In this episode we deeply explore how therapists misunderstand kids who communicate using scripts, how traditional approaches just don’t work to support their language acquisition, and a totally new framework we can all use to support them in a meaningful way. Our guest, Alexandria Zachos, is a speech-language pathologist who has presented at ASHA and all over the world on delayed echolalia and gestalt language processing. She owns a private practice in Illinois called Social Butterfly Speech Therapy and runs Meaningful Speech, where she teaches an online course on gestalt language processing and shares tons of absolutely transformative content on social media. You can check out Alex’s online course at bit.ly/gestaltcourse. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Kat Harhai is a facilitator, educator, and writer, and currently works as the Neurodiversity Collaboration Facilitator at Bridges Learning System. She is multiply disabled and was late diagnosed as autistic as a young adult. Katrina Martin is the founder of Bridges Learning System. Katrina is fully dedicated to moving beyond the deficit-based model of education for autistic students and moving into a model that focuses on strengths and teaches the benefits and values inherent in diverse ways of thinking. In this episode we talk about social and emotional learning from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective…and we don’t just talk about what NOT to do, we get really specific about a beautiful model called the Social-Emotional Acuity Bridge that Kat, Katrina, and their team have developed that everyone can use in their own work. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Sarah Selvaggi Hernandez is an occupational therapist and educator working to promote an intentional identity-first approach to autism and OT. She’s also a mother to three neurodiverse children. In this episode, we explore Sarah’s experiences as an autistic mother, the types of supports that help her thrive in her daily routines, and her own process of self-advocacy. Then we apply this insight to the clinical work of anyone working with autistic children, children with autistic mothers, and autistic mothers themselves. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Greg Santucci is an occupational therapist and the founder of Power Play Pediatric Therapy. Greg provides workshops and trainings to parents and professionals all over the country on compassionate, collaborative, and neuro-developmentally informed approaches. In this episode we talk about how restraint, seclusion, and behaviorism harm kids, and why they are more prevalent than we’d like to admit. Greg shares how he fights these practices on the ground as a school-based OT and at the policy level. And finally, we explore Greg’s Model of Child Engagement as an alternative to behavioral approaches. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Dr. Alyssa Hillary Zisk is autistic, a part-time AAC user, and a recent graduate from the interdisciplinary neuroscience program at the University of Rhode Island. In this episode, we talk about why and how part-time AAC use can support authentic participation for many autistic people. We also explore Alyssa’s insights on teaching AAC from Alyssa's perspective as an engineer, as a researcher, and as an AAC user. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Rachel Dorsey is an Autistic SLP in private practice, a consultant, and the creator of a new Learn Play Thrive course, Goal Writing for Autistic Students: A Neurodiversity-Affirming Approach. In episode 35, we cover the basics of the neurodiversity paradigm and why and how to write strengths-based goals. Rachel also gives us the inside scoop on her own journey towards neurodiversity-affirming practice.  View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Rachel Coley is an OT and mom of three kids, one of whom is autistic. She’s also the founder of CanDo Kiddo, where she gives strengths-based strategies for supporting infant development. In this episode Rachel and I talk about how her OT practice has grown and changed to embrace a neurodiversity-affirming, strengths-based approach. We dive into what it means to be strengths-based with very early development, and concrete ways that schools and school-based therapists can better support neurodivergent kids at every level.  View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Moyna Talcer is an autistic occupational therapist and researcher who conducted a qualitative study on the sensory experiences of autistic mothers. Her findings have implications for the ways we support not only autistic mothers, but all autistic people, starting in childhood. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Oswin Latimer is the founder and President of Foundations for Divergent Minds (FDM) and former Director of Community Engagement for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). In this episode, Oswin and I talk about the specific executive function strategies we can use to support our autistic clients’ participation in meaningful daily activities.  View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

Dr. Andrew Gordon is a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in memory, decision making, cognitive control, and misinformation research. This episode is a deep dive into a study conducted by Dr. Gordon and a team of researchers on how executive function differences really show up neurologically for autistic people. And what they found in the study wasn’t that autistic people had executive function deficits, but that they used their executive control networks differently. In this episode, Dr. Gordon explores this research and its implications. This is part one of a two-part series on executive function. In the next episode, we’ll go even deeper into the practical ways we can support autistic people in their daily lives.  View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast