Ep. 65: Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy in Our Clinic
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What inspired the shift to neurodiversity‑affirming therapy in the clinic?
What's up, everyone? And welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids.
We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuro-affirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this!
Hey, hey, we are here today. I'm very excited, gonna be joined by one of the SLPs in my practice and we're going to be sharing some ND affirming tips. We have done so much in our clinic and we are just really excited to share with you what has worked for us and how it might work for you too. And I'm really happy, here she is. Let me go ahead and let her in.
It's going. It always takes a minute. Hello. Hello. I was just saying how excited I am to be sharing some tips with everyone and
How did Emily’s early clinical experience influence her ND‑affirming approach?
I know you're on your account too, but in case anyone doesn't know, Emily is the speech and language program director in our clinic here. And I have known sweet Amelia for a very long time. And it's kind of crazy actually to think like our journey has just been together in finding more neurodiversity affirming ways we can support our kids clinic-wide. I
know, I know. it's been almost six years right and when i first started i was a clinical fellow was my cf year and i just remember when i first started coming from grad school a lot of it a lot of what i learned was very traditional tabletop activities and it was it was just what i knew so i was doing what i thought i needed to do but um really learning from you and us learning together over time was the way that i finally realized that i could help engage these kids in a way that was so much better than the traditional approach
yeah and something You know, our clinic has always valued, of course, a sensory-informed approach, a connection-centered approach. And I will say, for those of you who are just kind of, you know, it's like once you decide you're going to be end-affirming, you're like, but everyone has to be here, too. And it feels like all of a sudden it's like this huge mountain because everyone you want everyone to be there with you. And I think something really cool that Emily, you've done for our clinic has been, and this is literally just like piece by piece every week is you're constantly like creating resources and training our team in them. And like, just an example for you guys, if you're like trying to figure out what to do with families, but like Emily has created resources for our clinic of like, what is odd?
Autism and it's just like a fully ND affirming way describing autism or like, what do I do after a diagnosis? I mean, you've created resources and like how to get an AC device. And, you know, I think it's like just chipping away one thing. Like it feels like it's a really big thing, but there are baby steps you can take.
Why is a sensory‑informed, connection‑centered model essential for autistic kids?
It does. It feels overwhelming, especially because it feels like, like we're at the relative beginning of this paradigm shift and it's hard to hear and see things that are still happening that are not neurodiversity affirming. And so you do want to spread the word as much as you can, but it's hard not to feel overwhelmed. So it is just taking little baby steps, um, at a time. But yeah, once you start the connection based therapy, there is no turning back. You see the magic and, um, and you want to spread the word. Yeah.
I feel like that's enough when you just like, go into a session. And if you feel good, and you're enjoying yourself, the child is probably enjoying themselves too. It's like, how easy of a rule of thumb is that but we get so stressed out, like I need to take data and I have to meet this and I have to do that. And I mean, that's the other thing about our clinic, which is probably less usual than others. But like, We tend not to write, you know, following directions goals. We tend to write goals for either, you know, total communication or gestalt language.
What practical resources and training does Emily provide for staff and families?
And it gives us so much freedom and flexibility over what we do in our sessions.
I have a new, newer family and he's coming from a very like compliance based approach. And we're in the gym and a lot of our session is, and I love your language staircase, but it's the bottom.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired the shift to neurodiversity‑affirming therapy in the clinic?
0:08–1:19
2
How did Emily’s early clinical experience influence her ND‑affirming approach?
1:19–3:42
3
Why is a sensory‑informed, connection‑centered model essential for autistic kids?
3:42–4:53
4
What practical resources and training does Emily provide for staff and families?
4:53–6:45
5
How do baby‑step changes prevent overwhelm when adopting ND‑affirming practices?
6:45–8:27
6
What impact does focusing on enjoyment and relationship have on therapy outcomes?
8:27–10:27
7
Why are flexible, gestalt‑language goals more effective than traditional tabletop goals?
10:27–11:55
8
How can meeting sensory needs transform engagement and language progress?
11:55–12:38
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
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)