Interview between Speaker 1 (Meg), Speaker 2 (Carolyn Long), and Speaker 3 (Nick Kelsch)
Episode 62: What to Do Instead of Social Skills Training
[Introductory note]
Hey, Meg here. Here’s one of my pet peeves as an occupational therapist: it’s taking continuing education trainings that have absolutely no impact on my work. You know, the ones that give you a framework, but don’t tell you how to apply it? Or this is maybe even worse to me — the ones that just don’t say anything impactful at all. When I founded Learn Play Thrive, my goal wasn’t just to provide continuing education trainings, it was to provide trainings that leave therapists feeling really confident at using the new strategies in their actual work. And also, that help therapists feel empowered to work in a way that is more aligned with their values. The reception to this from the therapy community has been incredible, and Learn Play Thrive continues to grow. We have neurodiversity-affirming continuing education courses that are registered for AOTA and ASHA CEU’s. We continue to add to our course catalogue, and we have three free trainings. You can check out everything we have to offer at the Learn Play Thrive Education Hub, which you’ll find at learnplaythrive.com/trainings. Thanks for being here.
[Introductory music]
Welcome to the Two Sides of the Spectrum Podcast. A place where we explore research, amplify autistic voices, and change the way we think about autism in life, and in our professional therapy practices. I’m Meg Proctor from learnplaythrive.com.
Meg:
Before we get started, a quick note on language. On this podcast, you’ll hear me and many of my guests use identity-affirming language. That means we say ‘autistic person’ rather than ‘person with autism’. What we’re hearing from the majority of autistic adults is that autism is a part of their identity that they don’t need to be separated from. Autism is not a disease, it’s a different way of thinking and learning. Join me in embracing the word ‘autistic’ to help reduce the stigma.
Welcome to Episode 62 with SLP Carolyn Long and her student turned colleague, Nick. This episode is about how we as therapists build something different to support our autistic clients with our ethics and values guiding us, and our autistic students as our co-creators. Our guests, Carolyn Long, has been an SLP for 22 years. She developed a curriculum called Social Optics. That program has eight years of in-class experience behind it, nine evidence-based practices, it integrates anime and is part of a research study at the University of Montana. You can find it at mysocialoptics.com.
Nick is autistic and was Carolyn’s student in her advanced communication and social strategies high school class in Montana, where he helped her improve her curriculum and eventually co-taught the class with her. Nick is now a freshman at Montana State University. He’s studying business and sales, and he runs his own company, Nick’s Nibbles, selling candy to everyone possible. What strikes me about Carolyn is how relatable her story is, struggling in the schools with outdated curriculums that just don’t feel right, but also how extraordinary her next steps were. And I just can’t get enough of Nick’s unwavering commitment to being his most authentic self. Here’s the episode with Carolyn and Nick.
Hi, Nick and Carolyn. Welcome to the podcast!
Carolyn:
Hi, Meg! Thanks for having us.
Nick:
Hello!
Meg:
I am thrilled to have you here, and I want to start with your story. Carolyn, let’s start with you. How do you and Nick know each other, and what was your experience like with Nick in your high school groups? Nick, I’m going to turn this question to you in just a second and get the scoop on Carolyn as well. So, give me a little bit of the background.
Carolyn:
Oh, gosh. So, it’s, you know, it’s kind of crazy when you’ve known students like, long enough now where Nick’s in college. But I remember I met Nick in eighth grade at his transition, meeting in the spring. And the first thing that struck me about Nick was that he tried to sell me some Peppermint Patties. Nick is a consummate businessman, and always has been. And so, so eighth grade at the transition meeting, and then in the high school, Nick was in my advanced communications and social strategies class freshman year and sophomore year. And we were actually talking about this a little bit earlier, but like, Nick is a great student. And he was a sponge freshman year. And he was such a perfect student for applying everything sophomore year. And then, by junior year, he was basically my teaching assistant. Like, I could let him teach it. And I could kind of sit back and, you know, just listen. And it was really amazing. He really helped a lot of students gain trust in the material and in the process. So, it was, yep. And all along the way he’s continued to sell and be — he’s got some great business stories you can share. And yeah, it’s just been, it’s been a great experience. And it’s been, it’s really nice now that he’s in college to be able to work with Nick as a colleague on this project.
Nick:
Yeah, I think it’s gonna be super fun working with her.
Meg:
That’s so cool. I love that origin story. All right, Nick, let’s backtrack from there. Before Carolyn, what was your experience up to that point, like with teachers and therapists working on quote-unquote ‘social skills’?
Nick:
Like, it was more of like repetitive things. So, it kind of dulled my interest after a while. It’s just like, same old thing, same old thing, same old thing. It’s like a dog given the same food over and over and over, it’s eventually going to stop having its luster, just to say it like that.
Meg:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then, what was your experience in Carolyn’s class like?
Nick:
It was different because it was just like, more like straight points, like more points that I could focus on. Like, lenses? I would have never taken those into account. And I still use those in order to help me in my everyday life.
Meg:
Can you tell me what you mean by lenses?
Nick:
Like, things like multiple perspectives, details, things like that. Ethics, morals, stuff like that.
Meg:
I love that. So, one of the like, traditional ways that therapists try and support autistic students is by teaching them to take the perspective of non-autistic people, right? So, there’s a lot of, “Hey, understand the culture of neurotypicals, how we think, what we do,” but there’s not as much of what you just described as multiple perspectives, “Hey, you have a perspective; it’s valid, it matters. It’s different from a neurotypical perspective, which is also valid and also matters.” So, it sounds like you were learning more of a way to kind of hold all of the different perspectives and —
Nick:
Yeah, holding different perspectives, things in the store, like how to communicate with others more effectively, and like, using little details and sign languages in order to read someone with how they felt.
Meg:
Yeah. Do you have any examples of how you use some of these things that you learned in your life?
Nick:
UNO. UNO. So, we would always play UNO on Fridays in our advanced communications class. And whenever this would happen, I would always rage out of my mind, because I am very overly competitive. So, it was easy to make me snap when I was a draw four, and I would always raise my voice, which is already naturally loud. So, it kind of spooked others. So, I had to learn how to try and tame myself. It didn’t work that well, since I’m basically very, very loud in general.
Carolyn:
Can I add to that for a second? So — oh, my gosh, yeah — so, UNO was definitely like, a very boisterous, loud time. But I think — because we were actually talking about this earlier — in that class, over time, we had a wide variety of students, and we had a lot of students that also had a trauma background. So, Nick, and I were just talking about like, well, how did — ‘cause he didn’t always — well, of course, when you draw a four, you’re always like —
Nick:
Angry.
Carolyn:
Right. Exactly.
Nick:
Very enraged.
Carolyn:
Right. But like, Nick, you weren’t always like, super loud. We were talking about, like, how did you know with some students, it made them uncomfortable? Because some students had backgrounds that that was not something that they could sit comfortably with. And how did you do that?
Nick:
Like, say using the details, expressions on their face, seeing if they tensed up or like, suddenly moved back in. It’s just like, hey, this is alarming to people. I need to stop this behavior because it’s just like, I don’t want to bring anything bad into these people. Like, any bad memories.
Meg:
Carolyn, I often get this question from therapists who are like, “I want to ditch the social skills model. But what about when the behavior feels harmful to somebody else? Like, how do we meet in the middle there?” And it sounds like that’s what you’re addressing here a little bit, that like yes, you get to be authentic there, you get to be loud, you get to be excited, you get to be yourself, and you care about not causing some sort of painful reaction for somebody, especially if they have a trauma background in a game. So, you were learning how to accommodate that.
Nick:
It also helps me in like, managing my temper, because sudden spikes of anger can really just whack you on the head. So, it’s just like learning to temper those little spikes so it didn’t become full blown volcanic eruptions of just sheer rage.
Meg:
Right. So, instead of just changing how you express your feelings, helping you with the regulation to actually feel okay in these moments.
Nick:
Yeah. Like, it allowed me to feel these motions, not having to like, shut them down, but knowing how to express them appropriately instead of just [wham sound effect].
Meg:
Carolyn, what was this course? This isn’t a course that is just standard in high school curriculums.
Carolyn:
No. And can I circle back to the trauma for a second, and why this worked? Because that was a very interesting piece about this class, right. So, initially, when we started the class, we had about eight kids in it — this was in 2015 — and six were identified with autism as their primary disability. And by the third year we taught this class, we had 35 kids. It was broken into two sections. And we still only had about eight students where autism was their eligibility. And so, we have this, you know, not wanting to tame the UNO Nick, you know, but with kids who I knew more about their backstory, I knew those loud — that could be very overwhelming for them. And I also know like, Nick is one of the kindest individuals you will ever meet on a planet, he still won’t give me a peppermint patty for free, but I won’t hold that against him, but…
Nick:
You want some of these?
Carolyn:
Yeah. They’re just some good peppermint patties. But so, how do you meet in the middle on that is a great question. And that was what we had to kind of solve in this class. And that’s where the lenses really came into play. Because at the same time, as I could help Nick identify when, where, how to shift some aspects, choices, and shift, you know, you don’t have to be quiet for forever, maybe just right now in this moment around this person who is trying to figure out if you’re safe or not. And then, person who has a really uncomfortable background, how do I use those exact same lenses so you can figure out that Nick is safe, that he’s not that an abusive parent or family member?
Nick:
I’m like a huggable little plushie.
Carolyn:
He is, I’m just a loud one. So, you know, how do you —
Nick:
What do you mean you’re the loud one?
Carolyn:
No, I know I’m not the loud one. But how, that was the piece, that we had to use the exact same materials. And that was what was really cool, was then you were giving everybody their own set of tools and they could use what they needed to feel safe, and comfortable, and be themselves to that trauma piece. So, yeah, that was, you know, how did this class come about? When we, when another teacher and I, Tanya and I, were asked to figure out how to teach a class like this, it was with the idea of — our high school’s large, 2,600 students, and all the students were in some reg-ed classes or all regular classes, and it was like, how do you help these students, and I’m going to air quote everything here, but ‘not be disruptive’, ‘not take away from other students learning’, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.
And when we started the class it was with okay, how do we help these kids learn the social rules. And by the second semester it’s like, forget that. It’s how do we help these kids learn to deal with the people around them that won’t learn their social rules. And when we opened it up and started teaching it from that viewpoint, we didn’t have to write those goals like, ‘In two out of three opportunities, the student will raise their hand instead of blurting out’. Students started to identify and feel regulated, then they didn’t blur it out. Because they knew they could if they needed to, and they weren’t a bad student for doing it. But maybe they didn’t need to. And things became choices. And when you have a choice —
Nick:
It becomes a lot more comfortable.
Carolyn:
Yeah. And empowering. And then, that was, yeah, that’s kind of where we went from that.
Meg:
This is a really powerful shift Carolyn, and you’ve said the word ‘safety’ so many times, right, that your primary goal was to help everybody feel safe. And it sounds like you had sort of an intuitive shift here that a lot of us are trying to make explicitly as we learn about the negative impact of masking. How did you get to this place so quickly where you could see that you needed to do something different? Was this just from your own intuition, or were you learning from somewhere?
Carolyn:
That’s a great question. So, you say quickly, but I will be honest, it probably took me about 46 years to get there. I had a childhood that had some interesting things occur in it that kind of set me up to be sensitive to loud noises, boisterous people. Also, I really, like, I leaned on body language and tone of voice. That was how I could gauge whether my environment was safe to be in. And so, honestly, when I started out as an SLP, sometimes working with autistic students was hard for me, because, right, body language and all of those things don’t always match up with the words. I didn’t always feel safe. But I’m an adult. So, I’m like, I’m good. I got this, you know, but I gotta figure it out. And in that process of trying to kind of figure out how can I help these students, how can I help me, how can I get this all fit together, I think, when this class started, and I was like — the best thing I love about high school students is they will let you know how they’re feeling, whether you really want to hear it.
Nick:
Yeah, will not hesitate. If we don’t like it, we will speak our minds.
Carolyn:
And so, you got pretty, you know, I got instant feedback. But then, I could see how this was just helping everyone be together in the same place at the same time.
Nick:
Yes. Like, though, that multiple perspectives sort of thing, that all congregated into something much better than just a singular perspective.
Carolyn:
Yeah. And I think, I think it was at peace. So, I don’t think in some ways, it happened quickly. But in some ways, it didn’t. It was kind of, I think, a lot of experience and then a ton of research. So, after like, starting, oh, goodness gracious, that spring of 2016, I became a voracious reader of everything I could get my hands on in all the different areas, neuropsychology, psychology, you would be amazed at how much of this actually works in business, gifted and talented education, curriculum and design, like so many areas I just started researching and to like, how to build this into something that was sequential, could be built upon, that students could use. And so, it was just all those pieces kind of coming together. And then, having wonderful guinea pigs like Nick in class that I could, you know, try some —
Nick:
Very, very loud guinea pigs, may I add.
Carolyn:
Wonderful students and wonderful co-teachers who, you know, we would put stuff out and, you know, see how it landed. And they were willing to be flexible. We knew in some new territory, because anything that was off the shelf was skill-based and kids didn’t want it. Did we still sometimes pull those materials in? Yeah, when, as a class or as a team, we were like, oh, you know, we need more practice on this skill and everyone was in agreement, then we pulled in some of those outside materials, but we did not use those as our base for how we moved forward.
Meg:
Your focus on starting with this deep dive — psychology, special education, learning theory, all these things, is very different from starting with observable behavior, how do we change the behavior, where people wind up having that good feedback. I’m sure this is relatable. There’s a lot of therapists listening whose clients say, “This is boring. I don’t care about this, I don’t want to do this.” And they say, “Oh, I’ll make you do it. Because after you do this, you’re gonna get a thing you love,” right? Just adding on all of these behavioral strategies instead of diving deeper, connecting it to something that is meaningful, and is authentic, and is real, and doesn’t matter like you did. I want to circle back in a minute, Carolyn, to what was actually in your curriculum. First, I want to ask you, Nick, Carolyn describes you as quote, ‘anti anything and everything that requires masking and making you less Nick’, end quote, I want to ask you about that. What were some of the social and communication challenges for you in high school and college? And how did you approach these in an authentically Nick way?
Nick:
Sorry, first off, I find it abhorrent and I loathe it. Because it’s just like, I can’t let loose the wild animal that is my soul. And it’s just like, when I can, it’s just so freeing, so to speak. So, it’s just like, one of the social communication challenges I had, especially in elementary school was my clingy love for my brother. So, I would just walk over and just totally interrupt the middle of his class by walking in the door and being like, “Hi, Zachary,” and you’d just be like, everyone would be like, “Hi, Nick,” and the teacher would be like, “Oh, my goodness. Get out, Nick. What are you doing here? Why?”
Meg:
That seems pretty rigid on the teacher’s part, really.
Nick:
Yeah, I wasn’t the smartest. Like, what’s it, second or first grade? I don’t even remember.
Carolyn:
I think you were just loving your brother. That’s —
Nick:
Yeah.
Meg:
Yeah. I mean, it’s a time that the social rules of neurotypicals are what’s rigid that it’s not allowed to greet somebody during class. Why? Like, if human connection comes second to everything else, what are we doing? I love that moment. I love your part of that moment.
Nick:
It’s just like neuro-activated happiness. It’s just like, what’s that — it’s like the happy chemical in your brain whenever you could just walk by and see like, it’s one of your friends, to be like, “Hey, brother! Hello!” It’s just like, it gets the heart full, so full of happiness and joy. And I don’t know why we have to mask that in and pull that inside ourselves. Yes, I know, it might be disturbing to the class.
Carolyn:
It’s well, you know, I was just thinking, this is a slight digression. I’ve seen about one of the things when we talk in the curriculum about like, relationships and stuff. And, you know, one of the — we’re built for connection. And so, one of the facts, you know, is, folks that are married live longer than folks that are never married. And I always love because whenever I throw that out to the class, they’d be like, “Really? Even people who don’t like each other and are married?” And I’d be like, even people who don’t like each other and are married.And when you think about it like that, it’s like, man, what a low bar for what we need to get along, but what the importance of that connection is, even if it’s not the most positive. So, imagine if it is positive. Like, that’s really what it’s all about, like an authentic connection.
Meg:
Yeah, I was gonna add, authentic.
Nick:
It can be like that get-all shot a coffee in the morning. It can be like, what gets you up. It’s just like, hey, I can see my best friend. Let’s do this. Let’s get the day going.
Meg:
Yeah. So, Nick, take us through what about like college, roommates, that sort of thing? How does that go?
Nick:
So, I don’t really mask myself in college. I just walk around my apartment. And sometimes I’ll dance for my roommate, because I’m just so hyper. And sometimes I’ll dance and I won’t even recognize that he’s seeing me. And so, it will be like, “Nicholas, can you do that dance again?” And I’ll just dance because I’m just chaotic.
Carolyn:
Oh, do you remember though, like, on phone calls. So, tell us a little bit about your roommate. ‘Cause you have a kind of nice, unique situation with —
Nick:
Oh, yeah. During the start of the semester, well, when we first met up, he has like this Indian, I think, accent. And it’s so hard to understand that. So, what I go off of was body language at first. I needed that because his accent made it so hard for me to understand anything. And so, when we’re on phone calls, it’s just like, “What? What? What?” ’cause I couldn’t understand his accent for like five times. And meanwhile, my dad’s over here just laughing his butt off for 10 minutes. He was practically crying because I’m like, “What I can’t understand you. What are you saying? Please, please reiterate. Please.”
Carolyn:
I think that’s the nice thing, though. Like, I mean, his roommate understands that too, like that it’s hard to understand him. You guys work around it together, I think, pretty nicely.
Nick:
Mm-hmm.
Meg:
Nick, are there any moments that you use self-advocacy to say, like, to your professors, or to your friends to say, “Hey, here’s how I do things. And this works for me. Here’s what I need or don’t need”?
Nick:
Yes, sometimes with my teachers, it’s just like, “Hey, I need to walk around”, “Hey, I need to get a drink,” things like that. Because often, that’ll give my brain a little bit of reset time in order to just process everything that’s coming in and make sure it doesn’t go out the other ear.
Meg:
Do you have any advice to other autistic college students or folks who are supporting autistic college students who are learning that self-advocacy process?
Nick:
I’ll just say, take pride in yourself. Do whatever you can to make yourself proud of yourself. Be yourself, and just take pride in who you are.
Meg:
I love that you brought us to this positive self-identity, like having a strong positive sense of your authentic self is at the core of where you’re working from. You’re like, “I’m Nick. Nick is awesome. This is great. I don’t need to be anything different.” And that comes from this deep sense that like, you’re good. You’re okay. You don’t have to change your hide for anybody.
Nick:
Yes, I am proud of my autism. It’s just like, I smile upon the fact of it, because it helps me in some ways.
Meg:
Yeah. Do you want to say more about that?
Nick:
So, I’m just thinking it’s like, good at math, good at things. So, I can just like, observe and calculate like, what are the odds and possibilities. I’m able to get like a better sense of like, the world around me, so to speak.
Meg:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we do know that there are specific strengths that come with being autistic. And like you’ve said, there’s things that are hard about being autistic in a world that’s meant for neurotypicals. And it’s nice when people like you, Carolyn, can help try and bridge that in a way that isn’t doing harm and that is in fact helping. I want to learn more about what you teach in your social curriculum. Can you tell us a little bit about how it did unfold, your new curriculum, and what it entails?
Carolyn:
Yeah, so it’s actually an accidental nice segue in to identity, because that is — so, the curriculum itself is based on identity theory. So, social information processing theory, social learning theory, social identity theory. And then, the fourth one that I knew — oh, my goodness, so much in my head today, but it’s built around the idea that you need to know who you are. And I need to know who you are. And I think that’s what like, curiosity, just being really curious about why everybody does the things they do, and why that matters to them, and what that brings to the table. So, the lens is our critical thinking framework that I kind of massaged and did some marrying it to our speech language pathology background, because those are like, those are the lens that we can all look through and get curious about each other. And I think it sounds a little bit like a kaleidoscope too, where, you know, depending on how you shift them or turn them, you get all these beautiful, different pictures of people.
Nick:
Yeah, I would say it helps to like, break down sort of tribalism, and to help us be more like, human connection, like breaks down those walls that are like, make us disagree with each other. More communication equals the better.
Carolyn:
So, when we take those lenses, which like that’s the first module in the course, teaching those explicitly, so I also lean heavily on direct instruction model for the curriculum. And then, the second module in the course is self-awareness, which is how we build our own self-identity through our own values, but then also, how we think others see us, how we want to be seen, how we want to be. And just, it’s a marriage of all of those pieces. And the beautiful thing about this is that we all do this. And so, it puts us all using the same terminology and working from the same framework. So, now it’s easier for me to understand if someone is masking and they’re spending 90% of their personal identity in that quadrant, how can I help move them into the others, and be a little bit more balanced. And so, that’s like the second module. And then, after that, we’re able to take the lenses and that beginning sense of who you are, and how that applies, and what you might want to look like, and what, you know, maybe not, or if you — it’s all choices, again. Then we start to really delve into just like the science of being around each other; the science of communication, of empathy, of responsibility, of all of those things. And then, students get to use that information how they want. They build it with the lenses, they build it with that self-identity, which we always are kind of touching on through the course.
And so, the cool thing is that over the course, they end up with basically a communication profile. So, in those lenses, there’s all things that like, some of us are very strong at. And so, details is not my strength, like I actually don’t observe as much as I should sometimes. So, that’s when, that like, I’m like, okay, if I — if something later on doesn’t have an outcome that I was expecting, instead of just getting angry at that person, because I know, oh, likely I missed something. Let me go back and check that before I go back and get back in touch with this person and see what I messed up. Usually, it’s a date or a time zone, among other things. So, students get that ability to be like, oh, you know what, like, language and vocab, sometimes I don’t match the language that’s expected of that administrator, of using more slang or whatever. And so, they can start to identify.
And once you’re aware of something, right, it’s like, you know, you’re looking for like, a black jacket. And then, all of a sudden, everybody everywhere is wearing black jackets, like you’re not even trying. It just starts to come into your field of vision, and you start to pay more attention to it. And I think that’s kind of what’s the cool thing about it too, where instead of just drilling on skills so much, when you’re drilling on an idea, it’s allowed to filter in however you need it to for you at that time. Because the cool thing is that like, Nick was able to do the class for two years, and then basically teach it for me that next year. Things change. Like, I’m not the same communicator I was five years ago, or even six months ago. And so, it leaves that flexibility in there for you to do that. And I think that’s the other cool thing that students get to see is that growth over time with it. So.
Meg:
Nick, is there anything you want to add to that about your experience, being on the other side of the curriculum, and then helping teach it?
Nick:
I just feel like, proud to help my fellow people in order to like, help them grasp ideas, help them grow, and help them flourish. And it just makes my heart flutter in a way because it’s just like, I feel pride. I helped someone, I helped someone grow out of like, somewhere that might be considered like, naive and to help them flourish.
Meg:
I love that. This is very, very different from the traditional social skills model. I just want to say that again because Carolyn, you talk about teaching, self-awareness, self-acceptance, perspective taking; you talk about teaching a framework for folks to apply as it works for them. I often get asked this question, and I’ve asked this question. I asked this question to Rachel Dorsey, who’s an autistic SLP. I was like, “What about teaching discrete social skills to an autistic person who said they want to fit in, but just telling them they can take them or leave them,” and she was like, it’s like telling a people pleaser to do something, a lot of the times, especially with high masking women. You can say, here’s a plate of skills, but you don’t have to do them. But when they’ve gotten the message, you’re not good. Here’s how to be good, here’s how to be loved, they’ll put it on even if it harms them. So, you’re creating this foundation of learn who you are, love who you are, accept who you are, and build from there.
Nick:
So, basically, it would be like masking is like, trying to conceal yourself in what may be considered appropriate, even if the inside is kinda like an Iron Maiden.
Meg:
Yeah, I mean, you know, masking is just performing neurotypical social skills, like trying to act like you’re not autistic, even if it feels crappy to do that. And it’s linked to really poor mental health outcomes, because we all want to be real and be authentic in the world. So, I really liked the shift, Carolyn. It also sounds a lot less boring and a lot more age appropriate to learn these higher level concepts. I mean, everybody needs a class like this, right, in adolescence?
Carolyn:
Yes. That, and that’s the beautiful thing about like, you know, we’re already in a couple of school districts with it right now. And they’re already dropping it down into their tier two, you know, implementation. And, I mean, eventually, that’s the goal, because we all struggle with this. Everyone struggles with this. No one is unique in having communication challenges or misunderstandings, you know, and I think like what you were saying about, especially high masking autistic women, who their goal is just to fit in, even if it hurts, you know, we aren’t given a lot of time to really explore who we are and where that fits in in this world in general. And I think that’s like, we all mask at some point and to some degree, but the difference is, is that some of us know we have a safe place we can take it off. And when you’re kind of constantly told your whole life that you have to wear all of the time because no one is going to like you if you take it off because you’re too loud, too much, too whatever.
Nick:
Too different.
Carolyn:
Yeah, that once you can feel comfortable with, that’s what makes me unique and special. And there are other people like me, I just have to find them. And, you know, it’s been really fun for me and all this too, because like, I do have some very narrow interests categories. And when I found somebody, you know, like someone else who loves it too, I’m like, this is awesome. I don’t even have to pretend. Like, we can talk about Stranger Things for the next like six days and no one’s gonna stop me, you know.
Nick:
Yeah. It’s like, I can rant about the bugginess of a video game like Fallout 76 which did not work on launch. It’s like, all right, this is a triple-A game developer studio. Why aren’t you making any games that’s working? Why?
Carolyn:
Right, right. So, yeah, so when you’re in that, like, you know, and we create a safe classroom environment, but for all of us to have those moments, you know, and then a safe environment for how do we shift it back on to a topic if we need to. Like, yeah, there’s so much in all that, but I just think everybody’s so beautiful.
Nick:
Yeah, I kind of think of it like as personality. Like, trying to like mask a personality either leads to sadness or spite. Both of those are very unhealthy things, because it’s not good for relationships. It’s not good for work environments. That’s a way to make your work environment and your relationships deteriorate quickly. Spite and sadness, those are a bitter concoction that can seriously damage something. And if you aren’t genuine, those things can easily start brewing. And once they start brewing, it’s really hard to get them to stop.
Meg:
Yeah, that rings true. And I love your declaration, Carolyn, that everyone is so beautiful, I think that’s the answer to where this shift came from. It comes from your deep belief that everyone is just so beautiful. I want to tie this back to something we often talk about when we talk about moving away from the social skills model and that’s the need to access autistic only spaces where you can just be the neuromajority for a moment, and definitely unmask and easily connect without having to code switch so much. And also, interest-based spaces where you can connect based on your interests instead of trying to navigate a neurodiverse social environment and get to what’s interesting, which is what you want to connect over, it sounds like. Carolyn, we often have therapists ask for help: How do I push back against the behavioral models and the models that teach masking? I work in an ABA school as an SLP, and I want to do something different. Do you have any advice from your experience for these folks who are trying to be change agents, but really swimming against the current?
Carolyn:
Yeah, that’s hard, you know, and I — and I’ve been an SLP for 22 years and 15 of those in school districts. And I think the thing that I have found over time, whenever I’m like, okay, well, let’s this would be a more positive outcome, or let’s try this, it could have a better change is when I actually have a solution attached to that. When I have something that I can give them that they can really do. Because that’s, really, I don’t know a single educator or other therapists who doesn’t want kids to be their best selves, and have self-confidence, and feel good about themselves. It’s just that we don’t always have the tools to do that. And so, and that was really a lot of the impetus for quitting my job a year and a half ago and working on this full time, was to give the tools, you know. After we started the class, lots of folks were asking for the curriculum, but we didn’t really have it, because — we did, but it was in our Google Drive’s, it was set up for our school district, and I couldn’t give somebody the tool.
And so, the other therapists who are noticing all of these things and wanting to be more neurodiversity-affirming, we’re starting these conversations, talking about the research with their teams. And then, when the teams are like, “Okay, well, then what can we use instead of X, Y, and A, which we’re already using?” It’s like, well, let me get back to you on that. And so, that’s why I built this, so that we have a start, and we have a tool that people can use. So, you know, the push back, I think, leaning on the research, especially the mental health outcomes for adults with autism, and then having a tool, having a website, having a, “Hey, there’s this that, you know, we can go look at. There is something out there now that we can start to embed in,” because everyone’s so busy. And it’s hard. We have a lot of things on our plates, and especially since COVID, your plate just got 10 times bigger. So, that’s, yeah.
Nick:
Yeah. I would link that back with like, personality and like, finding who you are, finding how else someone is, and trying to synergize between, like, say, a melancholy with a sanguine, a fun loving with a fact loving. Like, trying to figure out how to make those two bond without having to make the mask and trying to fit into each other.
Meg:
Yeah. I’m curious, Nick, what are your next steps? What are your plans moving forward with college and whatever is next?
Nick:
I’m hoping to work with Ms. Long and open my own candy business, which I’ve already opened called Nick’s Nibbles.
Meg:
I love that name. I like the alliteration. Do you think — so, you would like to keep working on this type of work as well with Carolyn in the future in some way?
Nick:
Yes, because it’s something I’m passionate about. It’s something that like, if I can help my autistic brethren and sistren, it just fills me with joy.
Meg:
I love that. And what about you, Carolyn, what are the next steps for the curriculum? You quit your job. You said some places it’s tier two intervention, that’s — is that whole school, or that’s the like —? I haven’t done the schools in a while.
Carolyn:
So, in the multi-tiered system of support. So, tier three is typically like our special education, very unique, you know, individualized education. And then, tier two, typically, are students where we’re seeing, oh, they’re struggling with this. And let’s give them some direct intervention so we can start to see is that enough, or do we need to move to evaluation. And so, moving, you know, beyond the special education. I think, you know, that the next phase really is just continuing to get it in the hands of therapists, special educators, and students. It’s part of a research study with University of Montana. So, that’s something that I’m also very passionate about, is research. So, it’s research-based that uses nine evidence-based practices. But most importantly, I’m researching on it as we go. So, that is twofold. One is it allows me to make adjustments quickly if there are things that need to be adjusted to make it more effective for students. And then, it also gives us a solid evidence base that it is helpful, that it’s working. To me, that’s just critical. I think you have to be willing to research what you’re doing. And you’re gonna have some positives and negatives, but you have to really put your money where your mouth is, I feel like. And that, so, those are kind of the next steps, just get, you know, giving individuals the tool so they have a solution when they want to push back, they can say, “Now we can try this.”
Meg:
Yeah. So, is the curriculum something that individual therapists can purchase and use? Or is it mostly for whole districts? Or how does that work?
Carolyn:
So, right now, it’s for school districts. Also, homeschool groups, we can set it up. So, we are working on being able to set it up for small practices that would maybe want several licenses. We can maybe, you know, set up as like a homeschool kind of situation. The curriculum, the other thing about it, too, is it’s designed on a half credit model. So, we actually have several districts that have had it approved by their school boards already as a half credit elective at the high school level. Also, in this career and technical education (CTE), it meets the standards in several states for that. It also meets the Common Core standards. So, that’s, you know, where it can kind of fall into that. So, individuals who use it, you’re getting about, it’s based on about 65 hours, the first course of actual instruction time. So, the lessons are about 20 to 30-minutes that students work through online. And then, there’s supplemental lessons that tie exactly in to the lessons that they’re doing online that therapists can use, teachers can use, anyone can pick those up and use them.
Meg:
Great. I love this. So, people need to be knocking on their Superintendent or hover over their therapy Head’s door and saying, “We want this for our district.” I’m going to ask you in just a second where we can find all of your things and where we can find you online, Nick. But first, I want just one big takeaway. If people listening take one thing away from our conversation today, what do you all hope that would be? Let’s start with you, Nick.
Nick:
Just like, trying to help people be proud of themselves, like finding autism and being able to be proud of it. Like, not having any sort of shame by being like, “Hey, I’m autistic. I like this, I’m proud of myself for having this.” It’s not like an ailment, it’s just another change — not a change, like a, like an addition to your own personality, so to speak.
Meg:
I love that. Thank you. What about you, Carolyn?
Carolyn:
You know, I guess, you know, two takeaways. One is that, that what you do matters. Like, every interaction you have with someone matters. And you have a lot more power than you realize to help that other person, you know, feel good about themselves. And it can be something very small. And, you know, the second takeaway is, you know, be relentless. Look for these new opportunities, look for new products, and also be really critical of them. Like, make sure that folks are doing their due diligence, and that the research is super solid. Because — and this is my biggest thing — like, you know, by the time you get a kid in high school, you only have four more years with them. And then, it’s decades after that. Like, I love public education, because it is public and everyone has access to it and don’t waste a kid’s time on something that you’re like, “Oh, this looks kind of cool. Let me give it a go.” Because that six weeks, that matters, and you’ve got them. If especially in adolescence, your middle school and high school, that’s it. You’re running out of time. And so, be critical of what you’re using. Make sure it actually has research that shows it is going to do what it says it’s supposed to do. Because it’s very easy to use something that seems like it works and then find out five years later that maybe it didn’t. So, be respectful.
Meg:
Or it did harm.
Carolyn:
Yeah. Even worse.
Nick:
Yeah. Like, putting skin in the game and to having like a farmer mindset in which you just slowly cultivate a relationship with students and other peers in order to like grow a relationship in which others can confide in you and you can confide in them.
Meg:
Absolutely. Building your relationship first. Y’all are reminding me of Dr. Winnie Dunn was on the podcast a while back. We re-aired her episode in December. And she said the moments we spend in therapy are the moments of a child’s life. Like, it’s not just time that doesn’t count. Carolyn, you said the way we interact with people matters. And Nick, you said build a relationship slowly and authentically. That therapy isn’t throwaway time, it’s real time, that is good, bad or neutral and in so many ways, and we need to treat it with care and try and meet the potential for growth there. Where can we find your work online, Carolyn?
Carolyn:
Mysocialoptics.com. That’s where you can go find out about the curriculum, ask questions, reach out to us, find out about a trial, or purchasing it. That’s the site, mysocialoptics.com.
Meg:
Got it. And what about you, Nick? Any projects, or social media profiles, or future candy store that you want to plug?
Nick:
A merch project that I’m doing, Nick’s Nibbles at Teespring, I think.
Carolyn:
Is that the website?
Nick:
Yeah, it’s a Teespring website which I just have the shirts on sale. You buy one and it just gets shipped directly to your door.
Meg:
Got it. I will link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you both so much.
Carolyn:
Thank you, Meg, very much. We appreciate it.
Nick:
It was a pleasure.
[Ending music]
Thanks for listening to the Two Sides of the Spectrum podcast. Visit learnplaythrive.com/podcast for show notes, a transcript of the episode, and more. And if you learned something today, please share the episode with a friend or post it on your social media pages. Join me next time, where we will keep diving deep into autism.
