Transcript:
Understanding Autism: Strengths, Challenges & Support Strategies | Lynn Davison at PTx
Lisa Smith 0:14
This Lunch and Learn is hosted by the DIR team. I'm Lisa Smith, the Director of Quality, Risk and Compliance at PTx Lynnwood, Washington location, and I'm also a member of the DIR Team. It's a pleasure to welcome all of you today.
Before we begin. I'd like to thank my fellow DEIR team members for supporting this event and their ongoing efforts to support diversity, equity, inclusion and respect at partner therapeutics. I also appreciate all of you taking the time out of your busy day to learn about this topic. It's an important topic to me because I have an adult young son on the spectrum.
So April is Autism Awareness Month dedicated to increasing understanding and acceptance of people with autism. Today, we aim to learn more about autism, its challenges, the strengths of individuals on the spectrum, and how we can foster a more inclusive and supportive environment.
I'm excited to introduce our guest speaker, Lynn Davison. She's the founder of The Art of Adulting. She's joining us from Rochester, New York. Lynn works with young adults to help them be successful in adulthood, and she also works with their loved ones too. I learned about Lynn through my doctor, whose family greatly benefited from her coaching program.
Lynn is a passionate advocate for adult autism awareness, and is making significant contributions in these young people's lives and in the lives of their young ones as well of their loved ones. She does this through her art of adulting coaching practice, and we're thrilled to have her to share with us today her insights and her experiences. So please join me in welcoming Lynn Davison.
Before I turn the floor over to Lynn, I'll pass it to Katie to go over a few logistics with you.
Katie 2:08
Thanks, Lisa. On behalf of dear and the partners at PTX, I'd like to extend our thanks to Lisa for her advocacy around the topic of diversity and specifically autism, and for introducing us to Lynn Davison today, who is a fabulous, fabulous subject matter expert and autism coach. You're all in for an amazing learning experience with Lynn presenting us to us about how we can come together in Understanding Autism. A few logistics. So we will be recording, as you all know, and posting the presentation on SharePoint. A bit later, we would ask that if you do have questions, to go ahead and put them in the chat, and Lisa and I will be monitoring them and for the best viewing for today's presentation, can you please make sure to select your speaker view on the top right corner. And without further ado, Lynn, take it away.
Lynn Davison 2:58
Hey, welcome. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I want to ask you a question, who do you know that's autistic? If you could please share the relationship you have with them in the chat. Let me know if they're a family member, a friend or a colleague or something else.
And again, thank you, Lisa for inviting me and to Bronte and Katie for including me in DEIR's Autism Awareness Month. Today's session will last about an hour. I'll present for about 30 minutes, and then we'll have a live Q and A so as they said, please feel free to drop your questions into the chat box, but know that if you miss anything, don't worry. The recording, my slides and a one page summary and other things that I thought might be helpful to you will be available to all of you.
Today we'll explore autism, including what it is and how many people have it, the strengths, the struggles and the strategies of three common autistic differences, and the best way to foster that inclusion and support that we know is so valuable.
Let me introduce myself by sharing two professional and two personal things. The professional thing, the first one after earning two bachelor's degrees, one in Spanish and one in marketing at Indiana University in Bloomington, I worked 18 years in sales and marketing, five at Kodak and 13 as vice president marketing at a $6 billion bank. In 2009 I opened the online travel business and sent more than 3000 guests on over 650 trips to the Dominican Republic, which is a beautiful place.
Then I started my second online business, a coaching practice specialized in helping autistic young adults earn money and run their lives with their families. Autism adds a degree of difficulty moving into self directed and self funded lives. What works are having a life GPS and three powerful habits. That's what we practice to honor our autistic system in our families.
Personally, I grew up in an autistic family, but did not realize how many of us are autistic until recently. I'm autistic one of the lost generation of autists who realize we are autistic later in life. I now truly appreciate that I'm not less capable. I just have different strengths. I want to understand autism so that I can better love and support my family and the members of the Art of Adulting.
All six of my neurodiverse adult children have found good fit jobs, and four out of six live on their own at this point.
Let me just talk about what is autism? It's a neurological developmental condition. It happens in the brains. The shape and structures of autistic brains are different from allistic brains. Allistic I'll use to refer to everyone who isn't autistic. Those differences affect how those structures communicate with each other, and therefore how we autistic people act.
Neuro divergence, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia and others, happen in about 20% of us, so one out of five of us have a neurodivergent brain. Neurodiversity reminds us that all 8 billion brains on our planet are different. What do we expect? Neurodiversity is natural and valuable in the same way that biodiversity is a natural variation in species, genes and ecosystems. Diversity in thinking makes society more adaptable, just as diversity in Nature keeps ecosystems resilient.
So studies comparing allistic to autistic cadaverous brains show that hundreds to 1000s of genes are over or under expressed across the autistic cerebral cortex. It's just the way the brain comes together. This means that gene expression patterns, transcription of DNA into RNA, are altered in widespread regions of the brain, affecting neural function and development. Researchers believe that autism related brain differences likely start in utero.
The analogy I prefer is that autistic, autistic people belong less on a linear spectrum and more on a color wheel. I picture an umbrella of infinite bell shaped curves. The umbrella spokes represent the amazing qualities that make us all human. All our autistic brands are wired so that their strengths and struggles cluster around a certain part of that umbrella, those that affect executive, sensory and people differences More on that in just a little bit.
See, our world is designed to work best for those who fit into the middle of those curves. That's the most efficient way to accommodate most people's needs. Our brains, it seems like they're biologically wired to notice those differences in people's behavior. Evolutionary scientists think that that's because it helped us survive and belong. Back in the hunter-gatherer days, at that time, being a part of a group was literally life or death. Researchers notice that our brains are wired to stand for that otherness, and someone who behaves differently might not follow the group's rules, that could be dangerous. Those who acted like us were seen as safe. Those who didn't, maybe were potential threats to our existence, or at the very least something to figure out. Our brains predict all the time, and they want things that are normal and easy to easy to expect. So when someone's behavior falls outside of those mental models, it sets off this internal alert, and we think, “That's not how I respond. Why are they doing that?”This response can cause curiosity, judgment or confusion, depending on the lens we look through.
So we all have these social scripts. They're based on our own living experiences. When someone doesn't follow those scripts, like maybe avoiding eye contact, pacing, info dumping or going quiet in groups, we might misread them. If we haven't been exposed to neurodivergent behavior, we might label it as wrong or weird instead of just different from what we expect.
Noticing differences isn't the problem, it's how we respond to them. We can ask our minds to respond with curiosity instead of fear or judgment, and the more we normalize that neurodivergence, the more alert those alerts will settle down. We know that there are many autistic innovators who have made groundbreaking contributions. Their lines were not great despite their differences, they were great because of them. I mean, 8 billion brains are not going to turn out the same. When our focus shifts from awareness to acceptance to appreciating it and all neurodivergence, we make the world work better for everyone.
So how many people do have autism? According to data from the CDC, one in 36 or about 33% of eight year olds have autism. Other experts suggest that 25% of autistic school children are undiagnosed. That was the case in our family. One in 45 adults, the CDC suggests, are autistic, but there's a lot of undiagnosed adults, especially women. Women present differently in a lot of neuro divergence, and especially in autism, so they haven't been diagnosed or supported as much as the men, because a lot of the original research was based on boys.
Having autism does not define people. Doesn't define me, but it's really helpful to know the challenge that presents, because that can take us a long way to offer support that can help both autistic and holistic people.
It's a condition of perceptual diversity. It's not a broken perception. It's just a difference in the way that the autists experience and interpret the world.
So what can we do about this? Well, the first thing is to get curious. How can we understand autism better? What are the theories that people have made? And you can see this is a laundry list of theories, and I don't expect you to read it, but I do want you to notice that we've been struggling with this for a while. How do we easily explain the differences in autistic perception? I'm not sure that any one theory will explain all the variations present in 3% of 8 billion people, or 240 million people. But let me offer one that really does make a lot of sense to me.
I identify best with the systemizing theory of autism. It was proposed by Simon Baron Cohen, a psychologist and professor at Cambridge. He asserts that autists have a heightened ability to analyze, understand and build systems. Systemizing is the drive to recognize patterns, rules and structures in the world. This explains the strengths that many artists have in fields like engineering. My dad was in Mechanical Engineering. He has six patents to his name, the jet engine he developed is in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Coding many, many things in computer science and just scientific analysis, like what you all do at Partner Therapeutics.
Others like me, my children, and many of the young adults in my practice and so many others are strongest in communication and The Arts, which seems unusual. But hang in here, the systemizing theory also explains why autistic individuals may struggle with quickly understanding social and emotional cues. It's the ‘quick’ part that's hard, because those systems are so much less predictable and have a lot of variation. So we humans, and the way that we interact with each other has many, many different patterns, and so sometimes it's hard to quickly understand what's going on.
I know that I've systemized my whole life. It's how I make life better for myself. I do best when life is predictable, efficient and productive and certain. When things are uncertain or change unexpectedly or demands are high, I get stressed, particularly in these three dimensions, execution, sensory processing and people skills. My brain does things differently when I plan, sense and relate. Instead of telling how autists need to fit into a system, what if we asked how the system could flex to include them?
Let's go through each of these attributes and look at the strengths they bring, the struggles that can happen, and what strategies might help autists feel more included and supported.
Executive function refers to how we think and plan, organize, control impulse pulses, regulate our emotions and adapt our thinking. We all experience a mix of strengths and challenges in this area. Common autistic strengths are detail oriented thinking. Many autistic people focus deeply on specific topics, noticing patterns and remembering intricate details, strong routines and habits. We love those when they're in place, they can be, you know, our performance can be incredibly consistent, and in the structure really helps an intense, hyper focus. When I like something, I can sustain concentration for long periods of time, being very productive, but sometimes forgetting to go to an appointment because I'm so involved in what I'm doing.
Logical and systematic thinking. Many are great at breaking down complex problems and approaching them analytically, and that's what I'm trying to do. That's what I'm doing when I'm helping my autistic graduates, that's what I call my autistic young adults, move from being school defined to being self defined and self funded.
Honest and direct communication is usually what we offer. It can be a strength in decision making and problem solving, as there's less ambiguity that way.
But here's the thing, the struggles are, if I'm not interested in something, autistic people are interested in, it's really hard to start some new tasks. Shifting from one task to another can be difficult, which leads to procrastination or task paralysis. Organizing, keeping track of deadlines and priorities and multi-step processes can be overwhelming.
Just imagine that autistic person that you know well, and think about what it's going to take for them to move from being school defined to being self defined and self funded. It's going to be a struggle, and all of these are involved.
Working memory, holding multiple pieces of information in a mind can be challenging, making multitasking harder. Impulsivity, like really needing to have that fast food delivered to the house, or rigid thinking, it's all or nothing black or white.
We autistic people can struggle with impulse control, while others have trouble adapting to unexpected changes.
Emotional regulation, that's often seen. I have a child who was that one in the grocery store who screamed very loudly when she was young. She hadn't learned how to control her emotions, get that overwhelm, that anxiety and that frustration. She wanted a bag of chips now. Emotions build up quickly, and it's very intense, and it can take a lot longer to recover from.
For many of my graduates, struggling with where to build their adult life and how to make progress can be really hard.
So the strategies, you know, we use and encourage them to adopt include routines and schedules, knowing what you're going to do in the morning, daytime and evening. Schedules like Google Calendar, calendar and external reminders like texts and task lists that help support getting things done.
Its when we're trying to do is name and claim what works best for our autistic system, so that we create the practices that help our mindset be stronger in the face of the challenges that we're trying to outsmart, that helps us have better self esteem and compassion for others, so we can make the contributions that we want to make.
Sensory processing is an interesting one, and takes a while to understand what's going on but how it all fits into the mix. Going to Disney World the first time with my child, who was at that time, two years old. The fireworks just totally blew away. She just could not manage the sound. This is not a willful problem. This is just the way the brain is wired. They're more extra sensitive and perceptive around sensory processing and the senses.
There's eight of them. There's sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, plus vestibular, which is, you know how well you're balanced, proprioception, which is the body awareness, and interoception, which is internal sensations. So what we see is that sometimes their sensory perception is heightened, sometimes it's way lower than we would expect.
One of my kids has trouble feeling what's on his fingertips. So he hated that game on Halloween when you had to put your hand in the bowl with the grapes, and then, someone would ask him, what is that? And oh, it's supposed to be eyeballs. He just hated trying to identify something, because his senses on his fingertips are different.
But I have another one who just doesn't miss a thing. I mean, her hearing is highly attuned, so it can lead to incredible awareness and appreciation of subtle stimuli like complex music or design elements or detecting safety risks when others you know might overlook them.
Some enjoy deep sensory experiences like repetitive motions or specific sounds or tactile feedback. You'll see sometimes with the stimming that can happen, or they'll listen to the same piece of music over and over again. This can be very grounding and calming or even creatively inspiring.
Some have an almost superpower sense. That's my daughter with her sight. She doesn't miss the squirrel, wanting outside. She would get a lot about through sound.
Visual awareness and tactile sensory experiences can also feel deeply meaningful or comforting, like a sensory experience will help recall something that was really positive. Certain fabrics and smells and sounds or environments serve it as an emotional anchor.
The struggles come when there's too much. That sensory hypersensitivity and also sensory under load. It's like when nothing can get them moving. That's been an interesting challenge. So it can either lead to a lot of stress, stress for the families, shutdowns or meltdowns, especially places like a grocery store or any place of those bright lights, loud noises, strong smells or crowded spaces.
One of my favorite psychologists, who is also autistic, late diagnosed and a PhD psychologist with a practice, had to pivot from the academic world to her own online community that I belong to, because she couldn't be in the room with more than five people. You know, in the academic environment, you have to present whatever your findings are at all kinds of meetings, and that just was way too draining for her. So it's interesting that it has nothing to do with how brilliant they are. There are many brilliant autistic people whose senses just take over, and it drains their energy too much, and they have, you know, so they avoid it.
The avoidance thing is interesting, because it doesn't just apply to what's in the external environment, but it also applies to what's happening inside. So we feel our emotions through vibrations inside of our body. So when an autistic person feels embarrassed or ashamed or guilty or fearful, that's not a nice feeling in our bodies. It's not. So they will avoid feeling some emotions because they just don't like it. It can overload them. Bodily cues, like hunger, thirst, pain, or those types of things can affect self care regulations.
So this last one is so so me: mismatch between input and output, dyspraxia. So for me, my motor coordination is not all that great. I call myself Princess Grace because I do trip often, which makes me awkward and clumsy physically. But hey, that doesn't mean I can't move. I love to do resistance training in front of my TV in my room, because it's a repetitive motion where I'm using my muscles, and that makes me feel better. So that's the interoception way of making me soothe myself.
So here's the thing is, I help my graduates and their families to not avoid the uncomfortable sensations in their body, because then they just pile up, and at the end of the day, when they're trying to go to sleep, that it all comes crashing in on them. If we feel them all day long, then we process them, and usually if we just settle down and feel the feeling, it takes less than two minutes for that sensation to go away.
The strategies really are, you know, to try and put together environments that are sensory friendly, that have the autistic person in control, deciding what's comfortable, deciding what needs to be in or out of that place and personalized. I realize work environments are tough to do that with, but certainly at home, that can be done.
The key areas to consider are lighting. Maybe there's a dimmer on the switch sound. If they ask if they can use earphones or earplugs during working hours. That's to just remove the distractions. It's not because they don't want to be social. That's not it. It's just that they're trying to focus.
Textures,, if a certain type of chair or desk works better for them, it'd be really nice if we could accommodate that and just overall those stimuli, visually, if we can just simplify those. Those are always great.
So the third area in ESP, so we're talking about executive functions, sensory and then the third part of the characteristics that tend to come up with autistic people are people skills like social communication and interpersonal skills. They often look a little different for autistic folks.
So I had personal experience with this. I have a degree in Marketing, and I'm autistic. Why would you put me in a sales environment? I was quite successful there. Was quite successful in the marketing and communications area, because it was a real focus and area of interest for me. Studying Spanish is a form of relating to people, trying to get cultures, to understand all how that works. I love it.
Know that many autistic people like me do want connection, but they might just approach it differently in unique or non-traditional ways, or in the case of one of my grads, my kids, they prefer connecting with animals. They worked for years with young kids in an after school program, and they found a place where they could work with animals all day, and they're never going back to dealing with those kids. So it's just fun to see what really works out well for them.
So strengths that you get from people skills. You get a lot of authenticity and honesty, and there's a lot of kindness. I've talked to well over 100 families just this year alone, and the kindness of their kids is one of their strengths. They listen especially best in a one on one situation, in groups it is not so easy. They have unique social insights. They have an intentional understanding of social cues, often noticing patterns that others miss.
When our son was taken to work in 10th grade, he could read the room about the kinds of strengths that each individual had in that room, not something you would expect from somebody who was quite young.
So once expectations are clear. They are very thoughtful and considerate. They're very loyal once friendships are formed. They stick by people and causes that they care about, even when it's hard, especially the causes.
Most autists appreciate others for who they are, rather than expecting them to just fit in, and that can lead to accepting, inclusive relationships.
Now the struggles are many in the people area. We can misinterpret social cues, reading facial expressions, body language, all that sarcasm, tone of voice can be tricky, and it's exhausting. So that can lead to misunderstandings or social anxiety. Social Anxiety can often manifest with an autistic person. Small talk and unspoken rules. Sometimes they just say the same thing over and over again. “How are you mom?” I hear that every morning.They're so confused and they don't fake things, so they rely on rote expressions.
Social norms often feel confusing because the rules aren't clear and predictable. It may take extra time for them to process what's going on and formulate a response. So sometimes their timing is off, sometimes we don't know when to enter in a conversation or exit a conversation. It's, it's, it's confusing.
Noisy or crowded environments make it even harder. Masking, that's the term that an autistic person uses to describe what they do to look like they're allistic. That's when they have to camouflage their natural traits to fit in.
We know that that is necessary. Sometimes you just have to do some of this masking. Many of us mask at work anyway. I mean, you have different roles. You have to play in different ways to show up, and that makes sense.
But with an autistic person, doing it all day long is really tiring. It makes us feel anxious and unseen, feel like they're not connected to who they really are. Those group dynamics politics are confusing.
So shifting topics, people talking over each other, trying to figure out you know how to read the tea leaves, not easy when you're autistic at all.
So how do we help this one? We just really have to do our best to honor the different ways of connecting that autistic people prefer. A mentor, someone who they can trust they can go to to explain what's going on matters a lot.
So overall, what do we do? What's the best approach for all of this? We just get curious, what demands can be removed and what supports can be added during these more challenging times?
We want to be led by the autistic person and what they tell us supports them, because above everything, we know that every autistic person is unique and different, and the best thing we can do is to ask them individually how we can support them.
Having autism doesn't define people, but knowing these challenges, these ESP, executive, sensory and people challenges that often present. Those can take us a long way to give us all the support that we need.
So my suggestion is that we just follow, we just do these four things as many times as we can. We listen, sometimes, over and over and over again. It gives them space to sort out their thinking and process and express things in their own way. Most of my conversations are 90% listening and 10% speaking. This is how we build trust, and it signals to them that their voice matters and allows us to catch those subtle things that they may not say outright. I call them breadcrumbs. There's breadcrumbs that they're dropping. If we bring them together, we can start to understand what's happening inside of them when we all have between 80,000 thoughts in a given day. So whatever they tell us is just a small fraction of, really, what's going on up there. So listening to each other is key.
And then just be quiet. Avoid jumping in to fill in the blanks. That's not necessarily going to be consistent with the way they're thinking, and listen for what the meaning is behind the words.
Validate. We autistic people are often told that we're overreacting or we're too sensitive or wrong, and that can lead to shame or masking. So the more we validate the experience of each other, the better off. We will be better connected. We will feel it. It helps us feel like somebody actually sees us without judgment, and it just reduces the stress and overwhelm, and, you know, helps to reinforce that their experience is different and real.
Phrases that help I like to use, “Well, that makes sense,” and, “I hear you,” and, “Oh no, that's perfectly normal,” “Yeah, anyone in your shoes would feel that way. Or, “You know, you don't have to change how you feel for me. I love you, period.”
Asking. If we ask, “What would help?” that is going to just bring out an idea that they didn't know they could speak. It shows respect and it creates clarity, gives them autonomy and choice, and encourages collaboration and builds connection through curiosity.
“So what would be helpful right now? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to just listen? Or do you need me to help you solve the problem?” That's a good question.
“Can I check in on something I noticed, and then you just share what you've noticed?” We offer because in the past, especially in the school system, autistic individuals got solutions imposed on them. I mean, that's what had to happen in order for the schools to operate. I get it.
By offering options now, we can make support more custom to what it is that they need.
“Would it help if we took a break?” Or, “I have an idea that might help. Are you open to hearing it now? And, “listen, I'm here for you, even if I don't totally get where you are yet.”
It's gentle, it's respectful and it's non coercive. It honors the neuro divergent style. It reduces the shame of being different, being on the tails of those bell shaped curves. It fosters connection without pressure to perform better socially.
I bet you're already using this solution in many ways, so you're probably somebody that autistic feel people feel safe with, and that's exactly the kind of neuro affirming support that helps us thrive and make the best contribution we can.
So by being here, by and by being curious, you demonstrate your commitment to include and support autistic people in all neurodiversity. Thank you for making our world work better for everyone, and thank you again to Lisa and Katie and Bronte for making today possible. So I'd love to answer any questions that I can. Please share your thoughts,
Lisa 35:58
seeing any in the chat yet, I do have one, if you'll take it verbally.
So I have at least two individuals in my family that are autistic, and I often meet people that are not as familiar. They often ask, “Oh, are they high functioning or low functioning?” And that seems terrible to put it into just one or two buckets like that. Is there a more preferred term that is kind of gaining steam or or is kind of coming out in the literature or during studies and research and things like that, that's more applicable and easier to at least explain to somebody else. You know, the challenges of that?
Lynn Davison 36:34
That's a very good question, because it's just a hangover from the way it used to be explained. High functioning, Aspergers, PDD NOS, all the other different categories of autism or a nonverbal learning disability. They've all lumped them under the autism categories now.
And what they do is they categorize them into three levels of support, you know, moderate, high and then daily support pretty much. And I don't know, those work, too, but they don't work perfectly, because even though I’m high functioning, I still need support in certain areas. I don't know.
We really like to do this, though. We humans. We love to put people in buckets, because it just helps us understand quickly what's going on? So maybe it's, “They have autism and they require some support, but they don't have high support needs. Might be the best way that I would answer that question, just in the level of support that they need, that you can tell that's great. Thank you so much. Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for that question, Mark. It was a good one, because it's definitely a question that I hear, and a lot of people saying, “high functioning. Should I say that anymore?” Yeah, I see that a lot.
Lisa 37:50
More questions, either verbally or through the chat?
Unknown Speaker 37:59
I've got a quick verbal question, how do you see the the overlap between types of neurodivergence like ADHD versus autism and so on, because it seems like there's an awful lot of blending and commonalities between these.
Lynn Davison 38:20
Yes, and that's 91% of autistic level one, which means not requiring so much support. Level one ASD people have two or more plus ones. And that's often ADHD. It's often generalized anxiety. Well, thank you, balloons, generalized anxiety disorder, those are the ones that I tend to see.
But we have family members who are autistic, who have all kinds of things. I mean, you have borderline personality, bipolar, schizophrenia. You know, there's a lot of different things going on.
The bottom line is that there are no blood tests that identify which of those labels we should apply. The only way that we know is by observing behavior. Even a psychologist or a psychiatrist is going to tell you they have to have behavioral observations in order to figure out what category to put people in. And behavior is always driven by our brain, what kind of thoughts we have and how that affects our body, and then how we acting.
It's hard to parse it out. It's very individual. And I like to do after I've met a family and we all talk about what it is, I just say, “Okay, let's just leave the labels behind, and let's figure out what works. Let's figure out what works for them to get what they want out of life and fund their own life.”
Because so many autistic people, it's over 80%, are either under employed or unemployed. The biggest challenge that we have with our autistic young adults is getting them a good-fit job that works for them, and then making enough money so that they can support themselves when we're gone. And that's going to happen, because if life works the way I expect it will, their runways are going to be longer than mine. And that's the biggest biggest driver. It's the driver of all parents. Though, we want to prepare our kids to be great when we're done, you know, we want them to have great lives. That's the challenge that we have with the extra degree of difficulty that autism brings. Thank you for that question.
Lisa 40:40
There's a couple from the chat. Jamie asks other books you would recommend for family members with autism and relating to them.
Lynn Davison 40:51
My favorite author is Barb Avila, her book is called Seeing Autism. She's worked with the autistic population for over 35 years, and she knows a lot about how to explain autism to people. And so if you've got a relative that you know you want to bring them up to speed on what autism is and the best approaches, I absolutely recommend Barb Avila.
There's another person online who has written several books so far. Her name is Dr Megan Anna Neff. She's got a PhD. She used to think that academia was going to be the place for her, until she discovered that the requirements, the peopling requirements. She said, “No, that's not going to work for me. I need to be able to, you know, minimize those big crowds.” She's just amazing. So if you just Google Dr Megan Anna Neff, you just get on her email list. She's written several books that I think are very helpful for people who are autistic, or people who are trying to support family members that are struggling with some of the effects from having autism, like autistic burnout, which is different from being depressed. It looks like depression, but it's but it's got a different, a different twist to it that says that there's a different way to support them. It works better.
Lisa 42:27
You're going to provide some of those resources for us as well. Correct? So in case any of you have trouble writing that down or spelling it, okay?
Another one is from Doug, he wants to know when you were diagnosed, did you find it clarifying and useful, minimally impact, or somewhere in between?
Lynn Davison 42:46
My personal experience is that having not only my diagnosis, but understanding my family members, my history, you know, my parents, my grandparents, I found it to be a big relief. Oh, there is an explanation for why I've had these recurring challenges in my life. That makes a lot of sense.
That doesn't mean I don't have to develop strategies, though. So that's the part of it that has been a challenge to me. “Okay, if that's what's going to be I gotta figure out how I want to behave going forward.” Just to pause more often. That's what I had to do, is pause more often, both in compassion for the other person and for myself. So I think that knowing it is better than not knowing it, knowing it is really helpful.
Oh, look, we've got, you know, I'm just now looking in the chat. I'm sorry I couldn't see it sooner. If you have a close member of somebody who you are not sure is going to accept the diagnosis or not, that's fine. Don't worry about the diagnosis.
Find the areas of support that fit into ESP: executive, sensory and people. It's the easiest way I could remember those three things, ESP. Just keep noticing what they need and what they want, and do your best to meet them there.
Also take care of yourself in those three areas, because you deserve as much support as the other person. So yes, I appreciate that question about you know, somebody suspects that their loved one is but they haven't been assessed, and that's okay. Maybe they're not ready for that yet, but they sure could use all the support right now. That’s what you can offer. So, yeah, a bunch of people, that's the thing. Yeah.
Lisa 44:53
Lynn, one of the questions was, what does the process being assessed for? Assess and look like autism?
Lynn Davison 45:00
It does vary, but I did attach to my notes a bunch of self assessments that you can do. So that's one way to do it. I've never not been formally diagnosed, because what's the use? You know, at this point in the game, when you're younger, though, there are legal reasons and medical reasons and benefit reasons that you do want to get assessed.
There's, there's a gold standard called the A, D, O, S, the ADOS-2, and that works really well for anybody who is an adult who needs a third party to validate that they have autism and deserve the kind of supports that are available, at least for now. Who knows what the government's going to do in the future?
But you know, the whole point is that there are a lot of people ahead of us who have come up with these supports because they were faced with neurodivergent family members. They're worried about what's going to happen when they're gone and they're not available to support them. That's why, and they want them to live on their own while they're still alive, so they have that lived experience that's going to give them the confidence that they can handle life. That's why all those supports are in place.
I know about comorbidity. This sounds so judgmental and pathological. Yeah, I hear I agree. It's just an observation of behaviors, and we just like to put labels on them, because it gives us a shortcut to explain what's going on. It's no more than that, though, because even though we might all have those same labels, the actual strategies that work for us tend to be very individual and preferential. We have to figure out what works for our people, for our autistic people, I've had to do it my whole life.
Lisa 46:52
What are some of the early signs of autism?
Lynn Davison 46:59
That's interesting. I so we have grandchildren and great grandchildren that are autistic, and so we've known them since they were tiny, and some of the things that I've noticed is just a general anxiety, just a kind of a fear when they're very, very little, just a gentle and then a little bit longer warm up than you would expect.
It's more that people piece that you notice the most when you're going up and then they're going, oh my god, you can't, you just can't approach them the same way. You have to give them time and give them space to decide how they're going to react with you.
That's kind of the one thing I've seen the most. You know, there's the delays, the typical delays that happen when they're not speaking the way you would expect, and then some are just hyper linguistic and hyper-able lexic and able to read. And they come across as this incredibly intelligent, you know, four year olds who can read full sentences, and three year olds who can, you know, speak different languages. I mean, it's, it really varies. It really, really varies and, and
What I suggest in that stage of the game is again, it's not the diagnosis that matters, okay? Yeah, it does matter. You're gonna have to have it to get all the support you need. But what really matters is relating, figuring out how to connect. What's the best way to connect? So the more connections you have with that young autistic person, the more they'll trust you and feel safe and they'll be able to grow with you. It's the connection piece.
To set aside all of your expectations. Alright, I'm not going to even pay attention to them. I'm just going to meet them right where they are. And if it's, if it's Spidey, and if it's, you know, Legos, and if it's kazoo, that's where I'm going to be there. I'm going to be right there with them doing all of that so that they know that I'm a safe person and that I love them no matter what. That's what we need to give our autistic family members.
The parents need a ton of support. “Oh, I know you're, I know that this is harder than you expected it to be, and then you're up for it. I see you doing a great job. You know, it is harder than you expect at times.” That's a really good question. I wish that I could give you a simple answer, but 240 million people, there's going to be a big variation, big variation. It's the connection and the validation that they really, really need to feel safe so that they can grow and make the contribution that is possible, that's very possible for them. Yeah, these are great questions. Okay, oh yeah.
Bronte is saying there's, there's, there's not on ADHD, yeah, I hear that a lot too. Yeah, that's the autistic and and and difficulty focusing and sometimes meaning a lot of movement to regulate what's going on and get them to yoga.
Lisa 50:24
Okay, well, there's no more questions. We're meeting our end of the Lunch and Learn.
I wanted to thank Lynn so much for sharing all your valuable insight and experiences with us today. Your presentation has given us a deeper understanding of autism and the importance of creating an inclusive environment.
And I also wanted to thank all of you for attending, and we're really happy to have you here, and I hope you enjoyed it, and we will be following up with posting things for you so you'll have those resources. I think we might have a few more questions. Let's see. Nope, they're just thank you.
Lynn Davison 51:02
Well, this is near dear to my heart, so thank you for being here.
Lisa 51:09
All right, see you guys later. Happy Friday and have a great weekend.
