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Autism Parenting Secrets
The Autism Label Hides More Than It Reveals
00:44:28
Ryan Sumner, host of the From the Spectrum podcast, joins Len to explore how the autism diagnosis can sometimes obscure deeper biological and neurological realities. Drawing from both lived experience and his doctoral studies in clinical psychology and behavioral neuroscience, Ryan offers a perspective on autism that bridges science with firsthand insight. The secret this week is… The Autism Label Hides More Than It Reveals
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- [00:00]
A
I don't think society knows exactly what to do with the person with autism, the autistic phenotype. And that's. That's what really drove me to kind of maybe speak up and speak about the autistic phenotype a little bit more, because there's so much capability there. You know, whenever I go back and read, whenever I read the Kanner paper and the Asperger paper, I want people to know that Asperger nicknamed those kids little professors. There's something to this autistic phenotype that can really benefit society.
- [00:35]
B
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage, and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is Autism Parenting Secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now.
- [01:00]
C
Hello and welcome. If you're early in the journey supporting a child with autism, the diagnosis can feel like the moment suddenly everything makes sense, that you finally have a label for what you're seeing. But the label can also become a trap. It can quietly narrow how professionals think. It can shape expectations about what is possible for your child, and it can distract parents from asking deeper questions about what's really going on beneath the surface. So today's guest has spent a lot of time thinking about this. Ryan Sumner is the host of the from the Spectrum podcast, and he is someone living with autism himself. He's on a mission to help people better understand autism through a deeper biological and evolutionary lens. His work often explores how energy, light, environment, and biology influence the brain and nervous system. So in this conversation, we're going to explore how the autism label can sometimes oversimplify a much more complex story, and why parents who are willing to look beyond that label often discover new possibilities for their child. The secret this week is the autism label hides more than it reveals. Welcome, Ryan.
- [02:20]
A
Hey, Chris. Great to be here. Lynn, you're so good. You're podcast. You're so good.
- [02:25]
C
Well, thank you for that. And so is yours. And again, I know we're both out there trying to put out messages that we truly believe parents will benefit from. So the title of this episode, we talked about it beforehand. I was on your podcast, and, you know, I think it's an intriguing concept, right, that the label may hide more than it reveals. So with that, and as kind of the anchor for our discussion, and the fact that you've recorded so many episodes yourself with so Many dynamite guests. Why particularly do you think that message is really important for someone to understand, whether they're early in a journey supporting their child or later in a journey? Why is that concept so important?
- [03:07]
A
Autism has come very confusing lately and it's very overwhelming. I don't think society knows exactly what to do with the person with autism, the autistic phenotype. That's what really drove me to kind of maybe speak up and speak about the autistic phenotype a little bit more because there's so much capability there. And, you know, whenever I go back and read, whenever I read the Canner paper and the Asperger paper, you know, people, I want people to know that Asperger nicknamed those kids little professors. There's something to this autistic phenotype that can really benefit society and that it's just so frustrating kind of, that, you know, we're just, we kind of just don't know what to do. And that's, that's doesn't sit comfortably with me, especially in my own experience. So one thing that I just really love about autism is just the ability to kind of be self satisfied. And that was the very first sentence, that case one Donald Triplett's father wrote to Leo Kanner. He wrote like this 30 page letter and the very first sentence that he could have chose anything. He said, he seems to be self satisfied. So that was very revealing to me and it was something that really resonated with me.
- [04:40]
C
Yeah, that's interesting. So the self satisfied, it kind of gets to the concept that sometimes with people with whether it's autism, whatever that label may be, that they, in their world, they're perfectly content. Right? And in this case, maybe it's the parent whose nervous system is really out of whack because of what they're seeing. And that's why it's easy to fall into this judgment of your child that, okay, this has to change, this is not okay. And plus, all of society's telling you that that's not okay. Here's the label. That's not okay. Here are the services you need to absolutely do, because this is not okay. And that's where it's such a big reframe. But it's hard for a parent to. But it makes a big difference that, no, this is not something to judge as a problem, as a horrible thing. This is what is. And if you kind of go in without the judgment, you can see more of the gifts, the superpowers kind of. I go back to what Temple Grandin talked about where what she thought was most powerful for what her mom did for her was that she saw her through the lens of different, not less. And I think that kind of summed it up for me, too. And that really helped me to make that internal shift that made all the difference.
- [06:09]
A
You know, there's this thing about humans. Of course we're different, but whenever we're viewing that, especially if it's our child, that is very frustrating. It's very. Can be overwhelming. You know, it's like, okay, now what do I do? Because especially with these social norms, the biggest implication, I think, or the biggest barrier to the autistic phenotype, I think, is social norms. So just understanding that the autistic can have. They have such wonderful abilities underneath. You just have to go extract them out, put them in situations that they want to be in and like. And that way they can live a fulfilling life and serve their. Their enjoyments and have a role in society. Another thing about that Caner paper that I love so much is the kids, you know, just like we're talking about, you know, the parents and the physicians and so forth, were trying to. The educators were trying to say what. What is happening here? What is going on? And the little kids do not like that interaction. But Caner described that eventually the kids would learn to do that interaction, and then they would be dismissed and they could get back to their fixated interest.
- [07:27]
C
And what's your takeaway from that? Like, why does that resonate with you so much?
- [07:32]
A
You know, we want to force other people into this, like, this silo of what they should be, what they can do, what they can't do. And that's very harmful. It's, you know, especially, like, with eye gaze. Eye gaze is not that complicated to understand, and it's really not that needed. But if we see somebody doing that, it's like, very uncomfortable for the. For the observer. So, you know, they're, they're. They have this, like, in motivational interviewing, they have this kind of term called riding reflex or fixing reflex. And humans have that. And we need to be aware of that.
- [08:11]
C
Yeah. Now when you talk about eye gaze and you're talking about kind of eye contact. Right. Which is something that parents, especially early on, that's such a telltale sign, a concerning sign. And so parents so want that. And I think there's a lack of understanding of why, particularly for a child, that might be really unsettling. So what can you share putting, you know, helping a parent to get inside the mind, the body of Someone. Why would something as seemingly simple as eye contact be challenging?
- [08:44]
A
Yeah, it's a, it's a lot to do with the sensory processing. I like to think about this as if I, if I have a destination. Okay, there's point A to point B, but there's maybe there's six stops along the way with the autistic phenotype. They're hitting those first stops faster and harder than I guess I'll say typical or others. I don't really like to compare like the autistic and the neurotypical. I think that's nonsense.
- [09:11]
C
But another example where labels sometimes aren't helpful, but you want to try to
- [09:15]
A
compare a group to.
- [09:17]
C
You're trying to show differences.
- [09:19]
A
Yeah. So with the I inputs. In 2003, there was a fantastic paper published about autism with the excitation and inhibition imbalance. These were two researchers that didn't study, they don't study autism, they study like neuroplasticity mostly Rubenstein and Mike Merzenich. And ever since then there's this pretty accurate understanding that autism has a high excitation and or low inhibition. This low inhibition is well researched now, especially with the specific cells and specific regions. So in all sensory processing, this excitation inhibition is a huge thing. And with the autistic phenotype, the lack of inhibition allows more information to come in versus the typical which they have that inhibition to kind of just mush everything in and generalize what they are perceived or what they are sensing. The autistic phenotype has so much more information coming in.
- [10:30]
C
Are you saying that the autistic phenotype is more open, taking more in than, than, than someone who might be more typical where without intention, it's more of a narrow filtering, if you will.
- [10:43]
A
Yeah, that's exactly right. And so the typical is with this inhibition because just imagine if we're sensation or we're sensing everything in the environment. It's very overwhelming. So with the autistic phenotype there's different or there's a lot more information coming in and at faster rates. So that's two different things there that might be underrated for most people. And whenever we're doing the sensation perception process, the sensory processing, our bodies without us knowing it, is sending a prediction map to the next areas. This is called corollary discharge. Corollary discharge was discovered by a Nobel winner in the early 80s, but he discovered it in like the 50s and 60s. So without us knowing it before we even make a eye gaze change, our thalamus is Sending a corollary discharge up to the frontal eye fields, which is up here. And it's distal. In the autistic phenotype, this is delayed versus normal. And then it'll speak back to the parietal to make sense of what's going to happen. And then the parietal will kind of govern the eye gaze. From there, it will speak back down to the thalamus and the visual cortex. But this is delayed. So that eye gaze, in addition to all that extra information coming in, makes the eye gaze complicated, that eye contact complicated. And whenever I was saying earlier about the rate of information coming in and the impact intensity of it, those two different things, the autistic phenotype brainwaves are something that's pretty fascinating. And they're kind of underrated, I think, because they're hard. It's hard to research. But with the autistic phenotype, with sensations, they're in higher gamma, and so they're getting blasted more. That doesn't necessarily mean that the rate is coming in faster because we covered that with the excitation inhibition, imbalance. So there's two little phenomena there. Like if I was going to get, I don't know, get hit on the arm, just a little punch. So that's the stop. Okay, so let's say that's my visual cortex, is my arm. Now you can hit me and that impact happens, but you can punch me harder. And that's what I'm talking about. Like, at that surface, that impact is much higher and there's more information coming in. So it's very challenging for eye gaze,
- [13:28]
C
especially when speaking, Especially when someone's speaking to you or when. When the person is speaking.
- [13:36]
A
I think for me, definitely whenever I'm speaking, because speech and language is, I think, one of the four comorbid problems with the autistic phenotype that every autistic person has speech and language problems. And so there's a lot going on in the brain now whenever, like, if you are speaking to me, I've kind of learned through time I can know what you kind of pay attention to and allow myself to receive that information easier. But that came with experience.
- [14:06]
C
Yeah, you've adapted.
- [14:07]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [14:08]
C
Could we circle back just in terms of eye gaze, eye contact, and tell me if there's a difference between those two? Because I know you're using gaze, I use contact. But if there's a difference, please highlight that. But with that, I would offer that one reason at least. I believe that that's a challenge for people. Who are on the spectrum is that in very simple terms direct eye contact just doesn't feel safe to them. Right. Like there's something about it that's threatening or uncomfortable and therefore to not make eye contact is the safer move. So I just want to get your reaction to that general concept. And then when you talked about what might be happening in the brain, all I kept thinking about is oh well there's in terms of different parts of the brain and different aspects of the brain and how things are working. That's why people consider something like neurofeedback at some point to help modulate what's happening. I know that's getting ahead in terms of interventions, but can you talk about the why and the lack of safety concept first and maybe we can touch on neurofeedback?
- [15:17]
A
Yeah, the safety is a thing because especially over time they're going to develop this experience with having bad social situations. And back to what we were saying, other you have to do this, you can't do this type of thing, that instruction and that's very harmful because just imagine if you can't do something and you're forced to do it. It's like I like to think about it. I was thinking about this earlier about let's say I'm join a gym membership and I want you to run on their treadmill and remember I want to run a 10 minute mile but this gym membership only allows the six minute mile. So they force me to run the six minute mile and that's my only option. And no, you know, and that's the way I think we, we approach this stuff in society. I don't want to talk too much about aba but you know, that's something that's a core for them.
- [16:12]
C
I'm nodding in agreement and I love the analogy with the gym and you know, know there's a, there's a balance, right of having like targets, you know, in terms of what you might, you know, like functional skills and target levels there, there's a place for that. But if it's rigid like hey, this has to be done again, you're, you're forcing everyone to be, to conform to some norms that somebody's created. And again, while that may be well intentioned it, it does very much kind of violate the respect for hey, we're all wired differently and you know, you may be perfectly content on this earth being someone who runs a 10 minute mile and never ever needing to run that 6 minute mile.
- [16:53]
A
Yeah, and I use the 6 minute mile too because of that. Rate of information. Sometimes visual processing looks like watching TV and fast forward. And that's very complicated. And that goes though, with the ability for that sensation to perception and the sensory processing. So. And there are very good factors, environments or activities that. That is very beneficial for. It's just that socialness is very complicated. And if we understand what autism is, or autist, autistic, it's rooted in the word autos, A, U, T, O, S, like automatic, which means self. So, you know, there's a lot going on with the. With the trouble of orienting our attention to the outside world because it's complicated. But the biology I think that gives us autism allows us to be comfortable within ourself. And that goes back to the early Kenner papers and Asperger papers, which. Their narrative has kind of changed.
- [18:05]
C
Well, their narrative has changed or people's interpretation of what they said has changed that one.
- [18:11]
A
The interpretation for sure. Because they no longer can change their narrative.
- [18:16]
C
Right, right, right. No, no. Things evolve. And I know the label and the concept of the title of this episode, you know, it's. It is kind of a yet again, a balance where a label can be super helpful to kind of demystify what might be happening. And we like to be able to categorize things. And to some extent that labeling could be useful. But again, there comes a point where it becomes something that doesn't help, that does kind of limit options, limit thinking. So just can you go deeper on how you think about it? Because you talk about autistic. Some people don't like to use that term. Some people don't want to identify, even with myself. I've shared on this podcast. My son's 19 now, and I never shared with him the term autism. I didn't work it into the vocabulary. He was a teenager when he first heard and understood that he was on the autism spectrum. And it wasn't like I was hiding it from him. I just didn't think having him identify with that condition would help him. He knew he was different. He knew he had superpowers, he knew he had skills to develop. And so I intentionally, personally chose not to use that label. But tell me more about your thinking on it. And again, there is that balance I
- [19:35]
A
don't spend too much time thinking about. More recently, there was this kind of push pull with is it an autistic person or a person with autism? Like, stuff like that doesn't bother me. Good advice. More of a broad psychology advice is we have to be careful to what we attach our identity to. And because that will. That will determine our path. And you can attach to being an autistic. But. And that might help you uncover some of these, like you said. And I have in my title the superpowers. But I really want to be careful of not saying I don't want to minimize the harms of autism because there's. There's some autistics that, you know, have the apraxia and so forth that are massively challenged. That's not my goal. My goal is to, like, with this extra extraordinary ability for like, accelerated learning and just absorbing information, type things.
- [20:42]
C
Right, right, right.
- [20:43]
A
Yeah.
- [20:43]
C
No, so what you're talking about more like what people would say, higher functioning and the like, and how those people operate very differently. And again, I think what you just indicated with. There are definitely some other people and children or adults who are challenged with other things. Right. Like dyspraxia. And like, that's why the autism label or especially autism spectrum is so broad to be meaningless, really. But again, to know, to kind of have a label, have a diagnosis, see what that means, and then kind of forget it. Right. Like, see how it might help you inform, perhaps understanding and decisions. So not be in denial, but at the same time not let it define you. And I struggle with that all the time because even this podcast is called Autism Parenting Secrets. And again, there's no such thing as autism parenting. And as a parent, I never identified as an autism parent. I'm a parent of a son and a daughter. Right. And they just happened, or at least my son happens to have presented, particularly when he was younger, with enough behaviors and symptoms that checked enough boxes that he was given an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. And at the time it was PDD nos, you know, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified, which was basically, we don't know what it is, but he's different and it's not okay. And you need to do something about it.
- [22:11]
A
Yeah, there are definitely some challenges, I mean, especially within the school. The school day is very tough. Yeah. And employment. Employment is very difficult for the autistic phenotype.
- [22:25]
C
Which one do you want to focus on? Let's. Let's go a little deeper on school or business. Where do you want to take us?
- [22:32]
A
I think maybe school because of the learning, because autistics have this fascinating accelerated ability for learning. And I'm not talking about what is being forced to learn. I'm not talking so much about school curriculum, which it could involve that. But I'm just talking about Those like the DSM 5 in the TR now, symptom B3, it's in category B. B3 says restricted fixated interest that are abnormal and intensity or focus. So an interest that brings intensity or focus is abnormal.
- [23:13]
C
What?
- [23:14]
A
I don't get it. So, yeah, with school and back to those Kanner and Asperger papers, we all know examples of little autistic kids, they can just tell you any, everything about, you know, whatever they're fixated on.
- [23:28]
C
And it's very cool stuff, like incredible detail, incredible memory. Yeah.
- [23:33]
A
And that's. That detail is a big part of that excitation inhibition imbalance in the sensory processing and which is huge for learning because we have to absorb the information. But we're, you know, autistics are getting more information. So just a broad framework of what learning is. It's pretty simple. It's just like a process for experience and material information that produces a lasting change in us. You know, we're beginning to take shape. We become who we are. You know, so things like neuroplasticity and things. And then from here we kind of can make preferences and our personality is shaped. And then a good thing about learning is predictions and errors. Okay. We begin to start making predictions of the world back to that socialness that we talked about not long ago. So I'm predicting like this being fixated on this interest or this topic or subject is. It's much more, it's better for me and it's safe, like you mentioned earlier, in comparison to the social world, which is very chaotic. And then also errors, errors are really good for learning. But if we think about other factors that's rooted in learning, the autistic phenotype has benefits in each one of these kind of sections of learning. Okay, so we're extracting information from the environment that's sensation and we're making perceptions of them. This processing the sensation and making meaning and understanding. So we're absorbing that information and with that EI imbalance, that's more information in better detail. Like how Temple Grandin will talk about bottom up thinking details to general. So if she's imagining a church, she's going to start with the brick or the door, very precise details of it instead of just seeing a large church. And this is huge because learning will actually involve these details. That's how you get expertise in comparison to that, with that more balanced excitation and inhibition with this, that general or that gist of things. That's much different than being precise and detailed and knowing so much more information about certain topics. And with learning that early stage of learning because we don't know it, we must learn it. Our body will have the slight feelings of agitation, friction, and that often causes the person to bail to stop. With the autistic phenotype, that's not the case. The autistic phenotype in the biology that gives us autism allows us kind of to bypass and enter into that gate of learning. And that's something that I wish more people could understand because it's very complicated to even say that as we're, we're, we're undergoing this learning bout, we're going to have that friction because most people aren't going to be in tune with it. They're thinking about where do I start, what is this material even saying? Do I have to do this type of thing? And so forth. Just broad examples. And another thing with learning is the time on task. We must repeat it. Autism with the repetition, that's understood, that's well understood and easy to accept. But you know, if I'm sitting here spending massive amounts of time on learning about Boeing 747s, then I can tell you everything about it. And that's like the Asperger's little professors and the little Canter kids too.
- [27:41]
C
Talk to me more about the repetition piece of it. So in terms of how again, somebody who focuses on details focuses on those foundation instead of seeing the big picture, looking at the detail. Tell me more about how repetition works into it.
- [27:59]
A
Yeah, you're just building up models and that's actually what we're doing. Our, more specifically our prefrontal cortex, we build up these internal models of what we think is going to happen to us. We don't react to the environment as humans. We react to our predictions of the environment as we navigate them. So whenever you're getting this detail and you're just building up, I like to think about it as building up databases or catalogs for different categories. So I can learn everything I need to know or want to know as easily as I possibly can about this topic or this subject. And then I can learn, do the same with a different one. And then eventually we're just creating all of these different databases in our mind and we can easily withdraw or retrieve those and we can start to combine those into this greater meaning of, let's just say like for me, okay, I like neuroscience and I have this good ability of doing this, you know, whatever the topic or subject is that the autistic phenotype enjoys. And you know, what I'm explaining here is why, like things like mathematician and Engineering or even music is very popular with people with autism because of all of this detail. And I haven't even talked about the visual thinking and how that can accelerate learning. But I don't know if we'll have enough time. But I would want the. The listener to understand. Like with this visual thinking, this internal dialogue in movies, it's very real. It's equivalent to the outside world. I like thinking in pictures by Temple Grannin, too. I think she explains it well. But you know, Lynn, visual thinking is kind of underrated because it's very hard to research. So there's not a whole lot to know about it or there's not a lot of material about it. And like, if I'm explaining something, just like anything, when two people are conversing, the speaker has to provide the information and the receiver must kind of make sense to it. Their meaning could be completely off. So how am I going to explain visual thinking in a way that others that don't have it, especially with this intensity, could understand is one of. Is a big challenge for me. But definitely, like whenever I've mentioned watching TV and fast forward, whenever I'm perceiving the world outside, sometimes it's just like that in my imagination. And that innate imagination is. It just accelerates learning because we're getting more repetition, we're seeing it. You know, if to put this in a way that maybe the listener can understand, like if you watch a movie one time versus 300 times, you're going to learn it better.
- [31:15]
C
Right, Right, right, right. Well, I appreciate everything you're expanding on, and it's definitely helping me, I think, just to bring it up a level, I think you've given a lot of good examples of how somebody who's on the spectrum is truly more in their world. And I say it all the time to my son, like, hey, listen, I know you love your world, but it's also good to be part of our world too. But I think what you're talking about is that the way you process, think and evaluate is very different. And instead of it being based on externally what someone's experiencing, you're talking about how within your mind or within your world, it's more about predictions than what's actually happening, like what you're doing. And the visual thinking is a big piece of that. So I think high level, I'm taking away that. Yes, my son many times is within his own world and he's very happy there, and he's learning how to adapt and operate in the external world. But I don't have to look at him being in his own world as a problem that needs to be corrected and extinguished. It's about helping him to flourish, leveraging the superpowers of what he's able to do that other people can't in his own world and at the same time learn how to be successful interacting with the world as it is. Is that fair to say? Because my son definitely. Music's huge. That level of detail, that level, I mean, described him, you described him to
- [32:48]
A
a T. Yeah, that is very good point, Lynn, because we're still humans, we still need social interaction. So there's going to be moments like that and relationship struggle and so forth, if it's friendship or romantic relationship and so forth. But yeah, that's a good point. And I want to say something else about that that I thought about is when oftentimes, especially younger kids or even through adolescence and so forth, or even in the romantic relationship, we give a perception that we're not paying attention, I can assure you that we're absorbing the information that, you know, as an adult, it's less severe if you're being told you're not paying attention. But as a child, 6, 7, 8, 9 years old, and you're in school and you're being constantly said you're not paying attention. And you know, Kanter highlighted that as well. So we, we kind of neglect, I think, those, those origins of the autistic phenotype. But I would just encourage families and especially educators to not accuse there's a lack of attention.
- [34:08]
C
Let's talk about that a little bit because I think for, again, it's hard to generalize, but that's obviously something that many people observe with people and kids on the spectrum that they're not paying attention. I'm sure in some percent, some, probably small percent, truly, there may be disinterest and perhaps a lack of attention. But whether a child is high functioning or has some other more profound challenges, would you say that the vast majority, that it's not an attention issue, they're taking it all in even though they may not be able to demonstrate it or display that understanding visually?
- [34:48]
A
Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. And when most people interact or they're having conversations or whatever in the environment, there's going to be some body language, there's going to be some responses outside of speech, and the autistic is not going to provide that. So, you know, that's one thing. And you know, it's hard to compare. Okay, how much attention is the Little autistic child giving versus the other child that's not autistic, you know, because again, we're still human. You still have to, there's still going to be times where maybe there is a lack of interest as far as in moments, in situations that that interaction is probably required, like a parent child interaction versus just playful. I think just allowing the person to pause and stop for a moment before accusing will be so big. Because remember, we're, we all have neuroplasticity. We, we, we all have experiences. And whenever those social awkward experiences or acquisitions build up, that's just going to withdraw more and more.
- [36:09]
C
Well, now, now you're getting to about from a parent standpoint, right? How we operate, how we are communicating, how we're presenting ourselves to our child makes a huge difference. And, and that's why being annoyed, frustrated, angry, I mean, all that, your child, your adult, you know, honestly, it's going to feel that. And that's where we can still try to be helpful, try to give good guidance and be strong parents with boundaries and limits. But it's again, it's the energy we're presenting that does make a big difference. And that's why even early on, talking about eye contact, if there's a perceived lack of a sense of lack of safety or just a sense from that individual's perspective that they're not okay as they are. I think our opportunity as parents is to operate in a way where we're loving, we're respectful, we're present, we're open, and to not do anything that's going to push our child away. And again, I think it's easy to say that, hard to do in the moment. But if you really shift how you're looking at what's happening with your child, a lot opens up for you. So I think everything you've been sharing is giving a great peek in terms of helping parents better understand what might be happening. Now. We talked about school a little bit. Did you want to cover work a little bit just to close the loop on the challenges that you see from a working environment perspective?
- [37:35]
A
Yeah. But first I want to talk real fast about that parent interaction because there's this thing with the excitation inhibition and the inability to filter out signals coming in, raw sensory signals, sometimes or a lot of times receiving speech, whenever, with hearing, it's very overwhelming. So I want to caution people to stop, especially volume. But the amount, because, you know, as adults or whenever we're trying to kind of fix something, we want to keep speaking and that is Harmful for the autistic person because that rate of information is coming in and then like the ears will start to throb and just like everything. And it's very overwhelming because if, you know, if you've ever had any kind of ear abnormal dysfunction or, you know, problems with your ear, acute problems, it's very intimidating or it's very challenging. So I would really caution people to not over talk. But yeah, with the employment, just maybe real fast, it's just like that social interaction is a very bad thing. It's like those social norms and it's like, I think that's why autistic adults, you know, people with autism with, with employment or just better isolated, you know, or in small environments. Like Donald Triplett was a banker and he's case one, you know, and just little environments like that where there's not all of this, like back and forth. Like so many people outside of autism even label that as like nonsense. They hate small talk. Everybody hates small talk. But this maybe seems worse. The autistic isn't adapted to kind of suppress it and sustain it. So with the employment, that's very challenging
- [39:40]
C
and I have to imagine it's hard for me not to go there, but I'm just imagining how things are progressing now where so much of work is moving, where it's more online, not requiring the social engagement. So it's almost like things are evolving in a way that almost makes it easier or better for people who might be on a spectrum to be able to contribute meaningfully without a lot of the challenges that make it hard if you had to show up at a corporate job and interacting with people and hanging out at the water cooler, which might be uncomfortable. So again, I feel like things are moving in a direction where maybe the ability for everyone's gifts to shine and contribute without having to conform to some norms, perhaps that's getting better. And there's a lot of things where we're evolving to that are very concerning. But there's some aspects that might be moving us in the right direction. So I just throw that out there as something to consider bringing us back though to this concept of the label. Is there anything? And I know by the way, I'm sure Ryan's so frustrated right now because his podcast, he goes for hours and goes deep and I told him we're going to keep this somewhat more succinct, but. And Ryan, we'll talk again down the road. But as you think about the concept today, the label, right, the label that it might hide, you know, more than it reveals. So talk a little bit more if you can. Or just what do you want parents to walk away with in terms of what the label might be hiding that they could be more on the lookout for?
- [41:17]
A
Yeah, you know, let's just say there's two kids and one has autism, one doesn't. So in both scenarios, you're going to try to allow both of these children to grow, you know, pursue the things that they love. That's what life is about. Go pursue the things that you love and with your unique abilities and the things that you enjoy doing, that you want to do and you can do. So, you know, I think we outlined some pretty good themes and understanding of what makes the autistic more isolated versus the social person, but just allowing them to be. To utilize all of this ability that's inside of us, that's very comfortable within. A lot of people have like this internal friction and so forth, and, you know, they might express that inward. They might internalize things or even externalize things, and they're the autistic phenotype. You know, it's just not so much like that. So just allowing them to pursue the things that they love, I think is the best thing.
- [42:32]
C
That's a very profound message. Took me a long time to see that with my son, that ultimately it is about doing the best I can to help him pursue what he does, love what he's really good at. And again, if that's different than what I was imagining, that's okay. Right? That's where as a parent, you can let go of perhaps those expectations doesn't mean not wanting more for your child, not hoping that if they have challenges, that they overcome those challenges and become the best version of themselves. But a lot of it does come down to accepting your child as they are, dropping those expectations, whatever they are, and again, figuring out what's going to help. How can you change how you're doing your job as a parent in a way that helps them to again, not to conform to something, but to become the best version of themselves, which means pursuing what they love, whatever that might be, and leveraging the gifts that they have.
- [43:33]
A
Yeah, we're on unique. There's the role for us out there,
- [43:37]
C
for all of us, no doubt. I think that's a powerful way to end this discussion. Ryan, thank you so much. Look forward to having a future conversation. We'll put in the show notes where people can find your podcast. And thank you very much for what you're doing, putting this information out there and trying to help people better understand what is a very confusing and sometimes hard to hard to comprehend what's happening and why people think differently. So you're doing a dynamite job explaining that. Thanks so much.
- [44:06]
A
Thanks, Lynn. You're great.
- [44:08]
B
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