Neuroaffirming Practice | Bryden Carlson-Giving & Katherine McGinley | TEDxAlmansorParkLive

foreign began my work as an occupational therapist five years ago working to support autistic children and youth and their ability to learn and grow as someone who prioritized research and form strategies I was surprised to learn that I was using techniques that were not only unhelpful but actually quite harmful to the autistic community and some examples of these techniques were conducting reinforcement token economies improving a child's sensory processing patterns and promoting neurotypical social skills autistic voices were missing from my education my training the research and I had no idea how the autistic Community felt about the methods I was using let alone the harm I was causing I was a very ableist practicing therapist and I was absolutely failing my autistic clients it wasn't until I witnessed a child demonstrating excitement by flapping their hands and seeing another therapist attempting to stop that child from stimming that I began to not only question what the stimming meant for the child but began to explore autistic ways of living now as a neurodivergent OT Catherine and I look forward to discussing how you can avoid making the same mistakes that I made and reflect on how you work with or view autistic individuals it can be an extremely arduous process but it's what are autistic clients and friends deserve and is the only way that we can support to make the world more validating off autistic ways of living some is a culture that needs to be recognized and celebrated and that is why during this talk we intentionally say autistic person rather than person with autism the autistic Community has asked that we make this shift away from person first language and towards identity first language this shift recognizes autism as an essential part of an individual's identity just as we recognize gender and sexuality as core parts of an individual's identity it is important to recognize disability as it changes the way we move throughout the world autism is a core part of many individuals identities and that is why instead of person with autism we say autistic person throughout this talk you will hear us use the term neurodiversity neurodiversity is described as the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways and these different ways are valid forms of living there is no one right way of thinking and learning and differences are not viewed as deficits it's about switching The Narrative changing the story and empowering as practitioners caregivers and teachers we can shift our thinking away from a deficit-based approach and Empower autistic individuals validate their identity and incorporate their interests into our treatment this process is called being strengths based when we incorporate principles of strengths-based practice goals and treatment looks more like a partnership between the autistic individual practitioner and family some common traits of a strengths-based approach are including environmental supports and accommodations in line with an individual's learning differences and preferences authentic collaboration with the autistic individual incorporating interest in meaningful ways rather than as reinforcers moving away from compliance and presuming competence and moving away from a deficit model and redefining deficits as differences such as sensory processing experiences when it comes to strengths-based practice our focus is less on changing the individual and more on partnering with the autistic individual and their family to validate their autistic identity so what does applying this strengths-based practice actually look like well today we want to introduce you to Kai Kai is not a real child but rather a compilation of many children we have worked with and their stories during this talk we are going to use them to demonstrate concrete examples of how to move away from traditional models of thinking and viewing autistic individuals and towards ways that amplify and empower the autistic Community we'll start with language language is important and Powerful by simply switching our terminology to being more affirming and less deficit focused we are promoting a world that is more validating for all sorts of individuals two examples of how language can shape the way we practice our attention seeking and functioning labels when referring to Children it is very common to use the term attention seeking this is usually seen as a negative thing however attention is a need we all have as human beings when someone is trying to get your attention they are trying to connect with you and be validated that they are there and that they are seen by simply replacing attention seeking with connection seeking we can reframe so-called bad behavior to a child seeking a vital human need language is powerful and this simple change can help us take a step towards understanding where the child is coming from and honoring their perspective many autistic individuals dislike the terms high and low functioning describing someone is low functioning is a heavily reductionist way to categorize someone and gives no semblance of what the individual can do in contrast high functioning is often used as a way to demonstrate neurotypicality or someone who doesn't require many supports which is often untrue instead we can describe the specific supports someone might require the amount of support and their strengths for example Kai benefits from substantial support such as a visual cue to participate in unstructured recess and Kai benefits from minimal support such as a verbal cue to participate and advocate for self-regulatory breaks now we are not saying simply modifying your language or all that is needed to be more neurodiversity affirming to be neurodiversity affirming requires continuous self-reflection of what you think you know active listening to the communities of individuals you are attempting to serve increasing your comfort and being wrong and receiving feedback to better your practice it is a process and not a single event after modifying your language to reflect the needs and wants of the community you are working with the next step towards being strengths based is for you to learn how to regulate yourself regulation is an encompassing term for how our mind and body are feeling such as emotions or having energy as the saying goes you can't pour from an empty cup and if we are dysregulated such as feeling mad you're unwell there is no way we will be the support Partners our clients need in order to assist others it is important to take time to learn about your own sensory and regulation needs once you are regulated we then determine if the learner is well regulated if the individual is not regulated no meaningful learning or participation can occur when they are not regulated one strength-based approach to support the regulation is demonstrating encouraging or even exploring the learner's favorite methods of stimming at facial therapy practitioners we are experts in occupations which are the things we do every day that give our life meaning and purpose such as your role as a student in school getting ready for the day or coping with life's challenges we Advocate that autistic behaviors are occupations with stimming being an intentional Reclamation posed by autistic individuals and is attempting to be normalized within our society as mentioned earlier we all need to be regulated and stimming helps many individuals do just that as partners to autistic individuals we can help them to co-regulate all people need assistance co-regulating however some may need more assistance than others Kai does a great job using self-regulatory strategies they Rock when they need movement and they flap their hands when they're excited however sometimes the environment is too much for Kai to regulate on their own when this happens as support Partners we can assist to collaborate and co-regulate Kai finds movement incredibly soothing the trampoline and deep pressure have been regulating for Kai in the past so as partners we can offer these to Kai perhaps by using them ourselves or by placing an object related to the task within their View if the learner is not well regulated no meaningful learning or participation can occur and that is why it is essential that we consider not only our own regulation but the individual's regulation as well as we talked about earlier we live in a society that emphasizes autistic people's deficits so the next step is to consider the strengths of being autistic all autistic individuals have skills abilities and strengths some common examples of autistic strengths are the ability to hyper Focus honesty their technical abilities high amounts of energy their loyalty artistic talents passionate risk taker and pattern finder for example Kai needed support in learning how to self-advocate for their needs when becoming overwhelmed traditional terminology for describing feelings such as mad frustrated happy calm the they're very abstract for Kai and they provided no functional support in learning how feelings are expressed within them self and for communicating their needs I learned right away Kai is a dinosaur wizard Kai knows absolutely everything about dinosaurs and by partnering with Kai's interests of dinosaurs we utilized a visual guide of various dinosaurs and their energy levels and they got to be the teacher and teach their family what the support means here is the energy meter already created by the Fantastic advocacy organization autism level up by creating a meaningful language using their interests Kai was far more successful in self-advocating how they were feeling and Kai's family was more able to connect with them by honing in on and cultivating their passion for dinosaurs there are plenty of times where an individual may need to work on developing skills such as using an Adaptive pencil for academic tasks using environmental supports or advocating for self-regulatory breaks however we need to ensure that the task is not only meaningful to the client and their family but that adequate environmental supports are in place and that we are considering the individual's learning style strengths and preferences after identifying an individual strengths we can begin to think about our goals within my goals I often include that unrestricted access to a support or accommodation is necessary prior to measuring the individual's performance to ensure that that support is there the goals do become longer but in a way it protects the learner and it makes sure that they have what they need so switching our goals from deficit to strengths-based will require a lot of unlearning and that's okay I mean think about it we are constantly reminded of and influenced by society's dominant perspective that autism is comprised of deficits and that these deficits need fixing additionally Health Care Services often are administered without the knowledge of what the community prioritizes so to also continue to support amplifying autistic voices I make sure that my goals Target what many within the autistic Community have identified as their health and well-being priorities including the learner's self-esteem their self-advocacy skills positive mental health social participation on their terms and their quality of life so some examples of strength-based goals with Kai are when provided with unrestricted access to environmental supports Kai will self-advocate for a regulatory strategy during a challenging task or Kai's family will demonstrate competency in embracing Kai's play style and Report satisfaction with their ability to connect with Kai and play these goals really highlight how they empower the learner and Advocate to others how they can better understand and embrace Kai's differences we need to think about it include environmental supports and a condividual's learning differences and preferences I like to think about how I can adjust the environment to support the individual can I dim the lights or remove background noise if I can't change the environment can I add support instead can I advocate for the individual to have headphones or movement breaks instead of changing the individual to fit the environment we get to change the environment to fit the individual once we have created an environment that supports the child and we have offered adequate accommodations we get to do our favorite part incorporating interests autistic people often have incredibly intense interests historically rather than incorporating these interests and respecting them we have decided that these interests are too intense and that they need to be redirected or expanded because they're often described as being harmful or meaningless participation in Passionate interests have been shown to reducing anxiety enhanced activities social bonding higher reported autistic well-being and quality of life so instead with this approach we get to learn and enjoy these incredibly intense interests rather than removing something that the autistic person loves when incorporating interest it is important to consider why the autistic person is so excited about this topic or item and it will most likely vary for different autistic people one autistic individual might be excited about Sesame Street because of the way Elmo's voice sounds to their ears another may enjoy the consistency of characters and learning facts about each one once I identify why an interest is so important to the individual I get to find ways to authentically engage it if Kai loves Sesame Street I am not putting Sesame Street characters on a worksheet so that Kai works on their handwriting that is not incorporating interest instead I may help Kai look up facts about each Sesame Street character and suggest they write it down so they can take it home later in both examples Kai is working on writing however one expects Kai to get excited about writing because of pictures on a worksheet and the other authentically engages Kai's interests and helps them achieve their goal well also happening to work on handwriting as we mentioned earlier an essential part of being neurodiversity affirming is letting go of compliance in favor of presuming competence and empowering as previously mentioned by an incredible researcher we look up to Dr Amy Lauren we need to stop focusing on controlling behaviors or behavior management that should never be the goal presuming competence means to assume an autistic person has the capacity to think learn and understand it's assuming that they are not inherently incapable and that they just need the right supports and systems to help them succeed by making this shift from attempting to make autistic individuals indistinguishable from their peers to forming partnership and supporting positive autistic identity and well-being we acknowledge and we empower so what does strengths-based practice actually look like it looks like making sure that you are well regulated before attempting to support the learner it looks like focusing on areas of strengths rather than focusing on areas of deficits it also looks like changing our goals so they focus on changing the environment rather than focusing on changing the individual it looks like incorporating interests presuming competence and it looks like changing our language so we are reframing our mindset when we think about of autism often we think of horrible disease that needs to be cured through hundreds of hours of therapy or we think of Rain Man and we call it a superpower but autistic people have been asking us for years to think of them not as a deficit or as a superhuman but as people with different brains not better not worse just different autism can be both a valid form of human diversity while acknowledging the need for support so let's let go of neurotypical norms an autistic person will never be neurotypical and that's okay we challenge you to join us and consider and discover how strengths-based practice can not only improve the relationship between you and the autistic people in your own life but make a better world for the autistic community

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 8,263

Keywords: Acceptance, English, Health, Humanity, Mental health, Public health, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:53476]

Id: yhhhyV-q9KQ

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Fri May 05 2023