The primary purpose of Uniquely Human, the podcast, is to educate and inform. The views expressed during all episodes are solely those of the individuals involved and do not constitute educational or medical advice. Listeners should consult with professionals familiar with each individual or family for specific guidance. Uniquely Human the podcast is produced by Elevated Studio. Music is graciously provided by Matt Savage of Savage Records. Hi, I'm Dr. Barry Prezant.
clinical scholar, researcher, and consultant on autism and neurodiversity, and a Brooklyn boy raised in the big city. And I'm Dave. I'm none of those things, and I grew up on a farm in Illinois. But... Being on the spectrum myself, I have plenty of personal insight to lend. And this is Uniquely Human, the podcast, a show that illuminates and celebrates autism and neurodiversity.
Today, we are welcoming back two wonderful people who are doing pretty amazing work that we're going to talk about. And that is my colleague and longtime friend, Dr. Amy Laurent. and her colleague and dear friend, Dr. Jacqueline Faddy. Welcome to Uniquely Human, the podcast. Thank you so much for having us and having us back a second time, brave souls.
fortunate souls we're very fortunate to be able to spend time with you today and uh i'm really stoked that you're back too yes and you're joining a very small elite of second timers like we have to say that yes yes You've risen to the next tier. We're leveling up, Barry. If you could let our listeners know who maybe who don't know you amongst your, what, 40,000 followers or so, or did not listen to our previous episode, which, by the way, was more than two years ago with you.
Yeah, it's hard to believe. Please discuss so our listeners know how this all began. Autism level up and the amazing work that you're doing and your friendship and partnership. Yeah, so we are two developmental psychologists, and we met in graduate school. And Jacqueline was a... research assistant on my doctoral dissertation looking at the development of self-regulation in
the relation for autistic young children in relationship to kind of their parent behaviors. And Jacqueline would go with me on my home visits and you would videotape the interactions between the parents and the children.
kind of like orchestrate all the all the operational pieces for me and we drive away from every home and Jacqueline be like these are the best kids and i would say well you know you're a bit of a sensory mess yourself in the most loving possible way um which you didn't really know or understand at that point So then years later, to make a long story a little bit shorter, when I entered my first full-time job, it's kind of the first time I found myself in an environment.
that really did not match up with my profile. And within two weeks, I went from, I would say, functioning and loving life to coming home. every single day or not even making it home getting into my car and smashing things breaking things kicking through doors walls what have you melting down essentially didn't even know that term at the time or needing to shut everything off be in complete darkness and I'd sleep like 18 to 26 hours at a time.
So it was, you know, this was a full-on autistic burnout. And I went on like that for months and months, not telling anyone, wondering if I was depressed, if I had anxiety, if I was suicidal. I would check in with myself regularly and I would ask, am I suicidal? And I would say, it's not that I want to die, but it's like I can't figure out how to live anymore.
At some point after seriously months of thinking the best of my life was over and this is my fate now and I've made a terrible mistake. I don't belong in this place. I should go home and. like live with my mother and do some kind of predictable manual labor job. So I had some insights about things, but not a name like.
autism to explain what was happening uh and i sent a picture of a hole i had kicked through my door to amy right around this time of year and um i just said lol i did this and that was huge for me because reaching out to thinking even that a human could be of assistance to me was not a natural thought process so this was like last ditch I don't know what else to do. And that was the only thing I could formulate to say. And from there, we like to say Amy certified my life, which really was.
putting back in place a lot of the very invisible to me supports that I had through my whole childhood and young adulthood. It really was making my life. like it was when I was so well supported and not having to mask all the time and not burning out day after day. And just for our listeners who may not know what Certified is, it's in reference to...
Our educational and treatment framework that Amy and I have partnered on with Emily Rubin, social communication, emotional regulation, transactional support. Sorry for my interruption. It strikes me too, Jacqueline. This transition that you had made at this point in your life, everything that was regulating for you, slamming your body into the ground through athletics, soccer specifically.
had gone so now you've got your your source of your strength or your regulation is just uh not something you have access to it turns out it turns out a brand new environment that you have no idea how to navigate, not understanding the things that you actually need for regulatory support and losing all the things that were the...
most effective regulatory support all at once is a recipe for disaster. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm having this image of, even though you knew Amy already, as she described. I'm having this image of Amy as kind of Glinda the Good Witch appearing in a bubble. And opening up. I had that vision. There were no psychedelics involved. None. And that's how I knew to send her that picture. But the truth is, in a way, she is.
glenda she is she's a she was a trusted meaningful partner to me and i i had very few of those and even amy i mean i had withdrawn fully She was trying to slide notes under my office door. I couldn't even respond in writing to people. That's how drained I was, which is significant for me. But trust, like a meaningful relationship is so important to any.
kind of initiating of communication right i mean not a mistake that it was amy it it's not because oh she's an ot and she's an author of certs and And we talked about regulation for months and months. It was a meaningful relationship. That is what was at the core of reaching out to Amy. So in a sense. this awareness that you developed that you worked really hard at and Amy was helping you with has been one of the goals of Autism Level Up in terms of helping agencies and families
but also with your new book, Energy. I mean, it's almost like you're taking what you've learned from your own life process and now, and I've been doing it for a number of years. or putting it out to the world. But in particular, with your new volume, again, so if you wish to talk about that a little bit in terms of both of you, putting your life experiences and your expertise and your training to autism level up and to energy and putting it out there.
Yeah. So the book, Energy, the framework, tools, strategies, and logic. to support regulation. Perfect title for autistic individuals or neurodivergent individuals. But when Jacqueline was in the burnout, sent the picture and I came to her with kind of, this is my tool set. This is my wheelhouse. I'm all about emotional regulation, right? This is, certs is emotional regulation. That's the E and the R. That's what brought me to the model and you Barry, right?
And my dissertation is all around emotional regulation. And then we started talking and I went, this isn't going to work. Like the basic regulation is spot on. But this emotion thing isn't accessible to Jacqueline. And we're not going to be talking about emotions. If we had talked about emotions and we sat down to reflect on your experiences. Because those things are so foreign to me. I mean, I would think of them like a language barrier to help my entire life. Yeah.
yeah and so this idea of here she is she needs regulatory assistance but emotional regulation in this most traditional way isn't going to work but thinking about how we've always written about it, Barry, and we've always written about kind of physiological arousal and emotion being intertwined and her being able to reflect on and saying,
Emotion is a language barrier. Now, I want everybody to remember that Jacqueline is a developmental psychologist. She's a PhD. She's also autistic. And she's telling us emotion is a language barrier, right? She can't access this. What if we just strip away the socially constructed emotional vocabulary and focus on the physiological arousal piece? Because the literature.
tells us they happen in concert with one another like it's not like by neglecting one that we're not addressing the other right like so we could strip away this these words and still get at the core of regulation and so instead of talking about physiological arousal energy like talk about what the feels are in your body like that concrete observable experiential piece for you that you can put language to sharing ones
emotional or regulatory state is true the regulatory piece of that is truly dependent on a shared understanding right if i don't believe the thing describes my experience why would i ever be able to think that someone could also know what that means and understand what i'm going through it's impossible so energy for me just felt more concrete more observable and i could tell you is my energy lacking is it surging is it all going towards one thing is it split among many things
That felt real to me. Sometimes I could see what my body is doing, feel what my body is doing. It gives me these concrete cues. And absolutely, there are autistic people and neurodivergent people who... will then also layer on emotion or valence. Absolutely. To this 100% and feel validated and affirmed by it. But for others, we found in putting this kind of work out that.
there was a lot of other autistic and neurodivergent people for whom energy really resonated and that it spoke to them in a different way. We started developing a lot of tools around this. You know, it's striking me in a way, and I don't know if you've thought of it this way, it's in a way you're trying to deal with the, you know, a popular term right now, the double empathy problem.
That, you know, now the other person with understanding your experiences, physiological energy related experience and not an emotional word concept experience like. you know, anxious or fearful or whatever it might be. It helps to solve the problem of a neurotypical person being able to have To be more spot on in understanding your experience. If they're saying like, oh, you look anxious. Oh, you look depressed. And then you're saying, yeah, what does that mean? You know.
I do want to also add, Barry, that, yeah, what does that mean? Not only what should it mean to me as the person who's being commented on, but my thing was always or is still always I'm. I'll put it in energy terms. I'm really revved up. I'm redlining. And it's because a number of things didn't go the way that I frankly thought they should. And that happened in the span of 20 minutes. And now I'm just livid, right?
And the thing that always trips me up is, what are you so angry about? It's like, well, what is my anger doing to you?
like stay in your lane why do you care if i'm angry if i'm happy like when i'm when i'm skipping around and happy nobody's getting on my case about it so i mean there are there probably could be but but uh in truth like i i i guess i don't understand what the big deal is if i'm angry why do i need to shift my energy to make somebody else feel better about their life like just pay attention to your own
energy right i think that's one of the biggest well we get a lot of feedback in a lot of different directions from people who energy resonates firm and one of them is really consistent with what you're saying dave which is like all energy states are are valid just like all emotional expression is valid like we don't necessarily have to to shift it we shift it when it interferes with engagement in some way right and so and so but i think your experience of
Why are you so angry? We need to get you to happy. I mean, that's what kids face in school all the time. Well, maybe they just got a really lousy grade on a test and they're feeling really down on themselves and they're cranky because they made like.
a mistake that was like they shouldn't have you know it was one of the stupid little mistakes sort of kind of thing and they're just angry about it well why would we shift them to happy like what's the value of getting them to happy if they're so angry that they can't engage in the class
Let's give you a tool or strategy so that you can shift your energy so you can participate. But there's probably still going to be a low-level anger there because you're still upset about your mistake. That's spot on. Thank you, Amy. I love that because... the engagement piece it's all about are you participating in the world are you contributing and do you have an opportunity even to do that and and i guess in my case one of the biggest
factors when I go to, when I'm enraged about something. And it's usually my wife, Kristen, saying like, you know, I can't be around you when you're mad at the toaster. it's like well i'm not mad at you what are you taking the toaster side and then i get mad at her and then the whole thing falls apart but but um and it happens
You know, Amy, your comment about, you know, the validity of any person's emotional slash physiological experiences, it's so important. I have to say, a little bit on the humorous side, I guess.
a commercial on local radio about an assisted living center and and they keep on talking about and if you come here you will see everybody smiling it is smiles all the time and it says so come here and see this is the place you want to be so you will smile all day long and it's like painful to listen to that it's like you probably have some people who are ill
some people who are maybe even near death, you know, and it's kind of like, okay, life should be, we just smile all the time. And that's what our center is about. I don't want to go there. Barry, to your point, it's also not representative of anything. People smile for a wide range of reasons. So if we take kind of the energy paradigm and we apply it to you. The higher your energy is, Jacqueline, the bigger your smile gets. When she's got a huge toothy grin on her face, I know that...
oh my gosh, like I need to be scanning the environment to figure out how do I make this an easier situation for her to deal with? Or how do I get her out of here? And to other people, her smile would be like, oh my God. She's so happy. And I'm going, oh my gosh, we're going to blow. There's a mismatch happening between the environment and what she needs right now.
It goes back to another point, Barry, that you were talking about earlier, too. In the manual and on our website, we have a tool called My Energy, which is where somebody can define for themselves. what other people could see her, observe at those different energy levels. So for Jacqueline, we could say at maxed out and frenzied, huge toothy grin, very little language from her.
But like very little language coming from you, huge toothy grin, probably a darting gaze. Like when your energy is really high, those are things that I know. Those are her tells, right? There's a second column on that form, which is. what i feel or experience and if you're supporting somebody or you're doing it for yourself who is has the language abilities and is reflective and can fill that out
When Jacqueline handed me her form with how she experiences energy at these six different levels, it was mind blowing for me. And so going back to that double empathy problem. I know her really well. I know what the hells are. I could have told you exactly where her energy was, but not until she told me what it felt like in her body did I have a whole new appreciation because you're, I don't even like. It's a full body, fully absorb. What's the word I want? Absorb.
experience I don't like it's just so different than my experience if I was going to tell somebody what energy felt like in my body and you know what her giving me that information makes me such a better partner because now I know the smile, what's really behind it. And so it's massively important. And like you said, you know, you were well into adulthood when someone said, he finally said to you,
What's it like for you versus this is what it should be like. It's a super empowering form because it is. what is this for me rather than what is this supposed to look like for the world? Like that is a complete shift. And even if you are filling it out for someone who can't contribute. The nature of that relationship is going to be so much better. There is a huge difference between a team of individuals around a person saying we really want to try to figure out what this looks like.
for this person rather than here we have to show this person what this is supposed to look like um that's a completely different relationship completely different educational career
It is a world of difference, that simple shift. You know, one thing that our listeners should know, and I'm sure they're wondering about this now, on the Autism Level Up website, there are many wonderful... forms and resources um as well as of course in in the energy books do you want to talk a little bit more specifically about how you kind of laid out and organize the information in energy
And what people will benefit from if they get energy besides having this wonderful cover with the big letters energy right in your face. Well. They do get like a therapeutic weightlifting tool manual and at 488 pages. So you will get a lot by 11. Including doodling and coloring pages. We'll get to that. What I do always say up front, though, is that 99 point.
five percent of the stuff on our website is free and remains free and if you can go in there and download the stuff and there's usually cover sheets to help guide you can absolutely do all this for free The manual is not a requirement, but some people like to have everything in one bundle and with the background and research as to why.
It is there and with ideas about how to go about filling out each tool, whether you're doing it for yourself or for someone else, if you're doing it for someone who is nonverbal. we consider all these things and give descriptions. So the manual is starting from our energy meter, going through my energy, thinking about... how to figure out what powers up and power down someone's energy, and also thinking about problem solving.
the person's profile in the context of the activities environments that they want to and need to navigate on a daily basis. It's this whole process, this whole framework for thinking about energy. across any point of the lifespan, all together with ideas about how to go about it. And we structured it like a choose your own adventure. So
At the end of each section, it'll say, all right, do you want to dig deeper and read some of the research about this stuff? Go here. Want to go to the next tool? Go here. Need a break? Check out these doodling and coloring pages. So it's you can see which pages are her favorite. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a really comprehensive.
manual that leads somebody to the development of what we call the power plan you know because we have to stick with the energy theme but i but this idea of how do you support regulation and in a really deep, comprehensive, and individualized way. Because basically, by the time you've worked through this entire manual, whether it's for yourself, or someone you're supporting.
You have a ton of knowledge and you get all of those different exercises that you've gone through to kind of create this. It's a three page form now. It used to be two, but it's a three page form because there's a cover sheet that gives context and talks about.
kind of like everyday go-to strategies and things that might trigger somebody, like things that we really want people to know before they get into supporting regulation in the moment too. So I just want to... help our listeners be crystal clear here because we know in the culture of autism too often everything is taught in the sense of okay take out the energy manual because for 15 minutes
We're going to work and practice energy things. And as with certs, just in your language, you're talking about everyday routines, everyday activities. Is it fair to describe?
the work in general that you're doing but especially in energy as a huge self-awareness tool yeah so one of the things that we often talk about is an overarching goal or trajectory that we're trying to accomplish is self-knowledge, like just information that's going to lead to self-understanding because that's another step like, oh, I know this about myself and this is how it applies.
which will then empower somebody to move towards self-advocacy. So we kind of line those three things up for people, self-knowledge to self-understanding, to move towards self-advocacy. That's going to look really different. depending on the age of the individual, it's going to look really different depending on their developmental level in regards to how they communicate and things.
But even for individuals who are pretty symbolic in their communication, our goal is for those young people to know what regulates them and how they can get access to it. So there's still a self-advocacy component. So it might be somebody like.
you know, Jacqueline who are sitting down and maybe filling out forms and handing things to people that we could say, oh yeah, self-advocacy. But we're going to say that at every step of the game for the individuals that we're supporting. That's an obsession. No, that's an enthusiasm. That's my jam. That's your jam. One thing just I can do, part of.
Hi there, this is Noah with your enthusiasm of the day. This enthusiasm comes from Christy in California who says, My son, now 16 years old, has been an animal enthusiast since he was very small. He preferred the Animal Baby Einstein videos and has loved, loved, loved the Disney nature videos for his whole life. Oceans, Earth, African Cats, Monkey Kingdom, Bears, Chimpanzee. He could watch them all on repeat. He is our personal docent at every aquarium and zoo we have ever visited.
As a five-year-old, he would correct zoo-goers if they didn't know the difference between a parrot and a macaw, a gorilla or a chimpanzee, among other layman misidentifications. Last year, my parents took him on safari in Kenya and Tanzania.
The guides were amazed by his knowledge, and once they convinced him that he still had to learn more from them, he opened his mind and heart and learned even more. Turns out he's a fantastic traveler, and it was the best experience of his life thus far. A dream come true.
Well, just from your description, it sounds like he might know more about animals than I do, and probably a lot of us. It's so great that he's willing to share his knowledge with other people, even helping strangers at the zoo, which might be kind of...
of an intimidating thing, but if you have something you're passionate about to share with other people, that makes it so much easier. I'm so glad that you got to take a trip to Tanzania and see all the animals that he has learned about and I'm sure read about. and watched on TV shows. So that's just fantastic. And hopefully he can go to lots of other places and see some amazing animals that I'm sure he's learned about before. So thank you, Christy and your son.
Back to you, Barry and Dave. I could see some of our listeners at first saying, well, this fits into, inserts what we call a metacognitive level, people who can reflect on and think about. how they regulate and what works and what doesn't work. But as you said, I mean, regulation starts from birth and some people say even prenatally. And so you are so...
excuse me, aware of that developmental piece. So it's not just about people who could sit down and reflect on their energy levels and what do I do about it and so forth. No, and Jacqueline already talked about this a little bit, but for... Every section, for every tool, there is literally a part that says, what if the person I'm supporting is nonverbal? So pre-symbolic in their communication. What if they're at the early emerging language level?
What if they're using some sort of augmentative system? What if they're a gestalt language processor? Like we have kind of those caveats built in so people can figure out how you apply this framework to provide support. Right. Like, how do you make sure the support is accessible to somebody? Because we never we never want our support to actually cause dysregulation.
Right. Yeah, this is why and this is why I brought up the example of me getting angry at the toaster and Kristen getting mad at me for being angry at the toaster is ideally the point of the regulation is so that you can. You can participate in what's going on, obviously. So my wife calls it energy managing, and she claims that she herself is guilty of being an energy manager in the sense that she would...
Rather than assume that I would have the self-awareness and then the skills and then the discipline to manage my own, we'll say regulation or my own emotions, my own energy. she would look at it and say, it's just easier if I do it for him. So she would walk six, sorry, six steps ahead of me all the time. And steps could be weeks. Like she would be planning weeks ahead of the Thanksgiving dinner.
What are the things that are going to trigger Dave? What are the things that are going to annoy him? I'm going to make it such a safe little bubble that he can't possibly become.
uh in a agitated to a to an extent that he becomes what we would say dysregulated so she does all that and then guess what happens the one thing she didn't account for i stubbed my toe on the on the cupboard on the way into the kitchen and boom all go all is lost right all of her prep and for her as the partner it's exhausting and once you become exhausted
with another human being, you need a break from them. Just like when you become exhausted from weightlifting, you need to go take 90 seconds, let your muscles recover, and then continue lifting. So this ability... that a person can acquire to stay managed, to stay regulated just for themselves autonomously is so important because the...
I guess the implications or the consequences are so negative for you in any kind of social engagement when you're not able to. I think you're... hitting the nail on the head for the two-way street uh it is it has to be a shared um process and if it is not feasible for either side of the equation. It's not going to be sustainable. So when we talk about partnerships, whether it's a school team around a child, husband, wife, marriage, collegial friends.
That works. Strong word. Strong word. He's coined a new phrase. Collegial friends? I don't know. With a long history. Yeah, if someone is... working so hard in the relationship and so often it's the autistic person but it can absolutely be a partner and that's not going to be sustainable either if they are a huge source of mutual support um and so we think a lot about that
and talk a lot about that in the manual too, about the two way street or inserts the transactional supports. If those are burning out the other person, we might need to think of something else to do.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And getting back to Barry's earlier point, everybody is at a different stage in their own development. So some might be able to take... bigger strides right towards learning and adapting whereas others are still um dealing with other things in their lives so and one of the things we're super clear on in barry this will sound very familiar to you obviously is, you know, we talk about.
somebody having a profile of both mutual regulation and self-regulation. It's not one or the other. Our goal isn't to get somebody to be completely self-regulation, right? When we say about the self-knowledge, self-understanding, the self-advocacy. Maybe the self-advocacy is they can ask somebody for help that they need. Right. So it's not it's not this expectation that you have to take all this on and do it yourself either. It's do you have tools and strategies you can use on your own?
when you, when you need to, and can you access help from other people or respond to help from other people when you need that too? Like that's the full regulation profile that we're looking for. You know, it strikes me. It makes it really interesting to think about when relationships work and when they don't. Okay. So Dave and I, I'll take the leap and put this on Dave as much as me.
We're pretty amazed we've been doing this for three and a half, four years or so. But then we had the chance to reflect on that because this is a shameless plug. There's an article in Autism Advocate Parenting Magazine that came out this month. This is December when we're talking. that talks about um you know what's dave really good at and what's barry lousy at that dave kind of fills those crevices and and what's barry really good at that dave's really
Lousy, that fills those crevices. And when you bring that to a conscious level of awareness, first of all, I mean, that's what neurodiversity is all about and should be, right? That level of recognition. But that's why... Again, speaking for today, that's why we kind of think this podcast works, because we have that balance, you know, and probably if we wanted to look at, you know. kind of the regulatory piece of that as well, that helps to support regulation.
So it's fascinating when you think about almost any relationship and any listeners, whether it's their marriage, their relationship with their kids, whatever it might be, their partnerships in different ways. It's all about that.
One thing I always think about too, I've been thinking about lately when it comes to mutual regulation. Barry, wait for this. This is awesome. So we talk about mutual regulation as being... assistance you can respond to assistance offered by others and you can request is that correct request assistance from others but an important third piece is can you offer assistance to others Because again, when we think about double empathy,
Sometimes autistic people are so extremely good at sensing energy and offering mutual regulatory support. And I think it's like an under... thought about skill set that so many autistic and neurodivergent people have and one that could be an amazing and really empowering curriculum for so many. I even think about in schools, there's so often there's like that one autistic person in a classroom who every time someone is dysregulated, like they feel it so deeply and they're over there.
and they know what the person's go-to regulation is. Like, they're carrying over the comfort object. They're asking the person if they want to use the sensory object. Like, it's amazing. And I think it's like, we never... We don't really give autistic kids credit for that in any kind of way. And I think we have to. You're so, oh my gosh, you're so right. In fact, that's, you know, empathy, sympathy, that.
reality is so many of us are tuned in and observant i mean we are in some cases hyper observant um now what what do you need from me to get through this emotional thing maybe that's where i fall short but i can Yes. I don't need to repeat myself. I feel like I've said this so many times, but yeah, there's a lot more going on in here in terms of our ability to perceive and understand the states of others.
It's how we respond that might look quite different in a lot of cases. Yeah, and for a self-anointed senior statesman here, another myth shattered, right? Another myth that has taken... decades to try to shatter and still trying to do that of you know a part of autism isn't being oblivious to other people it might be being hypersensitive to other people's experience. Also sensory empathy. I mean, it is a real thing. I can tell you for a fact, I am the only person in this.
And the condos that I live in that when I drive into the main road, I turn off my headlights because I know what it's like to have those headlights glare into my windows. So like. There is huge sensory empathy. I'm like, I'm not going to do that to anyone else. That's so important. Try to remember every time I drive in to turn my headlights off. Yeah. And that's why.
I don't open candies in the theater. I don't chew loudly at the table. Or if I know that what I'm about to eat is going to be allowed to, I go to a different room. And it looks weird when I just leave the table. mid-meal, but it's like, you don't need to hear me smacking my gums on this corn. That's ridiculous. I'm so with you, Jacqueline. Absolutely. So it isn't just theaters and places that are sensory-friendly. We could talk about sensory-friendly people.
Right. With that level of sensitivity. That's great. I do want to take a rapid and quick left turn here because I want to take. advantage of your experiences and expertise and ask you about a concept that why the hell it's controversial, I don't know, but it's called presuming competence. And literally, there are some folks who say it's the worst thing you can do when you are supporting working with teaching a neurodivergent person. And then other people say.
It should be the bottom line of being effective with autistic and neurodivergent people. I'm just laying it out for you guys to take it. We're picking up what you're putting down, Barry. So we have a lot of little mantras that guide our work. A lot, right? We already just said self-knowledge leads to self-understanding, leads to self-advocacy. Another one, which is a personal favorite of mine, which is presume competence and ensure understanding.
absolutely one of my favorite go-tos so presume competence that everybody can learn that everybody is an engaged human in their world um but Be mindful of how that person takes in information and what's accessible to them and make sure that we can ensure understanding. So like we were talking about how do we apply.
the book energy and the concepts in it to people who have different communication profiles that's the ensuring understanding part i'm going to want that pre-symbolic non-verbal kiddo who I might be supporting who could be quite young to still be a self-advocate and how I'm going to approach that is through I'm going to use you know High frequency words tied to routines that have objects in the ground at two. I'm still presuming competence all while layering on.
language models and creating a language-rich environment and making sure that's a multimodal language-rich environment because I don't know which mode might stick for this kid when that symbolic capacity clicks in. I could keep going, but I'm going to let Jacqueline say something before I keep going. It's actually mind blowing. We know that humans grow and develop and learn. And there's this thing, it's like the zone of proximal development, the difference between where the person is.
currently and their potential for growth. And we do this thing called scaffolding, where we step by step kind of add more. challenging things while we're supporting them. Doctors Vygotsky and Brunner. Sorry, a little academic here. Oh, my Vygotsky. If I get to make a Vygotsky reference, it is a good day. Uh, so yeah, um, we know this and, and I think what, what you said, I, I echo presume competence and sure understanding offer.
The new things offer the next steps, offer the leveling up for the person, ensure that they have what they need. Cause I think you can go into two. dangerous extremes here. You can just presume competence and always be shooting developmentally too high, and the person might get there. They might. But it could be a hard road. Or you can always just ensure understanding and never challenge anything or never offer anything new.
stunt growth in that way. So we like to operate in the middle. The useful reality is to presume competence always. But in order to do that, we have to ensure understanding. And I also like to say, presume competence is dependent on support. Yes. So dependent on. that person's profile in the environment they're in, in the activity they're doing, with whom, and how does that all mix? Because if that mix isn't right, you're never going to see competence in anything.
You've kind of circled back to that whole trusting relationship and that foundation of that safe person. Yes. And also being a good observer. Because they were talking about on the ground examples. If you're shooting too high, as you mentioned, beyond the zone of proximal development, and let's say, let's take a child and this child is trying to escape or is saying through behavior or in other ways, this is too much. No, no, no.
Then we have to adjust. Yeah. Yeah. It's completely adaptive if they're trying to escape because it's like this thing you're doing is meaningless to me. I can't access it at all. So I'm going to remove myself. Very polite.
And a good regulatory strategy in some cases. So Barry, we know that you have... the energy manual but i didn't like highlight this one page for you and maybe you've seen it and maybe you haven't but there's a chart that jacqueline and i developed and it looks at the three different levels of regulatory strategies so sensory motor
strategies, behavioral strategies, those language-based strategies, we call them information and routine strategies, and then the reflective and forward thinking, that metacognition, and then going by communicative profile, right? So pre-symbolic. earlier emerging language, and then conversational. What's easily accessible for our pre-symbolic kiddos? Easily accessible sensory motor strategies.
you can scaffold language and development, language strategies. So your first then boards and your timers and your words for energy or emotion, we're going to expose them to all of that. We move to the kids who are earlier emerging, we say, oh, easily accessible, our sensory motor.
And these language based strategies are easily accessible. We can start scaffolding and modeling the reflective and forward thinking, but we're not expecting them to use them yet. And then when we get to that conversational stage. All three are fair game. And it just gives people this very clear picture of we're doing this scaffolding piece. We're presuming competence and we're ensuring understanding at the same time.
Go Dave. Go ahead, Barry. We're really talking about the fluidity of development. Too often people think of stages with strict boundaries and walls between different stages. And it's not that at all. It's about the transitions as much as it is where we think a person is, also depending upon where they are in their regulatory state, because that could shift dramatically.
So I had, this is kind of a dumb guy, uninformed. I'm clearly, clearly the least academic out of the four of us that are on. Which is probably the best equipped for this conversation, but yes. So presuming competence, so I've actually made errors, mistakes when schools will hire me to come.
and speak about, say, neurodiversity or neurodivergence or what my school experience was like growing up and things like that. And the teachers certainly get a lot of value out of it. But then they'll invite me to speak to it. an assembly of kids or classroom or something like that. I guess the presuming competence piece I must do naturally because I'll just start talking to somebody. But what you're saying is also provide adequate levels of transactional support, right?
That is often where, I'll put it this way, I wouldn't know how to engage with somebody if I were consciously thinking, how do I presume competence here in this situation, but also... What would be the language that a person could use when they're meeting somebody on the spectrum and it's kind of their first time meeting? Like it's one thing to be a parent, it's one thing to be a...
But if you're a professional, if you're a clinician, if you're a lawyer for the family, what are the ways that you can engage with somebody that isn't patronizing and condescending, but is also... uh very proactively in the spirit of uh help me help you like what are the ways that's going to be easy for you to do what i'm asking you to do basically We tend to figure it out as we go. I mean, I would start with talking probably and then realize.
How are they responding to that? And I might quickly shift to, oh, let me type it out on my phone and hand them the phone. Let me see if this. a little aac app i have an aac app on my phone um mostly i use it to just say no at people but uh but it it i also have it for various things that i do so i think you're you're you're spot on Dave you should you should start with what is comfortable and your go-to and then see how it's
how people respond to it and go from there and maybe you're like you know what next time i'm gonna come in with slides of the bullet points of things i'm i might touch on just so there's a visual behind me i you know you we Level up, we like to say wherever you are, take the next step. This is not about you're going to all of a sudden go from maybe reaching one or two students to reaching that whole assembly.
every single communication profile, you've got it covered. This is like, let me just keep trying to increase access with these little, these little changes. I don't know if you've had anything to that. I mean, the only thing I would do is go back to Barry's other point that you made earlier about being that careful observer and look for.
recognition or responsivity in a wide range of ways. So maybe that person's not speaking back to us, but we're getting some sort of other nonverbal communication from the individual, or maybe it's a vocalization that they make that lets us know. Of course, checking in with people who know those individuals well. Like you say, like, I think this is what that meant. Is that what that meant? Is always good to triangulate that. But that's that other part of it is.
communication is a two-way street, right? So like you're putting information out, you're trying to make it as accessible as possible, but you're also looking for all the ways that person could be responding and not trying to narrowly pigeonhole what you think a response. demonstrates competence should look like or understanding should look like. Right. So enter into the interaction organically how you would normally do things, not like.
the American traveling abroad who just speaks louder English to the Italian speaker. I wouldn't go stream that, people. And I would add to this. You know, don't go in thinking of, am I evaluating whether this is working or not working? Be curious and observe. And I think for many people...
I mean, in a sense, it's not rocket science. So I'm going to be going to a social event tonight. I'm going to a little music party. I got my little drumming thing on here. And I'm going to meet people I don't know. And so if we have a conversation, I might say something like, oh, you know, maybe something about their experiences or it's supposed to snow in New England this weekend. Are you going to go skiing? And the person goes, I don't ski.
And then I'll say, okay, well, that's not a good rabbit hole to go down. You know, oh, are you from New England? I mean, we're always kind of...
trying to understand another person's perspective, which could be through nonverbal behavior, through what they say. And it's a matter of gradual adjustments, as Jacqueline and Amy have already said. And I think if... you are more curious to take some of the anxiety out of it about am i doing it right am i working um and and you you kind of especially for kids who use less conventional forms of communication less readable forms
You have to kind of have your detective hat on at the same time. And that's why I mean be curious. And don't forget, we're also talking to a great extent about the other person's, if you will. kind of emotional and physiological reaction to what's going on. It's not just how are they communicating? Are they talking back? It's do they look relaxed? Do they look stressed? So important. Yeah, it's not making judgments. It's notice what you notice.
And by the way, that's very helpful. Thank you all. And by the way, I do want to point out for our guests and our listeners that usually when Barry has a social function, talk about scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. He wears a wire in his ear, and I can hear everything going on, and I type to him suggestions on how to navigate through that and then get out.
It's, you know, sometimes you got to depend on autistic intuition. I mean, it's just, you know. Jacqueline has saved us many times. She's like, stop talking. I just want to follow up on what you said, because I think it's so important because it's just about connection. Connection is just going to feel connected.
redundant i know but that like you know when you're connected to somebody else you know when you're in relationship you know like and so it's going to feel different with everybody in every instance but like you you know when there is that that genuine reciprocity in an interaction with somebody. Is there a sense of on any level? Is there a sense of flow as to what's going on?
Well, guys, I think we're going to have to put a dam in front of the flow here. The energy is just going, Barry. I know. We just have all these outside restrictions on us. Such as the attention span of our listeners. But no, this is marvelous. I'm sure our listeners are probably saying, I wish I could have been on a lot longer. What a pleasure having you back on again.
And of course, we will have links to all of your resources on the website connected to this episode, as well as the Biggie, the new energy manual. Very, very important. So thank you so much and hope to see you guys soon, you local people. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for being back, and congratulations again. You're just doing so much important work. It's like you're the Mozarts of certs. You're just cranking them out. That's great. Take care. Bye. Thanks.