The CRAFT- a teaching method for children with Autism

In this episode of the Therapod Podcast, we dive deep into a heartfelt conversation on the power of compassion, responsiveness, and teaching - CRAFT in the world of autism support. Our guest Jude Ragan — a seasoned educator with decades of experience — shares their journey of teaching.

Together with Georgie and Banu, they explore what it truly means to support autistic children in a way that honors their individuality. From battling rigid systems to championing occupational therapy as transformative, the episode introduces listeners to CRAFT: a mindset rooted in Compassionate, Responsive, Autism-Focused Teaching.

This is more than an educational model — it's a philosophy. Whether you're a parent, teacher, or therapist, you’ll leave with insights that just might shift the way you see your role in a neurodiverse world.

Transcript

  you're very welcome, Jude, to do Therapod podcast. Thank you. Season four. , And we're talking mostly to, , neurodiverse individuals about their journey, but also people working in that field.

And it's a strengths based kind of podcast to say, what can parents, teachers, or anyone listening to us take away and use in their life that might make even the tiniest bit of difference? That's kind of where, why I started third part podcast in the first place, because I think people who work in these space, we have a lot to say.

firstly, I'd like to start off by saying, welcome. Thank you for being here. I know Georgie and you know each other really well. I don't know you, so can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Well, thanks, it's always a pleasure to work with Georgie because, we've worked together for years. I trust her implicitly in her judgment about teaching, she's one of these rare people that just has the instinct and you have to have the instinct and then you put the knowledge on top of the instinct, it's a pleasure to work with you, Bani I have to say, no overt praise intended that I value OTs above all therapies for autistic children. as a school, that became more and more cash strapped. one service I would never do without would be our occupational therapists.

Thank you. I think speech and language therapists has its place. but frankly because speech and language therapists for me have a similar sort of, background and understanding a very good teacher could run a communication group as well as a speech and language therapist in my view.

Whereas an occupational therapist comes to us with a medical training, a scientific background, an analysis of the sort of, psychological and physiological aspects of the child's who's suffering from autism and how that affects 'em. So for me, they were world changing from my point of view. I'd been working in autism for a good 30 years before I came across occupational therapists, and they changed my view of autism and my view of how we should treat.

So I worked, I've worked all my career since, since training in 1960, late 1960s, where one of my. pupils in our teaching practice had what we would now call profound autism. he was called psychotic at the time. Those are the signs of the times, Jason. I fell in love with Jason, and after my course finished while we still lived in Bristol, I would visit Jason every Saturday and take him out, we became close buddies and he knew all my family so I suppose my love of autism started there.

And then I've worked with autistic people all my life and then culminating at the wonderful Queensville School in Hammersmith and Fullham in London, where I was the head teacher from 2005 to 2015. And was there whilst it went through exponential growth. unbelievable.

So, and good financial backing from Hammersmith and Fullham. great governance, Georgie, great governance. and we were able to hone our practice. It was a wonderful, I'm love to say experimental stage because we never ventured into approaches or therapies that were not, scientifically evidenced and with peer review practice, we were able to hone our skills.

and get our own best practice together. It was the most wonderful time. during that time, I could clarify in my own head the approach I esped and I was able more and more to be able to, talk about it with some coherence since I last saw you. Georgie. do stop me whenever you want.

I'm capable of just going on forever. People often look for the off button, but it's not there. since Georgie and I were last together, face to face, a heavenly time of two passionate teachers working together, I have renamed my approach. I've called it Craft. the C stands for Compassionate, and you might ask.

I felt the need to put compassionate in the title. And the reason is that I don't believe that some of the therapies out there for autistic people are compassionate. I could have used kind, but then it would've been craft with a K, and I suspect the cheese company would've been after me 

Compassionate. The R is for responsive because that's in essence, what we are. it is a craft, not a science. because it's a craft, not a tick, tick box science, not a clinical endeavor, because it's a craft. We are responsive to the child's stunt sitting in front of us or dancing in front of us or bouncing in front of us.

We are responsive to that child and this moment in his life. it is a completely responsive approach. Autism, of course, is the F because it is focused. I thought of calling it the eclectic approach because our approach used to be called the eclectic approach, didn't it?

Georgie? yeah, that's right. The opposition, which I regard as the a, BA lobby took up the word eclectic. and I went to almost 20 tribunals in my, tenure years as head of Queens mill to, against BA. The parents had gone to Hammersmith and Fullham and asked for a private a BA school, which would be extraordinarily expensive.

The borough would ask me if I could meet needs. I would look at the papers, and if I said yes, then we would go to a tribunal to put it to the judge that Queensville could offer an equal. If not, better, offer for this child and we won every single case. I remember the amount of paperwork.

oh my goodness. The amount of admin I'm stressed just the personal stress, because some parents were so horrified. I don't blame them personally, but they were so horrified at the thought that they might lose and not get their a, BA, in my view, because the a BA therapist had just convinced them that every bit of progress the child had made was through a BA.

Nothing else would work. So somehow yes. it's that way or the highway. There is no flexibility. And so we would go to tribunal and whenever they used the term eclectic, they would always put their hands up and describe speech marks in the air.

And I never knew why. My instinct was to slap the hand away, but I wasn't close enough. so I've gone off the term eclectic, but I had to have focused in there. we do use an eclectic mix of strategies. You know, we have lots of strings to our, but you have to, we have to if you're, if you're a good practitioner.

But we are also highly focused, on the autism needs of this particular child at this particular moment. And of course, the T stands for teaching. So compassionate, responsive, autism focused teaching It is a gentle craft, not a rigid science. do you want me to launch straight away into what I value?

Under the banner of craft. You can, but I was actually going to reflect that, it's a mindset really, isn't it? That you come in with that this is how, I'm going to work with this child. even more than an approach. It feels like, there isn't a formula, but it is that mindset, would that be right?

That flexibility of mindset and it's a bespoke approach, isn't it? Because there is no one size fits all utterly bespoke approach. to have a bespoke approach, you have to have staff that are trained in the hull kit and caboodle. and so that's expensive. And it took me quite a while to persuade.

Hammersmith and Fulham how much money I needed to spend on training annually. Less time to persuade governors, thankfully, but a little bit of time. And because it was huge, we spent, a large proportion of our disposable income on staffing. then I remember both the LEA, the local authority and the governor saying, okay, you did that last, you don't need to do that again.

Ooh, we do, because we're in central London, so our staff are constantly turning over, but because we want to update ourselves. We were always firm friends and allies with Cray, the Center for Research of Autism Education at the university and College London. And can I ask you, Jude, like, so you've been rolling out this training for a number of years?

Yes. and would you have any, and I'm only saying this because I, you know, I don't want to know, is it research back, but just for our listeners, is there any research out of it that's, there that you've kind of done? Well, we did a great deal of research in the school. we had a research director.

we created the middle management poster of a research director. we had, a meeting once a month to discuss recent research that had come out and our views on it and whether we thought it was relevant enough to our population, to look at and, and do some groundwork on and start doing some research in.

So there was a lot of research done in classroom practice because. there's a huge disconnect between academic research and practice on the ground in autism. I love Cray. The Center Research for Autism Education, I started with them when Tony Charman was their first lead professor, Tony Charman, who's just, well, just a couple of years ago written the Lancet Commission review on future care and clinical research and autism.

That's worth posting on your website It's a brilliant report the leaders of Cray, in my view, have done the greatest service to bringing academic research into classrooms. we at Queens Mill took that by the horns and just ran with it. This approach used very well known and effective, assessment and teaching methodologies such as PS and Certs. they were the kind of three big names that helped and they still are.

In my view, and I've never wavered in this, teach the old good old fashioned American teach training and education, autistic and communication handicapped children is, is an absolute necessity for a deeply autistic and deeply anxious child TEACH gives that visual structure, it's always the same, it's always reliable.

it's not rigid. you can help the child come into a more flexible approach to teach as he or she gets more competent at it. So, it's not rigid, it's not constraining, but I think it's absolutely wonderful. that's never changed my view about Teach 

I only really became a proponent or a proponent of Pex, p exchange communication system once I was at, at Queens Mill because the staff were so keen on it, and we trained everyone together. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Lunchtime assistants, TAs are the, foundation of education in special schools.

The site managers, we trained everyone in pep so that language was the language we used across the school, in the lunch hall, out in the playground, and in every classroom. And my view of PS increased exponentially as we trained, because I could see its efficacy, when I. Spent time visiting other schools in the borough.

Maybe for training, maybe for visiting a child who was going to transfer to us. I could see that PS badly done was really bad. And almost an impediment for the child. so I'm a great proponent for ps. Well done. I still find it bizarre that some special schools have a PEX class.

I don't see how that can work. How can that poor child ever come outta that class and use their second language or possibly their first language, which is Pex? So we trained everyone and we had a PS consultant, the wonderful Julia, and we had a senior manager in the school who was responsible for PS oversight the Wonderful Mary.

And so it became the voice of our children the online version prolo quo to go. it just gave them the voice. And I think we expanded our age range both down and up. we started admitting two year olds. when you watch good Pex practitioners with two year olds, and then six months later, those two and a half year olds running around the room with great confidence moving their P symbols here and there, knowing what they were doing.

and I think it Seminally gave them, you know, how autistic children sometimes don't see the purpose of communication. I think that physical exchange that ripping off of the Velcro. Putting it on the sentence strip, even if the sentence is only one word, handing it to someone else, someone else say, oh, you want the teddy bear Giving them the teddy bear.

I think it cements in an autistic child's head that need to do something to someone else to get what I want. And it sort of slots that missing link about why do I need to communicate? So I love pex. And then laterally came, certs, as you said, Georgie. So communication, emotional regulation and transactional support.

And I think just to knock off the transactional support, for us, the transactional support was largely, our approach was largely, through teach that is the transactional support on the whole. I mean, we did greater things, but on the whole how to move, How to solve that, rigidity, that need for sameness, that lack of want to, change an activity, that lack of wanting to come outta a special interest.

That was all managed by teach. We managed that. And I teach, and I think the great benefit that I learned through certs was that you could actually, Track the progress, you could see what stage this child is currently, working at or, living. and then be able to go, right, okay, this is how I can help them to move forward.

And keep going. because I think a lot of people find it difficult to know how to help with progress in education. I couldn't agree more. And I think so. I mean, I've always got a copy of one or there it is manuals on my desk. It's always to hand. I recently had to buy a new one because my previous one fell apart.

But the social communication bit, you're absolutely right. Georgie, for me, that gave the first real structure for assessment. So three communication partners. The first one, social partner, the pre-language stage, when you are

responding to the prelingual. Autistic child through gesture and voice. You are using your language, but you're responding to his gesture, noise, vocalizations, almost like intensive interaction. Then the second stage, the language partner stage where they're beginning to understand the symbolic nature of communication.

So can use sign language or picture symbols or oral language. And then three, the conversation partner where we're beginning to get sequences, beginning to build up reciprocity in conversations. So for me, I just love those three sections in the certs manual and as you say, the assessments that go with them.

And then, no, I was going to say when you talk about picks and approaches like that, I find that when they're rolled out into schools and there's training done, people can just take it at its face value and not think about how it works, not just with the school, but with the outside community.

And how does it evolve? It kind of grows arms and legs. I find that with OT approaches, like I know lots of schools do things like zones of regulation or alert program. But then when I go back to review, they're trying to fit it all into a box and to say, this is our section where we do the zones while it's meant to be incorporated, so that you are using it every day and every, interaction.

Yes. The Lancet Commission on the Future Care and Clinical Research and Autism that I referred to earlier, Catherine Lord and Tony Charman main authors, recognized that you need all these tools in your box and then you choose the ones that suit this child.

And importantly, the intensity with which it suits this child. And that's always what we have done at Queensland. that's what craft is about, having these things in your craft toolbox. But how do they fit this child? what you say is so seminal because it's got to go through the entire child's life.

If we decide that a child needs, a lot of teach. A bit of pecs and these elements of certs, then those have to go right through his life in every class in the school, in his playground time, in the lunch hall, at home. when he goes to gym club or with his brothers and sisters, et cetera.

It has to all be there to support his development. I think the most important part of certs is the emotional regulation. But They're all important. the emotional regulation part of certs.

I didn't come across certs till about two or three years before the end of my time at Queensville. And I loved the emotional regulation part. We, used and continue to use zones of regulation. they're very, very good and we often use them with. Those kids who would describe themselves in yellow mode, in green mode, in blue mode and in red mode draw cartoons of themselves being, you know, off the wall, wild or calm and happy.

And we used to make fun of that. I mean, make a fun activity outta that. and it was very useful to them. For me, zones of regulations, most important thing is to help staff recognize that there is some form of science and theory behind the fact that we withdraw all demands when we watch a child's regulation going up the scale.

Observation for me is the key. We have to observe all children and we always gave. All staff in the classroom a day as often as we could when they just observed But we are absolutely staff to always observe the child's emotional regulation.

Know what he looks like when he is beginning to get agitated. if one of our students, it was merely the zipping and unzipping of a pencil case, oh look, Laura's getting anxious. What can we do to stop it? knowing that minutia of detail about how they begin to show their rising anxiety, because we wanted staff to always be certain that we never wanted children to go above the green zone.

If they began to go higher up, we wanted something done about it. We want demands reduced or withdrawn entirely. I had a meeting with some of the mums. I still work for mums pro bono in my retirement. I was working with some of my mums last week, all of whom have, autistic children, or more than, you know, more than one, one or more autistic children.

And some also have children with, mutism as well as autism. we were discussing in a group that awful business of how the public, regards them when they're out and about. we were talking about what used to be called a meltdown, which I now regard as complete dysregulation.

And they were telling me how they deal with. Dysregulation when it's out and about and how much they dread it, how much is in their thoughts and nightmares. But when it happens on the whole. Most of the mothers I work with do exactly what we used to do at Queens Mill, and that is, be a comforting, unemotional body 

We're alongside you, metaphorically, we were saying to the child, we're alongside you. We are totally sympathetic and empathetic with the pain and suffering you are currently going through. We want to help you. you can turn to us to help you regain your calm. we generally removed all eye contact.

We really stood alongside, and looked peripherally to see what was going on to ensure that child was safe For each of our children, what is likely to calm them, if offering them something is likely to calm and at what point. 'cause if you offer it too soon, it will get thrown through a window and you've lost it all.

my mothers were telling me, of recent, events, and one mother described graphically how she almost, goes into a catatonic state first. She has an element of panic that she has to fight down because she's aware, she's extraordinarily bright, she's aware of the likelihood of emotional contagion, that if she gets agitated, he will get higher up.

So firstly, she's reducing her own regulation. He has no feeling of her own panic. She shuts out the rest of the world. Good for her. That's hard to do when it's all disapproving and going past you and Tutting. and she stands to one side and she's completely passive. Everything about her is passive.

And when we were talking as a group, we all thought maybe this is where the general public perpetuate this awful myth that came right back from Bettelheim, that mothers are cold mothers, that mothers of autistic children are cold and unfeeling mothers. Because here's the message. This woman is giving, quite rightly, she's giving to her child saying, I'm here.

You're safe. I'll do whatever you need me to do. I know what you need, but I'm just waiting for you to get to that point. But I'm just gonna stand here. It's almost, a freeze mechanism. It's not fight, it's not flight. It's freeze I'm just being calm here beside you. And we just wondered, it might be an interesting research project. it was called, the ref, the refrigerator, wasn't it The refrigerator mother? Yeah, it's, yes, it was, yeah. And, and sometimes it's that, and sometimes it's the, unfit mother, like you're not doing the right thing.

You're not, and it's a response to everyone else's anxiety that everyone wants you to jump in because they're anxious most people passing by will have no experience Of autism but they will just reflect back to how when their child was being naughty, they dealt with their child.

And of course, the genesis of the behavior and the way we treat those two behaviors is quite different and should never be muddled. in my view, an autistic child is never naughty.

Well, actually, it's never a power struggle. It's never them saying, I'm defying you. it's always a misunderstanding that's been, gone awry somehow. and has to be put right for all children that meltdown, that's what that's about anyway.

for neurotypical children, they're better rubber bands. And they snap back, quick enough while children who are neurodiverse have a longer window, and that's keeping the calm during that longer window. That's the hard part. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I must say that, you know, when dysregulation happened in school, the responses of the occupational therapists were similarly important to us.

the additional knowledge they brought to us in terms of what he was feeling, what the physiological responses were and how we could help to calm him were extremely important to the team. But the emotional behavior, the emotional regulation, parts of certs, made me switch the view right at the end of my career.

So this is only a few years before I left Queensville switch up. Practice from behavior plans to emotional regulation plans, and you see the switch that would make in people's minds. It isn't his behavior, it isn't his fault. He hasn't, as some therapies do, kicked someone 83 times in the last 15 minutes.

We are looking at his emotional regulation. And the biggest part of emotional regulation is what am I, as the practitioner doing to make his environment manageable for him? And if it's not manageable for him, then how do I make it manageable for him? Georgie? Well, I'm so pleased you said this because it's been the thing that's been burning to say, one of the first things you taught me was, never expect them.

To understand what you want from them, you need to understand what they need. And you always put an emphasis on environment, and saying, we need to be the ones to change the environment if it is needed. when I read messages on support groups or emails, a lot of people saying, what can I do?

This child does this X, Y, and Z. And one of the things I notice is there's no change in environment. I wondered whether you wouldn't mind just saying a few things about the importance of having the right environment. Yeah, absolutely. the environment is absolutely crucial, for children with really profound autism.

And when I use the term profound autism, I know many people within the autism community find that hard to take, The Lancet Commission Review, did recommend the use of profound as an administrative term, and that's what I'm using here as an administrative term. So we know the group of people we're talking about the students at Queens Law School had profound autism.

if you take profound definition to be needing permanent support all of the time they're awake, and possibly throughout their life and with very little or minimal language. therefore those children will be one hopes in a good special school, either a mixed special school, or even better in my view.

'cause I think it's easier to do it better in an autism specific special school. As you and I worked in Georgia and I always did. So the environment there is what we call lower arousal. which does what it says on the tin. It stops unnecessary distraction because we've learned so much from high functioning autistic colleagues, haven't we?

I've learned so much. I work with a wonderful group, called the National Autistic Task Force, and people like them and people who've written books like Temple Grand in, well, they've taught us so much, but. We know that they are, they are just taken by, you know, the postman just walked up my drive.

I could, blank that out and carry on, relatively cogently. But for some people that distraction, will take thoughts to think, well, where's the postman going now? what's gonna happen? or a tiny detail on a radiator can be a distraction.

So the lower arousal environment is firstly a physical environment, very calm. without unnecessary distraction. all that you present the child with is the work that we want them to do their teach schedule and their promise of something lovely later on. A now later board that wonderful, board.

I don't think I could teach autistic children without a now later board. For me, that is the holy grail because you can show that child that now you're gonna do a bit of what I am really wanting to do, which won't be their first priority. And then, later you'll have what you love, which is playing with your pink dinosaurs, and you can manipulate that.

it isn't cast in stone. You don't have to do 20 minutes of this and 20 minutes of that. You can do. The teaching agenda for as long as you think the child is managing it and is available for learning. But if that goes off task, then the child is no longer available for learning.

'cause they really can't tolerate anymore and they need a break from it. Then we go quickly. We say, oh, this has finished, we changed the Velcro thing on the schedule and we go to the pink dinosaurs. It's bribery, isn't it, Georgie? it's absolutely bribery. This child has to work so much harder to achieve anything.

Socially, emotionally, academically than other children. If you recognize that he's come to the end of his available period of being able to work you give him something that gives him joy and in which he can recede. So I suppose a message for parents is, don't feel you're spoiling him to give him his pink dinosaur.

Don't feel that it is wrong to say, okay, we didn't do a great deal of sums there, did we? But today wasn't the day, or this morning wasn't the morning. We'll do, some Lego building, for a while now. So don't feel that that's wrong You've got to go with the flow of the child 

What always amazes me is that we have these high standards for our young people that they will do this many hours of work or this many pages as adults we know, the workday is going to end or that you're gonna have a weekend or you're going to have a holiday 

The scale is different. for these children who have, their tolerance a bit, low, they just need it more quickly. Absolutely. finishing the task and going on to what they like. and because they go onto it more quickly. It's not their fault. it's the cards they were given through no one's fault whatsoever.

Just serendipitous. you are absolutely right. I have a neurotypical grandson who I pick up from school. Three days a week, we're coasting into a holiday, aren't we? He's getting tired every day, so sometimes we stop and have a swim on the way home. He doesn't want that anymore.

He's just too tired to go swimming, which he absolutely adores, because school is wearing him out. and he's ready for that break. And you are absolutely right. If that happens to a neurotypical child, then just think of the burden on a child who has different starting points than those which society expects 

Give him a break. And whilst I say the word break, I just want to reinforce that if you use the break card that that hex has, you know, that Red break card and you see on every teach, workstation, break so they can rip off the red. Break card. And even if their emotional level has got to a state that they're not using their language as well they don't have to ask.

They can just hold up a Red Break card, that request must be honored. when I go into mainstream schools, because all of these things work in a slightly different way in mainstream schools and autistic children in mainstream schools sometimes need that level of support despite the fact they're managing in mainstream.

I was actually gonna ask you about mainstream schools because many times I hear, oh, we can't let 'em get away with it because then it's not fair to everybody else. And these are the rules and this is how we work. how do you respond to that? Yeah. Well, It's interesting if you talk to teachers, actually this happens to me less and less.

Whether they're more and more scared of me, I don't know. Or whether it's truly because their understanding is getting there. but previously when I worked with whole teachers, perhaps to hold school staff, there was the miserable element, wasn't it? It wasn't always the maths department, but Hmm.

and they would say, why should he get away with it? and it was hard work convincing him that if this child asked for a break, then We had taught a child with autism a valuable life skill about themselves that said, I'm getting a bit outta control. I don't want to hit a fellow pupil and get into real trouble.

I'm just gonna ask for a break. You have to honor it. The interesting thing, Banu, is that if you talk to children, they get it right away. They don't feel he's being let off. They can see his life is a struggle. Their fellow pupil with autism, they can see that he has to work jolly hard to get where, you know, they can get with the greatest of ease.

They are so tolerant and do not think he's being let off. I think there's another piece of research. It's fascinating, you know, these things come up, We ought to look at teacher views on that and pupil views. 

Do we think that the autistic child's being given an easy ride and some teachers may say, well, he should be doing his work and the students will get it. They do. Even little ones, even tiny kids will get it. sometimes I have actually, I haven't had to do this for a long time, but I can remember one or two times when I've had to be quite harsh with teachers on training and look at them and say, what if this was your child?

And just leave it hanging in the air. And there's slight shame face this, but what if it was, and in the press a couple of weekends ago,

there were two articles, not necessarily pertinent directly to autism, but certainly to special needs. One about a group, a a lovely primary school in London who'd applied for and gained funding from the Reducing Violence Unit, which is a home office based thing, I think, to try and reduce violence.

And this, this primary school got money to use the project in their early years department. encouraging children to use their voice to overcome conflict rather than their fists or feet it was a beautiful article and it was led by the special needs coordination.

It was just wonderful. That will advantage any autistic children in their population, just as it will all the children. But on the next page, there was an article about, a child with special needs in a secondary school, which has recently been taken over by a trust, which changes things in my view.

since then in the view of teachers and parents, that school has become stricter more rigid, which is not gonna be helpful for our autistic children by any means. there was a story that made me cry of, a poor boy every week. His math teacher would make him cry publicly. She would humiliate him publicly, and shouted him about not having reached his targets.

and he would just end up putting his head on his arms and crying how. Can we have got to the state where this can be allowed in a British school. it's so cruel. so now is not an easy time. But then on the other hand, I read of support groups, parents support groups where they support each other to go into the school and say, please, can we work with you?

Because this discipline method does not work for my child. three strikes, no routes does not work for an autistic child in a mainstream school. the fact is I go to quite a lot of schools, often reviewing schools for the parents. I'm working for, to see which ones might be most suitable for their child to move to at secondary.

that is fascinating. I just love doing that. the fact is. Some secondary schools do it and get it right, and so if some can, it must be replicatable and it must be down to the management. Mustn't it. It must be due to a head teacher and a senior leadership team who are committed to getting it right for the autistic population.

If we are right in saying that one in 36, I think I read most recently. One in 20 is the most recent actually. Then every school is a school for children with autism and therefore, I mean, that's a large number of children. So there's a rationale right there for them to train their staff.

Jude, you are absolutely right. I say this. Time and time again the contrast between the schools where you've got leadership who understands we're saying 20%, but I've been saying the last couple of years, a third of their classroom, a third of their school has a learning difference and they need to be able to prioritize the training for their teachers.

Now, not necessarily go off and buy a whole load of expensive resources because we know that there is so much you can do without expensive resources. But it's the training, it's the mindset and it comes from the leadership. And you can have two schools in the same.

Village that are so different. Absolutely. Because one gets it, and the other one, their priority might be academic results or what have you. if only a message could be sent to leadership of all schools saying, can you understand this has to be a priority? the multi-sensory teaching, you know, being able to, the, the importance being able to tap into all senses because there is no just one way of learning and this change of environment if it is an overstimulating environment, can we find a space that has less stimulation Absolutely.

Yes. I mean, a sensory break where a child can think I'm getting over agitated, or. The staff notice that he is and alert him to it and say, you need to take a sensory break.

And he takes his break card and, he can go outside and run twice around the playground or whatever he needs in order to come back and feel more ready for learning. in reference to what we were just talking about, that's not letting the child off his work. That's allowing the child to be aware of what his body needs before he's capable of working and to be ready to learn.

If we are careless enough to allow him to get so dysregulated that he has a meltdown. as an OT will know how long physiologically it takes to come down from the meltdown. It takes hours and hours. And I always worry about the kids who don't have that meltdown, but then I know that they, that's seven hours that he's, that they've spent in school.

They've disengaged, they haven't really learned anything because they haven't been able to, it's just that they've been quiet, during that. And so those children might well be girls and they might well be masking. we've learned so much from the wonderful Professor Francesca happy, whose focused her research on autism and girls and women I didn't know about masking when I first came into this work, and nor were there many girls at Queensville when I first came into this work. all of that is changing, but the emotional damage done by masking by young women sitting in secondary schools trying to behave like a young girl should.

Not like an autistic young girl, not allowed to stem if she wants to or whatever. and then of course they go home and explode. and the family, I have worked so often with parents whose child comes home and the book says she's had a great day.

She's this, she's that. And then she comes home, she dashes to her bedroom and rips the bedroom apart and sobs uncontrollably or whatever. Outlet she has in the safety of her home. parents say to me, and I say to the parents, have you told the school? And they say, of course, we've told the school.

one of my first messages to staff in mainstream schools, particularly secondary schools, where they have autistic children who are also girls. I say to them, please listen to the parents. Please believe the parents, when a parent is saying that her daughter comes home every day and is, uncontrollably emotive because of what she's had to hold in all day, please believe them.

I've never in my whole career taken, a photograph or a video of any one of my children in distress because I just can't bear to, Whilst they're in distress, my priority is. Getting them out of distress. sometimes I wish I could, because I wish people could see what happens to a child when they're completely dysregulated.

if we write a case study, for an inspection, we write that if this child has a complete dysregulation, it's because of this, this, this, and this. and we lay it all out there.

And, you know, in some ways I think it would be extraordinarily powerful to show a case study as training and say, look, if you don't do this, this, and it's quite simple. Let him have his break. Let him play with his fidget toy. Let him rock on his chair. Why not? This is what's gonna happen to 'em and show them.

I think it would be quite shocking and probably, quite impressive for staff, but I couldn't do it. Whether there's a way of doing it with an animated film, with a cartoon character, I don't know. But it wouldn't be as powerful perhaps, but I simply can't do it.

Maybe somebody else can. But if you can see the awfulness of a dysregulation, then staff who love the work, never want the child to go there again. They will do their damnedest to try and help the child never get to that point again in school. I think it's also the stories you hear of them hiding in school bathrooms, putting earphones in, 

They can't cope. with what's going on in the classroom parents getting, told this or children coming home and telling their parents, that's a message. they don't know maybe how to tell you, but what are they hiding from?

Someone needs to look into that. that happens a lot. I'm sure you're right. going back to what you said, it's about the adults around them attending to what they need. if they're hiding, they want a space where that sensory overload can be shed.

Yeah. That's really what they're looking for. Why would you go sit in the bathroom otherwise? It's not really pleasant. the adults around them, need to be tuning in to say, okay, this is what. they just need to be far more aware. I'm always very sad when I say to parents, schooling will still, it'll be over soon.

they've put up with the horror that is particularly secondary schooling. and I can only comfort them by saying he'll be past school age soon. Isn't that an awful thing to say? And I know, it's just not good enough. And I may well say, if I sense there's any use in saying it to parents, I think you ought to look at a different school, quite frankly, and then help them research another school, because as George is exemplified.

Some schools do it and some schools don't yet. Academization hasn't helped our cause In fact, I think it's made it worse because there are vast academy chains who make profit outta school now. So they're cutting costs and it's totally easy to look at a balance sheet and see how much the special needs teaching assistants cost and say, well, we can get rid of that, without realizing the terrible harm that you'd be doing.

I mean, I, I cannot say good enough things about teaching assistants. True. I know. I love, I love teaching assistants beyond distraction Superheroes of good breakfast and of teaching assistants who are valued in the school they work with and they are just seen as the wonderful gift they are.

Then I even see teaching assistants whose schools really have no idea how much they do. And they still do it. God love them. Amazing. I totally agree. And the amount they're paid for, the work they do is, let's not even go there. Let's not go there. Going back to craft. Yes. So is that training that you, offer outside, like a private capacity?

Or is, are there schools that can contact you for it? how is, I know I will talk about autism for anyone who wants to ask me to do so. It was what I was to do. They're gonna have to buy your book, Jude. More advance since once you and I last met Georgie, I've done the first two chapters in the introduction, and now I've found an editor, but I'm too scared to send it to her because what if she says, no, I don't like it.

I can't bear it. So I'm building up to that. And everyone who knows me is encouraging me before you hand your baby, you want to make sure that it's gonna be safe. Yes. Safe for your baby. Yes. I don't charge money for it. I will just charge expenses.

I'm going to London next week to two schools for a couple of days, both of whom I've worked for before. are they mainstream or special? Mainstream. And one of them is because, I started working with a wonderful child who, has, pathological demand avoidance as well as autism.

A glorious child, and his nursery school was, awful and he would beat his head on the floor not only did they do nothing about the physical damage it was causing him, but they couldn't take responsibility for it. They couldn't say, we must be doing something wrong. No, it wasn't in their, makeup to do so.

So we moved to another school and that was all right. then we moved to a primary school and it's been pure heaven, I love that primary school. I love the head, I love the ko. I love all of the staff, all of the, Yeah. Staff he is gone through have been quite, quite wonderful and I'm going up again next week to work with them.

is it that they're willing to be flexible listen and make changes to support him and others? Yes. That's a good question. I think the head, on the whole, there's leadership again, she cuts through everything. She just cuts through it and just says, well, we have, but let's also do this, or let's instead do that. she has that mindset. I'm working again with that school, and with another school in the same London borough.

A secondary, mainstream school. there are brilliant schools, but there are some who still need to go an awful long way and not make excuses because if some can do it, and as you said just earlier there, that there's more parents now coming out and saying, actually, this is not okay for my child and I want to see different.

I think that makes a whole load of difference when they can advocate for their child. That's not something we have to put up with that we have a choice. Or I can say something now. I would like to make a case that we can't constantly ask for money.

I don't know where the money's gone, but it's gone this disaster in England of special needs and, individual education plans is impossible. I'm meeting with my local MP to talk about it in a couple of weekends time, 

This is a wonderful book. Have you read this one? The Age of Diagnosis? No, it's brilliant. the Age of Diagnosis, sickness Health, and Why Medicine has gone too far. the chapter about autism, about where she's a neurologist, an Irish new neurologist. She's quite, quite wonderful. I want to meet her.

Susanna O'Sullivan. I'll send you the link. it's been very well, publicized. she talks about over-diagnosis of autism, which I've begun to agree with. I recognize there are autistic people who hold down a very good job, have a very good home and family life and children who travel into central London on the tube and have a diagnosis of autism.

But I can't fathom, I just can't fathom, the DSM, which oh, can hardly lifted it so heavy. I, I, I always have DSM to hand and the new one, says somewhere in it that. even without impediments to day-to-day life, an autism diagnosis can still be granted, and I don't see why. But more importantly, Susanna o Sullivan in her chapter about autism.

She talks about the mudding of the waters between high functioning autism, a term we don't like. I agree. We've never thought how to say it differently if we keep diagnosing more and more people who are in good jobs, managing well, functioning well, and then there's my people, the queens mill, people with the, severely autistic and still being called the same thing, then we have a real difficulty.

And I think so who speaks for the nonverbal autistic child? For that child, the high functioning autistic group would say, I can't, 'cause I'm not autistic. They can't speak because they have no functional language. Can their mother speak? The high functioning group would once again say they cannot speak for, so for me it's a frustration and conundrum, and I think that book describes it extremely well.

But I think there is an element of overdiagnosis and if we looked to the curriculum particularly of secondary schools, I think we could get to the, I truly think we can get to a point where you don't need an individual education plan or a health plan for mildly autistic children.

We need a better curriculum and better trained teachers as. Georgie just described. I think we need to move away from diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis to better teaching, better teaching, better teaching. I agree. at the end of the day, whether you want a diagnosis or not, there's also this problem of people who can afford and people who can't afford, lack of education, psychologists, lack of psychiatrist.

you can be on a waiting list for years. You can't just sit there and not intervene. You have to change the curriculum. You have to change the method to suit the child who has needs. I agree with you. it is very important that the environment, the curriculum that the children are accessing, a suitable, education that suits their needs.

And there are ways of doing it, but the training is Critical. Tony is critical. And then NUS contribution to the table is Critical. Every school must have some access to an OT service. I regret the passing of local authorities. Local authority schools could call on them to help translate the curriculum in Ireland it's very different.

it's a very different system, altogether. the HSCs OTs are from primary care and the CDNT teams are meant to be going into schools. There just isn't enough people there. It's not resource, as you said. We don't know where the money has gone.

It's not there. it's got to be done on a curriculum basis. Yeah. training, as Georgie says, is the key And I'm really interested where we're gonna talk separately around the training of your craft bit more,

and I hope we'll have you on again, because I think we have more to talk about. I knew an hour would not be enough. Thank you so much. a teacher's point of view is just, and such a lovely way of, looking at how you're framing your teaching for that child, isn't it?

It is. and it's got to be based in love. I'm unashamed in using the word love. I love the children I work with. absolutely. and that's the basis of it all, I guess. That you just don't want them to have such a hard time. That's the imperative to look for a solution. 

So true. I love that whole compassion focused, responsive, like it's so tuned into that child.

And I can also see how craft, now we can take that and put it to different context like trauma and yes, I'd love to know more about your trauma based, trauma based approach, banner. I'd love to, I know very little about that. I'd love to know more about that. I can talk all day about it, there's actually a special interest OT group as well, based out of UK that we're talking about. Trauma and schools and that kind of thing. Very interesting story. I'm working with a young boy now in a school, and every time I meet at the school, I get the sense that the teacher doesn't like him and then they're giving me all this list of things he's doing.

And in my head I'm like, it's because he doesn't like you. In my head I'm saying that, but I can't say it out. are they doing anything preventative? You know, like reducing his an anxiety buildup?

What do, do we know what's they're trying, but then they're like, oh, we can't be too different with him. Because again, there's no diagnosis with trauma. There's no real diagnosis. You know, it's not real diagnosis as in it's a very, it's very, and, and that's where, that's where I'm going with it. It is coming from that point that, that compassion, it hasn't, it's shocking.

it's shocking. in their narrative it's like, oh, this child has had three years of stable placement with a foster family. Why is this still happening? Well, I'm trying to actually, as a baby didn't have a good chance at all this huge neglect. And so it's a compassion and that responsive piece that isn't coming from teacher and this child knows it.

Yeah, of course, of course they do. Sometimes I am sort of, cheerfully brutal. if I get kicked out of that contract now, I will the minute I walk into a class and I sense the teacher is absolute rubbish and worse, horrid. And I do sometimes see that. Then I will work my socks off to find something nice to say about her.

Something genuinely nice to say about her. Ooh. I did like the way you talked to that little girl about something or other. It was just so beautiful and it, I, through grr teeth, I would say something really, really nice to her. And then I'm in the jolly, brutal mode, so I'm smiling and she, goes to the jugular and I'm just bombarding her with, now you need to, so don't hold back at what point do you go to the head teacher and say, this won't do, oh, that's another story altogether. Yeah. it's a difficult one. . Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

. Thank you for your time as always. I would love to talk to you, again. I have lots of ideas Good. Thank you, June. Bye. Lots of love. Bye You too.