Ep 112 Why Team Collaboration Breaks Down & How To Fix It This Year
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Why does team collaboration feel impossible for therapists working with autistic kids?
Hello, NeuroAffirm Nation. Today we are talking about something that causes a lot of pain for therapists, causes a lot of struggle for therapists. And when Chris and I go around and we speak to different school districts and organizations, this is by far the number one question and concern that that therapists have, which is: what do I do when I can't get anyone on board with neurotrophics? Neuroaffirming approaches? Or what do I do when it's so hard to collaborate with other people? And the thing is that so many of us work in settings where there are lots of people with different approaches that they're using and they have different experiences. And those experiences shape the way that they work with neurodivergent kids.
And for those of us who are so gung-o on neuroaffirming approaches and want to be able to spread these approaches. Which is it can be very, very frustrating. When we are around people. Who are doing the opposite of what we're doing. And I'm here to tell you I'm sorry because I don't think that this is something that ends. This is something that Chris and I deal with almost on a daily basis. I know for him, he does deal with it on a daily basis because he's in schools with lots of professionals. And here we deal with it often because we also have families coming in who are getting lots of different types of therapy for their kid or we're having other therapy. therapists come in and observe our sessions and the reason why
I bring that up is because to say that this is a skill that we really need to hone. This is a skill that we need to strengthen because. The more confident you can be with how you can help to collaborate and how you can really start collaborating and gaining momentum with other people, the farther it's gonna take you. It's gonna be something that you're gonna be. doing continuously over the years because there's always gonna be new kids in your life. There are always gonna be new professionals in your life. And the stronger that you can make the skill, the easier it's gonna be for you to be able to train all of these people and make the difference that you really want to make with our kids. So let's talk about first why collaboration feels so hard.
What are the four key practices that actually build trust and alignment in a team?
I think sometimes it's just kind of like there's too many chefs in the kitchen. Like I mentioned, we all come if there's a group of professionals, we might all come to a workplace with completely different experiences, with different approaches. We went to different schools where we were taught different things and everyone feels like what I learned was the right way. And that's just almost how we're how we go through school and how we go through our internships and the mentors that we have, they all influence the way that we work with kids. And we all come in thinking, okay, well, this must be the best way. So that can be a really tough position to be in because we have to be able to move past that while honoring everyone's personal experiences and their past and what they believe to be best for autistic kids.
So here's what I found is when collaboration really breaks down or when It's really hard to get good collaboration going. There's usually one of Four things happening. One is a therapist is feeling incredibly judged. Okay, because when we come in and we think we know better and we're watching someone else, we could judge a little bit. Okay. It's just natural. And the opposite happens too. If we have someone observing our session and they're used to things that are really structured, and then they come in and they observe us and we're just playing, or they sorry, we are using a play-based approach, but they feel like, oh, you're just playing, we can feel really judged. So that's going to prevent good. Collaboration from happening.
If we feel rushed, like we feel like the person's literally not even listening or interested in hearing the things that we have to say. If we feel threatened in any way, um, then that is something like again, coming back from when a therapist might come to you with different experiences and you might feel like, okay, they're
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does team collaboration feel impossible for therapists working with autistic kids?
0:08–2:17
2
What are the four key practices that actually build trust and alignment in a team?
2:17–4:40
3
How do judgment, rushing, feeling threatened, or feeling unheard break down collaboration?
4:40–6:08
4
Why is focusing on the relationship with a colleague more important than expertise?
6:08–7:58
5
How can you truly seek to understand a teammate’s approach without judgment?
7:58–9:41
6
What does ‘starting with why’ look like when teaching a new neuro‑affirming strategy?
9:41–11:12
7
How can you give a quick win that makes it easy for someone to say yes?
11:12–13:38
8
Where can listeners find the full training and video library to deepen their collaboration skills?
13:38–15:38
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
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Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)