B (3:39)

Yeah. By training, I am a speech language pathologist, but that actually came out of an undergraduate degree in psycholinguistics because I was at a university that didn't have special ed or speech path. But I had been working at summer camps for people with disabilities and the full range. Adults, children, all kinds of diagnoses. I'm talking about late 60s starting, or at least into the 70s. And so I had these kind of two parallel tracks. Starting first in almost like a surrogate parent role as a camp counselor. And these were residential summer camps. So I was responsible for the lives of children and adults along with all my colleagues. And then I was so taken by that, I went ahead and figured out how to make psycholinguistics more focused on people with disabilities and then went off for my master's and doctorate in communication disorders and got focused on autism specifically very early on. Actually did my master's thesis and doctoral dissertation on autism.

A (4:43)

Wow.

B (4:43)

And lots has happened since.

A (4:48)

Oh yeah, I bet. I mean, I think of in my career and probably years too, the things that have kind of come and gone and philosophies and approaches, and it's. It's really neat to be at this point in time in 2025 and look back at where things have been and. And the really great things about where we're at now.

B (5:11)

Yeah. Well, the one thing that I'm very proud of in the work that I've done with colleagues is you could go way back. You can go back to my doctoral dissertation on echolalia. And we have been so consistently grounded in a developmental and humanistic and family centered approach. And that started way back in my career because I think I don't have an immediate family member on the spectrum or with any neurodevelopmental conditions. But I had that experience of almost like a. Not 24, seven 12 months a year, but 24, seven, two months a year experience.

A (5:50)

Right.

B (5:51)

For the safety and happiness. And I had wonderful mentors in my career. As a matter of fact, since you're an slp, I mean, some of my mentors became important leaders in the profession in ASHA, presidents of ASHA, Dr. David Yoder, Dr. David Luderman, the first person to have truly family centered work. For him, it was with hearing impaired and deaf children.

A (6:14)

So. Yeah. Wow. Well, you were, you've truly been ahead of your time. The, the whole, your whole career. I've just re. Listen to your book and if you got to tell everybody about it, if they have not read or listened to Uniquely Human, it is life changing. If you want to look at a shift towards more compassionate approaches and like you said, human. Human to human approaches.

B (6:42)

Yeah. And well, Uniquely Human came about and just to let your listeners know, it has been published in two editions. The first edition was 2015 and then the updated edition, an expanded edition as well, was 2022. And the whole purpose of the book was to tell stories. Most of my work prior to publishing Uniquely Human was peer reviewed academic journals, chapters in quote unquote scholarly volumes, over three versions of the handbook on autism. We had seven chapters on social communication. And a big influence I should mention for me was I was recruited to develop the first communication disorders department in a pediatric psychiatric hospital in the world.

A (7:32)

Wow.

B (7:32)

And that was the Brown University program in medicine. So I was there for almost 10 years and greatly influenced by child psychiatry and not just autism, but children with emotional behavioral challenges as well. Anyway, Uniquely Human came about because I always love to tell stories because I always love the children and the people I work with and, and my wife and my son. And by the way, my son is fourth year, probably going into psychiatry route now in medical school.

A (8:00)

Oh, cool.

B (8:01)

At Duke University. Yeah. He's great.

A (8:04)

That's amazing.

B (8:05)

Yeah. So anyway, the. I always told stories and my wife and my son said, you need to write a book of focusing on your stories for the mainstream public. And that's what I did. I was fortunate enough to get a beautiful contract from Simon and Schuster. I worked with Tom Fields Meyer, who is a dad of an adult autistic young man. And I work with him because he helped me turn some of my academic writing and storytelling into something that everybody could relate to. And I'm proud to say since the 2015 version came out, up to the present time, it's been the best selling book on autism. And, and it also was given anointed with, with the. I guess you could say the honor Book authority uses database decision making on books that have been influential. And a few years ago it was awarded with the. The top book on autism of all time.

A (9:08)

Wow.

B (9:09)

And people say to me, how'd you do that? I said, I just told stories about what I learned from families and from autistic children. And a lot of it really connected with folks and still is connecting with folks. It's still in the top two or three autism books in Sam's. And then the podcast came along.

A (9:31)

Yes. Which is a great podcast, by the way. We will be linking it in the show notes here too.

B (9:37)

That's great. Yeah. And basically my co author on Uniquely Human, Tom, who's a professional writer, he said to me a number of years ago, barry, you need to do a podcast. I mean, people like to hear you speak, tell stories. And at that time, I had connected with a person who became a very close friend, Dave Finch, who is autistic and he's an audio engineer and he's a New York Times best selling author himself. His book is called the Journal of Best Practices. It came out years ago and it was and is about. Because it's still as relevant now as when it came out about how he was trying to be a better husband and a better father. Being on the spectrum, Dave is as funny as can be. So the book is really, really funny. And he actually has been interviewed now three times in Modern Romance, New York Times column.

A (10:37)

Oh, my goodness.

B (10:39)

It's about how to be a better husband.

A (10:43)

That's so awesome.

B (10:44)

And so we just released, I think, our 133rd episode.

A (10:49)

Wow.

B (10:49)

The last four years on topics that range from suicide prevention all the way to how to play with kids, all the way to the role of music in the lives of some autistic people to theater. The range of topics is amazing and I'm very happy to toot our horn. And Dave has a huge role here. We are the number one top podcast in neurodiversity right now.

A (11:19)

Awesome.

B (11:20)

And I love doing it with Dave because he plays a very special role being not only a person on the spectrum, but he brings the sense of humor that's always out of the box thinking to our podcast. Yeah.

A (11:33)

I love it. What a good. What a dynamic duo the two of you are for that. And I love how you talk about stories because stories. I feel like, you know, this is the piece why your book is so wonderful. Yeah. The information, but the stories applied to actual. You can tell from the stories, their actual situations, families you've been involved with or families telling their story. And I think that's where both educators and parents can relate to it because they're like, oh, yeah. I mean, you could tell right away if someone's giving a bunch of advice, but they have no experience and haven't actually had to apply the information. It's a very different feel.

B (12:18)

Yeah. And I mean, you could see that at conferences. I mean, if you have any Experience and you've been down and dirty with families and kids and with neurodivergent adults. You could tell within the first 15, 20 minutes whether that person is an ivory tower research person. Get out of your office.

A (12:36)

Yeah, yeah.

B (12:38)

Because it's everyday life routines and experiences that you really get to develop relationships with family members, with three year olds, with 50 year olds. And I've been fortunate enough that I've been healthy enough and around long enough that I've had so many of those experiences that were learning experiences with me. And I should mention, if you're talking about kind of my career influences, just a few months ago we had our 27th annual parent retreat weekend. Oh, 27 years. I with my wife who is a psychologist, not focused on autism, but on other areas. Hand in hand with parents, we developed and have been providing this retreat experience, a weekend retreat. That's marvelous. And another great, great opportunity for me as a professional to sit with 55, 60 parents who have family members, children from 3 years of age up to 50 years of age, and sit and learn about their experiences. And so it's, that's where the learning comes from for me and has always come from. And yeah, apparently people see that. And something you just mentioned also in my book Uniquely Human, I talk so many about so many different kids and experiences that a very common reaction I get from educators, therapists, paraprofessionals and parents and family members is that, oh yeah, when you spoke about Billy, you're talking about my kid.

A (14:16)

Yes, exactly.

B (14:18)

When you spoke about Erica, I have an Erica in my classroom.

A (14:22)

That's exactly it, that's what I'm saying. Like when you can really relate to people with, with stories. So sometimes when I'm talking about different strategies to use in the classroom because I support a lot of preschool special education teachers who work with autistic kids. And I'm not kidding or joking, even though we kind of laugh about it. When I say, do you ever have the student that comes to work with you, they see what you have on the table, they're three non speaking maybe, and they turn around and walk away within 0.2 seconds. Yeah, that's what it's like being a special education teacher working with young autistic kids.

B (14:58)

Like, and it's, it's not that they're being non compliant, it's that they're saying, come on, can't you do something with me that would really kind of light my fire and be of interest to me, please?

A (15:09)

Exactly. I always say they're kind of like Nah. So, and then that's on us. That's on us to, like you said, find something that lights their fire and makes them excited and engaged.

B (15:22)

And that. And what you just said is a brilliant comment that I think the people who are most professional in the field are the ones who take responsibility for not connecting with the child or the child not wanting to connect, play with you, sit down with you. And I think the professionals who need to grow and evolve and learn, and very often it has to do with how much experience they've had.

A (15:49)

Yeah.

B (15:49)

Are the ones who say, oh, he's being non compliant. Okay. He's an uncooperative child. We have to embrace the fact that a huge role that we play and being the most professional is kind of being humble and saying, okay, I'm just not approaching this youngster the right way. I need to rethink how I'm doing this.

A (16:12)

Yeah.

B (16:12)

It's called reflective practice.

A (16:15)

Yes. I love that term because it really is true. And sometimes even as the one in charge of the classroom, sometimes you have a student where you have a paraprofessional that connects with that child really well for some reason. And you maybe are like not connecting as much. And for us, you need to put any pride aside or any hierarchy, like, I'm the boss and be like, okay, show me what you're doing with him. Because I need to figure out how I can replicate that. Because it's working.

B (16:47)

Yes. You know, it's funny because I had this conversation the other day with somebody in a school and one of the things I learned working in a psychiatric hospital and there were inpatient programs, but they were day programs that were like private special ed schools kind of programs. And what I learned, and this goes, I believe, into the training of many well trained clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, that you may not develop a connected, trustworthy relationship with somebody you're working with. And you need to recognize that. And I'll never forget they said, listen, if it's not working out with the child. And I was lucky to develop a staff eventually of seven speech and language pathologists that somebody else maybe would be the person to connect or maybe another psychologist. But we have to understand that those things happen, that relationships are very complicated. And being professional and humble enough to say, I've really given it my best, but for some reason the chemistry is not there.

A (17:50)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think in the classroom that's where it can be helpful to kind of tag team when, you know, let's say we can't say a Different classroom would work for this little one. But sometimes when, you know, maybe a stress response is starting to happen or a child's just kind of getting dysregulated, if I'm not the best connector with them, maybe that's when I say, hey, Janet, can we swap? I'll work with your kid, you come with him, and let's get him back to regulated. And I feel like if, like in my classroom over the years, that has been one of the most helpful things. Instead of being like, no, I'm going to power struggle through this as an adult, you know, it's silly to do that.

B (18:34)

Well, and you know, something you also just said, which is so important, it's kind of embedded in what we're talking about. Let's look at what's going. Right. Okay. So if we're saying, wait a second, he seems uncomfortable with me, or she seems more dysregulated with me, but I mean, you can have your master's or even your doctorate in speech and language pathology, but maybe there's a paraprofessional in the classroom that's really connected. And let's see what's working, right?

A (19:03)

Yes.

B (19:03)

Is it the type of the activity? Is it. That's a person who doesn't touch the child as much might be a little tactically defensive. You know, is it somebody who doesn't get in the kid's face too much?

A (19:16)

Yes. Or talk too much?

B (19:18)

Talk too much. Exactly. You know?

A (19:21)

Yeah.

B (19:21)

One of the things I love to say is I'm a speech language pathologist is telling people to talk less. Yes.

A (19:27)

Do you know what is so funny, Barry? We had in our classroom. So I co taught the 10 years at early childhood. I co taught with this amazing special education teacher. And up on our wall, we had, like, just little things to remind paraprofessionals and ourselves, like use visuals. And one of the things was less talking. Was like, up on the wall. That was for us, like, less talking.

B (19:51)

I have a quote that I use from a dear friend who had a prominent influence in my book Uniquely Human, Ross Blackburn. You know, she's the one who says, just ask me why. Just figure out why I do these things. And she has a quote, because even she's in her 50s now. But I traveled with her, I presented with her, and the lingering challenges she had were primarily due to anxiety. She's very fluent. Brilliant communicator, actually. And so she would have anxiety attacks and panic attacks. And so I asked her one time, roz, what do you tell people who are Just getting to know you. What do you tell them to do if it looks like you're getting anxious and going down that slippery slope of dysregulation? And she said, I tell them to support me in silence, to support me with their presence. Don't talk a lot at me. Don't talk at all. In some cases, don't touch me unless I'm not being safe. But please don't ignore me. I'm not saying ignore me. I'm saying be with me, but in silence and be what I like to refer to as a regulating presence.

A (21:08)

Yeah, I was thinking co regulation when you were saying that, you know. Oh, I love it. Okay, so I'm going to back up just a little bit. I mean, I feel like we could talk for like eight hours straight, but you have dedicated your life to supporting autistic individuals and their families. What led you down this path and continues to fuel your passion? Today you talked a little bit about your path, but yeah, you know, even today, what fuels the fire still?

B (21:36)

Well, the. The fuel initially was the summer camp experience.

A (21:42)

Yeah.

B (21:43)

Saying, I love these people. I know how to connect with them some reason. That's it.

A (21:48)

Yeah.

B (21:49)

I'm a developmentalist by training. So all my training, especially my doctoral program, was child human development. Social language, cognitive, emotional, motor, the whole picture. I'm fascinated by looking at people and understanding people through a developmental lens, through a lens that we now call both as much strength based as. Not strength based as. What are the challenges here? So I was taught, with wonderful mentors to kind of first formally kind of develop, quote unquote, developmental profiles of people, which I now do informally. So I meet people at parties, you know, and get into conversation, and it's kind of these boxes.

A (22:35)

Okay.

B (22:36)

This person really is into detail and has an incredible episodic memory. And they're laying it on me right now, or, you know, talking with this person who's very, very calm and regulating to speak to. And the conversation just flows. So what has kept me interested all these years is not understanding that in all of the neurodivergent people I meet on the full range of humanity, full developmental profiles, but applying that to neurotypical people I meet. Here's some news about that. We literally were just offered a wonderful contract from a major publisher on a book on neurodiversity and understanding how we can help neurotypical people look at all people in their lives the same ways to have a more compassionate and deeper understanding of neurodivergent people. And. And, yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

A (23:39)

Mind blown.

B (23:40)

Yeah. And so the work on, I mean, it's part of my life's work, but the real work on the book, other than the 75 page proposal we put together or something, but it's going to be, it's a done deal. We're just waiting to sign the contract. And it's going to be with actually the number one publisher in the world, Penguin Random House, and it's going to be. And it's going to be a mainstream.

A (24:03)

Book.

B (24:07)

Following the same wish that, you know, I wrote Uniquely Human about. I want anybody to be able to read it and find it interesting and applicable.

A (24:15)

Yeah, yeah.

B (24:16)

So it'll be a long way away, you know, probably one to two years down the line.

A (24:21)

Yeah.

B (24:22)

But it's gonna happen.

A (24:24)

We're all here for it. We're ready when you are.

B (24:27)

But that's what kept me in the field and kept me interested. And I'll say the other thing very quickly. I'm one of these fortunate people, you know, who found, literally, I found my passion as an older teenager. And it's an ongoing source of fascination to understand people. And it, you know, when people say to me now, okay, Barry, when are you going to retire? And, you know, a lot of people say this, it's almost become a cliche, but I say, well, retire, what's that? This is as much a part of my everyday life and learning. It's not a job, it's what I do in my life. So I have very dear and close friends who are autistic. My family sometimes hangs out with their family. We do presentations together, we write articles together. But we go out and have, you know, have the best chicken parmesan in the world in Little Italy and Providence together. My dear friend Michael John Carley, who travels the world, says, you got the best chicken parm in the world right here. And about once a month or so we go out and have chicken parm dinner together.

A (25:37)

Oh my gosh, I love that. And I can relate. I feel the same way about my career. And it wasn't like in high school or even college that I knew what autism was. You know, maybe in a class you heard one thing. But when I student taught for undergrad, I ended up in an early childhood classroom, special ed classroom, and there were several autistic kids in there that were three and four. And I was scared because I was like you, you've heard the word autism, but it was like, I don't know what that is. I don't know what to do. And you know, you probably your mind goes to like stereotypes. This was back in like 1990.

B (26:15)

They were the toughest kids to work with. So good luck.

A (26:18)

Yeah, exactly. So I thought, oh no. Well, I came out of that six month student teaching going, I love this. I love my autistic students. Like it just lit this creativity and passion and excitement in trying to kind of be a detective and figure out like what are they trying to communicate, what do they love? How can I use what they love to get them to communicate or learn? You know, and it's super fun. I just, and I never turn back. I've worked with exclusively with autistic kids ever since.

B (26:52)

You know, sometimes I'll be traveling and be on an airplane and get to a little conversation. Oh, what do you do? Oh, well, you know, I work with families and kids who have disabling conditions and been doing that pretty much. And specifically autism. Oh, that must be so hard. And I say these are the most fascinating children and adults I've ever met in my life.

A (27:17)

Totally. Really?

B (27:18)

100 I heard it described that way. Yes.

A (27:21)

I love it. And people always say like, well, are you gonna run out of ideas? I'm like never. Because they, they come up with the ideas based on what they like. So you know, for me it would be boring to go and teach, let's say reading or math or anything in the same way every day prescribed. But I had twins in my class way back at the beginning of my career. They both were non speaking. They, it was very hard to find what would engage them. And for them it was like we knew they had a lot more going on than we. They could show us. And so we, you can't just assume like, well they can't read. You know, you have to be that detective, which I love and figure it out. So they loved country music singers. So I printed out pictures of like a dozen country music singers and then I printed out their names and I gave it to them. Boom. They matched all of them. Yeah, like they knew how to read. They knew all this stuff. But it was like trying to figure out like what's going to motivate them. And taught them potty training the same way. Did a little social story with country singers on the top and the board maker picture with the pee going in the toilet on the bottom. And they literally looked through that little book and peed in the toilet that day in second grade after all those years of trying all the traditional methods. So that's what fuels me and probably you too, like getting to know them. So such on an individual level that you can come up with ideas that might really help with progress.

B (28:58)

Yeah. You know, I have a chapter in Uniquely Human called Energize the Spirit. And, you know, the real hardcore empirical research.

A (29:08)

What's that?

B (29:09)

You know, how do you operationally define spirit? Okay.

A (29:11)

Yeah.

B (29:12)

Yet we talk about that all the time. I mean, for all kids, we say, oh, she's a real spirited little girl.

A (29:19)

Yes.

B (29:20)

And what you're talking about, what you're doing is you're finding, you know, kind of the spark to light the fire that energizes their spirit.

A (29:29)

Yeah.

B (29:30)

And then country singers. Yeah, I'm all in on that one.

A (29:34)

Well, and then the funny thing, after they learned all these skills or first showed me what they knew, and then we could teach there, I called into the music radio or the country music station in Minneapolis because there was going to be a country music festival, outdoor one near us. Called in. I'm like, hey, I got a hold of someone. I don't even know how. I have these twins. And I told them how they learned, and they gave them free VIP tickets to go to the concert. So I love sometimes taking it to the extra level to kind of make some of those fun connections for them, too. It's just. I love it. So, like, our job is fun and it doesn't feel like a job.

B (30:13)

Well, it's, you know, to take it to the next level for us. And I. I clearly hear this and what you're saying, it's a part of our personal growth that we evolve and grow as human beings based upon these experiences. So very often, not all my workshops, but very often when I give a workshop, I have a slide that basically says, if I'm trying to think of the exact wording, but it has something to do with. Has having an autistic person in your life enhanced your life and enhanced your personal growth more than it has presented a challenge. And every hand in the root goes up. Even. Even the parents who will come up to me afterwards and say, you know, my kid has a lot of. Lot of meltdowns. He keeps us up at night. He has a sleep disorder. There are a lot of challenges. But when you ask that question, and I gave a thought to it, it was like, absolutely. I take away more from the experience of having this autistic child or family member than it is. Than it causes problems in my life. Yeah.

A (31:21)

Wow. What a question. And we keep talking about Uniquely Human. And I think. And I think a lot of people in our field think it's a must read for Anyone who is working with or loves an autistic person or if someone just wants to learn about autism. And so, like, what inspired your book's message? And how can educators and families begin to shift towards seeing autistic behaviors as human responses instead of symptoms to fix? And this is a big thing in the field right now and has been for the last several years, and we're.

B (31:57)

Still working on it.

A (31:57)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (31:59)

What inspired even the name Uniquely Human, which came to me in a shower. You should see when you write a book, the amount of time and energy that goes into trying to figure out the best title. But it came to me in the morning, in a morning shower one day. And it's exactly what you just said. The main message I wanted to get across is we have to change the narrative. And this is not new to me, but I did it. I tried to do it academically for years in one of my very first articles in 1983. And it's the article that triggered the whole Gestalt Processing.

A (32:37)

Oh, yeah.

B (32:39)

Language and Communicative Behavior and autism toward an understanding of the whole of it. And I brought some of the literature from Ann Peters and Gestalt Processing It. And I coined the term we have to do away with deficit checklist approaches.

A (32:54)

Yes.

B (32:55)

And I use the term, my goodness, 1742 years ago. I said, wow, the approach that's been used in autism because it was the real, not only the heyday of the beginning of ABA approaches with Lovaas, and he went back to the late 60s, actually. I mean, he basically was saying, okay, let's make a list of all the things we don't like that are the deficits and extinguish them and train them out of kids. And I'm saying you said that about echolalia, but I just proved in my dissertation that echolalia serves different communicative functions and is part of these children's language development. And so the whole Uniquely Human, the push for that message was, let's begin to change the narrative. And I have been not only thrilled, but humbled and validated by the fact that when autistic voices began to talk about their experiences, it was almost okay. Echolito is the way I learned to communicate. Okay. All of my behavior was communication. Almost everything that we did prior to. I mean, you know, even prior to Temple Grandin speaking up and writing. And I know Temple really well now. I've hosted her three or four times. We felt, myself and my colleagues felt so validated in the SIRTS model in the year 2000. We spoke about stimming being self regulatory behaviors as a way to regulate and then came along very articulate, reflective autistic people saying, that's how I regulate, but that's how I have fun sometimes. It is not an autistic behavior that needs to be extinguished, please. So that's something else that's fueled the passion, not just myself, but my wonderful colleagues is that so much of what we have done and still do is totally consonant and consistent with what the autistic self advocate community is saying. And the asan, the autistic self advocacy network has always been very supportive of.

A (35:09)

Our work.

B (35:12)

And also what parents say. So it is, I was trying to say this with some humility, but it's kind of like we must be doing something right.

A (35:21)

Yes.

B (35:21)

If parents and autistic people are saying you guys are doing something right, totally.

A (35:26)

So it's 100%. Because you know, there is in our field and probably a lot in education, you know, that push on evidence based practice. And in all of this, and you know there are several strategies that are evidence based, but again, like you mentioned, ABA type compliance based techniques are in there also. But we also need to look at the accounts of people who have lived through these different approaches and take into account how it made them feel and what it did to them, good or bad. And I think that's what we're hearing now. And it's so important. We can't just implement something because it's evidence based. If that.

B (36:17)

Well, you have to, you have to ask the next question. When you say evidence based and you're saying, oh, this is the approach that works. Question you need to ask is what does works mean?

A (36:28)

Yeah.

B (36:30)

Has the kid who used to vocalize loudly and yell out an answer in the classroom now sitting there passively and not initiating at all?

A (36:40)

Okay, like at what cost? It works, but at what cost exactly.

B (36:44)

Have you been successful in teaching? Quiet hands, quiet body, quiet mouth. And you have a kid who needs so much support because he or she's become so prompt dependent now. Yeah, what, what does this mean? What works? And as you alluded to the whole notion of evidence based practice as defined by asha, as defined by American Psychological association, as defined by the Institute of Medicine, the whole notion is, yeah, let's look at research evidence, but let's look at what parents and family members who are close to the person are telling us.

A (37:24)

Yeah.

B (37:24)

And let's look at data from classrooms, from therapies, everyday evidence that shows progress, certain people, and this is certainly the case with the Applied behavior analysts have redefined evidence based practice as only peer reviewed research. As is often said. Now that's only one leg of the three legged stool. And there are many people who say the most meaningful evidence now is what family members, parents, and what people who are closest to the people we're working with. The teachers who are in the classroom every day, the speech language pathologists. It's not just peer reviewed research. And some of those studies are totally out of context. They're training studies. So. Yep.

A (38:18)

Yeah. Really, really interesting because. Well, for the exact reasons you said and in your book, I really clung to the point that you made about it kind of is at that. At what cost vein. If you have a family who's like, I have to do this, I have to do one on one therapy for 40 hours a week or else, you know, fill in the scary scenario. But it's ruining their family, their family dynamics. Everyone's stressed, there's too much, everyone's tired. That's another. At what cost? And so giving families permission to not feel like they have to do that. And I think that's one thing doctors need to do better at too.

B (39:04)

And also there's a deeper cost, which again was kind of embedded in what you just said. And that is telling parents to not listen to their intuitions as parents.

A (39:17)

Yeah. Yes.

B (39:19)

Telling parents that. A mom who says, you know, when my daughter's having a meltdown, I really want to just kind of comfort her and help her feel okay. No, no, no. You're reinforcing bad behavior. What a lot of people don't realize, and let me just say it blatantly, is a lot of behavior analytic approaches is based upon totally different theories of child and human development than what developmental approaches are. Skinner was wrong about language development. There is a decade and a half to two decades of research following his bible of verbal behavior which proved that he was wrong. And yet there are approaches that are based upon Skinner's work in language in which he never studied children, never studied children at all, and doesn't know anything about language. Language is just a behavior you train. It has nothing to do with emotional development or social development. Unless you're looking at social development as what you reinforce and what you ignore. I mean, it's, it's.

A (40:29)

Wow.

B (40:30)

I was in that era of looking at language as part of cognitive, social and emotional development. And Skinner was literally reprimanding psychologists for wanting to consider emotional and cognitive development as part of children's development because it's not observable behavior. And yet people See him as a God these days.

A (40:54)

Wow. Well, why do you think compliance based approaches remain so dominant? Like you think of insurance companies that cover many, many hours a week of, of like ABA versus not covering other things.

B (41:12)

Because you could train a kid to be compliant and then you could check off with your frequency counts how often a child touched ear.

A (41:23)

Yeah.

B (41:23)

Or pointed to mouth, or sat down when you said sit down or stand up when you say stand up. Or no silly talk to stop the echolalia. You can do that through contingent responding. But as Lova said, the father of ABA and autism is, you have to remember these kids are not human beings in the psychological sense. You need to train them to be human beings. Oh, and that's a quote from they have eyes, they have noses, they have mouths. But they are not people in the psychological sense. You need to build a human being because you're dealing with a tabula rasa kit.

A (42:08)

I had never heard that.

B (42:09)

Oh, sure, yeah. Psychology Today, 1974. Wow.

A (42:15)

Oh my gosh. And I think that's where. Okay, you hear that. And that's why like a lot of us kind of have qualms about that kind of approach. And I love now through people like Jesse Ginsburg and you and Carrie Ebert and the list goes on and on, people that are trying to make the shift for people like from a compliance based solely approach to a more compassionate relationship based model.

B (42:46)

Might I throw in here? My dear colleague, Dr. Amy Laurent.

A (42:50)

Yes.

B (42:50)

Has the most incredible TED talk about why we should not be doing compliance based approaches, including the voices of about eight of our autistic colleagues on the TED Talk. Yeah.

A (43:04)

Okay. We've got to link that too.

B (43:06)

Absolutely.

A (43:07)

Really important. And I think, you know, part of having you here and having you be part of the preschool autism Summit is in the summit. We have taken a strong stance on having it be a neurodiversity affirming summit for preschool level teachers and early elementary. Part of that is by having all of the presentations run by autistic adults so that they can look at the slides, inform the presenter if there's maybe something that could be tweaked a little to, you know, be better with that and then just making sure we have autistic voices looking at the content and, and I think that's what you're saying, like we need to have voices in the places that decisions are being made or things are being taught.

B (44:01)

You know, when people say to me, what recommendations would you make to parents of a newly diagnosed child? Or it's assumed that the child Might be on the spectrum. I say speak to other parents who you can relate to personally, who are a little bit ahead of you on the journey.

A (44:21)

Yeah.

B (44:21)

And listen to autistic people. Yeah, those are the two things I say.

A (44:26)

So. Yeah, it's. It's great. Yeah. And of course, being SLPs, you know, when we're talking communication, a lot of times young autistic children or a certain percentage are non speaking or they're gestalt language processors. What are some ways kids communicate that we should be looking for? Like if they are non speaking, and how can we support and honor those unique ways of them expressing themselves?

B (44:52)

Yeah. In our educational framework, the search model, you know, we talk about in our earliest stage because we're developmental, what we call the social partner stage. And this would be individuals. Doesn't have to be just young children, but individuals who communicate primarily through physical means or vocalizing and maybe not even using conventional physical means, such as conventional gestures such as pointing or showing or waving high and by.

A (45:23)

Yeah.

B (45:23)

But subtle ways that they may use their body. Like even a very common example of that. And it's also an example how expressions of communicative intent have been pathologized. Here's the example. A child takes your hand and brings you over to the door. Or a child takes your hand and has you open the refrigerator to get the juice. The pathologizing explanation of that is, well, he's just using you as a tool. That's really not communication. That's what communication is.

A (46:00)

Right.

B (46:00)

It's like an intention.

A (46:03)

The exact definition of communication.

B (46:05)

Or the child who kind of backs into you and you know that the child wants to be tickled or maybe picked up and spun. Yes, okay. Or the child who vocalizes and you may not understand because it's not a word that you fully understand or it doesn't seem to make sense in the context. So I give lots of examples of that. In one of my chapters in Uniquely Human. A child who comes up, this is a real example youngster I used to work with who would come up to us in the preschool and go, do ah, do ah.

A (46:41)

Yeah.

B (46:42)

And I remember we didn't know, what is this? What's going on here? So the teacher said to me, barry, could you call the mom during the lunch break? And I said, yeah. So I called the Bob. Name was Angela. I said, you know, David's four, David's coming up to us and saying do all this morning. We don't know what that means, but it's very, very intentional because he approaches us and he kind of gets our attention. And she goes, oh, it might be that he has a sore throat and maybe he's catching a cold.

A (47:10)

Oh.

B (47:11)

And we're saying, yeah, tell us more, Angela. When I think he's getting sick, I take his little head and I say, david, open your mouth. Do I?

A (47:21)

Oh, my goodness. There it is. Okay. You just said one of the most important things that I try to tell to educators who are in my community, and that is rely on parents. If you're not sure of like some phrase that the child's saying or a sound like you're saying, ask the parents. Because usually they know. Not always. Sometimes it's still a mystery, but just that is a perfect example of that. Or.

B (47:52)

Or why is my son getting anxious and going down the slippery slope of maybe having a meltdown?

A (47:58)

Yeah.

B (47:59)

You know, maybe it's because the food, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich in school is different than the one that mom.

A (48:08)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (48:10)

I mean, I'll never forget lunchtime, you know, the four and five year olds in the preschool I work at way in the beginning of my career. You know, these kids were so sharp in some cases that for example, one child who really liked bologna, mom said, we wanted to eat cheese. Can you put some little pieces of cheese in the bologna sandwich before you put it in front of him? And the kid, one little guy's name was Brian. He would dissect the sandwich, pull the cheese out and put it back together again.

A (48:40)

He's like, you're not 8 year old.

B (48:42)

Autistic kids, you know, oh my gosh.

A (48:44)

You know. Another example along those lines too is I had a student a few years ago before I left the classroom, and she would say, if someone didn't understand her yet, they would misinterpret this. She would say, are you okay? Are you okay? And they would say like, yeah, I'm fine. And it was really. She wanted us to ask her. She must have not been feeling good, maybe had a headache or whatever. She wanted us to, to say, are you okay? That was her indication, like, I'm not feeling great.

B (49:14)

We, we call that self regulatory language. And it could be self. You mentioned co regulation. We use the term mutual regulation. They pretty much mean the same. Yeah, but a child who's pacing back and forth by himself or herself going, everything's okay, don't worry. Are you okay? Everything's okay. That could be the example you gave as self regulation. Asking you to say it is reassure me, and it's mutual regulation.

A (49:42)

Yeah, it's like that's where it's not meaningless. Like some of those phrases, whether it's a gestalt or, you know, whatever, it's a lot. Most of the time I found it's not meaningless. You just have to be a detective and figure it out.

B (50:00)

And you mentioned relying on parents. This really makes the point of a team approach so obvious because there may be other people on the team who've seen something or have interpreted it in a particular way. You know, I'll tell you a very quick story. I'll try to make it quick because it's a great story.

A (50:21)

I love it.

B (50:22)

There's a young man I know since he was 4, he's now 30, and he's an artist. I speak about him a lot and it's okay, you know, he. He lets people know he's on the spectrum. And he started drawing cartoon characters before he could speak. And his parents. This was very early on in development. Like he was five or six years of age and his parents were creative enough that they brought an art teacher in to work with him, but he only wanted to draw cartoon characters. So it ended up. And she had never worked with any child with any label disability before, but she really connected with him. So we had a panel at one of our conferences and we asked her, her name was Denise, Denise Malucci. And we asked her, how did you help Justin go beyond cartoon characters? And she was very shy on a panel in front of 500 people at a conference. And she said, I meowed for him. And you. You what, Denise? I said, he loved cats. I said, if we can draw like some trees or some other animals in that cartoon character, I'll meow. Okay, fast forward. A few years later, I was in a school team meeting and it was about a nine year old little girl on the spectrum who would have meltdowns a lot during transitions because transitions are tough for our kids. And the psychologist said, well, she doesn't have meltdowns for me. And the teen looked at her and said, what do you do? Honest to God, she said, I meow for her. And it was like one of these Twilight Zone moments.

A (52:03)

You're like, wait, I've heard this before.

B (52:07)

But again, it's an example of a relatively out of the box unconventional strategy that nobody really knew about. Now, I'm not saying if another person. It could be the quality of the meow. If another person.

A (52:22)

True.

B (52:22)

It may not work.

A (52:25)

It's so great. And those are the things you cannot teach people. It's intuitive, you know, and so I think that's why? Some of us kind of, you know, you do some of these what may seem like silly things, but really it's like this relationship builder and connection builder, but it's intuitive, so you're not even realizing sometimes you're doing it.

B (52:49)

And don't we do that with typically developing kids within the family context?

A (52:57)

Oh, yeah.

B (52:58)

Parents, you know, have their own way of knowing, how can I help my little daughter or son in this circumstance where they're getting a little anxious? Maybe it's a particular toy to pull out. Hey, wait a second, I just got a puppy. Okay, so we have a six month old puppy. And I know the one thing that will help Duke the puppy if he's getting in the zoomies and I want to help him regulate is to give him belly rubs.

A (53:26)

Yeah.

B (53:27)

I bring them over and it's like, what is it? Alligators or crocodiles supposedly go passive if you rub their bellies.

A (53:33)

Oh, yeah.

B (53:35)

And I mean, I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but it's true. There are very special ways of connecting with children. There are very special ways of connecting with living beings in our lives. And if we can apply that and not say, okay, you know, when Billy is getting anxious and begins to scream, here is my behavior plan to follow.

A (53:58)

Yeah.

B (53:58)

And maybe the behavior plan needs to be how do I connect and develop trust with this child as opposed to how do I ignore the child or provide some kind of contingent response to extinguish the anxiety, which usually results in an escalated problem.

A (54:18)

100%.

B (54:19)

Yep.

A (54:20)

Yeah. Well, you've talked about the Certs model and I have gone through training on that and I, I brought my books just to have them here. Such a great model. And I want more people to know about it. So it really offers like a really powerful framework for autistic learners. And you talked us through just one little piece of it with students or children who are maybe not speaking, but they have unconventional gestures or sounds, they're communicating that way. What does it look like in action? So, like, if you had a preschool classroom, how could you use this to like make a shift, to start aligning with this kind of approach that we're talking about? More neurodiversity affirming approach.

B (55:11)

Well, there are so many ways to think about that. The first thing I would start with is, yes, we work on skills. There are some approaches that train skills in an isolated manner or try to pretend like we're doing a natural activity and then shift to training skills. Okay. We are an activity based model. What that means is we like to use meaningful activities in which we put supports in for social communication and emotional regulation. So CERTs stands for social communication, emotional regulation and transactional supports. Human beings do not learn skills as isolated threads hanging in the air. We learn what we're going to do within meaningful activities. So we learn how to get dressed as we're preparing to get dressed to go to work or go to school. We learn how to cook by making meals that we will then sit down and eat with other people.

A (56:22)

Okay.

B (56:23)

We learn how to play in meaningful games out on the playground, like hide and seek.

A (56:30)

Yeah.

B (56:31)

And one of the great problems with individuals on the spectrum is if you train skills in an isolated Deacon word. I learned early in my career decontextualized out of any context of meaning kids. And we know this for years. The ABA people have been saying it for years. Oh, well, I could train the skill, but the kid never generalizes it.

A (56:56)

Yeah.

B (56:56)

Because it's not done in a meaningful way. And let me incorporate that focuses on a child's interests and strengths, which puts that, as we discussed earlier, puts that back on us. The obligation on us to be creative and doing it in a way that the family is not being taught to do discrete trial training with their kid at home, but how they can use everyday natural routines and activities in the context of the home. So that's what Certs is all about. And it's about, you know, I love it how some people who used to just train kids and ignore kids and extinguish behaviors now say, but you have to develop rapport first. Okay. That's a cliche. We're talking about a deeply trusting relationship.

A (57:50)

Yes. Yeah.

B (57:51)

Where a child says, barry's reliable, he's not going to trip me up. He's not going to. If he sees me getting dysregulated, he's not going to say, well, we need to finish this before, yeah, no, he's going to support me in being well regulated. And even if that means, let's take a break from the activity we want in the search model, the individuals we work with to know they are being heard, that they have an authentic voice when they express intentions, whether it's through non speaking, unconventional means or it's through a highly conversational young person who's developed those language skills that they're going to get me. Okay. So if we say to, I'm going well beyond the preschool years here. But if we say to a youngster in the middle or high school, I'm sorry, we can't play basketball for A break now because the gym is closed and whatever. Maybe they're repainting the walls. And that child goes, I want to play basketball. We always play basketball. Why can't we play basketball? We're not going to say stop that. That is bad behavior. We're going to see the anxiety the child is feeling and we're going to respect that child enough to sit down first, help them regulate and then maybe explain why. But next Monday we could play basketball again. Okay.

A (59:21)

Yes. Yeah.

B (59:22)

And so you get what I'm saying. Any human being wants to be heard. And a lot of people on the spectrum, in part due to their communication difficulties, but in part to the fact that we have. We've been trained not to be good listeners, to try to manage the behavior. And so that's another huge thing about certs. We are not a behavior management model. We are an emotional regulation model.

A (59:48)

Yeah.

B (59:48)

That people cooperate when they're well regulated and motivated. People push back and become non compliant when they're being challenged, not being heard.

A (60:01)

And when you're saying people, that's everybody.

B (60:04)

Everybody.

A (60:05)

Yeah.

B (60:05)

Human development model.

A (60:07)

Yeah.

B (60:08)

So let me give you some good news.

A (60:09)

Yes.

B (60:10)

And this is brand new. It's actually the latest podcast released three days ago. A lot of people who have value in relationship based developmental approaches are getting together and this is going to be.

A (60:26)

Called.

B (60:28)

DRBI Approaches Developmental Relationship based intervention. The search model is part of it. The DIR model. Greenspan Floor time is part of it. The Play Project Rick Solomon approach is part of it.

A (60:46)

Awesome.

B (60:47)

It involves psychiatrists, pediatricians, speech language pathologists, all of whom have developed. The PACT group is part of it. Out of the uk. All of the people who really believe that relationships and communication and family centered work come first. And all of our approaches are grounded in relationship based family centered. There are a lot of overlap, some differences. So the DIR model in general is more of a clinical model. The CERTS model is an everyday activity in all levels of school, preschool into adulthood model. We have had two incredible meetings. One of the meetings was last week. And we are organizing the evidence space, which is rich and wide ranging, to communicate to the public. There's also been especially some of the DIR people in California have recently had two laws passed that will go into effect. Unfortunately, we have to wait until 2026 where insurance companies must fund relationship based developmental models.

A (62:04)

Awesome.

B (62:04)

And it's being taken nationally. So if you want to learn more about it.

A (62:08)

Yes.

B (62:08)

Maybe we can give you the link for the latest podcast.

A (62:11)

Yeah.

B (62:12)

Which was just released this past Friday.

A (62:14)

Awesome. Let's do that. I mean, that just sounds incredible and so exciting for I think those of us who have taken, I don't even know what you call it. Approach philosophy. I feel like it's this philosophy that's innate of I'm relationship based versus not. And.

B (62:38)

And developmental.

A (62:40)

Yeah, developmental too.

B (62:41)

We are guided by research on child and human development, and ABA approaches are not.

A (62:47)

Yeah, yeah. I love it. Oh, well, you've been a strong advocate for these neurodiversity affirming practices. And this is kind of my last question for you. What does it really mean in day to day work with autistic children? And how have you seen teams or families start to make that shift? And. Yeah, and then we'll kind of end with what gives you hope about the future of autism education.

B (63:11)

Yeah, I think teams and families make that shift the way we all do. We see what works and doesn't work. But a lot of people, for example, who've been trained in applied behavior analysis almost need permission to do things differently.

A (63:29)

Yeah.

B (63:29)

Some of the clearest examples are around a dysregulated child and going back to kind of an operant conditioning model of, well, wait a second. You know, if you respond to the child with support, you're just reinforcing bad behavior. With parents, it's when they've strong. You know, I've dealt with thousands of parents over the years when they develop a strong enough sense of their own parental intuitions how to raise their child and to say to professionals who are telling them otherwise, I don't feel good about this, or I'm trying what you're telling me, it's just not working. Okay. It has to happen in practice. But the one thing that I think developmentally based people are really good at is saying, there's a lot we don't know and the kids and the families can teach us that we are not. We don't see certs, for example, as an expert model that we know it all, we all have a lot to learn, and a lot of that learning is coming from the autism self advocate community. So I think when you listen to voices who've been there, lived experience, as you said, but also people who've been there and say, that was done with me and it didn't work, or parents who say. I mean, there are parents who say, oh yeah, I bought the ABA is the only thing that work line, you know, hook, line and sinker. Okay. And I just needed to learn that there is a different way that more closely aligned with my values.

A (65:10)

Okay.

B (65:10)

For example, A very, very well known website, Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. The mom who developed that website, we've interviewed her on our podcast. She said, oh, I was an ABA mom and until I learned differently and I'm not bashing all of aba, there's been movement towards kind of what people say, the kinder, gentler aba. Yeah, basically what that's about is taking family centered and child centered approaches. Like follow the child's lead.

A (65:42)

Yes.

B (65:43)

Offer choices. And you're infusing it and saying, we don't do the Lovaas stuff anymore. Well, wait a second. Lovaas is the grandfather of aba.

A (65:53)

You know, it's right.

B (65:54)

Do what the grandfather of ABA tells us to do anymore.

A (65:58)

Right. So then it's morphing towards like what you're talking about.

B (66:04)

Totally. Absolutely. It's funny, I would say, you know, open up your minds with your professional. Develop confidence in yourself as a parent, which is not. Some parents have that confidence from the get go. Yeah, this is what I want. So for example, a child psychiatrist, Josh Fader, who's part of this DRBI effort, he basically says, he said, and by the way, he's autistic. When his son was diagnosed, he basically said, oh my God, I guess we have to do ABA then. And his wife said, I'm not doing that. And we actually have that discussion on the podcast I just mentioned. And he says, thank God for my wife and her strong parental intuition because we took the right path. And their son completed his, I guess doctorate in engineering recently and is having a very successful life. So.

A (67:05)

Wow, that's amazing. When you kind of said something you said, I can't remember the exact words, but it made me think of something that that special ed teacher that I co taught with, we just aligned so much with kind of our philosophies and approaches. We always used to say to our team, like, if it feels yucky, don't do it. It's like that's the bar. If it feels yucky, like if you are moving someone's hand and they're resisting, that feels yucky. That's not going to be the right approach for that child. So you can also implement the yucky factor when deciding what you're going to do.

B (67:44)

And I will even add to that because so many people we interact with our, you know, RBT's, registered behavioral technicians or paraprofessionals. I don't know how many times I've consulted the classrooms when I see a well intentioned person doing something that's not working with a Kid, but they keep doing it.

A (68:02)

Yeah.

B (68:02)

And I say to them, you looked not fully invested in doing that, even uncomfortable, but you can't continue. Do it. Do it. Why? Because that's what my supervisor says I have to do.

A (68:14)

Yeah.

B (68:16)

And there are lots of people out there entering at that very basic additional support level.

A (68:22)

Right.

B (68:22)

You know, with very little training in some cases. And their gut sense says this is not the right way to connect with this child, but they do it because they're being told to do it that way.

A (68:33)

Yeah. And they're afraid they're going to lose their job if they don't in some cases. Okay. So what gives you hope about the future with autism education?

B (68:42)

Oh, well, what I just mentioned, the DRBI group.

A (68:46)

That's what I was thinking, too.

B (68:48)

And I mean, this may sound very self serving, self indulgent, but the fact that my book has been the best selling book in autism over the last 10 years, it says a lot that people are ready for the message.

A (69:01)

Yes.

B (69:01)

I mean, I haven't even begun to tell you the hundreds, if not thousands of reactions we've gotten from adults saying, I was undiagnosed and reading your book saved my life because I was suicidal, all the way to parents saying Reading Uniquely Human was so aligned with my values, it gave me the confidence to push back against professionals who would tell me to do otherwise.

A (69:30)

Yeah.

B (69:30)

I mean, I, I to grandparents saying I thought I would never connect with my grandson or granddaughter. Reading Uniquely Human gave me a way to do that. It's. I was blown away. I never expected that for people to say, Reading Uniquely Human saved my life. Literally. People say that about our podcast.

A (69:54)

Wow. Yeah, I believe it. And the impact and the legacy that you have already left with just that book is incredible. So I just want to thank you for getting that out there and revising it in 2022, keeping it up to date and just all the efforts you continue to do it truly is making a huge impact.

B (70:23)

But let me also encourage your listeners, again, getting back to why I wrote Uniquely Human. I wanted to tell stories about kids and families I've learned from.

A (70:34)

Yeah.

B (70:35)

So many of your listeners and you've displayed this beautifully during our discussion are in the same position. Tell the stories to other people, to young teachers, young SLPs coming in of what you've learned.

A (70:51)

Yeah.

B (70:51)

Especially what you've learned and maybe how you've changed what you do based upon what you've learned.

A (70:57)

Yeah. What you.

B (70:59)

Yeah.

A (71:00)

Yeah. I love it. Oh, thank you so much, Barry. And we'll get everything we talked about Linked and I can't wait to see you at the summit.

B (71:10)

Yes, looking forward to it.

A (71:14)

I'm sending a big virtual hug your way because you just finished another episode of the Autism Little Learners podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. If you have had success with any of the strategies that you learned about in this podcast, I would love to hear from you. Send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook to Autism Little Learners. Don't forget to grab your free visual support starter set by going to autismlittlelearners.com visuals and always remember to find the good in every day.