The Language of Autism With Dr Barry Prizant

This episode offers valuable insights for parents of neurodivergent children by reframing autism as a unique language rather than a set of behaviors to be corrected. Dr. Barry Prizant emphasizes understanding the "deep why" behind behaviors, encouraging parents to see these actions as meaningful communication. By shifting focus from changing the child to adapting the environment, parents can foster a more supportive and empathetic relationship. The episode also highlights the importance of cultural perspectives and the shared human experience, helping parents connect more deeply with their children.

Learn more from Dr. Barry Prizant at https://barryprizant.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The whole notion is there's no such thing as autistic behaviors. Because once you just call them autistic behaviors, you know, the term that's used a lot now that I've been using for years is you pathologize them. It's something that's wrong, it's something that's bad, without asking what I call the deep why. Well, why is the child doing that?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Players Connection, your podcast that connects parents of autistic children with industry experts. I am your host, Brad Broyles, and I'm here with my uniquely superhuman, extraordinaire co-host, Nathan Palmer.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Brad, thank you. I can't wait to be here. You know, that reference, uniquely human, I think, is something we're gonna play off of a lot today because we have us with us today the author of a book called Uniquely Human, Dr. Barry Prezant. Doctor, so glad to have you here with us today.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Thank you. Brad and Nathan, pleasure to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Now, Brad, you said you know this is something where we connect families with industry experts. And uh I I want to really qualify that here because in talking about experts, uh, Dr. Brazant is a leading expert in the field. And if you'll indulge me for a second, I want to explain why. Um, Dr. Brazant has 50 years of experience as a scholar, a researcher, an author, an international consultant, you know, among other things, in publishing books. He's had numerous awards from the Princeton University Eden Foundation for improving quality of life for persons on the autism spectrum, honors from the American Speech Language Hearing Association. He's also a certified speech pathologist, has been a two-time featured presenter at the United Nations World Autism Awareness Day, um, and really has been just a huge advocate for the cause. So, Doctor, I can't thank you enough for being here and for be willing to share some of your insights and unique perspectives with our listeners. And and on top of it all, also the co-host of his own podcast, Uniquely Human, the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So we yeah. And please, yeah, please listen. Please subscribe to it. It's it's full of wonderful information. So, Doctor, thank you for being with us. Great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Now, to kick us off, um, and a lot of what we're gonna talk about today, uh, I really want to dive into that uniquely human concept. There are there are so many wonderful things from that book. I've read it. Um, I cannot recommend it enough to our listeners. I think we're gonna put a link on our site. Um and you'll see why as we dive into it. It is just a it's an approach, frankly, Doctor, that I I wished I had been fully aware of when I first found out my son was on the autism spectrum. Um you you stumble acon stumble, no, you intentionally dive into things that I think I've only stumbled across as I've come to understand more and more my own child. And uh I have a feeling you're gonna help to upgrade and just accelerate people's perceptives or perceptions and just their perspectives on the potential of their own kids and and others in the in the community. But to back way up, I was inspired by the story in the book of how you were first introduced to the world of autism, something about a summer camp and a girlfriend. And I wondered if you could just tell us that story in a brief moment.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Sure. Uh yeah, I was uh in my late teen years working uh a drudgery job in New York City. I grew up in Brooklyn, so I'm a city kid. Um, and my girlfriend, um, after the first year of college was upstate New York, and she was working at a uh summer camp um for not just children, but adults with disabilities. And uh we missed each other, and she contacted me and she said, Oh, a counselor just left. There's an opening. And um, why don't you apply? And I went up there, and I believe it was right around 1969. Um, I always like to say later that summer I went to Woodstock. But we're talking about way back when. And I was just immersed in a world that I had never ex never experienced really, where I was living 24-7, um, responsible for the care and well-being and happiness of of a wide variety of individuals with different disabilities. And some of them had a label of autism, some of them were definitely autistic, but did not have that diagnostic label. Um, and I just uh fell in love with the work.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Well, and and back then, since autism wasn't really well known at that time, what what drew you to that audience or what drew you to that um the that those individuals where you're like, I really like this?

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Uh yeah. Uh well, quickly again, I was just starting college and I was a failed German major. I knew I wasn't going to be able to proceed after the first year. And I I went into linguistics in a field called psycholinguistics, which is uh study of the relationship between thought and language and communication. And of course, you know, there I am that summer surrounded by people who have problems moving from what they're thinking to communicating that information. Um, so I almost had a parallel track because I continued for five more summers at summer camps, that academically I was studying, you know, everything from thought and language and communication disorders, and then working with people during the summers, um, and then went on for advanced degrees in speech language pathology.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Wow. That's that's pretty neat. So you took the background of language to understand the neurodiversity language of behavior. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah. And I think that was the theme that that was most inspiring from your book. And it didn't expressly say it that way, but I think your training and your approach in communication, in language, um, almost kind of painted autism, Doctor, if I'm going to just indulge it as its own form of a language. And discovering and decoding that language is more important than trying to modify the behaviors associated with that language. Did I say that in a justifiable way?

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Oh, yeah. You you were very clear and spot on with that. Um, and that's what actually led to my doctoral dissertation, you know, for getting my PhD in communication disorders. I was working with kids who repeated speech a lot, which, as you know, is known as ecolalia. Um, but the literature at that time was saying it was psychotic speech, it was meaningless parenting, and it needed to be discouraged, if not extinguished. Um, and I was working with young kids who were doing a lot of different things with their ecolalia. And then I went to the parents who I knew really well. These were all kids four and five years of age. And I went to the parents and I said, you know, David, repeats a lot of what you say. If you say want to go out, he'll say want to go out. Um, or he'll say things that he's heard from you and your husband or from videos. Um and the parents told me, Oh, I think it means this, I think it means this. And what they said contrasted greatly with the technical literature. They saw it often as meaningful in an attempt to communicate. Not in all cases, but in many cases. So that's what got me my PhD, my doctoral dissertation. Um, and a lot of it did come from parent perceptions, which to this day, you know, I value what I've learned from families and parents right up there with any technical research in the literature.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

And I love how you say that. Listen, it sounds so simple, but parents, you know your child and you can listen to them and you know what they're trying to communicate with you. Is that kind of the idea? Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

And and you know, what I always like to say is um years ago, I used to say, well, parents may not be an expert in autism, but they're an expert on their kids. And now so many parents have become experts in autism.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Well, and it's it's such a refreshing view because you know, in the in the early days of being an autism dad, right? Uh the intent, and I and this is a male approach, we like to fix things. And my wife, I'm sure, was much more sympathetic than I was. But my initial reaction was, all right, how do we fix this? How do we make this more normal? How do we help him conform to what our expectations are? How do we fit him into our mold? And so the intent initially of seeking out all these therapy supports is a was a fix mentality.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And over time, that is shifted to a support mentality. And the the wonderful thing about your book is you dive into, let's not make this an approach of how do I get rid of these autistic behaviors. You instead shift it to what do the behaviors mean? What are they communicating? What do they say about the child and their needs, and how can we communicate back and understand? And you, there was a section, I forget which chapter, but you posited this uh theory that the behaviors of an autistic person are really no different than the behaviors of any person. In fact, anything they do, we also do in some form, and there's commonality in their reasons. Could you talk about that just for a moment?

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Uh yeah, and that's actually something I learned from an autistic woman who I speak about quite a bit in the book, Roz Blackburn. Yeah. Um, and the whole notion is there's no such thing as autistic behaviors. Because once you just call them autistic behaviors, you know, the term that's used a lot now that I've been using for years is you pathologize them. It's something that's wrong, it's something that's bad, without asking what I call the deep why. Well, why is the child doing that? Um, so what I learned from Raz is these are all human behaviors. These are human beings as much as any person is a human being behaving. Um, and Roz gives uh, she's a woman from England who I got to know well, and I brought her over for workshops a few times. We presented together. Um, and she gives wonderful examples, like, you know, things such as you look at me when I get excited, and I'm rocking and flapping. Well, look at what happens in an NFL football game when your team scores a touchdown. Everybody's jumping up and down and rocking and flapping, you know, right? And then she went on to say, I just get excited more easily than you do. You know, it's like and uh I think one of the big things that we learned is a lot of what was called, um, still is called self-stims or self-stimulatory behavior, the attempt to increase sensory input or motor output. Um, you know, for years was thought as an autistic behavior, and the way to treat autism is to get rid of those behaviors. And in our early work, which became part of our educational model, the CERTS model, we said, wait a second, it seems that in many cases, when kids do what's called self-stems, whether it's staring at their fingers or rocking or flapping or spinning, it's an attempt to stay better regulated emotionally or physiologically. It's to calm themselves, it's to help make themselves more alert. Um, and then if you take it to the next step, we often do a lot of those things, but we tend to hide them better. Um, we don't do them in public when people are watching us, um, or we learn other ways that are more socially acceptable, um, as opposed to you know eye-catching in the sense that, oh, why is that child doing that? That's different. Um, so yeah, we all self-stem. Um and that's part of the notion of uniquely human, yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

So again, we all have those similar behaviors. Some people do do different types of masking than others, others demonstrate it more publicly, which then in a way we we you know they I like that how you say that there's no so let me make sure I say this right. So you're saying that there's no autism, but just autism behavior.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Everybody follows that it's not so much there's there's no autistic behaviors, there's just human behaviors.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Human behavior, that's how you say it. Yeah. It's just human behavior.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And I I I I mean, my mind exploded when I was reading that because it was it was this moment where I felt really connected to things that my son used to do that used to frustrate me, frankly. Um and and the more I I I I read that section probably three or four times. You know, my my son has a tendency sometimes to like pick at his fingers. I know that's a common one. Well, sometimes I bite my nails. And it's it's the same thing. Or, you know, you see people sometimes when they're they're a little distressed, they might rub their arms or they might crack their knuckles or roll their their neck out. You know, there's all these physical things we do. Or if I'm presenting, some presenters they get nervous, they might rock back and forth a little bit, and I'm I'm rethinking all these totally normal behaviors I've seen, experienced, and done. And they're for the same reason that maybe an autistic person is doing them. And so I I loved your point. You kind of cut right through. The behavior is not the focal point. The the question is, why are they doing that behavior? And in that we find this commonality that, oh, they're they're regulating just like me, but it looks different.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

And and can you explain a little bit more about the deep why? Like how does that can you go over that process?

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, perfect. Uh I I think the you know, the deep why is let me just say in part, we can get to the deep why sometimes if we have the humility to reflect on ourselves and say, well, wait a second, I do something that maybe is a little different, but it's the same per purpose of decreasing anxiety or letting a lot of energy out that I have. You know, so uh, you know, and I want to be very clear about this example. Um, we have a new puppy who's now a year and a half old. And as puppies do, they go through the zoomies certain times of day. They're running around like little crazed creatures. And um, that has to do with dealing with their arousal level. They're they're revved up, they need to get that energy out. And sometimes people might look at a child on the autism spectrum who's spinning and jumping up and down or climbing or whatever. And in a sense, they're doing the zoomies. And typically developing young kids go through the zoomies at certain points in time as well. So I so I think the deep why is really trying to understand. And I'm not saying it's always easy to do, but what is this child or this person experiencing from their perspective? What are they experiencing physically? Do they have too much energy that they need to get out? Are they so fearful that they're dropping to the floor before they step into a noisy cafeteria? What is their experience? Um, and in some cases, we're taking educated guesses. But if we're good observers, then we see the patterns over time. Oh, well, you know, my daughter drops to the floor whenever there's an unexpected noise, or she's had the experience of going into a setting that was overwhelming for her. So what is that? Is that an autistic behavior or is that a protest? The protest being I don't have yet a way to say no, thank you, or no. So I'm gonna protect myself. I'm gonna try to survive. Um, and I think a lot, you know, I've learned so much from autistic adults that I know and I work and collaborate with. And more and more people are talking about the survival instinct of some behavioral patterns, that especially behaviors that are considered to be more challenging or difficult. You know, maybe that person is pushing you away because you've stressed that person out before or that child out before. And they have a memory of you being a trigger for that. Or the opposite. Maybe that little guy is always seeking out one special aide or teacher in a classroom because of wonderful positive memories. Um, so my point is we need to go past the behavior and beyond just labeling the behavior and look at the patterns that give us insight into the child's experience.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, I I I almost want to replace the word behavior with language. There's no autistic behaviors, but there is autistic language. Exactly. One is something I want to get rid of, the other is something I want to understand. And it it's almost the more I'm listening to you, it's almost a shift in the focus because instead of just focusing on the behavior, which, you know, I'm of the belief that the more the more we focus on something, the larger it gets. So, you know, it becomes all we can see and we become closed off to others. So we we tend to hyperfixate on the behavior because and and half the time it's not a problem for the child. You know, they're doing something that for them is normal. It's only a problem for us. So it's our perception that's causing the issue. But if we can take our focus off of that and instead, if it's language, understand what's driving it and now look at the environment and brighten. Now we can pick up those contextual cues that help us to be these, you know, detectives in trying to decode language and understand. And the more proficient we become in that dialogue, the more our understanding grows, the more our empathy grows. And I think the more I think the more we can adapt ourselves to their world, not the other way around.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And and I just want to add quickly, uh, and some of our perceptions are culturally conditioned. Um I've had the great benefit of consulting in other countries, non-Western countries. We've interviewed First Nations people from Canada and Native American families or parents on our podcast. And, you know, if so if a child is in a supermarket and mom or dad's with the child and the child drops to the floor just before in the checkout lane, our cultural conditioning might say, Oh, there's a spoiled brat, or that that mom or dad doesn't know how to discipline their child. In other cultures, the first thing they may go to is, why is this child so distressed? How can I comfort this child? Um, and as you know, sometimes we've been taught that if you pay attention to a child who is dysregulated, who's having behavioral difficulty, well, you shouldn't pay attention. You're reinforcing that behavior. So much of that is culturally determined. And I like to look at other cultures who may look through a totally different lens when they look at young kids.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Is there a culture that really jumps out to you the top of your mind that kind of helps a little bit more with that behavior?

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Oh, oh yeah. I mean, Native America that we interviewed um a dad named Grant Bruno, who happens to be a researcher up in Canada, um, and he made a short video which is now going to be made to a full-length film, and it's called The Gift of Being Different. And he's a Cree native. Um, and uh what Grant says is and he and he did say, at first he was distressed when the diagnosis came, but then he went back to his culture and his culture taught him that our children choose us as parents, and we need to be responsible as parents, and he sees as many gifts and he has two autistic sons, he sees as many gifts in his sons as he's not uh sugarcoating challenges, uh, but he sees his kids as gifted. And he actually believes and his culture believes uh that's fascinating, I'll mention this quickly that when we are all born, the rest of us, we leave the spirit world and we enter the reality on the ground world here. And his culture believes, and I don't know if this is a good interpretation, that autistic and neurodivergent kids only partially leave the spirit world. And they're leaving they're living partially in the spirit world and in the reality world. And sometimes it's not a good match.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

That I I'm appreciating the power of just a simple shift in perspective, you know, and that I'd never even considered that question, the cultural experience of autism globally versus just what we know in our our culture. And you're right, shifting shifting something something as simple as that, you know, our one one foot in and one foot out of the spirit world. I've never even thought of that before, but that just adds, even if that was the case, it adds a level of empathy and of curiosity, yes, right, that that replaces the frustration and you know, the feeling of and and I I I think we said this on another episode. I think half the frustration a parent has in in an autism world is we feel embarrassed as the parent.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

And that is not a shared experience with the child. And we're we're in a lot of times creating our own drama. And I think the the biggest thing I enjoyed about your book, Uniquely Human, was it made me feel a little more empathy towards myself, that it's okay, I'm just human. And I found myself in each chapter connecting more and more on these memories and these experiences I've I've had with my son that released the frustration and made me eager to want to dive into that language and figure out what is he really saying. It's and I I've come to a place I understand him a lot, but I'm excited now to discover more. And that's that's not something I could say I wake up with every day. But I've and I I know so. So many other kids on the spectrum that I just I'm like anxious to go in and discover their world with them.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

And and Doctor, I I love how you said that the in in their in their culture that the parent that the child chooses the parent.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

And and I and I love that. It's a different perspective because we have some families out there. Some parents are like, well, why did this happen to me? Rather than, wow, this is a gift that that child chose me. So for all those that are listening out there, please drop us a line, drop something of what are you grateful for of what your child has given you now that you're raising an autistic child. So if you can please share, we would love to hear some comments on that.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Or even language discoveries. You know, I think the more we have this, my child did this, and I think for the first time I realized it means X instead of Y. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

And and I I could, you know, share some additional stories you could look towards, uh, especially on our podcast. Shameless plug, but not really. They're wonderful stories. No, plug away. Um Elaine Hall, who's a very dear friend and she's a mom, she adopted a young boy at two years of age from Siberia, um, who ended up being quote unquote severely autistic. Um, she developed the Miracle Project Theater Express of Arts program in LA, um, which has been going on for close to 20 years. And we did a whole podcast with her. Uh, she's one of the most spiritual people, I know, not in a religious sense, but in in uh a deeply uh kind of uh sense of gratitude for life. And um we did a whole discussion with her about gratitude. Um and now her son is close to 30 years of age. He's non-speaking, but he also has a wonderful quality of life, um, lives in his own apartment with support. Um and it's just, you know, it's just amazing when you hear these stories of gratitude from parents. And we interview a lot of autistic and neurodivergent parents themselves who discovered their own autism as adults because their child was diagnosed. And they thank their child for that discovery because it clears up so many questions about the life and the struggles that they've had. So I think gratitude is a huge, huge piece. Um and uh I think in the early years it might be really tough when a family has to totally change their life routines, um, maybe more financially stressed for the extra, you know, money they need to put out there for services or for whatever else. But I have found in the long term that um so many parents then come back and say, hey, you know, would we change our lives? Well, maybe not. Would we wish that our child was not autistic? Well, they say I'm gonna surprise a lot of people and say, I'm not so sure about that. Um, because they think about where their lives are now, especially they talk about the wonderful communities and the wonderful people they met in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

That we we echo that here. Uh the you know, your experience, Doctor. You know, I I always joke, I was thrown into the world of autism. It wasn't by choice, it came to me.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Um then Nathan threw me into the world of autism.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

And I dragged I dragged everybody else into it with me. Uh meeting meeting professionals like yourself that charged in headfirst. Um, really the that that community is one of the best I've ever been exposed to. And you're it's funny, I'm I'm sitting here processing and I'm almost looking at the danger of trying to program out behaviors from our autistic kids. Because if we're really looking at it as language, as coping strategies, as things that we all do, I think the unintended consequence of hyperfocusing on the quote unquote behavior is we're now taking away language. We're taking away coping strategy. And if we did that to any human and took away whatever calming mechanism you had, took away your ability to be expressive, we might actually cause more harm than good. And so then the workaround is instead of us trying to change the autistic child, it's how can we change ourselves and make our world more inviting and adaptable to them. And that's a that's a that's an approach I think that just makes us all better. Um I I can say hands down, I'm a much better and more effective father today because I've had to have some of these intentional deviations from what I thought parenting was. And I owe that to my son on the spectrum. That without that, I think I might have been a little more aloof, or maybe not quite as engaged, or not maybe not quite as intentional with some of the things I did to connect and teach my children. So I'm, yeah, would I go back and change it? No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

You know, and and many parents, and and I say this from direct experience. I've mentioned to you that uh we do a parent weekend, a retreat weekend. We've been doing it for 28 years. And over those years, I need to get a precise count. We've probably have had four to five hundred parents come. We have 60 parents every year. Um, and I mean, they say I'm a more compassionate human being. And we we get parents of newly diagnosed kids, um, includ and we get parents of, believe it or not, autistic adults in their 30s and now approaching 40 years of age. Um and the mentoring and and the generosity that the parents show to each other in that weekend is just amazing. It's absolutely amazing. But they often talk about what they've learned about being a better human being by having a family member who's neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Well, let's speak about this retreat. So you do it once a year, is what I remember. And tell us a little bit more about the next retreat. Where is it? How do I get more information? How do we share this with our families?

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Um, yeah, the the next retreat actually is in a few weeks, the first weekend in May. Um, it's probably full by now. Um, we do it uh with an agency, a nonprofit called Community Autism Resources, which is a state-funded regional resource family center in Massachusetts. Um and the site we've always we we had one beautiful setting out in the middle of the country around a lake, and unfortunately that's shut down. And now we have a new setting that's actually um owned by Boston College. Uh it's called the Connors Center. Um, and it's about 45 minutes from Boston and Providence, and I'm based in Providence. Uh and it's just an amazing immersion experience for parents where they don't feel they have to be judged, where they feel like, oh, you know, I could tell a story about what my child did, and in any other setting, they would look at me cockeyed like, what? And and in this setting, everybody just nods knowingly and says, Yeah, we get it. You know, it's um and I guess the comment that so many parents say, especially the the newcomers, they say, we don't have to explain ourselves here. You know, we're we're uh immersed in a a setting of compassion and understanding. And so often, as you guys know, the challenges might be the judgmental attitudes that that happen in public, might even happen in schools, you know, that are well intended and they don't realize they're being terribly judgmental. Um so it's uh it's just a wonderful experience, no doubt, hands down, one of my greatest learning experiences. And in the book Uniquely Human, we have a whole chapter on on the parent uh retreat weekend. Um and what some parents say is absolutely mind-blowing. I mean, one dad, who I believe um is a Hindu gentleman, he said that he wakes up every morning and looks in the eyes and the face of his child and sees the face of God. Um it's I mean, just incredible things. And not even to mention the very often beneficial effects on siblings. Um, so many brothers and sisters go into professions of helping other people, yeah, of having that experience. I'm not saying it's not challenging sometimes growing up and having a neurodivergent brother or sister, but what I am saying in the long run, the learning that goes on is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

You know, Nathan, can't you just feel the doctor's passion and love for your work? Like I love, I wish everybody can see you, Doctor. Like there's such a glow about you as you're talking about your work, your research, and and the great benefit that you're giving our wonderful community. Um, and I love how you said that even on these retreats, that you learn a lot. I mean, it sounds like you might learn more than what parents might learn at these retreats. Is I is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Oh, absolutely. And not not just the retreat. In my collaborations uh with autistic people, you know, I I have some good buddies who are autistic and they're not, you know, people I treat. These are people I hang out with, you know. And people often ask me, what advice would you give to young professionals? And I would say immerse yourself in the world where neurodivergent and autistic people live 24-7, with the families, with the people themselves. Because the way you get past stigma, um, you know, having to do with kind of stereotypical views of what people are, their label, or that's an ADHD person, or that's that's a person with a mental health issue, or that's an autistic person. The way you get past the stigma is with close contact, is when you have everyday experiences with that child, or have everyday experiences with that adult and say, wait a second. You know, this shatters so many of the stereotypes that's out there. Um and I've benefited from, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, and it has the effect. And I I Brad, I'm glad you pointed that out because you know, so much of what we communicate is unspoken. And, you know, just as much as we're talking about decoding language of our our peers or our kids or other, you know, social social community members that are on the spectrum, we are also communicating using expression and tone and body image as as language. And I almost have to rewind and ask myself the question what was I actually communicating to my child?

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

You know, when I get reactive, when I get overexpressive, when I get uh frustrated, even if I'm trying to be nice and kind, the truth is that you feel and you read that intention. Even if I say, oh, that's okay, and I'm trying to be empathetic, but I'm really deep down frustrated, they will feel hear and experience frustration. And so a lot of I think the back end of this dynamic change of just looking at people as other humans, looking at behavior's language is our own language shifts and our own behaviors shift, and that's palpable. That comes off in how we treat with treat and deal with other people. And that's, I think that just upgrades society as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah. And if I could highlight two words, I see, as I look at your screen, I see uh a little caption at the bottom that says the Polaris connection. So one word is connection. Yeah. Okay. One word is connecting with another human being who happens to have a pattern of behavior that falls under this category that we made up called autism. Okay. So connection is number one, and something I talk about in great detail in uniquely human is the notion of trust. That we seek out people who we trust, we seek out settings and activities where we feel, in a sense, we could trust being in this sensory environment. We could trust being in this school because what they're teaching me makes sense to me. I could trust my body because I can deal with things that are too loud or you know, whatever it might be on a sensory level. But the the the important piece here is the human piece of connecting and developing trust. And that's what you're talking about, you know? Because once you have that connection, then people you are with are willing to take risks, are willing to learn with you and from you, um, are willing to feel trustworthy enough that they could say, I don't want to do that, and I think you'll respect that.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Okay. Yeah. Um it's yeah, go ahead. I love that. Well, trust drive safety. Um, I I forget where I saw it, but I I I remember this and I'll I'll take this with me forever. There was somebody talking about trust and boundaries, and they use the example of a roller coaster. You know, for all I I'm I love roller coasters. I'm a little bit of a junkie.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

I don't know why, but um you're a thrill seeker, it's one of your zoomies, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

It is. I'm an introvert, but that's where I get my you know positive energy from is other experiences. And you know, when you sit in a roller coaster, the very first thing you do almost instinctively is you push against the safety bar, not because you're trying to get it to release, but because you want to make sure it's there. You know, you're just doing a soft check. And uh have having that trust, sometimes I think even we do this. It's not just our autistic children, any human does it. We we test the boundaries around us, and it can sometimes seem like defiance, or it can sometimes appear as the going against or testing the boundary, like testing you, and they're not. It's the reassurance of, are you still there? Does this boundary still exist? Do you still have me? Can I trust, can I rely on that safety net, on you being regulated, on you being that you know, person there for me? And it's shifted how I look at boundary testing. I used to get frustrated, like, why are you, why are you pushing? Why are you going there? And really it's looking for, as much as anything, reassurance. And so, and that's maybe not always be the case, but to your point, Doctor, it's trying to decode the intent behind the behavior, not focus on the behavior itself. Um, I I want to borrow something you taught in your book that is something I see everywhere in the autism community, and it's you know, further on this idea of language. You had a section in the book about the little emotion faces. And I think almost everywhere I've gone, you know, it's the this is happy, this is sad, this is frustrated. And you kind of take issue going, that's the wrong way to teach emotion. Could you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah. That's that's actually something I learned from Raz Blackburn, who I uh mentioned earlier. Um, she said, through and that, and Raz is in her 50s now. Um, and this goes back a few years, probably 50, 20 years ago when I had her over here, and I'm still in touch with her. And she said, I never learned anything from those smiley and frowny faces. She said, People don't look like that. She said, I I never made that connection yet. I was drilled on it over and over again, and I always had problems getting it right. And then the next logical question is, well, how did you learn um about emotion words and emotional concepts? She said, when people use those words, when I was feeling those feelings, and sometimes maybe having a visual to go along with that, but I needed to experience those feelings and then hear the label or see the icon as opposed to point to happy, point to sad, when it had nothing to do with her experience at that time. Um, and by the way, one thing I will add, and this was discussed on one of our podcasts, one of my new colleagues who's an autistic uh researcher, she's actually a developmental psychologist, her name is Jaclyn Fady. She says emotion words have never been meaningful for her. And she's a very intelligent adult. She says, I relate to energy levels, that I can talk about how the energy feels in my body. And she and another one of my colleagues, Dr. Amy Laurent, put out a book that's called Energy. And the whole idea of the energy book is a manual to help autistic individuals relate to emotion through reading their energy levels in their body. Now, Jacqueline is very clear. She's saying, I'm not the I'm not saying this is the case for all autistic people. I'm just saying for me, I could never relate to emotion words, but I could relate to low energy and high energy and this kind of energy. And I found that to be fascinating. I just learned that in the last couple of years from her.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Wow. Well, that makes sending emojis a little bit different now. It does.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

And again, it speaks to this idea of language because for us, the words have meaning. For others on the spectrum or other neurodivergency conditions, it may not, but there are ways to still communicate it. And that's that's this theme I I think I keep drawing on. It's it's discovering a new way of communication, a new way of understanding. And in that world, we find connection, we find meaning, we find purpose. And it's it's really, it's it's just having a new kind of conversation.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah. And it is. And you kind of hear that a lot that you're like, you know, I sometimes I connect with you, you know, intellectually, but then I also connect with you emotionally, which is energy. You know, I connect with the energy of that individual. Doctor, I also heard, I believe that you're all that you're like writing a another book.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

And you're kind of in the final stages of of your new book on newer diversity.

unknown 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Can you tell us a little bit more about it? I mean, we're all we're all like biting our fingernails about it. Can you tell us a little more about your research?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Don't be anxious. I mean, that's our role as writers, right? Uh it's another book. And again, my co-author, who is a father of an adult son with autism, um, Tom Fields Meyer. Um, he's based in Los Angeles. And we were lucky enough to get a really wonderful contract from um Penguin Random House, a very large publisher. And it goes well beyond autism. The book talks about neurodivergent conditions in general, but and it's on neurodiversity, but how so many books on neurodiversity, you turn the first pages and there's a section on ADHD, and there's a section on anxiety disorders, and there's a section on autism. We're not going that way. We're going the way of, again, following from uniquely human, not only what is the experience of neurodivergent people, but also, and this is very important, how do we as relatively non-neurodivergent people, ask the deep why, understand, you know, the energy level of a person with ADHD who looks like they just can't control that energy, they're jumping from one thing to the next. But how can we support them better? Um, and we also talk more about mental health issues. Um, because probably one of the greatest understandings of both the research and real life experience of neurodivergent people over the last 10 to 15 years has been the mental health impact of being misunderstood, of people who don't really try to ask the deep why and who dismiss you because they're judging you only about your behavior at that level. And, you know, we've done now oh, more than 150 podcast interviews, two-thirds of which are with neurodivergent individuals, not just autistic individuals. And we are drawing heavily from those interviews, as well as from my personal experiences. Um, so the book will have many, many more profiles of neurodivergent people, um, a lot of new profiles. Um, let me entice you in some ways. Um, I've developed a distant relationship with a Brazilian autistic policeman. Um who read the Portuguese version, uniquely human, you know, has been translated into 27 languages now. Um and he read the Portuguese version, and it was like, oh my God. Um self-diagnosed, that got clinically diagnosed. His name is Saulo Barbosa, and he's wonderful. And we interviewed him on the podcast with a translator, and we tell about his story. And what he's doing now is he's training police departments all over the country. And I got an email from him two weeks ago. Now he's training people in the military in Brazil about how to understand and react to neurodivergent people. His story's amazing. He's a wonderful human being. Um, we interviewed uh a person called the Lavender Librarian from Toronto, who was who was lead-diagnosed, who was passionate about everything lavender. If you go to our website, it's all lavender. That is awesome. And she's an expert librarian who actually is respected internationally in the librarian community because of how she teaches kids and uses kids, uses books to connect with children, whether neurodivergent or not. So those are just two examples of many, many profiles of really fascinating people who I love it.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

And I love the common theme where at the end of the day we're all human, you know, and you're you're not focusing on the diagnosis, the pathology, as you say it. Instead, you're taking a step back and relating their experience to our experience in a way that makes us understand we are a lot more alike than we tend to at first acknowledge and realize. And that's what that's I think that was my favorite thing about. Uniquely human. And I imagine you're going to take the same approach in this new book about neurodiversity. We are. All of those personal examples, all those anecdotal stories were like a roadmap because it gave me another way of seeing a behavior that now had meaning and purpose where there was already a discovery. And maybe that's not the language of my child, but it starts me on a path of looking for the language and understanding that there are other reasons and causes at play. And it's not just about, again, stamping that behavior out. It's about learning a new form of being human that is as beautiful and as rich and as fulfilling as any other out there. So thank you for that perspective and for really the start of what I hope is going to be a new and beautiful journey for me and my family.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Great. Well, thank you so much. Let me just add one quick comment. The other thing that I've really discovered in my senior years is watching people finding purpose and living a life of purpose. So many of the neurodivergent and autistic people I know that we really put a spotlight on have not only gone through their own trials and tribulations of being understood, but now they're living a life of purpose of giving back to the community. And that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Wow. Doctor, I I've I'm a better person for having listened to you today. So thank you so much for your time. A lot of great nuggets that I I have, I don't know if anybody noticed, but I write a lot when when we have guests, and I and I almost have two pages of notes just from you, Doctor. So thank you so much for your time. And uh, we sure love to have you back on the show. Great. Well, thank you for this opportunity. It's been wonderful. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you for thank you, folks, for making us part of your day. Please don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a conversation that inspires connection and trust. I'm gonna start using that more. I love that, Doctor. Thank you. Um, want to say thank you to our wonderful producer, Jesse Palmer, Dallin Davis, our wonderful director. Until next time, let's do some good.