Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Not Your Mama's Autism Podcast, I speak with Bobby Rubio , Pixar director of the 2019 animated short film, Float . Earlier this year, Bobby spoke with me about the movie and his son, Alex, the inspiration behind the film. We talked about how being a parent to a child on the autism spectrum sparked the idea behind the film, the importance of representation in media, cultural stigma attached to an autism diagnosis, family life and the evolution he made as a ...
Aug 02, 2021•32 min•Ep. 4
Send us Fan Mail In this NYMA episode, we speak to the President, CEO and Chairman of the Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, David Long , about his life as a CEO, a Dad and a husband. He and I had a very candid discussion about raising an autistic son in an age before modern day autism awareness and autism acceptance campaigns. He frankly discusses the isolation his family underwent in the early years of the diagnosis and how he channels those tough chapters of his life into pouring into community ...
Jul 19, 2021•44 min•Ep. 3
Send us Fan Mail When you think of a playground, what comes to mind? Do you think of corporate philanthropy or corporate social responsibility? Do you think of community engagement with intentionality? Do you think of universal design with accessibility at its core? The Liberty Playground is located in Plano, Texas with an aim toward catering to children of all abilities. It is a playground that is the fruit of a public-private partnership between the City of Plano, Texas and Liberty Mutual Insu...
Jul 05, 2021•30 min•Ep. 2
Send us Fan Mail Our first episode of our third season starts with a look into hiring practices at a global financial institution already known for its award winning autism and disability inclusion hiring practices. This episode looks into a relatively new set of business practices known as the Business Solutions Team ("BeST") program, an initiative with a mission to match intellectually and developmentally disabled employees with roles that fit their skill sets. In this episode, I interview BeS...
Jun 21, 2021•32 min•Ep. 1
Send us Fan Mail In our final episode of the season, we round out our segment on women on the spectrum through the illustrative eyes of Marcelle Ciampi , autistic writer, author, neurodiversity advocate and diversity and inclusion leader. She talks about masking, the behaviors used to conceal true behavior in order to conform to what is considered acceptable by the greater society. She also details her perspective on getting a later in life autism diagnosis, the hurdles she jumped to obtain it i...
May 17, 2021•42 min•Ep. 10
Send us Fan Mail For years, the face of autism took on a male form. It is only in the recent era that more women have come forward with their stories in hopes to slowly change the narrative and highlight the beauty of the full range of neurodivergence that exists in society. As we close out our second season, we will hear from two different autistic women who have so graciously shared their journeys, including how society reacts to them when they tell people they are on the spectrum. This episod...
May 03, 2021•21 min•Ep. 9
Send us Fan Mail This episode builds upon the previous three episodes that highlighted themes of race, neurodiversity, disability and community policing. In this episode, we discuss the talk about race that many black parents give to their children in an attempt to better protect them for the world ahead. Through the eyes of three different black parents of autistic children, each provides a vulnerable and real look into their parenting philosophies and how they either went about or will go abou...
Apr 19, 2021•53 min•Ep. 8
Send us Fan Mail This episode builds upon our previous episode on community policing with autism and disability inclusion in mind. For this episode, Sergeant Charles Heasley, of the Plano, TX Police Department, provides a deeper understanding into community policing practices through the eyes of mental health, which includes how the Department trains its force to interact with members of the autism and intellectually disabled communities who may be experiencing a crisis of some kind, including m...
Apr 05, 2021•44 min•Ep. 7
Send us Fan Mail In Season 2, Episode 6 of the NYMA Podcast, we discuss interactions between law enforcement and members of the neurodivergent and intellectually disabled communities through more than one perspective. The episode picks up a bit from where it left off and includes personal narratives of various ways upon which my brother has had interactions with the police and concerns our family has for the next generation of neurodivergent children as they navigate their formative years when i...
Mar 22, 2021•57 min•Ep. 6
Send us Fan Mail In Season 2, Episode 5 of the NYMA podcast, we address the intersectionality of race and disability in America through the eyes of personal accounts. I interviewed my own brother, Wale, about his police stop when he was a teenage boy driving around our little brother, Kunle, also a teenager at the the time. For those of you who have already been following us on social media and via this podcast, you are aware that Kunle is autistic with an intellectual disability. He is also non...
Mar 08, 2021•21 min•Ep. 5
Send us Fan Mail You want love and marriage advice? You want to learn about a particular couple's marriage philosophy? You may get a million answers. But, in Season 2, Episode 4 of the NYMA podcast, we take you down this road through the eyes of a candid neurodiverse couple, a husband and wife, based in the UK. For those of you following us on social media and via the podcast, you will recognize one of the voices, Lee Corless, who I spoke with in the immediate previous episode. In this episode, ...
Feb 22, 2021•38 min•Ep. 4
Send us Fan Mail In Season 2, Episode 3 of our podcast, we address the high unemployment rate of adults with autism and the corporate inclusion efforts that have since risen up to combat this societal problem. Solutions to this issue involve a multi-faceted array of stakeholders. This episode focuses on neurodiversity inclusion efforts of major corporations; future episodes will eventually get into areas like community partners that train some individuals to be ready for such jobs, etc. We were ...
Feb 08, 2021•40 min•Ep. 3
Send us Fan Mail In Episode 2, Season 2 of NYMA, two moms of children with special needs, Betsy and Tracey, speak to their triumphs and challenges associated with starting and/or expanding business in the midst of a global pandemic while balancing motherhood, a full-time job and/or kids' various therapy treatments. Both women talk about the way in which their children's special needs present themselves individually in each child, how their business ideas first occurred to them and where their bu...
Jan 25, 2021•42 min•Ep. 2
Send us Fan Mail Thanks to registered dietician Brittyn Coleman , MS, RDN/LD, CLT , this episode focuses on some of the many dietary considerations that may be made in determining what is the best diet so that some people on the spectrum can increase their quality of life. In this episode, we first talk about GI issues discovered in the earlier days of our daughter's autism journey. After thinking that these challenges were properly addressed, we discovered recently that this was not quite the c...
Jan 11, 2021•37 min•Ep. 1
Send us Fan Mail In our Season Finale of NYMA, we take you into midst of the pandemic through the eyes of a family that needs significant community supports in order to thrive. When parts of your community supports are impacted by the type of virus almost nobody was alive to see the last time this happened, the status quo becomes a casualty on the road to the "new normal". This episode details one family's account of the year never to be forgotten while still exhibiting persistence and resilienc...
Dec 02, 2020•59 min•Ep. 10
Send us Fan Mail Episode 8 of the NYMA podcast takes listeners on the road down an uncomfortable subject to many...money...particularly financial and estate planning. It's the intersection of where money can meet the future. In our case, it's the intersection of where money can meet the future, but with an asterisk. Sometimes, the day to day stresses of life can prevent you from achieving attainable long-term goals that can set your family up for the future. Our family had to shift our mindset f...
Nov 10, 2020•42 min•Ep. 9
Send us Fan Mail In America, the word "health insurance" has become incredibly politically charged. For our family, having the right health insurance customized for our family's needs is beyond the political, it's highly personal. Moving to a new state revealed how different states tackled insurance coverage as it related to types of therapies and even the duration of care. Families like ours don't have the luxury of trying to figure out insurance coverage once they move to a new state. So, we t...
Oct 25, 2020•38 min•Ep. 8
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, upon touching down in a city in a completely different region of the country, it became clear fairly quickly that life as we knew it would change... and not in the ways in which we originally thought. This episode addresses the surprises along the way in those early days in the Lone Star State and the people in our lives who would become community. From complete strangers to old family friends we would discover now lived in the same state as us, a new, Texas vil...
Oct 13, 2020•47 min•Ep. 7
Send us Fan Mail If it takes a village to raise a child, it may need two villages to care of a child with special needs. Adversity has a way of revealing who genuinely is in one's corner and who isn't. This episode takes you through various examples of how people chose to be present in another's life in a meaningful way. It also briefly touches upon how even family members can disappoint you at a time when you are at your most vulnerable. Through a series of random acts of kindness, Village 2.0 ...
Sep 28, 2020•58 min•Ep. 6
Send us Fan Mail And Then There Was Two starts to tell the story of the effect medical diagnoses can have on a family, particularly two life changing diagnoses less than one year apart from each other. Listeners will hear the origin story of the youngest member of the clan and how her autism differs from her big brother. Complete with perspectives from Dad, big brother, Mom and a Board Certified Behavioral Analyst and Psychologist, this episode navigates you through the strains this can cause on...
Sep 14, 2020•37 min•Ep. 5
Send us Fan Mail As the old adage goes, "nothing you've been through is wasted." In Episode 3, NYMA dives into that time in the initial steps of the journey when parents are discovering the broad range of what neurodiversity looks like and the challenges associated with it. In this instance though, one of the parents had nearly a life time of experience, living with a sibling with autism. This episodes walks the listener through those initial moments where history appeared to be repeating itself...
Aug 30, 2020•36 min•Ep. 4
Send us Fan Mail Tough conversations on the road to marriage may include net worth, credit scores and medical histories. But, for siblings of people with special needs, an additional layer of complexity may need to be grappled with pre-union. For the host, an older sister of a man living with autism and an intellectual disability, it was important for her to have this conversation with her soon to be husband, who hadn't experienced autism intimately the way she had. Not Your Mama's Autism takes ...
Aug 17, 2020•29 min•Ep. 3
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the very first episode of Not Your Mama's Autism (NYMA) Podcast! NYMA takes you on a journey into autism through a series of multigenerational, cross-cultural narratives and conversations. In order to better understand our autism journey, we thought it was fitting to start at the beginning and tell the story of my greatest teacher, my baby brother who lives with autism and an intellectual disability. He taught me time and time again that you don't need words to commun...
Aug 03, 2020•16 min•Ep. 2
Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Not Your Mama's Autism Podcast, where we talk about my family's autism journey through a multi-general angle. My baby brother, my son and my daughter all live with autism. My family looks forward to sharing our story with you through personal narrative and our village of health care professionals, family members, mentors, allies and educators. https://notyourmamasautism.com/ https://www.instagram.com/notyourmamasautism/ https://www.facebook.com/NotYourMamasAutism/...
Jul 20, 2020•1 min•Ep. 1
