatever, not a functioning label person. But you know what I mean? People would look at me and be like, oh, yeah, she's capable. They'd pursue competence.
00:42:43
But if they saw me in that state, they would probably still presume competence as a human. They would just know something's wrong, right? Like my friends would have been like, what's going on with Ken? Let's help her. Oh, my gosh.
00:42:55
How can I help you? Right. But when we see young kids having meltdowns, we don't presume the same level of competence. We don't presume they're human. We don't presume that they need our help with calming their body.
00:43:08
Right. And we don't give them that respect of like something big happened here to them. And now we have to help them feel safe again. And I think that's a real shame. I think that's part of the thing like now that I'm reading about more about dehumanization and when it comes to autistics and other near divergent and especially non speakers is like if we expect if we if speaking kids would do it and then we would treat them differently.
00:43:32
We need to stop doing that. If it's like a double standard, essentially of like, yeah. So if they have a device and they're in the middle of a meltdown or on the start of a meltdown and they're just hitting buttons and they're frantic about it, it's like that's the same thing as me just saying the same word over and over again. When I'm in the middle of a panic attack and I can't stop it, like, that's me calling out for help. Right.
00:43:53
And that's just how the brain works. You just can't always get those language centers. You get more of that automatic speech, essentially what we would call automatic, that emotive speech. Yeah. So, like, it makes sense to me that a user, an AC speaker would do thing on their device.
00:44:09
They would have an emotive like reactive speech. Essentially Makes sense, you know.
00:44:15
Yeah. No, it makes, it makes perfect. It makes perfect sense. And I think that the key here is that I think the take away message is can we just see these meltdowns as a call for help instead of they don't want to do this. This is for attention.
00:44:36
This is all the things that we hear right. Like it and and yeah, and I think that it's just like. I think it kind of circles back to this whole idea of neurodiversity and you know, specific sensory differences that we don't, you know, understand necessarily, you know, things that are going on internally that because they don't have a consistent external voice yet that we can't possibly understand. I just think that, you know, ultimately like we really need to handle. These types of situations with care and empathy, and I think that's part of the challenge and the work that I do.
00:45:16
I do a lot of work with families, but I also am working alongside of other professionals in schools and things like that. And it's just like whenever we have a child upset and crying, like, why are we not caring for them?
00:45:29
You know, we need to handle that, yeah.
00:45:32
It feels kind of crazy when we think about the way that we treat children, you know, especially, you know, non speaking children. But just in general, like, when a child's crying and really upset. Like, we need to give them care, love and support.
00:45:46
Yeah, exactly. And so it was actually kind of funny because I was. I'm starting to try to figure out how to do Instagram videos. I know it's taking me forever to figure out.
00:45:57
I'm still trying to figure it out, Kim.
00:46:00
Oh, Lord. I was like, you know, I should probably put out like short videos as, like, extra educational bits, which would probably be really helpful. And then I'm like, I don't know, the brevity thing. That's not my strength. You.
00:46:11
Need a really good editor, Kim. I have a team that like outside of like a four, that's probably good. I'm like, make it into 30 seconds.
00:46:19
Honestly, I might want to get their names from you because I'm doing all my editing on my own podcast, too, which takes forever. My episodes take forever because I'm editing myself. And it's it's it's a challenge sometimes. So yeah, so I was actually just thinking about that because I was looking through, you know, there's the whole smart plan for meltdowns and you know, there's the meltdown versus tantrum, right? And we see tantrums as being.
00:46:44
And you know what? I was thinking back about it and like, for all the kids that I saw, I think I only saw one kid who did what I would call a tantrum. The rest of them were either meltdowns or just just kids having emotions. Like, it was just big emotions because they don't have inhibition. Basically.
00:47:03
They're just like, I feel mad and I'm going to show you how mad I am. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. You're little. Like, yeah, I don't expect you to.
00:47:11
It's part of typical development, right?
00:47:14
This is what our kids do exactly like. Kids are going to have big displays of emotion, and they're going to display them in ways they've been modeled or in ways that hopefully get some kind of reaction or some kind of need met. Like you're saying they need help of some kind. And like, we can help them through that with communication. We can help them through that with modeling.
00:47:34
And like the tantrum kid, what I did, the one kid who I was like, yeah, he's definitely just like, it was the classic like, stare at me. And then and then, like, you know, if I was looking, he would yell. And then he would stop and stare. And I was like, this is the first time I've ever seen, like, a pure, totally in control Tantra. But I still handled it like it was just regulation.
00:47:57
And then that kid, like, he gave up. After a while, it's like, oh, you're not just going to give me that toy. I want just, 'cause I'm yelling and screaming. And it's like, no, we have to, like, you have to request, you know, you have to tell me, how are you feeling and what do you need? And da, da, da.
00:48:11
And it's like, Nope, not toy, but like, how's your body? Here's the symbols. Here's all the stuff, you know. And that kid, just he, I, yeah, he just had to learn like, oh, OK like, that's not how I get a toy. I do get attention and I get help, but I don't get a toy, Right.
00:48:29
And it's like, OK, So I think that's the thing. Like, maybe we just need to definitely shift that idea of, like, kids always tantruming to milk to, like, manipulate. It's like, no, it's most of the times they're just having an emotion and they need to have their emotion and maybe they need a better way to express their emotion, You know, totally not great.
00:48:51
Yeah, exactly. And like you mentioned kind of your own experience with panic attacks, which was really helpful I think to kind of share your experience and then kind of think about the students experience that we have working with, with kids. But I think part of what you mentioned was this idea of Co regulation, which I think that many people don't. Either understand or aren't really sure what that means. So can you speak to that a little bit?
00:49:17
Because I feel like that's a huge piece to this, to this puzzle, yes.
00:49:21
Yeah. So I mean Co regulation essentially it essentially means that us as the as the adult in the room, we have to regulate ourselves. So because kids can't be just regulated, no doubt. And if you feel yourself hitting dysregulated, it's not time for you to step in and try to regulate that kid. If you are frustrated or upset or impatient, if you might just come across in your body is we got to get this done, we got to move past this, we got to do this thing, we got to get the data right.
00:49:49
It's like if that's the state you're in, that's not the time to teach regulation. You need to take a break and calm first. Then you can come back and start teaching regulation because yeah, if you're going to help Co regulate someone, you have to stay calm. So similar to my own experience, once my husband knew what to do to help me regulate, he was able to stay calm. Right.
00:50:12
Prior to that, he kind of freaked out himself like what is happening to like what's happening to Kim? What do I do? And it's like, yeah, once I told him about what was going on, he's like, oh, now I know what to do. And so now I know to help, right. And yeah, he's having an emotional response to seeing me be in distress.
00:50:31
But he himself was able to like, OK, I have a plan. I can stay calm. I can, we can get this, you know, taken care of and I can help. I can be active in helping, which is essentially what you're going to do when you try to Co regulate with the kid. I have had times with kids where if I start to feel a little frustration, I might just say that on my like I might use their either low tech or high tech.
00:50:56
Whichever way, I might tell them that I need to do this for myself. Would you like to do it with me? Like, yeah, like I need to take a breath. Would you like to take a breath? Let's take a breath.
00:51:08
I you know that experience. Yesterday I was getting very frustrated with one of my clients and I was like, I'm going to do 3 big deep breaths, big belly breasts. Exactly. You're welcome to join.
00:51:18
Exactly. Yeah. So it's just you modeling what you need to do. So if you're still, you know, if you feel yourself starting to go there and, you know you just need to back off and do something, then yeah, letting them know that's what you're doing. Like, you know what?
00:51:33
I need to take a break. I'm going to go stare at this glitter bottle. Would you like a glitter bottle? Let's take a break. So what do you want to do during this one minute break, 'cause I need a break.
00:51:42
And I think that's important too. And a lot of times one thing I started doing that the private practice I was at is with all my autistic kids, preschool, high school. It didn't matter. I always asked them how they were feeling at the beginning of every session. I always had a had a little well at that time it was a feeling scale probably now I would use autism level up stuff.
00:52:02
I just love their stuff. I'm not I.
00:52:04
Know me too. Me too.
00:52:06
Oh my God, that energy level meter, meter is so good. They're energy regulation suites. So good. I would probably use that now, but it didn't exist at the time. And so I would always ask them though, how they were feeling at the beginning of the session because sometimes they come in just regulated.
00:52:22
And then it's like, cool, let's figure out what we can do to help with that, you know? And sometimes I also would share what I'm feeling. So sometimes it's like, I'm feeling pretty tired. I'm feeling a little sick almost. But you know what?
00:52:37
I'm happy to see you, You know, something like that, where it's like I can feel two things, 'cause I'm an adult, I have complex emotions, like in inside out. Yeah, in the movie. So, you know, I think that's also good to display. I actually had that with the high schooler last year. Now that I remember, this is a speaking high schooler, but he did have really significant dysarthria from syndrome and he often got treated like he was not as intelligent as he is because of how he's talked, which was sad, but there were moments where but he also had a significant trauma history.
00:53:11
So I don't think he was still trying to learn like emotions and how to express them and stuff like that. So I would use the energy level meter with him and there was a day where I got him and I was having a bad day at work, man. It was just one of those days. I was like, I cannot wait to get home. I am like so done, like I just want to get home and zone out and eat some ice cream like.
00:53:32
And so he came up to just visit me and I was like, oh, hey, da, da, da. And you know, he was like, he's like, how are you? And I'm like, I'm going to be honest, Dee, I don't feel good today. I feel horrible. I'm actually kind of, I'm just upset.
00:53:46
My body feels like this. This is the energy. I would say these are my feelings. That's just how I'm feeling. But it I'm happy to see you.
00:53:55
You're cool. You have nothing to do with how I'm feeling, like you're making me actually feel better. How are you doing? And it was so funny because he looked at me, He was like, you don't feel that way. You don't look like you feel that way.
00:54:06
And I'm like, I might not look it, but I do actually feel that way internally right now.
00:54:11
What a beautiful example of how we can have an outward appearance but also have a different internal experience. I also feel like that specifically opens up a really awesome conversation about masking and like what that looks like and how that shows up.
00:54:29
And so I think that's like, perfect too. Such a big conversation, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause masking is definitely, definitely a thing. It's so, so funny. I've actually, I feel like I'm trying to learn to not mask.
00:54:43
This is my goal for myself this year, especially since I'm not I'm like just working from home right now. So I'm like, hey, cool, I don't have to mask with my dog. That's dope but like sweet. But I took there is a a questionnaire for autistics on like levels of masking and I scored really high and I was like I thought I wasn't oh geez, I'm still still doing it. But yeah, I mean that's definitely and I think it's interesting because I think being able to recognize what your body's feeling like, whether it's energy, whether it's actually attached to an emotion, if you can recognize it and also recognizing how you're being treated, like what that emotion is trying to tell you essentially.
00:55:27
So like if a kid is, you know, if they don't want to be physically moved and somebody moves them and that makes them upset, they need to know. This is what I call. This is the other flip side of empowerment and advocacy is I call it presuming they can take it. Competence, long phrase, not that not that snippy, but but presuming it in the sense of there are people out there who are likely going to treat you not very well, who are not going to honor your request. And I can't change that You, you know, there are times, even with the preschooler, sometimes I'd be like you requested and you did what you needed to do.
00:56:08
They ignored that. And that is not your fault. That is them, right. And sometimes with my high schoolers, I would teach them, especially high schooler autistics would start teaching them. Like, you know, what that can tell you is, do you want to trust this person or not, right.
00:56:26
Like because a lot of times they they internalized the sense of I did something wrong. I was treated that way because I didn't say it right, I didn't do it right, I didn't phrase it right. And it's like, it's not about you doing it right or wrong. It's about other people making assumptions about you and just doing what they want to do and not thinking about you. And like, because I think what a lot of the masking is, is that it's really that shame.
00:56:52
It's hiding what you're ashamed of about yourself. It's feeling like you're chronically wrong because bad things happen when you're quote, UN quote wrong in your head. And social rejection and professional rejection. In my case, things like that happen when you're wrong, Quote UN quote the the other guys, the speaking guys or the neurotypicals, they're doing it right and I'm doing it wrong. That's how you internalize it.
00:57:13
So basking comes from that. It comes from I have to always behave correctly, quote, UN quote, so that people will like me and so I deserve to be treated well. That's like you don't feel like you deserve to be treated with respect unless you're doing it quote, UN quote, right. That's where the danger comes, I think with the masking, and so a lot of times with my autistics, I would definitely one thing I did for my high schoolers, I used the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, which I am a donating memory of. I have my mug about us, but yeah, they have a really great self advocacy curriculum and my high schoolers never heard about like the word nerve divergency.
00:57:56
They didn't know about that. They didn't know about person first versus identity 1st and what the whole discussion was and like that kind of stuff and what masking was. And it's like I need to let you go. I want you guys to know these things because you're about to graduate. You're about to be autistic adults and there are artistic adults out there who can mentor you and take care of you.
00:58:13
And there are communities that are safe, but you have to be able to find them. So you have to be able to use these words to find them, right. And you know, and so I would teach them about like what the masking is because some of them masked really well and some of them didn't. Some of them have no choice. They just come up, you know, they especially motor, comorbid motor and stuff, they they don't have an option to mask.
00:58:34
But if you do have the option to mask, it's that, like, you feel like you're doing it wrong. And so teaching them to be able to say, like, you know what, Sometimes people don't always treat you well. And I even did it with some of my preschoolers. This is kind of funny. I think I said, I think I said this on the Making the Shift podcast.
00:58:51
I'm not sure if it made it into the edits, but I remember saying I talked to my preschoolers kind of like they're little adults. Like I would talk to. I'm sure other SLPS would think I was nuts, but I was like they're so good receptively, so much higher than we would think, even the non speaking ones or anything. And so there's this one little kid who, you know, their parent meant well, but they had a lot of compliance based stuff going on and there was a lot of assumptions made about this kid's ability to pay attention based off of trigger warning, whole body listening, trigger warning autistics out there and they things like that. And this kid always looked off to the side and up when he was really paying attention.
00:59:31
And I was like, Oh no, he's listening. Like, I know that's his listening face. I got it. We're fine. And then the staff members were like, Oh no, he needs to look and like, I know he's not paying attention.
00:59:42
I'm like in my brain. I'm thinking, do you? Though I don't think you know. Yeah, he's always really, he's really good at paying attention like that. So there was a day at the end of the session, I started walking out with him.
00:59:54
He was going to library time and it was just me walking with him. And I had been working on regulation, working on having him explain himself, like advocate for himself and say this is what he needs and this is how he listens. I was trying to give him like, I do listen better this way. I want to do it this way, right. This is how I listen.
01:00:13
And we've been working on it. And then? So on the way out from that person, correcting me constantly, wanting him to like look, look, look, look, look. And it was like, stop prompting, please. But they kept doing it.
01:00:25
So like, OK, so we walked out and I was like, you know, how I've been working on, like having you like working on ways of telling people how you need to listen and what you need. And he just kind of, you know, kept his head down and kept walking next to me. And I'm like, that's why I want to do it. Because sometimes these, these adults think they're doing the right thing for you, but they don't understand what's going on in your head. And I want to give you a way to explain to them what you're thinking and feeling.
01:00:51
And then he, like, stopped. We were on the gravel halfway to the library, and he stopped. And he just started turning around and going back to the session room. And I was like, I was like, Oh no, we can keep working on it later. We don't have to miss library.
01:01:07
We don't have to have more session. But like, yeah, this is just for you to be able to talk to like your parents and everybody. But I was like, it's just one of those moments where I'm like, Oh my God, see, Like, it's if I'd assumed if I didn't presume competence, if I didn't presume this kid understood what I was saying, you know, like I wouldn't have had that great moment of him. Like, he knew exactly what I was saying. And he was like, I want that.
01:01:28
That's what I want. Let's go back. Let's do it again. You know, Totally.
01:01:31
Totally.
01:01:32
But then, you know, at the same time later on down the road, of course I did have to explain to that kid that you're saying it right and they're just not listening. And I'm sorry, sometimes adults don't always listen. When kids got really good with regulation, I used to say things like once, especially my preschoolers, when they got some of those kids got so good at telling you what their needs were and where they were at. And and I would always honour it and we had great rapport. It was great.
01:01:58
But in the classroom they were so dysregulated because it always got ignored. And so sometimes I would just tell them, I'm like, you're so good at knowing a lot of adults don't know this. They're not as good at as you. It's such a you're able to calm yourself down. And these, these adults aren't able to, and that's why they're yelling at you.
01:02:16
I'm sorry, I.
01:02:18
Know. Yeah.
01:02:19
Having those, like, it's so frustrating. Yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard to see. But it's like I had to be honest with them and I just wanted. I want to teach them that because I want them to know that I don't want them to internalize a sense of shame.
01:02:35
They didn't get their need met because they were. It's like.
01:02:38
No, no. Yes, yes.
01:02:41
You're a four year old. Totally wrong. You know, it's like that's not you, you know, And I wish I could change the system and I wish I could change society, but.
01:02:53
You know well, Kim, you are doing, you're doing amazing. You're doing amazing with the work that you're doing and I'm really? Yeah.
01:02:59
Well, thank you. I'll keep trying.
01:03:01
Yeah, I I appreciate you coming on and talking all about your experiences for people who are like, Oh my gosh, yes, more of this like where can people find you on online?
01:03:13
Oh my gosh, yes. So I am on Instagram. Mine is actually becoming trauma informed SLPS I believe is my Instagram. I do have a podcast called the Trauma Informed SLP and I put my contact stuff in the show notes. I do also have a website which is pretty much just I think.
01:03:33
Hold on, let me look it up here real quick.
01:03:35
We'll put, yeah, we'll definitely link to it.
01:03:37
I'm on Facebook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm on Facebook and things too. I just can't quite remember hold up what my actual OK, it's trauma. Dash inform-slp.com So there's dashes in there. We will.
01:03:51
My neurodivergent brain hates it when words are squished together. I get like I'm like I can't read it without a space.
01:03:57
It's yes, it's a good point. It's a good point. That's my thing. Yeah, we'll we'll definitely link to all those in the show notes. Kim, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing all of your experiences with us.
01:04:11
Awesome. Some of it was helpful. I know I I can talk an awful lot, but thank you.
01:04:15
No, it was it was awesome. I feel like we're gonna have to come. Have you come on for a Part 2, 'cause there's so much to talk about and just not have time.
01:04:22
Oh please, oh please. I just. I love this is what I love. I kind of just want to be a professional info dumper. That's pretty much my goal right now, so I would love to be on anytime.
01:04:31
Well, we benefited from all of that information you shared. So for talking with Tech, I'm Rachel Meadow, joined by Kim Neely. Thank you guys so much for listening and we'll talk to you next week.