Calm is Contagious:
Strategies that reduce stress and increase connection with your Autistic clients
In this recorded, self-paced continuing education course, psychologist Gillian Boudreau teaches us how easy it is to accidentally add to our Autistic clients’ stress, despite our best intentions. Fostering a sense of calm for our neurodivergent clients starts with a commitment to our own regulation as therapists – even in tough sessions – which can go a long way to create a felt sense of safety for our Autistic clients.
You’ll go deep into the potentially “sneaky” ways a typical school or therapy setup can contribute to chronic stress, and how you can use your own nervous system, mindset, and toolbox to be an agent of calm in the lives of your clients.
This course is registered for .5 AOTA CEUs (5 contact hours), .5 ASHA CEUs, 5 NBCC hours, 5 NASP CEUs, and approved for CEU/CE credit by ASWB ACE.
Get one year’s on demand access when you register! Registration closes 12/16/2025.
Our self-paced CE courses are now closed. You can register for our 2026 CE Summit or check out our in-person trainings. Contact admin@learnplaythrive.com for inquiries
Continuing Education
from Learn Play Thrive
Our clients can't access higher learning unless they truly feel safe.
This is how we help them feel safe.
PART 1: How Stress Spreads
For children, feeling connected to the adults around them is a basic survival need. But so many things get in the way of calm connection for our Autistic clients. Autistic anxiety is often pathologized. Schools place demands on Autistic kids that are misaligned with their well-being. And many Autistic kids are multiply-marginalized by society. Chronic stress in nearly every setting has a disproportionate impact on our Autistic clients.
In this module, you’ll learn to identify the places that conflict and miscommunication often arise for your clients, and lay the foundation for becoming a source of true calm connection.
PART 2: Tools for Regulation
Far too often, our Autistic clients are startled, trapped, or shamed, even when working with well-intentioned providers.
In order to truly spread a sense of calm to our clients, we have to learn to slow down, drop our internal urgency around what happens in our sessions, and to establish an authentic human connection.
In this section, you’ll learn practical strategies to help you reduce urgency, build relationships, and stay in calm connection with your clients, no matter what happens in your sessions. You’ll develop tools and strategies to do the hard work of maintaining a high level of adult regulation so that you can access your own regulation, flexibility, patience.
And you’ll take it one step further to create practices that cultivate collaboration and inclusion in schools, home, and clinic cultures.
Chronic stress
is a justice issue.
The more time a person spends chronically stressed, the less time they have in a state where they can hear themselves think, plan ahead, speak their truth and design a life that is right for them. In this training, you’ll learn how to reduce stress and increase access to regulation for your Autistic clients.
Investment
$294 for 5 recorded hours that will transform your nervous system and your work. We also offer payment breakdown to 3 payments of $98.
Access
This course is entirely self-paced. You’ll have access for one year to complete on your own time.
Continuing Education
This course is registered for .5 AOTA CEUs (5 contact hours), .5 ASHA CEUs, 5.75 NBCC hours, NASP CEUs, and approved for CEU/CE credit by ASWB ACE.
FAQs
Information about completion requirements, accommodations, and more can be found in the FAQs.
Calm is Contagious is
for you if…
You are an SLP, OT, or mental health practitioner working with Autistic children or adolescents in any setting.
You want to find your own deep regulation no matter what is happening in your sessions so that your clients feel safe.
You care about your Autistic clients' deep well-being, not just their observable behaviors.
- You are an SLP, OT, or mental health practitioner working with autistic children or adolescents in any setting
- You want to deeply understand their social-emotional needs, rather than focusing on their external behaviors
- You want a course that doesn't gloss over intersectional identities (like race, class, and gender) but rather seeks to understand and brainstorm how we can deliver culturally responsive care.
You want to feel more presence and joy in your own work by showing up more authentically and connecting more deeply.
You are willing to prioritize a felt sense of safety for your clients over rushing to meet goals, and want to learn how to do this in the context and demands of your real daily work.
- You want a CE course that acknowledges the real barriers presented by life circumstances and clinical demands so that you can feel confident at applying your learning to any scenario
- You want to learn about Autistic social communication from Autistic professionals, because Autistic people are the real experts on Autism
Meet your
Instructors
Dr. Gillian Boudreau
Dr. Gillian Boudreau
FINANCIAL: Gillian is owner of Gillian Boudreau Therapy and Consulting and receives a salary for her services. She receives commission from Learn Play Thrive for sales of the Neurodiversity Basics Bundle, Calm is Contagious, and the Reflective Practice Group.
NON-FINANCIAL: Gillian has friends and colleagues who are Autistic.
Please note: disclosure statements are contained in the Bio page for each speaker. Click on "READ BIO" above to review the disclosures.
This course will make you a more mindful, compassionate, connective, safe, and regulated provider. For you, and for your clients.
]
Full Course Objectives
Evaluate the nature of chronic stress and fear in schools, homes, clinics, and other settings where adults support Autistic kids, examining the disproportionate impact this can have on the nervous systems of neurodivergent children when engaging in daily occupations.
Analyze the common patterns of conflict and miscommunication between neurodivergent children or adolescents and the adults supporting them, and identify contributing factors.
- Evaluate the nature of chronic stress and fear in schools, homes, clinics, and other settings where adults support Autistic kids, examining the disproportionate impact this can have on the nervous systems of neurodivergent children.
- Analyze the common patterns of conflict and miscommunication between neurodivergent children or adolescents and the adults supporting them, and identify contributing factors.
Create practices that cultivate more collaborative and inclusive school, home, and clinic cultures for neurodivergent children and adolescents.
Create specific and applicable communication strategies and tools that build understanding, coregulation, and availability to learn between neurodivergent children or adolescents and their adults in order to increase access to social participation, school participation, and leisure participation.
- Create practices that cultivate more collaborative and inclusive school, home, and clinic cultures for neurodivergent children and adolescents.
- Create specific and applicable communication strategies and tools that build understanding, coregulation, and availability to learn between neurodivergent children or adolescents and their adults.
Frequently Asked Questions
This course is developed for SLPs, OTs, school psychologists, social workers, counselors, and mental health professionals supporting Autistic children or adolescents in any context.
The concepts in this course are useful for providers supporting Autistic people of any age. The examples in the course are focused on children and adolescents.
This course includes lecture, videos, and slides.
This course is registered for .5 AOTA CEUS , .5 ASHA CEUs, 5 NBCC hours, and .5 NASP CEUs. This 5 hour talk is approved for CEU/CE credit by ASWB ACE. Social workers will receive 5 clinical continuing education credits.
Yes! The course is self-paced and you have one year to complete it on your own time. If you buy during pre-registration, you’ll have one year to complete the course.
Yes! If 3 or more people from your company plan to enroll email me the names of everyone enrolling at admin@learnplaythrive.com and I’ll provide a coupon code. It’s 15% for 3 registrants, 20% off for 4 or more, and 30% off for 7 or more. This discount does not apply during pre-registration unless your group discount is larger than the current pre-sale discount. Each learner will need to sign in to our course platform to complete the course individually to receive credit.
We offer full scholarships to therapists from under-resourced countries.
In order to get a certificate of completion, you must watch all of the video modules and pass a quiz at the end of the course with 75% accuracy. Multiple attempts at the quiz are allowed. You must also complete a coruse satisfaction survey. Only learners who complete the course, quiz , and survey will receive a certificate.
You will have one year’s access to the course.
Full refunds are provided within 30 days of purchase (or for pre-sale, 30 days after the course launches) if no more than 3 modules have been completed. Email meg@learnplaythrive.com to request a refund. Since this is a self-paced course, there is no option to cancel once the 30 day / 3 module limit has been exceeded. If for any reason the course is canceled by the provider before your registration period has expired, you will receive a full refund.
All videos used in this presentation have closed captions. If you need additional accommodations, please email admin@learnplaythrive.com prior to your training date. Accommodations will be made to support all learners in compliance with the Americans with Disability Act.
You can send an email to admin@learnplaythrive.com
To see our full complaint policy, please visit this page
Our courses are hosted on Thinkific. You will need one of the two latest versions of a supported browser to access the course. (Note: Internet Explorer is not supported).
Desktop:
Chrome
Firefox
Safari
Microsoft Edge
Mobile:
iOS Safari
Chrome
Samsung Internet
In order to ensure that Thinkific runs well, you will need:
The most recent version of one of the web browsers listed above
Javascript enabled
PDF plugin
Graphic and audio output capability
Broadband internet connection with a minimum speed of 5Mbps (recommended)
TLS 1.2 supported by your web browser
This information was adapted from: https://support.thinkific.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030354954-System-Requirements-and-Supported-Browsers
Our Promise to You:
Group Discounts
We are happy to offer a discount for your group! Email your list of participants to admin@learnplaythrive.com to receive a coupon code.
• 3 participants: 15% off
• 4+ participants: 20% off
• 7+ participants: 30% off
• 50+ participants: please inquire
Our Content is Autistic reviewed
All of our content is reviewed by a panel of professionals from a variety of fields, a number of whom are Autistic. We want to ensure that our courses reflect the lived experiences of Autistic people.
30 Day Money Back Guarantee
We think you’ll love it. But take 30 days to complete up to half of the course. If it’s not what you’d hoped, you get your money back.
Most CE courses teach us how to do the work between us and our clients….but what about the work it takes inside of ourselves to stay deeply calm and regulated?
In Calm is Contagious, you’ll learn practical, meaningful ways to convey a sense of calm connection to your Autistic clients, no matter what is happening around you.
The recorded materials in this course were last updated on 10/1/2024.
This course will be available for ASHA CEUs starting April 1st, 2025 until September 29th 2030, 2028 at which point Learn Play Thrive will apply for re-registration.
The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.
ASHA CE Provider approval and use of the Brand Block does not imply endorsement of course content, specific products or clinical procedures.
Calm is Contagious, Course #6340, is approved by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program to be offered by Learn Play Thrive LLC as an individual course. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE course approval period: 05/19/2025 – 05/19/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 5 clinical continuing education credits.
Learn Play Thrive is approved by the National Association of School Psychologists to provide continuing education for psychologists. Learn Play Thrive maintains responsibility for the program and its content. NASP Approved Provider # 1172.
Learn Play Thrive, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7586.