TPP 328: Autism Level UP co-founders Amy Laurent & Jacquelyn Fede on Learning From Autistic Self-Advocates
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
30 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 14 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why did Amy Laurent and Jacquelyn Fede create Autism Level UP?
Do seek out those autistic spaces. Do seek out the autistic voices. Do listen because their experience is quite different. If we're going to provide authentic and validating supports that are actually useful to the individuals, we have to understand their experiences. We cannot project what we think they are or what we think they should be.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber, and I can't believe it, but we are here at the end of this podcast season. I hope you've enjoyed all the conversations and incredible guests that were part of this winter season. But to close it out, I'm bringing you a fantastic interview with Amy Laurent and Jacqueline Feeney from Autism Level Up. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of you have probably heard of Autism Level Up or heard Amy and Jacqueline's names before. But in case it is new to you, Autism Level Up is a resource that I have personally spent hours pouring through because it's so accessible and informative.
So in this conversation, I wanted to talk with Amy and Jacqueline about why they created Autism Level Up, how the conversation surrounding autism and support for autistic people has changed over the past decade, and how we can all level up our own understanding of and experience with autism and neurodivergence. Here's a little bit about Amy and Jacqueline before we get to that. Amy Laurent is an OT, co-author of The Certs Model, and the co-founder of Autism Level Up. She enjoys supporting autistic individuals and their partners, co-conspiring as an ally to autistic people, and creative design of useful and accessible tools and supports. Jacqueline Feeney describes herself as a super fun, super goofy, and super duper nerdy autistic advocate and the co-founder of Autism Level Up.
Jack also enjoys supporting autistic individuals and their partners as well as program evaluation, data and statistics, and app and web development. Here it is, my conversation with Amy and Jacqueline. Hey, Amy and Jacqueline, welcome to the Tilt Parenting Podcast. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks. You guys have kind of a unique story and your relationship together is part of what you're doing through Autism Level Up. Could you tell us a little bit about how you came to create this resource? This is
Amy. I usually start talking and then Jacqueline usually follows up just so you guys have a sense of who's talking at what time and whose voice is whose. I am a developmental psychologist and occupational therapist and a special educator. And I am allistic, which means I am not autistic. And Jacqueline is a developmental psychologist, data analyst, research nerd. physical activity junkie, and also an autistic adult. And so our partnership is really the combination of our two perspectives to figure out the way forward, the way that really combines both perspectives that are necessary to figure out how to create a more kind of affirming and supportive environment for neurodivergent people.
Yeah, and our partnership really came about, this is Jack now, because we went to grad school together. And when I was finishing grad school, I took a job, my first full-time job as a tracking and evaluation specialist on a clinical research grant. And this was the first time I ever had such a mismatch between my profile and the environment around me. I could do the job, no problem. But being in the office with the humans... I was coming home every single day, breaking things, kicking through walls, smashing furniture, exploding, melting down, or the opposite, needing absolute silence and dark and shutting down and sleeping for 26 hours. And I went on like this for months. I didn't have my diagnosis at the time, and I had no idea what was going on.
But Asking someone else for help was not even a thought process that occurred to me for months and months and months and months.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Amy Laurent and Jacquelyn Fede create Autism Level UP?
0:00–4:43
2
How did their personal experiences shape the founding of Autism Level UP?
4:43–8:53
3
What is the SCERTS model and how has Autism Level UP adapted it?
8:53–11:51
4
How does the Energy Regulation vs. Emotional Regulation distinction work?
11:51–15:21
5
What tools does Autism Level UP provide for families and educators?
15:21–18:58
6
How can parents assess where they are on the ‘Level UP’ journey?
18:58–22:13
7
What advice do Amy and Jacquelyn give for supporting autistic adults in the workplace?
22:13–26:05
8
How can listeners get involved with Autism Level UP’s community and resources?
26:05–30:04
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids