47: Back by Popular Demand: College Transition Strategies with Lorraine Wolf & Jane Thierfeld Brown

🎓 Special Re-Release Episode

As summer begins and students prepare for the transition from high school to college, we're bringing back one of the most important conversations from the archives.

Whether you're an incoming college student, a parent, educator, or clinician, the transition to college involves much more than academics. Success often depends on executive functioning, self-advocacy, independence, social connection, and knowing which supports to access and when.

That's why we're revisiting this valuable discussion with Lorraine Wolf and Jane Thierfeld Brown, nationally recognized experts in college transition, disability support, and helping students navigate life after high school.

In this episode, we discuss:

•  Self-advocacy and disability accommodations in college 
•  Executive functioning demands beyond high school 
•  Building independence and daily living skills 
•  Navigating social life and campus involvement 
•  Common transition challenges for our neurodivergent students 

Although this conversation originally aired previously, the insights remain as incredibly relevant. As students head into the summer before college, now is the perfect time to begin thinking about the skills that support smoother transitions.

If you know a student preparing for college this fall, consider sharing this episode with them and their family. 

https://collegeautismspectrum.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to Unmasking Social, where we talk about building real friendships and meaningful connections without masking who we truly are. I'm your host, Sharon Baum, a speech and language pathologist with an expertise in social thinking and how it relates to autism and ADHD. Specifically with our teens and queens. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Summer is in full swing in New York City. And let me tell you, summer is the time when the transition plan to college is really in full effect. And so, in that, I am going to be releasing a prior episode that was recorded many months ago, but is so relevant right now to our teens and tweens who are transitioning to college. Less supports may be available, but advocacy, as for Dr. Jane and Dr. Laurie, from even high school years to now, is going to be critical in allowing our students to really successfully go through their college years without feeling the need to come home. Advocacy, support, empowerment, all, all pieces of the puzzle for this college experience. Welcome back to Unmasking Social. Today I have two lovely women who are going to speak about the transition from high school and even before high school into the next chapter of our autistic teens and tweens' lives. We have Dr. Jane Therfield Brown, who is the director of College Autism Spectrum and a former assistant clinical professor at Yale Child Study Center. With over 43 years in disability services, she's a national expert on autism and higher education. She holds an EDD from Columbia University and received an honorary doctorate from Muhlenberg College in 2020. Dr. Brown consults widely and serves as transition consultant for Farmington High School in Connecticut. She has appeared on Good Morning America, CBS News, NPR, and co-authored several books, including Neurodiversity in College, which we'll speak to you about. She's the recipient of a head's Ron Blosser Dedicate Service Award and is the mother of a son with autism and fragile X syndrome. Dr. Jane, thank you for being on the podcast. Thanks so much for having us, Sharon. I'm honored to be here. Thank you. And we also have her partner in crime, Dr. Lori Will. Dr. Laurie recently retired, congratulations on retirement, as uh director of disability services and ADA 504 compliance officer at Boston University after 27 years, where she also held faculty roles in psychiatry and rehabilitation sciences. A neuropsychologist, she now teaches in Landmark College's online program on learning differences and neurodiversity. Dr. Wolf is an international presenter and co-author of several books on autism, ADHD, and learning disorders. Her research focuses on self-regulation and support for neurodiverse college students. Outside of academia, she enjoys scuba diving and adventure travel. Oh, scuba diving, so much fun, Dr. Lori. Thank you both for being here. Thank you. So I just want to jump right into it because, again, this topic is really important. Teens and tweens are struggling with the transition to high school, but then even more so, there's no guidance in in what's gonna be the most important chapter of their lives. So I'm just curious from from both of you, really, if you can share about kind of what led you on this journey. I know Dr. Lori is a neuropsychologist, you know, working with the neurodiverse population, and you, Dr. Jane, even having a child who is neurodivergent, as well as being such a pivotal part of the Yale Child Study Center. What led you on this journey to come full circle to help with this transition? Go ahead, Lori, you start.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

You know, as a neuropsychologist, executive functions and frontal lobe functions were the thing that grabbed me. And I cycled through a lot of different populations, you know, infant, early childhood, you know, childhood, teens, old people, adults. I cycled through a lot of populations and I kept coming back to teenagers. And the thing in psychology is you either love working with teens or you hate it. There is no in-between. And so I just loved working with teenagers. I love the population. And really the executive functioning, that's you're seeing it, you know, really not developing as much as becoming necessary. That, you know, for the tasks of high school and beyond, the lack of executive function really hampers young people. And so I really kind of, you know, that that was sort of my thing. And Jane and I met online when we were, you know, interested in college students with autism. And that was a population that I'd I'd been working with clinically, but had no idea that they would, these, these kids would get to college, let alone struggle in the same way that kids with ADHD and kids with learning disabilities and kids with psychological disabilities all seem to struggle with self-regulation and executive functioning. And so, you know, we've kind of made that a lot of the work that we do in how do you build a resilient, successful, college-bound student is that's one of the things that we focus on.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Yeah, Dr. Laura, I'm gonna pass it over to Dr. Jane Pass the baton as we say as we work with our neurodivergent students. But I'm really curious because you're a neuropsych, I'm a speech pathologist, and in my years of expertise, you either love or you hate it. The adolescents were my love, right? My joy. I'm now in administration, but for nearly 12 years, I worked in a collaborative program with these middle school teens and tweens. And it's so true. You either love it, I just love the humor and the confidence and the funny and the development as they try to navigate fitting in. So I love that piece of it. But executive functioning, like you say for the listeners, and you're the neuropsychologist, so please correct me if I'm wrong, is usually the ability to organize, plan, prioritize, be flexible. And a lot of times, even just something simple as just waking up in the morning and knowing to brush your teeth before you leave, or knowing that you have to just complete this task and not have well, right now I have 50 browsers open, but knowing that you must complete one task before going to the next task. And this can really hijack the brain when you're trying to do things, and especially when you don't have any support.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah. Well, it is, you know, thought to be sort of the the one of the higher levels of brain function. And so, yeah, they're the the what you mentioned, prioritizing things like that are cognitive piece of executive functioning. And then there's also the social emotional piece of it, which is persevering, maintaining motivation, managing your emotions, you know, the grit, if you will, all things that build resilience again. And, you know, they they they begin to develop in infancy. We see it in three-year-olds. If you've ever had a three-year-old mommy says not to get the cooking, meanwhile, the little hand is going towards the cooking. What? And then at about four or five, they can inhibit that. So anything is a part of executive functioning. And by the time they get to college, they have to be able to inhibit sex and drugs and rock and roll in the dormitory. They have to be able to say, Well, I'm not going to that party. I have a French test I need to study for. And all of those things. Yeah, I need to brush my teeth. I need to order toothbrush because mom's not here to take care of that for me. So all of those things, and you know, the secret is every single teenager and college student struggles with executive functioning. And the ones who are neurodivergent just have that layered on top of the other things that go along with their neurodivergence.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

Co-occurrences. And so, Dr. Jean, I'm gonna turn it over to you. And I know that this has a special place in your heart because of even just having a child that you worked with. Can you tell us more about your your child and and just what led you towards this path? And sure. And actually, uh, I have an adult.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I have an adult child. Now an adult, now an adult. Now an adult. Now he is. My son is 33, and he is. And I'm the jury's still out on how I feel about this this term or label, but he is part of the community of severely, profoundly autistic. So Max, my son did not go to college. He has an intellectual disability, part of the fragile X syndrome, and he's autistic and several other things, and very medically complicated. But just well, about five years before he was born, I'd been in disability services for, oh gosh, 15 years before that, or so. I'm getting my math a little confused, but for a long time. And I was starting to see some college students that identified as either LD, ADHD, or both, but I was seeing a difference. And I wasn't quite sure. And I started to do a lot of research. And at that time, autism and the Asperger's diagnosis was still in our nomenclature. And so I started doing a lot of research in that area and finding more and more of my students who really fit in that categorization, if you call it that. But I don't think their diagnoses really fit the support that they needed in order to provide equal access. And that's when Lori swiped right, you know. I was looking for people to discuss this with to do a presentation at our national conference. That is anyone else seeing autism slash Asperger's, do you know anything about it? And would you like to present with me on college students with Asperger's? And this was in around 98, late 98, early 99, when people this just wasn't talked about. And Lori was one of a couple of people that swiped right. And we started working on this. And lo and behold, about half of the professionals in in our group were still saying, honestly, you two people with autism can't go to college. What are you saying? And the other half were saying, they're here. Where can we talk to you? You know, we have these people and we need help. So that really started things. And about, let's see, I'm not sure how many years before my my son had been diagnosed, and we didn't know where he was going to fall within that diagnosis yet. As far as the work, what's really informed the way I think about it, especially executive function and college and neurodivergence of any type, working at this high school as a transition consultant the past three years has really given me a lot of insight as to where the issues are, what we're doing and why we're causing so many problems for these students. I see it even more now with I've been in a conference the last couple of days for a long time before Lori and I got together. My son was in preschool, in a special ed preschool. So a lot of what I was doing was gleaned from my observing at this special ed preschool and translating it to what was needed in higher ed. So I was seeing all these clinicians work with my son with sensory things. And I was taking those and saying, let's make them more teen and well, alter, adolescent, young adult appropriate, and let's bring them into the college campus. Let's be and a lot of people thought Lori and I were crazy, but we knew that the sensory input was really important for students. And we even started, it took a bunch of years before people let us put sensory rooms on college campus campuses. Nowadays they're common. You know, now lots of places have sensory rooms. So I've been fortunate enough the past few days, I've been listening to some of the there's something called the Preschool Autism Summit. So knowing where I've gotten so much of my information over in the past decades, I signed up for this summit and I've been listening online. And and Lori, I'm gonna see if I can get this one talk to you. It was from Barry Prizant. Talking about talking about neuroinclusion and in the preschools. And and that's really a lot of what I've been trying to infuse in the high school, is that if they would with the transition work I'm doing, if they would just look at some of the special ed preschool things and what we do with students, creating independence, creating that self-reliance, creating that self-regulation. And yet what we do not only as special ed professionals, but also sometimes as frequently as parents and sometimes as special ed professionals, is we undo a lot of that. We take all that in independence building of push in your chair. Can you go find the crayons? You know, make sure, can you share that with the person across from you? And then by the time they get to middle school, oh no, no group work. They don't do well in group work. Well, how long did we work on let's share those crayons with the with the person across from you? And a lot of times the special educators or the team is trying very hard to help develop these skills with the student, but the the parents are saying this is too much. We just want them to get out of the academic piece, just work on the academic piece, and they push the administration to just accommodate. So that a lot of folks are coming to Lori and I at college saying, I need this three pages list of accommodations because I need these supports to be successful. And I think that's where we're not being neuroinclusive. We have to start early and continue as a team, not with the school fighting with the parents, fighting with the administration, but as a team that includes the student and build these things so that okay, the the planning and executive function is an issue for you. Come talk to us about how we can help with that. You know, does meeting with somebody at the beginning of the day help? I again was fortunate enough. I don't know if my daughter would put it that way, but I think so. I had to bring my my granddaughter to OT and she's four. What's her name? Juliana. And the OT was phenomenal with her. But the first thing I noticed when she came in is she said she pulled out the whiteboard, which Lori, I was like, oh my gosh. Because Lori and I are always talking to clinicians and professionals. So the the interesting thing is during this OT session, yeah, the first thing the clinician did when my granddaughter walked in is pulled out the whiteboard and said, Today we're going to, and she wrote the word and drew a little pick line drawing. Right. And then we're going to and wrote the word and the line drawing. And then just three things, as Lori always says, the brain can hold three. Yeah. And she did those. And then they went to do the first thing and she started losing focus a little bit. She's at OT because she has some challenges. Yeah. And she's also only four years old. She's just and she just four last week. So give her some credit. Yeah, she was still kind of three. Yeah. But then the OT pulled her over and handed her the marker and said, Okay, great job. We finished number one. Can you cross it out, please? And I thought, this is exactly what I've been talking about for 45 years, starting at this age with the executive function. That we did something, we made the plan, we executed, we crossed it off. And that's I afterwards I talked to the clinician for a little bit and I said, that was just so beautiful. It was just so that's really what we need. But again, not to stop that at middle school and say, no, no, no, they need support. That's too much for them. Often we want to do for the student. And that's taking away the opportunity for them to develop a skill. And I think we we're always looking at the deficits in the world of autism and neurodiversity. And instead, we need to look at what the student can do and what's going to help them move along that continuum. So sometimes I think when we have this deficit model of thinking, we don't do ourselves or the students any any favors. And I think that's that's really the way I think Lori and I have thought about this for a very long time. And now there's so much happening. I mean, just the fact that there's a preschool autism summit. I mean, when my son was three, there was nothing. I mean, and we couldn't even get birth to three services until he was almost three, you know, because people just didn't know what to do with autistic individuals. So so Lori and I came into this at a time when, well, let's just say they weren't talking about autism in the and neurodiversity and the way we're talking about it today.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Wow. So I have so many things to ask you, but I just want to work backwards for a moment. That's how my brain works. Lori Lori, don't judge me, but I am a backwards person. I'm not a forward person. Yeah, no, okay, different from the neurosych here. But basically, starting with the last thing you said with the whiteboard, even something so simple like that, I feel a little is such a great tool. And it's a tool that I've used with individuals that whether they're autistic or they just have a language-based disorder and setting things up so everyone knows what's coming next, and then crossing it out when you're done. Just like you said, three things, three tasks, and even a little visual, maybe next to it. So simple, takes like 30 seconds to get together, and then you guys do it together. So I love that. And I've used that. But the other thing you mentioned is that that social piece that sometimes is being ignored or often being ignored in the schools, which I haven't seen because I was in a very collaborative program where we were focusing on social. So then it's it's because it was a collaborative program for individuals with the old school Asperger's now DSM updates or autism with social communication deficits. You know, we were fortunate enough to work on that. But I see that they fall short. And and it, like you said, I couldn't believe what you said that suddenly you can't even, oh no, you don't need to work in a group anymore. Lori, why don't you go? Yeah, I I I I I can't I can't I can't even believe this.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

I mean, I haven't Yeah, it kind of tracks by age and depending on what school district you're in. Okay. A lot of emphasis in the early grades on a bunch and social groups and things like that. And then at some point they push that all away. They said, okay, we did that, you're great, and now we're gonna focus on the academics. And the social piece, when it rears its head, when the student can't work in a group, is struggling, you know, in the reading group or a science lab or something like that, the request is from a parent or or you know, a well-meaning psychologist making recommendations for accommodations and saying this student can't work in a group, they're better off working on their own. And when that, you know, when that student arrives in college where there really is no solar track, everything involves a group, every major, and everything. Every project, every yeah, involves teamwork. That's when it becomes problematic. And that's when we get into, can get into wrangles with parents about, you know, I understand that your school may have allowed this because it was easier or because they they they didn't understand how important it would be later in life and later in in the student's life. And, you know, but we're not going to be able to do that in in college.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

But it baffles my mind also, just going back to what you were saying, how you're these trailblazers, okay, because nobody's talking about this in the 90s. I want to hear back to swiping right, like on the dating apps, right? You swipe right. You didn't swipe left, so that was great. Both of you swipe right, but I'm just baffled by the fact as a speech pathologist, and I know that Jane, you have a speech pathology background. Lori, I know your son is perhaps pursuing a mic drop if he doesn't know that. Sorry. But so it's just because everything that we do as SLPs also falls into the academic curriculum. And I've given presentations on this often to help support teachers, which is receptive and expressive language, right? Generating inferences, even having reciprocal conversations. Those are all things that tie back to the academic curriculum, but yet there's a strict focus on academics, not social. And then they grow up, and then in preschool, they're social. And then it sounds like the progression starts happening where if they're not in a specialized program and they're not in a certain school and they're not in a certain district, they fall off the bandwagon, and then high school happens. And then, Jane, you mentioned that you felt that one of the most important things was that people should have been doing but weren't doing was that nobody was being included in this conversation about what comes next. And I'm so curious. Now we have the opportunity to include individuals. And in fact, in some cities, some states, it's it's it's kind of mandated. No, it is mandated that you offer them to be present at their own individualized education plan meeting. So, how did you get schools to start talking?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

It's tough. And a lot of times. I felt like I was preaching to the converted, you know, the the special education stuff.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

Right, you're right, right.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

It's all like more like yes, please go talk to our administration. And you talk to the administration, and a lot of them say, Would you please talk to the parents? And parents say, Can you please talk to the teachers? You know, so it it's kind of circular. So far, only one school district near me has asked me to come gosh, over the last three years, I think four or five times to do trainings with the paraprofessionals, which really is where this all starts, because they're the people who are one-to-one with our kids all day. So I I think I'm seeing glimmers. I think it's still hard because let's face it, you know, parents younger than Lori and my generation are thinking about where their kids are going to go to college. And they know what they were stressed to do and how important the academics were. And I think that piece is changing not only because of the nature of college today, you know, we're we're in a very different time period, shall I say? I don't want to get political, but a very different time period for college and a very different economy for students getting out of college and getting jobs. And we're in a different, a whole different realm in neurodiversity. And our numbers are different. Go ahead, Lori.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

You know, I was going to add to that by saying, again, it also stratifies by by district, by who the mix of students is and by who the parents are. And the numbers, as the numbers ramped up, schools began to ask and say, we don't know what to do because now we had, we used to have four or five kids who we thought were autistic who were college-bound. Now we have a hundred or a hundred and fifty in a big school district, and we don't know what to do. And the parents are putting some pressure on us to, you know, to help with college planning for these students.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

So this is later in the game. This is not early high school. This is like later in it.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

No, this is this is you know 11th grade. Wow. This is okay so that's very late. Yeah. And then some of the strategies that that we've advocated for. So it's partly driven by that. In some of the other school districts, without, you know, Boston, where Jane lives in Connecticut, where you are in New York, you know, these are the districts where, you know, going to four-year college after high school is kind of a given. But I've spoken in other districts, in, you know, in other communities where it's not so much a given, and it's a different conversation. It's about what are other post-secondary options? How do we make our youngsters, you know, work ready if they are college bound? What's that path look like? Because they may be the first generation student. They may not have the roadmap for how to get any student into college, let alone a student with a disability. So the conversations are different, depending on who invited you, who the students are, who the parents are. But really, the numbers worked in our favor because the schools were getting overwhelmed as you know, universities also started to call us as they saw their numbers go up. Happily through the years, and Jane and I have been grinding away at this now for you know almost 30 years. Colleges are blessed to have people, a generation behind us, who can train them. They don't need Jane and I to come anymore. But for a while, we were it and we were going everywhere all the time. Schools were saying, We don't know what to do. Please come and teach us.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Yeah, I mean, that's great that they were coming and reaching out to you, and you've made such a profound impact. Obviously, they're not always going to do that. They're not always going to reach out. And it's interesting because just recently, I was working with a student who happens to have a friend who has a parent who was very, a very big advocate for her son. And his parents, again, he's first-generation American, like you said, there are barriers here, right? And he was in an integrated co-teaching class, and that's it. He the high school just said, okay, you know, good luck. And he's supposed to be attending college. He didn't know anything about accommodations, he didn't know anything about, you know, and he wants to go to law school, but he doesn't have any of the tools. So I want to ask you both a very loaded question. How are we supposed to get through to these schools in a way where the SLPs, the high school teams, the paraprofessionals, like you said, I think that's amazing because they're working one-to-one, can really understand the social emotional impacts leading into college at an earlier time than let's say 11th grade, because that's a little bit later and the parents don't know better. But, you know, maybe even talking about it even in the beginning of the high school years. Is there is there a way that you found recently so?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Jay, let me start it and then I'll pass to you. Well, we have recently, you know, when we have another colleague, Amy Rutherford Marie, who works with us in collegeautismpectrum.com. And we have recently taken a bit of a different tack from our colleagues that we're advocating for working more closely with parents in the transition of a college-bound student with a disability. That ordinarily kid gets to college, parent is cut off. The laws are set up that way that you could say to the parent, I don't have to talk to you, so I'm not going to talk to you. We feel like engaging the parents in a conversation about employability, and that every accommodation, every decision, every intervention is in the service of eventual employability of your young of your young person. And that, you know, to when so when the parent says, Well, I don't know why they can't have, you know, no teamwork, it's because what job allows you to work alone? How come they can't have unlimited deadlines? Remember, we're building towards employability. You know, we'll have work deadlines. And so we are starting to advocate for that. And that's a thin line between, you know, where you have a helicopter parent and how do you contain that without pushing them out of the process entirely.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

Yeah, that's a tough balance, by the way, the helicopter parent, right? That's always pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And as every parent should push. I mean, it's your child, right? So you want to push, but and then the boundary of you know, pushing, but you know, obviously allowing for independence, which brings me back to what Dr. J, Jane, I keep calling you something else. I just whatever I'm feeling in the moment, you know, executive function, I keep shifting, you know. So anyway, so basically, so you know, you had already seen this in the preschool, how things were set up so wonderfully in the preschools. And Barry Przant and you know, who author of Uniquely Human recently actually post I saw it was posted on Facebook, you know, that now suddenly we're having these like summits on all of this, which is great. And Lori, you mentioned employment, which ties into something that you had mentioned, which is that right now it's not even about going to college, Jane. Like you said, your son, while while the terms are we don't know what terms to use anymore. Um, but you know, you've labeled maybe severely profoundly autistic, right? He's not in college, right? So no, but there's still a transition that's needed.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Well, he transitioned to a day program. He was in uh in a specialized school that the district decided he needed until he was 22. And then he transitioned to a full-time day program. There was very different, and even now, our our whole uh thrust with my son is to make him as independent and happy as possible. And because he's mostly nonverbal, I don't say non-speaking because he does speak. Right. The term usually that we use is non-speaking, but Max does speak not a lot, but uh but he doesn't usually choose to. And so But he communicates. It depends. Sometimes, yes, but he won't use AAC. Is that familiar to your listeners?

SPEAKER_04 29:55

Yeah, I mean, actually, you know, just in case you may you can explain what AAC is, and some people are resistant to using it. Max isn't the only one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Oh no, uh right. Uh Max just would prefer to take the iPad or whatever. Yeah. They were called talkers when he was in preschool. He would just throw it against the wall. He just that's that's just not something that he's comfortable with. But the augmented community, the assistive communication devices are not something he's comfortable with. So he he lets us know what his needs are and we understand his communication. But what's interesting to me, well, first of all, Lori, this will blow you away. This this summit that I've been signed up for, it's virtual the past few days that Barry Presant was the keynote. And it's called the Preschool Autism Summit. So it's mostly people doing like what my daughter does, you know, an SLP and or what any special ed professional in a preschool setting. There were 42,000 attendees. And as soon as I saw that, I thought, I wish there were even 40, 40 people talking about preschool autism when my autistic sudden was. Oh gosh. Yeah, and there wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah, and and I'm blown away, Jim. At this moment, Nane and I met when I when we when we we both swept, right? I was going through the same process with my toddlers. So, you know, I I I resonate with that. I wish there'd been four people who understood a toddler who was on her way to autism.

SPEAKER_04 31:30

On the way to autism. Yeah, so he's son, you know, but you know, that surprises me just because all even just preschool, I feel like sometimes is ignored. Like I think that a lot of times people focus on middle school because that's the time where they're trying to fit in, or even sometimes a little bit on high school, but preschool a lot of times it's ignored. So I'm so impressed that 42,000 people showed up.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Well, and the reason, Sharon, that I'm what first of all, it's happening these three days. That's why I love it. More importantly, the reason I'm really that it's just blowing me away. And I'm sure Lori, too. We have a colleague, Peter Gerhardt, who's been the president of the organization for autism research for years, and he's one of the leaders in our field. And Peter's mantra always was transition begins in preschool. So all I keep thinking is if we're all talking about transition and 42,000 professionals in this country are interested in preschool autism, we need to be doing a better job with transition. You know, this is happening, and it's we're on the precipice of really making a huge leap here in exactly what you wanted to talk to us about today, Sharon, about transitions and the sport.

SPEAKER_04 32:46

In your lifespan. And that's a glimmer, but that's a glimmer of hope because sometimes, you know, it could seem so sad out there, and there's so much going on right now in the world at large, and just even like you said, employment. Everybody's so scared about what's going to come next and everything. But there are glimmers here. We're heading in a more neuroaffirming way. People are curious, people are socially curious, I find, more than ever. But you guys were in the beginning of all of this in the late 90s. No, in the grandmothers in the grandmothers. But but but but but you swiped right on each other because you were looking for something that wasn't there. What wasn't there that you found each other?

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Um, understanding that, you know, that that these are students who are on your campus, whether you recognize it or not, whether you, you know, are ready for them or not, the students are here. As the numbers climbed, we would say, you know, you're not prepared for what's coming down the pike, but we're reading the CDC numbers and we're looking at eight-year-olds now and projecting when they're going to hit your campus as college freshmen. And so we we were really banging that drum, that not in an alarmist way, but a look, these students are going to be your most talented, among your most talented, curious, interesting, successful students if you know how to foster their their success.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

If you know how to foster their success.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Can I quote you on that? Absolutely. If you know how to foster their success, that's the key here, right? Fostering success.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah. And and that's why exactly what Lori's saying. And when we started, when we started, there were no autism programs in college. By 2000, there were two programs. By 2008, there were 15 college-specific programs. And today there's over a hundred. So learning how to foster that success is something that Lori and I have hopefully we've helped a little with, but also we've watched develop in the field that people now when we started, it's not like there was even a category in higher ed offices for how many autistic students were receiving services. Now it's usually one of the larger categories. So things have changed a lot. And I think a lot of people have been successful.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

But you know, the other thing that that really is important is of those programs, many of them are being directed by neurodivergent individuals who have grown up, who have, you know, found their voices, are using their voices, or saying, hey, you know, this is our truth, this is our lived experience, and and we're the best experts in what we would have needed and what we think is is necessary. And that's a wonderful thing to have to have been part of, you know, when when there wasn't anybody else talking about this to kind of start the conversation and be able to say, now, if you know, it's not our conversation anymore. I'm not autistic. I have a different perspective.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Yeah, we have a different talking about perspective taking, right? They have the perspective. But when you when you said foster the strength, so that really hit me hard because what's going on is what I, if I had a penny for every time a parent told me the the, you know, this student or their friend's child has come home from college because they just couldn't do it, right? They were doing so well in high school, they were thriving in high school, everything was going really, really well, and now they're back. Or they got a job that they loved. They didn't even go, you know, they didn't go to college because that wasn't their strength and interest. That wasn't, you know, they were they were thriving in something that was really changing actually lives, but not college. But then they just they just couldn't hack it. They couldn't hack the schedule because of the executive functioning and everything and the overwhelm. So can you, you know, I know you, Jane, you touched upon a little bit of what they're doing in colleges now, but where are they getting it wrong in terms of the transition to college, that they can get a little bit more right based on your program and based on all the webinars that you guys give, right, about this? Where are they getting it wrong? And to be fair, where are they getting it right during the period before and the period during that's leading many students to leave?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

I don't know if if I would categorize it wrong or right.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Yeah, but that's black and white thinking.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

That's me being I think what we what we do need to do is just start earlier. I mean, Lori and I have been banging that drum in our writing and in our talks for decades that we need to start earlier. We need to help be supportive of families. I mean, as Lori and I have both said, there wasn't a lot of support for the family. You know, there was support for the student, but not for the family. And none of us knew how to raise a neurodivergent child, youngster, teen. We did so now that there is some more support out there, we need to encourage families to be willing to let the student fly a little bit earlier. You know, do the things that we're always promoting. You know, can they can they use the phone or their cell phone to order a pizza? Can they refill medications? Can they make appointments like for a haircut or a doctor's appointment? But doing those things earlier is one less thing students have to start doing when they go to college. Because in addition to everything that they have to do academically, it's oh my gosh, I'm out of toothpaste. But mom or dad always bought the toothpaste. What do I do now? Where do I go to buy toothpaste? And it may not seem overwhelming to many students, but for some neurodivergent indiv individuals, fitting that one more thing in. What do I do? Now one of one of us might have said, let me email the professor and see if I can have another couple of days. But there's a lot of other students that would say, I'll have to drop the class. I might as well just go home. And it's sort of that, you know, black or white thinking just issues.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

Or even just won't send the email because they forgot to send the email and then the deadlines miss.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

And the parents are worrying about that and then taking over all of that rather than teaching, no, this is what you have to do. No, your alarm clock isn't waking you up. Rather than letting the school student go to school late and getting the detention to see if we can work on those behaviors. It's the parent going to work late and hurry up, get in the car, I'll drive you to school. Go ahead, Lori. You were going to say that.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

No, I was gonna say that the this is really why we wrote our book and and and rewrote was, you know, the the what can parents do? What can families do? When do they start? How do they start? So we really tried to provide a roadmap that says, you know, regardless of when you're starting, earlier is better, but wherever you're entering the journey, this is what you need to do. And these are the things that we're recommending that you do as a family, starting with have honest conversations about, you know, what does college mean in your family? Are you a legacy family who needs a big football school? Are you, you know, a different kind of family? Are you a family that that you know is looking at community college or some other post-secondary option? Do you have a student who's going to be dormitory capable? Or are you looking at something else where maybe they'll attend online? So we really want to start those conversations in the family, involving the student, involving their team, their clinicians, their, you know, special educators in this conversation so that when they get to college, the student has the tools that they're going to need to understand what comes next. And, you know, they may not be able to do it, but they have the information and they know the, you know, the the steps that that that they take.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Yeah, so it's really just an individualized approach that you really have taken for each parent, each family, because every parent parents differently. Like you said, some are not even giving as much independence because they rather do it for the child, which no shame on them. Sometimes that you feel, you know, you feel you want to do it, right? I mean, that's it's easier and it's her, you know, you don't want to see your child struggle, but sometimes, like you said, the struggle actually can be building up that resilience, which is part of executive functioning. And in that book that you mentioned, that was your OG book, but you also have a new book coming out that just came out in May 2025. Right. Your second edition. Yeah, the second edition of uh Neurodiversity at College, a parent's guide for autistic students. Right. So in that book, you explore a lot of these concepts, right? Is there anything from that book that you want to speak to? I mean, you spoke to a lot of it, but that you found, wow, like, you know, this is something. Like if there's neurodiverse, if there's a college that has a lot of neurodiverse students and isn't really thinking about them right now, like what can they take away from that?

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Well, I I think for for me, the central message of of the book is to preview, educate yourself, educate your family, and preview everything to the best extent possible so that the the choices are not random and the the the journey is predict as predictable as it can be. Understanding that there are road bumps and there are things that happen, kids get monos, stuff happens that you didn't anticipate, but you know, to to not plop a student onto a college campus without preparation. And Jane, you you've always said it best that, you know, these are students, and and we went through it with our own kids, that we previewed, you know, nursery school. Right. I I took my son 14 times to the school he was going to go to. And we met all the teachers and we saw where the maps are, and we went over every little thing so that it was familiar to him. Why would you not do something similar on a, you know, obviously on a different scale for a student to start in college? Why would you let them go into that environment without, you know, investigating what's it going to be like? Yes. How do you bring your laundry? Where do you get your meals? You know, what is the campus culture for, you know, talking to professors, for communicating with administrators. So all that is really what we go into and and recognizing that not every family has done this before.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

So that's a good point. This might be their first time, right? Really training their children into what's going on. They only picked up on things maybe in school, and maybe they were lucky enough to be in social groups, maybe they weren't, but maybe the parents have never like led them through that and and explained social to them in that way and navigating. That's very interesting. So but again, in in some of these colleges, every college varies, right? So some college, like you said, has actual autistic programs. Some only have accommodations, right? It depends really on the school that someone chooses to go to. And what I've learned along the way of my journey and working with this amazing population, brilliant minds. I mean, it's just this is how it is brilliant creative minds talking about strengths. Things my podcast setup, by the way, was made by one of my neurodiverse students. So just just just letting you know, right? But but at the same time, I've that's why I've learned that all these supports actually help everybody. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's like mind boggling as to why you wouldn't want it, like the sensory bin that can help anybody having anxiety, right? Like having Supports in the sense where people can advocate for extra time because they may have something that they're not maybe disclosing because still people still feel funny about certain things. Very different than in the 90s when you literally like just couldn't even say you had a disability of any sort. But so is there a message that you would give to college leaders so that they can invest more, more money, more more activities that that support not just the nerd, like so that they understand, like it's not just a neurodiverse community, you can support everybody.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

And I would reply to that saying, when talking to administration, you have to talk their language, which is bottom line numbers. We're talking about a large group of students now. And as each college and university is looking for ways to stay solvent, it's important to not only recruit but retain and graduate neurodiverse individuals. It's going to be crucial. And because right now we're in a time where we can't talk about DEI, that's verboten on college campuses, we can talk about neurodiversity as a as a population, and that students need to be understood and accepted. And that that is really the key. Right now, because things are so in flux on college campuses, I think everyone has to figure out where things are going to land. But for each individual, what we tried to do in this version of the book is make it open for everyone, whether you've had three kids go to college and this is your fourth, but this is a little different journey, or if it's your first kid going to college, or if you yourself never went to college and you're not sure how to broach this entire topic. We broke it down a lot by grade level, what to do in each grade. And we talk a lot about that. What we did with this book also, because it's not a live document, but our website is. We keep adding more resources on the website. That if you buy the book, there's a QR code. You can go to the website and get a lot of the transition resources that we keep adding. And there's a lot out there right now, and that they are important for families. To know, gee, by ninth grade, transition-wise, what should my kid be doing? And by 10th grade, what should be added to that list? And you don't have to be successful at all of the things, but at least to know what you should be attempting. And if you need help with that, then parents should be looking for help to teach their students some of those things, whether they're going to college, whether they're going to work, whether, as the next generation says, whether they're just going to be adulting, you know, and the adulting stuff is just equally as important. Yeah, yeah. And talk about executive function, but you also need to talk about within that paying your bills. You can't just tell the electric company, well, you know, I'm just not good at at doing things on time. Well, then you don't have power and you don't have internet. You know, is that something you're going to react to? And how are we going to set that up? You know, how are you going to remember to do those things? Is it an electronic calendar? Then before you're before you lose your electricity, let's figure out how you're going to do that. Often with families and myself included, I mean, I had three kids under the age of four. So, you know, having, you know, having to work out systems was really important. And I think that's what we need if students need support in any transition, whether it's going to middle school, going to high school, going to college, going to work, we need to figure out what systems they're going to need and then figure out what supports they may need. But that has to include the student. The parent can't just set this up without the student. And that's Yes. And it helps the parent too to realize what their student may or may not be able to do.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

Yeah. And in accessing these families, like we said, there's so many different types of families, some that are, as Lori pointed out, you know, first generation American and even the child I mentioned, and accessing them. And so sometimes they just go and and they're trying to fit in into this whole world. And this is their first exposure because they never really learned how to be in a group, like you said, because they may have been in a specialized class, but weren't really getting any supports in addition to that. So then they also find this secondary struggle in addition to executive functioning, which ties in together, which is I have to work in these groups. But I also want to have a group of friends. I had a student who found his tribe in ninth grade, but it took him until ninth grade to find his tribe to find that group. I'm not a group person. I have individual friends, some who get along, some who don't, but you know, but I'm just but finding your tribe, just having a community is so important. What is there anything that you've observed that you can share with anybody listening who finally found college, finally found those accommodations, but they simply just don't know how the social thing is going to work?

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Well, you know, the neurodiversity movement and the even the terms of neurodivergence really forms that tribe for students who understand and and and and you know identify under that umbrella. It's given people a common language that's not a clinical or pejorative term. And, you know, well, well, we can we can debate is everybody neurodivergent? I mean, yeah, by definition that we are, but is everyone neurodivergent in, you know, in in that meaningful way? Probably not. But that really gives students an opportunity to speak the same language and to come together under that umbrella. And and within that community, there's lots of schism and debate about, you know, who's who and what counts. And you're you're always going to find that when groups of people come come together and and under an identity, you know, a common identity. But I think that that's just one place. And so campus needs to understand that within that framework, but also the non-clinical framework, the students who don't identify as neurodivergent or ADHD or anything, they're just you know regular students, it's the same journey. Right. Executive functioning and supporting that is the same intervention. And I'm deeply concerned about coming out of the pandemic, what happened to those young people at every grade who lost those two to three critical years. And so we're hearing and we're seeing they're coming to come to campus and they don't have any of the kinds of skills that we've been talking about this afternoon. And so helping campuses understand if you can address that, your retention will be bettered. Students will stick around, they won't come home defeated like the student you described. They'll stick around, they'll hopefully graduate, and they'll hopefully be employed, which is the language of higher education. Retention, graduation, and employable.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Yeah, I love that because you're not being manipulative. I mean, you're literally just saying this is what's going to happen, right? You know, you can provide the supports. You know, a lot of them are not even expensive, you know, some of the supports, right? I mean, some of them are a little bit more, but but but some of them are just very basic life functional supports, right? Or you can, you know, lose out a whole lot more. I mean, I'm not a business person, but just even from a financial perspective, lose out a whole lot more by losing that student. And they're losing too many students, it sounds like, but now we have a glimmer of hope because you're seeing that things are changing a little bit more. There's a little bit more of a neuroaffirming culture where people are understanding more. And so now that you've shared some glimmer of hopes, how do you envision the future for this college supports? What is college going to look like in a few years?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Sure, no problem. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

And I'm I'm gonna follow up on something Lori said, and then I'll answer your question, Sharon. Sure. Um I think one of the important things about college and supporting students at college is really looking at what they're interested in. And a lot of college, as I'm sure you remember, you know, you got to take your general ed requirements, all of that. Everybody thinks it's gonna be, oh, I'm gonna go study what I want. Yeah. But allowing people to major in and really focus on what they're interested in does make a difference. And I see it again and again. You know, a lot of times we call it autistic obsessions, you know, in the clinical sense, when really it's more in the what people are enthusiastic about or passionate about. Why can't we call it a passion? Why can't we say, gee, you know, instead of saying, well, their absolute autistic obsession is art? Well, that's calling them. But if it's not, what if instead of looking at it pejoratively, why not say, oh my gosh, they have this wonderful ability and they're artistic? What's wrong with being a tattoo artist if that's what the student's really interested in? It's I think that's a lot of it. And I hear again and again, well, they want to be a history major. What are they gonna do with that? Well, that's true from an employability perspective. But if the idea is going to college to get an education and to have that degree to be able to move on, then maybe history is the way to do it. But if you're gonna put the parameters on it that you are absolutely passionate about history, but we won't let you study that, then you're going to get rebellion, as you should in a neurotypical or neurodivergent individual. So I think really looking at what the students' passions are. As far as the future, this is a really tough, volatile time to talk about that. I think ever since the pandemic, people are really questioning the the monetary value of higher education. And I'm seeing more and more people that say, you know, is it really worth the $80,000, $90,000 a year that many institutions are charging to get the bachelor's degree? Or do I go to a community college to start and then go to a state university? State universities almost universally are oversubscribed for residence halls. People can't get rooms and you know, they're double tripling. And that is a whole other webinar about housing for students with autism or for neurodivergent students. But I think it's really important to think about the number of students coming forward, what a college degree is going to mean, and how those degrees are going to be obtained. Are we really looking for the most part at community college as a first two-year option for most students, just even affordability-wise with the way things are going? Are we really looking at more four-year degrees as looking like the entry level, like a high school diploma used to be? And if that's going to be the case, then we have to do things differently. Or are we really looking at the very selective to all the way to Ivy League institutions as being the norm, which is going to also be different? I think the number of programs for students with autism, specialized autism and neurodiversity programs on campus will continue to grow. 95 to 99% of those are fee for service, because you can't hire staff without most of them, they are zero balances. The money you put you give is what is paying the staff to work with students. Because most families don't realize that in high school, the ratios might be case manager to student may be anywhere from one to 15 to 1 to 20, maybe one to 25. In New York, it may be higher. But, you know, usually it's around there, maybe one to one to 30. In higher ed, it's very common for a disability service professional like Laurie or myself to have a caseload anywhere from 150 to 700 or more. I talked to someone last week who in the past two years has never had lower than 900 on their caseload. So we do work very differently. There's no way we can work an hour a week with students. And I'm not sure families understand that. So the specialized programs are what provide that kind of support. And so even if you have one of those low like 150 on your caseload, it's not 150 hours in a work week. You can't so unless you don't sleep, you don't eat, you don't do anything. And you only last for work at a month for a month.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

Yeah, yeah, burnout, like, but not even surviving.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I think there will be more of those programs. There are a lot more now that are outside the campuses. Lori and I feel kind of strongly about that. People are always asking, you know, will you be a coach for a student? We used to do that when college autism spectrum first started, and we coached students around the country before these autism programs really took off. But then you really don't know, you know, we want the people working with the students to be able to say, you know what, you can take this bio class, but make sure you get this person as a lab instructor. Or if you have to take the foreign language, do and you don't know that when you're on the outside. And outside, there those there are so many new coaching agencies. And but it can't do the same thing. They don't know when your housing deposit is due or where you're going to get the better residence hall rooms. So the internal programs, I think, are superior for most students. If you if the school you really want to go to is doesn't have a program, then you have to do something else.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

But as far as future, Lori, do you want to Well, you know, I think again, this is a volatile time in the autism world as well. Yes, yes. And it's hard to ignore some of the rhetoric that that's out there and the and and and the things that are undermining the amazing strides that autistic individuals have made in, you know, claiming their their their voice in their territory and the research that's gone on and understanding autism and understanding the brain and and you know, debunking uh, you know, some some theories and and and coming up with with better, stronger ideas about what is autism. What is autism as a life trajectory, what is autism as a as a as a developmental brain condition. And you know, so we have to just focus on on that. And you know, I'm deeply concerned about the negative rhetoric hijacking the conversation about you know uh autism as you know a potentially wonderful journey to go on as a family.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

And you know, and you both went on it. Yeah, both went on it. I want everybody who's speaking who might be saying, Well, what is this Pollyanna, you know, doing over here? Well, no, you are the living example of how the journey was tough, but and and what? The journey was tough, and I'm just I'm doing a speech at 10.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Still going on.

SPEAKER_04 59:39

It's still going on, and my son's 33, and there's still minus 28, there's 28, 27, 28, I forgot. And he's pursuing a degree in in a field that supports him.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

So Jane and I had had different experiences in, you know, in our our families, and we were part of, you know, the the the joys and the triumphs and the pain in each other's lives of of doing this. But I I really, you know, um need to to to uh to emphasize that you know you have to just turn off what they're saying. And when the you know you hear about things like a catastrophe that rips apart a family, there are some journeys like that. I'm not getting it there, yeah, yeah. That's not all of it. And that, you know, that's the piece that that we just can't lose sight of. And I and you know, I hope the college administrators listen to that side of it and the autism researchers on their campuses who are, you know, saying, no, you know, this is really the the the way to look at things.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Well, it's the people looking and breathing it like you. Yeah. And that, Lori, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no worries. We talk about, and one of your questions was how do students find their tribe? Yeah. And one of the most important things that Lori and I are big proponents of, and luckily, you know, we both had a lot of support and we had each other, and we've been very good friends for 28 years. Yeah, I could tell. Finish each other's sentences, but yeah. But one of the things is we talk about the students finding their tribe, and it is equally or more important, especially during transition times, for parents to find their tribe. Because, you know, in in families like mine, I won't speak for lorries who did have a different journey, but in families like mine, your kid is not taking AP classes. They're not for my kid, he wasn't in even in the district neighborhood school. They're not going to the prom, they're not learning to drive. They're not, I mean, my son can't leave the house independently. He needs someone six inches from him 24 hours a day. That's a really different journey. And you have to find your tribe. I I would not be here if it weren't, especially through the transitions that were so hard if it weren't for several other families that were going through the same thing in the same way. And our mantra all the time was if one of us is going through it, we're all going through it because we go through it together. And you know, that part I find is missing in a lot of the families today. They've never even met another family that has a student who's similar to them. And that's really important. So the more support that you can encourage your families to get through your podcasts, through GIP, through groups, those kinds of things, that is probably the biggest thing to help the student. So that in the parent's brain, they're not comparing their kid to typical kids in the neighborhood. Or siblings. Exactly. Exactly. It's so important to have somebody else who's who's walking the same path.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:53

And when we're living in a dark, difficult time, I think also there are so many opportunities for connection because look at us, you know, we're both in different places and we're able to speak, and remote can also hold back from things. But that, you know, parent support groups, people that are national support groups where you can log in really from anywhere on a Sunday night, you know. And so I feel like that is uh a glimmer of hope too, is that, you know, like you said, parents need to find a tribe. Doing this alone as a parent sounds almost impossible, nearly. I mean, it's possible, but much more challenging.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

Well, from your perspective, Sharon, when you talk about social connections for the students, yeah, we need to first think about social connections for the family. And when those families have social connections, they can more aptly assist their students in having social connections because they can start seeing the positives of their own journey and they can help the students to see that being with other people has a lot of benefits.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

You see, and that's where it's not just peer modeling, right? It's adult modeling, right? If you watch, you know, others interacting and forming groups, you're gonna have to say, hey, what are they doing? That that looks interesting. And I don't think you're you're right. I don't think we place enough emphasis on that, on supporting families with binding groups, some of whom just don't even know how to access the group. Even if it's an online, it could be a quick two-minute RSVP and they would do it. They just don't know. So for myself, I I take away from this, I want to thank you that I can, you know, now, you know, take that away to make sure that everybody can find their tribe, but also those who are listening, parents who are listening, know that you have infinite opportunities to connect and that will actually help your child. Lori, you know it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

That, you know, what happens after disclosure, what, you know, what happens to my status in my community, my student's status in school, and really to address that with information and with with showing, with, with having, you know, autistic, authentic, autistic voices sharing in these communities. Hey, this is what our lives look like. And you know, that that that becomes incredibly important because otherwise it can be isolating and it can be stigmatizing or and and and families can shrink and you know uh and restrict the the contact outside the family to only the few trusted people who they know won't be phased by a meltdown or a or behavior that that looks different than the the the a a sibling.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

And in some cases, even like socially isolate completely because they don't want anybody to, you know, get in and be involved in what they're dealing with. So it also goes back to having support, everybody having support, everybody connecting socially, and which is what we're doing now on unmasking social, which is so amazing. But I can't leave without two things. One is you, Jane, I when I hear something and I find it really fascinating, I have to chime in, even though it's not relevant right now. So you said something about how picking the major in college is so important, the interest, because otherwise people might rebel or might just say, that's it, I'm done to heck with it, right? I'm done with it. And I can't speak enough to that because we're also living in a time. And before the podcast started, Lori and I were talking about the fear of the future with AI taking over, and everybody's scared to major in different things because they're scared. Oh no, what's gonna happen, right? And and for me, I grew up in a community where it was kind of taught to me that I go to college, I pick a major, but pick a practical major. Don't be impractical, don't be impractical. I wanted to be a journalist. Now I'm, but you know, I pivoted, now I have the podcast, right? But no, stay practical, stay practical with what you're doing. And in the end, it worked out for me because I ended up doing something that I really loved, but it doesn't always work out that way because people are scared of of going into the unknown. And the so I think that, but what you mentioned is so important, especially now with our Lori and I discussing earlier how people are terrified right now of what's what jobs are gonna last, what jobs won't. But I think we all have to, even with the risk assessment that we do with all our, you know, individuals who work with the risk assessment that I do on myself every day, you know, see my heart still beating, but like really just maybe just take that risk. Take that risk in this something you're interested in, because the alternative, it sounds like Jane and Lori, is that you might end up in something that you really don't like, and then you may just lose yourself and be gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

Well, and how many times over the years have Lori and I heard from students, you know, when we say, you know, gee, you're really struggling in some of these science classes. Have you thought about whether pharmacy is really the major you want? My parents said I should major in pharmacy. You know, if that's the response and it starts with my parents said I should, right? I stop there and say, but what do you want to do? Oh, I don't know. I never thought about it. You know, and that that to me is sorry, that was a bad example. You didn't have pharmacy at PU.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:29

I didn't have pharmacy either. Yeah, no. But yeah, but no, but that's really, yeah, I mean, leaving in it's so common to see people do what their parents are doing in general. And I just with the neurodiverse population specifically, like you said, uh a lot of times we call them these fixations, these ruminations. That's actually an obsession. That's part of obsessive-compulsive disorder. And neuropsychologist Lori, correct me if I'm wrong. That is part, that's not, that's not being neurodiverse. That's a passion, that's an excitement, that's something that you love to do. So continue with it because some of these people are gonna be the engineers, some of them are gonna be the podcast builders, some of them, you know, are going to do other things like Jane. I know your son, you know, is gonna be doing other things that may not be exactly the same interest as setting up this mic. But you so I'm saying, so that's why I think it's so important, because you I didn't, you know, people don't even think about how that could really derail people who are already vulnerable from staying.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

Well, going to college with a disability with any disability can be hard. It is hard. And so if intrinsically the students not interested in what they're studying, and there is no, you know, internal locus of control, as we learned in step 101. So how do you get go how do you keep going when the going gets tough? Yeah. In a business program, when you really, your heart's, you know, in English literature and comparative literature, how do you keep going when the work gets so hard and it's and you have to ask for accommodations and wrangle with faculty and services saying I can't give you a single bedroom? I mean, how do you keep at it when intrinsically you're not interested in being at that school studying what you're studying?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:07

Yeah, I mean, that is such a good closing point is that stay with your interest. And families need to know this too is don't get tell them what to do. Don't tell our teens and tweens and young adults what to do, right? Let them tell you what they want to do and embrace it as much as it seems like AI is gonna take over all of us. Just kidding. It's not, it's we'll see. We'll see. Listen, I don't have a crystal ball on anything. I wish I did, I wish I could predict all our futures together, but sorry, I don't. But yeah, thank you so much, both of you, for such a productive, meaningful conversation on a topic that is not spoken about enough at all. And it happens only later on when the going gets tough that people start bringing it up and the c person's already back home or they're not employed. And this is gonna be so impactful to neurodivergent individuals speaking or listening that they'll feel empowered that they can do it. And it's also gonna be empowering for the parents and the families listening and the professionals too to think about how to be more neuroaffirming. But I can't leave off without asking you where can everybody find you, even though you have a full caseload right now. They could still they may not be able to utilize your services, but you have to sleep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

We have we have a team. So certainly if people need us, the best way to reach us is through collegeautismspectrum.com. And you can reach us, you can email us through there. We also have a Facebook page by the same name, and you can send us a message through there. And we're also, now that we have some social media people on the team with Lori and I, since this was not Lori's and my forte, and then you can reach us through Instagram too and send us a message.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

That's the book is available on Amazon. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:52

And the book is so easy that comes within a day these days. Okay, great. I'm gonna order it myself, actually, because I want to see what's in there. All right. Thank you for having us, Sharon. This was a pleasure. And we enjoyed meeting you. Yes.