From Compliance to Empowerment: Neurodiversity-Affirming Practices for Student Support Teams

Summary

In an enlightening webinar hosted by "Everyday Speech," co-founder Britney Brunell and curriculum lead Casey Reeves discussed transitioning from compliance-based methods to neurodiversity-affirming practices in education. Focused on empowering neurodivergent students, the session covered essential strategies to promote authentic student identity, inclusive goal-setting, self-advocacy skills, and emotional awareness. These changes seek to create supportive learning environments celebrating individual growth over societal conformity. The webinar emphasized reflective practice and the importance of lifelong learning in education.

Highlights

• The webinar highlighted the shift from traditional compliance-based methods to more inclusive neurodiversity-affirming practices in education 🎓
• Emphasized the harm caused by compliance-focused teaching, advocating for more empowering and supportive strategies 📖
• Promoted emotional self-identification and authentic communication over rigid social expectations 🗣️
• Encouraged reflective practice and collaborative goal-setting to include students' voices in their educational journey 🤝
• Discussed tools like video modeling and inclusive teaching strategies to aid neurodivergent students' learning process 🎥

Key Takeaways

• Embrace neurodiversity by shifting from compliance to empowerment in student support strategies 🌟
• Respect and celebrate unique student identities and needs in educational settings 🎉
• Promote self-advocacy skills to help students confidently express their needs 🌈
• Continuous learning and adaptation of teaching methods are vital to better support neurodivergent students 📚
• Neurodiversity-affirming practices focus on individual growth and authenticity instead of enforcing conformity 🌍

Overview

In this insightful webinar, hosted by Britney Brunell and Casey Reeves from "Everyday Speech," educators and participants explored the impactful transition from compliance-focused methods to neurodiversity-affirming practices. The discussion underscored the importance of recognizing neurodivergent students' genuine needs and nurturing an environment where they can thrive authentically. This paradigm shift from merely complying with traditional standards to celebrating diverse identities can significantly improve student well-being and engagement.

Key strategies discussed included emotional self-identification, understanding the double empathy problem, and promoting self-advocacy. Instead of demanding conformity, the focus is now on enabling students to express their emotions, thoughts, and needs authentically. This involves creating safe spaces for students to communicate freely, fostering a more inclusive and supportive learning atmosphere.

Moreover, the webinar encouraged educators to remain lifelong learners, constantly updating their methods to better accommodate neurodiverse students. Practical tools like video modeling were highlighted as effective means to teach self-advocacy and other critical skills. The session concluded with examples of how inclusive, diverse representation in educational materials can positively impact students' learning experiences.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter titled 'Introduction' begins with a warm welcome to the attendees, expressing excitement for their presence. The speaker suggests waiting a few minutes before officially starting and invites participants to interact by writing in the chat. They encourage attendees to share the grade levels they work with or mention their locations, creating an engaging and interactive atmosphere.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Welcome and Opening Remarks The chapter titled 'Welcome and Opening Remarks' seems to be an opening speech or welcome presentation. The speaker expresses excitement and gratitude towards the attendees, noting the diverse backgrounds as participants from elementary and high school levels are present. The tone is enthusiastic and welcoming, setting a positive tone for the event.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Introduction of Moderator The chapter introduces Britney Brunell, co-founder of Everyday Speech, who will serve as the moderator for the webinar titled 'From Compliance to Empowerment: Neurodiversity Affirming Practices for Student Support Teams.' Britney is an SLP who founded the company following her experience in the field. She expresses her excitement and welcomes everyone to the session.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Synopsis of Webinar The chapter discusses the power of video modeling in educational settings and introduces practices that empower neuro-divergent students. It contrasts these methods with traditional compliance-based approaches. Prior to delving into the main topic, community guidelines are shared to ensure productive conversations.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Introduction of Speaker and Agenda The chapter 'Introduction of Speaker and Agenda' emphasizes three key guidelines for effective communication: respecting diverse perspectives, assuming positive intent, and practicing constructive communication. It encourages speaking from personal experiences, listening actively without judgment, and understanding comments and questions as stemming from curiosity or concern, even if they don't align with personal beliefs.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Acknowledging Traditional Practices The chapter begins with a focus on maintaining respect and civility in discussions, emphasizing the importance of critiquing ideas rather than individuals. It underscores the shared goal of participants to assist students and acknowledges the existence of common experiences among them. As research progresses and ideas evolve, it recognizes that some educational concepts may become outdated, and participants express a collective intention to support the children, families, and communities involved in the educational process.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Community Guidelines Casey Reeves, as the curriculum lead at Everyday Speech, discusses the evolving nature of teaching social skills. The focus is on staying current with changes over recent years and recognizing the iterative nature of learning. The overarching aim is to provide learners with the resources they need to achieve their personal definitions of success.
• 05:00 - 06:00: Introduction of Speaker Casey Reeves The chapter introduces Speaker Casey Reeves, who advocates for neurodiversity affirming practices. She expresses excitement about presenting to a diverse group of educators. As a former school-based speech-language pathologist, neurodiversity is a deeply important topic to her, both from her past experiences working directly with students and in her current role at Everyday.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Casey's Background and Webinar Agenda The chapter titled 'Casey's Background and Webinar Agenda' provides insights into Casey's collaboration with Britney and other mental health professionals to create supportive materials for neurodivergent learners. The agenda for the session includes a discussion on traditional versus modern approaches to social skills training, underlining a shift towards understanding and incorporating neurodiversity affirming strategies in therapeutic practices.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Old Approaches vs New Approaches The chapter starts by setting the agenda for a webinar focused on supporting students' unique learning needs. It mentions a discussion on old versus new educational practices and ends with a recap and Q&A session. Initially, the chapter acknowledges traditional practices that emphasized compliance and conformity, often at the cost of students' authenticity and well-being. The chapter hints at new research highlighting the consequences of these old approaches.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Challenges in Traditional Approaches This chapter discusses the negative impacts of traditional educational approaches on neurodivergent students. It highlights how such methods can cause significant anxiety, erode self-identity, and lead to burnout among these students. The author shares a personal experience from applying to graduate school, reflecting on a question about what it means to be a lifelong learner as a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP). Initially, this concept didn't resonate deeply, but over time, its significance and impact on their career became evident. Additionally, the chapter touches on the issue of outdated information taught in graduate programs.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Concepts of Masking and Double Empathy Problem The chapter discusses the complexities within the field of education, emphasizing the continuous evolution due to new research and learning from students. It acknowledges the challenges such as imposter syndrome and the feeling of not doing enough for students. However, it frames these challenges as opportunities for growth and positive change, highlighting the idea that gaining knowledge can lead to improved practices.
• 10:00 - 11:00: Addressing Masking and Empathy The chapter explores the concept of masking, which is an unconscious strategy people use to connect with others. The discussion highlights the potential harm of masking, especially in relation to autistic individuals, according to recent literature and research. The introduction sets the stage by defining key concepts central to the discussion.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Tools and Strategies for Neurodiversity Affirming The chapter titled 'Tools and Strategies for Neurodiversity Affirming' discusses the pressures faced by autistic individuals to conform to non-autistic cultural norms. It highlights the negative consequences of masking behaviors, such as burnout, exhaustion, and deteriorating mental health. Masking involves suppressing behaviors that provide comfort to autistic individuals, such as stimming or engaging in intense interests. This suppression is often a response to the desire to fit in and avoid prejudice and judgment from others. The chapter references findings by Miller, Rees, and Pearson regarding these challenges.
• 12:00 - 13:00: Emotional Self-identification Strategy The chapter discusses masking strategies used by both autistic and non-autistic individuals as a means of social adaptation. Mimicry of others is highlighted as a common tactic, although it often leads to feelings of disconnection from one's true identity. Masking can result in emotional exhaustion and unhappiness, with individuals expressing concerns that others may not truly know them because of these strategies. The chapter emphasizes the shared and unique experiences of masking across different groups.
• 13:00 - 14:00: Seeking Individual Perspectives The chapter 'Seeking Individual Perspectives' delves into the challenges faced by autistic individuals, such as sensory suppression and suicidal ideation. It emphasizes the importance of helping students communicate authentically and confidently while balancing social interactions with neurotypical peers. The chapter introduces the concept of the 'double empathy problem,' coined by Dr. Damen Milton, which describes communication breakdowns between autistic and neurotypical individuals.
• 14:00 - 15:00: Emphasizing Self-Advocacy The chapter 'Emphasizing Self-Advocacy' discusses how misunderstandings between neurodiverse and neurotypical individuals are not due to deficiencies in neurodiverse people. It highlights three key outcomes when educators address these misunderstandings: 1) Neurodivergent students feel valued and respected for being their authentic selves. 2) Neurotypical peers gain an appreciation for diverse perspectives and enhance their social-emotional skills. 3) The overall learning environment becomes more inclusive, supportive, and collaborative for everyone.
• 15:00 - 16:00: Teaching Self-Advocacy Through Video Modeling This chapter discusses a method to teach self-advocacy using video modeling. The author shares a personal story about addressing the double empathy problem by hosting a weekly lunch group for elementary students. In this group, students were encouraged to invite peers from their class, promoting social interaction and understanding.
• 16:00 - 17:00: Autonomy and Independence in interventions The chapter starts with a warm welcome to participants joining from various locations and professions. There is a shared excitement about the diverse group of people attending. Participants are encouraged to introduce themselves and share where they are from as well as who they work with in the chat section. Amidst the setup, there is a recognition of requests from participants to slow down the session. The host acknowledges these requests and assures that once everything is functioning smoothly, the pace will be adjusted.
• 17:00 - 18:00: Celebrating Personal Growth The chapter 'Celebrating Personal Growth' discusses the importance of creating inclusive environments to address the double empathy problem. The narrator shares an anecdote of hosting a weekly lunch group for neurodivergent students, encouraging them to invite neurotypical peers. This initiative aimed to foster understanding and communication between different student groups, highlighting personal growth and empathy development.
• 18:00 - 19:00: Recap of Strategies The chapter titled 'Recap of Strategies' discusses a technique employed in educational settings for students to engage with peers, particularly focusing on accommodating neurodiverse students. The educator encourages students to interact with a preferred peer, fostering comfort and sharing of play or communication styles. The chapter underscores the importance of modeling 'curiosity without judgment,' acknowledging the challenges faced by neurotypical students in understanding and communicating with their neurodiverse peers.
• 19:00 - 20:00: Everyday Speech's Adaptations The chapter discusses strategies to foster understanding among students, particularly addressing the 'double empathy problem,' which refers to the challenge of neurotypical individuals understanding their neurodiverse peers. A practical example is given where a student is asked about their rocking behavior in a way that promotes dialogue and mutual understanding. The aim is to empower students to navigate their interactions rather than conforming, emphasizing inclusivity and empathy within the educational environment.
• 20:00 - 20:30: Short Clip: Self-Advocacy at School This chapter discusses tools and strategies for self-advocacy at school. After laying the groundwork with some research, the focus shifts to reflecting on common practices that are important to those deeply involved in the topic. The goal is to use these insights to better support self-advocacy initiatives.
• 20:30 - 22:00: Short Clip: Going to an IEP Meeting In the chapter 'Going to an IEP Meeting', the focus is on evolving teaching strategies to better support students' success. The narrative begins with the author sharing a personal story about being a lifelong learner, emphasizing the importance of adaptability in education. The chapter discusses the need to reassess traditional teaching methods that may not be as effective as intended. The goal is not to pass judgment but to discover improved ways to aid student development. Each new strategy is introduced by contrasting it with older methods to highlight reasons for change.
• 22:00 - 23:00: Moving Away from Social Behavior Mapping The chapter titled 'Moving Away from Social Behavior Mapping' discusses the importance of focusing on emotional self-identification for neurodivergent students rather than emphasizing social expectations. Traditionally, there has been a tendency to encourage students to exhibit behavior considered appropriate by societal standards, often without first helping them understand their emotions. While this approach might be effective temporarily, it risks conveying the message that certain emotions are inherently unacceptable.
• 23:00 - 24:00: Representation and Inclusivity The chapter 'Representation and Inclusivity' explores the importance of emotional awareness in education. Instead of focusing on negative outcomes like depression and confusion, it suggests teaching students to identify and understand their emotions. By encouraging students to articulate feelings such as frustration and recognize bodily sensations associated with these emotions, the chapter emphasizes building emotional awareness. This approach lays a groundwork for emotional regulation, benefiting students by increasing self-awareness and aiding their educational experience.
• 24:00 - 25:00: Creating Videos Celebrating Differences The chapter titled 'Creating Videos Celebrating Differences' emphasizes the importance of self-identifying and understanding emotions. It encourages students to name their feelings and be aware of how these emotions manifest physically. This approach is foundational for empowering them to recognize their experiences without judgment and to learn effective communication strategies about them. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the importance of seeking individual perspectives, particularly how goal setting and interventions have been approached previously.
• 25:00 - 26:00: Upcoming Q&A Session The chapter discusses the process of preparing for Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and the tendency of educators and therapists to speak with general education teachers, specialists, and parents, but often overlooking the input of the students themselves. It highlights a common practice of implementing rigid goals, such as mandatory eye contact or scripted greetings, which are believed to promote compliance. However, the chapter also points out that these practices may unintentionally disregard the students' perspectives and needs.
• 26:00 - 27:00: Discussion on Neurodiversity and Goals This chapter discusses the importance of recognizing and respecting neurodiverse students' comfort preferences and natural communication styles. It highlights the negative consequences, such as frustration, disengagement, and mistrust, that can result from ignoring these signals, whether verbal or non-verbal. A scenario is presented where a student shows distress during interaction but is forced to conform, questioning the underlying message sent to them. The chapter also references a recent research study where autistic adults were surveyed about the acceptability of certain practices, emphasizing the need for understanding and accommodating diverse needs.
• 27:00 - 28:00: Addressing User Feedback and Creating Content The chapter discusses various practices and interventions for young autistic children, based on survey results. It emphasizes the importance of considering each child's perspective in determining goals, learning context, and interventions. The authors recommend including children in decision-making processes, honoring their ascent or descent, building on their strengths, incorporating their preferences, and prioritizing communication to help them learn self-advocacy.
• 28:00 - 29:00: Addressing Behavioral Skills The chapter titled 'Addressing Behavioral Skills' focuses on understanding the perspective of students, particularly non-verbal ones. It discusses the importance of observing how these students express themselves and emphasizes collaborating with caregivers to gain deeper insights into the children's preferences. The chapter highlights the creation of opportunities for students to communicate using AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) or other preferred modes. By prioritizing student input, the chapter suggests that educators can build trust, respect autonomy, and create meaningful interventions. The strategy presented is described as practical and sensible.
• 29:00 - 30:00: Conclusion and Thank Yous The chapter emphasizes the importance of seeking students' perspectives when creating goals, highlighting the role of age in this context. It introduces a strategy emphasizing self-advocacy, particularly relevant in discussions on neurodiversity, and underscores its crucial role.

From Compliance to Empowerment: Neurodiversity-Affirming Practices for Student Support Teams Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello hi welcome everyone so excited to have you here we can give it a couple minutes before we get started but we thought to start it would be fun if everyone wanted to maybe write in the chat with what grades you work with or maybe say where you're coming from
• 00:30 - 01:00 thank you that's so great love to see where everyone's coming from awesome this is so exciting looks like we have people from all over seeing a lot of Elementary a lot of high school this is awesome well thank you so
• 01:00 - 01:30 much thank you everyone for joining us my name is Britney Brunell I'm co-founder of everyday speech and again I'm just really excited to welcome everyone to our webinar today it's called from compliance to empowerment neurodiversity affirming practices for student support teams um again I'm Britney I'm the co-founder of everyday speech and I'm going to be your moderator for today I'm an SLP um I founded our company after working in the
• 01:30 - 02:00 schools and really seeing the power of video modeling which we'll talk a little bit about today but we're also going to explore how to move away from traditional compliance-based approaches and adopt practices that Empower neurod Divergent students all right so before we get into our topic for today I did want to share some Community guidelines to really help ground our conversations today so the
• 02:00 - 02:30 first one being to respect diverse perspectives um acknowledge that everyone brings unique experiences and viewpoints so speak from your own perspective and listen actively without judgment the second one being to assume a positive intent so approaching the comments and questions with the assumption that they're coming from a place of curiosity or Genuine concern uh even if they're different from your own beliefs and lastly to practice constructive communication so a avoiding
• 02:30 - 03:00 personal attacks or dismissive language critiquing ideas but not individuals and focus on building understanding rather than winning an argument so you know especially with our topic today I just want to acknowledge that we all come from a place where we want to help students that's why we're here I'm sure we all have a bit of shared experiences too as research develops in the field you know some Concepts become outdated and we all want to do our best to serve the children the families and the communities around us us at everyday
• 03:00 - 03:30 speech we've had to learn and rethink the ways that we approach teaching social skills as the landscape have changed over the past couple years so you know we're taking responsibility for staying current and up to dat but at the same time acknowledging that learning is iterative our goal is to equip Learners with the tools they need to be successful however they are defining that for themselves and with that let me introduce our speaker today Casey Reeves she is the curriculum lead at everyday speech and an experienced educator and
• 03:30 - 04:00 advocate for Nur diversity affirming practices thank you Brittany I'm so excited to be presenting today and have the opportunity to connect with such a group a diverse group of Educators so as a former school-based uh speech language pathologist myself today's topic of neurodiversity affirming practices is an area that I really care deeply about um not only when I was working directly with students in the therapy room but also in my current role uh at everyday
• 04:00 - 04:30 speech as I work alongside Britney and other mental health professionals to develop materials that best support our neurode Divergent Learners so for today's agenda we're going to start by talking about the old way so really uh how we used to approach social skills training and now how we want to move and understand that shift so and then we'll uh move over to how um discussing some practical Tools in neurodiversity affirming strategies that we can use in the therapy room and the
• 04:30 - 05:00 classroom to best support our students unique learning needs uh and last we'll kind of end the webinar with a recap of information we covered today and a Q&A session where you can ask some of your questions let's Jump Right In okay so I want to start by just acknowledging the old way so many traditional practices EMP besid compliance and Conformity often at the expense of our students authenticity and well-being uh there is more and more research coming out that shows that uh
• 05:00 - 05:30 these approaches can cause anxiety en rode self- identity and contribute to burnout among neurod Divergent students so when I was applying for grad school I remember one of the S questions asking me what it meant to be a lifelong learner as an SLP and at that time I don't really think I it quite resonated with me uh the impact and how important that concept would be in my career uh I believe we can all agree that some of the information we learned in grad school is a bit outdated and uh you know
• 05:30 - 06:00 we're in a field that is constantly changing there's new research uh we're Gathering more information from our students learning from our students and it's not black and white so uh you know that is certainly a challenge at times so on the bad days we might feel like we could be doing more for our students or we might feel like the impostor syndrome voice is extra loud and uh I want to say that the good news is is when we know better we can do better so I want to really frame today's topic as an opportunity for growth and positive change
• 06:00 - 06:30 and not one of guilt or shame um to kick us off a little bit I'm going to lay a little bit of a groundwork here I'm sure these are some Concepts that you might have heard of or you're familiar with but they are Central to our discussion today so I thought we would just Define them a bit and dig into them and give some practical examples so the first one is masking uh and masking can be an unconscious strategy that people develop to connect with others so however it can be harmful and we know that based on some more current literature and read research um especially for autistic
• 06:30 - 07:00 people who may feel a pressure to fit in with a non-autistic culture so masking can lead to burnout exhaustion worsening mental health and uh it does usually involve suppressing of certain behaviors that an autistic person finds soothing such as simming or intense interest so with this comes a great need to feel like to be like others so and avoid to avoid Prejudice and judgment that comes with being different uh Miller Rees and Pearson found that when surveying
• 07:00 - 07:30 autistic individuals some aspects of masking are shared across autistic and non-autistic individuals so this included a mimicry of others as a social strategy or feeling exhausted from masking all groups reported that masking made them feel disconnected from their true sense of identity and had a negative effect on them both autistic and non-autistic people said that masking made them really unhappy and it uh made them feel like people did not really know the real then other aspects of the masking seem more specific to
• 07:30 - 08:00 autistic people such as sensory suppression and sadly even suicidal ideation so with this information in mind the goal should not should should be to assist our students in feeling that they can communicate authentically and confidently while still finding a Balan in successful social interactions with their neurotypical peers um the second concept I have here on the screen is the double empathy problem so this was coined by Mr uh Dr Damen Milton and this concept explains that communication breakdowns between
• 08:00 - 08:30 neurodiverse and neurotypical individuals uh stem from a mutual misunderstanding not a deficiency in the neurodiverse person um so there's three things when Educators actively address this uh we can see neurod Divergent students feel valued and respected for their authentic selves we also see neurotypical peers learn to appreciate diverse perspectives and develop deeper social emotional skills and last the learning environment comes more inclusive supportive and collaborative for every
• 08:30 - 09:00 everyone uh personally a little story one way that I found um was helpful to address the double empathy problem uh was to host a weekly lunch group for my elementary students uh students were encouraged to invite a here from their class which was did my screen disappear for everyone oh just for me let me see if I can nope we can still see fine oh so odd it said
• 09:00 - 09:30 paused let me just see if I can pull back up so drive the Shi adequately no worries and it's amazing to keep seeing everybody thank you so much for continuing to place in the chat uh where you are all coming from and who you work with this is really exciting for us just to see the wide breath of people and from all all over let's see we're also getting requests to slow it down a bit so I think we can once everything's up and running we could we can go a little bit
• 09:30 - 10:00 slower I know we're trying to fit everything in we have so much we want to share yes no that's great feedback I appreciate that all right I got it back up on running on my screen so I can see what you see which is great um I was just sharing a little bit of a tidbit uh when I was in the school for some one way that I could approach the double empathy problem uh was to host a weekly lunch group so uh this was for my neurod Divergent students on my case load and I would encourage them to invite a Pier from their class who is often neurotypical to join us for lunch in a little indoor recess uh the small group
• 10:00 - 10:30 setting was a great way for my students to interact with a preferred peer in a low stake setting so depending on um my students Comfort level they were encouraged to share uh their play or communication style preferences with their peers so I also use this time to model something what I like to call uh curiosity without judgment I think uh this is tough for some of the narra typical elementary students to really uh have an aware they have an awareness of their neurodiverse peer behaviors but they don't adequately know what to say
• 10:30 - 11:00 or do to understand their peers so practices um an example of what this could look like is I could ask questions in the group and say something like Jack I notice you like rocking in your chair does that help you focus so this is just one example of um approaching that double empathy problem and really inviting the neurotypical peers in to have a greater understanding of their neurodiverse peers and ultimately the goal is really just to make not to make students conform but to empower them to navigate
• 11:00 - 11:30 the world the world as their true selves okay so now we're going to talk tools and strategies we laid a little bit of the groundwork we talked about some of the research um we do have some other research sprinkled in here to kind of support some of these strategies um but I want to frame our next uh discussion as as we go through these tools and strategies I want to start by just taking a moment to reflect on some of our common practices we're all here because we care deeply about our
• 11:30 - 12:00 students and helping them Thrive but sometimes the approaches we've traditionally used might not be as helpful as we intended and that's okay so teaching is really about evolving and learning I gave that little personal story at the beginning about being a lifelong learner and I think that is so important to what we do so I'm going to introduce each strategy by highlighting the old way and why we might want to move away from that and it may not have worked as well as we originally intended and again not about judment but finding a even better ways to support our
• 12:00 - 12:30 students the first strategy is emotional self-identification over social expectations so let's start by thinking about how we've handled emotions with our narod Divergent students in the past sometimes we focus on encouraging students to act calm or show what's considered to be appropriate behavior without first helping them just understand their emotions so while this might work in the short term it can send the message that certain emotions are
• 12:30 - 13:00 bad which leads to depression and confusion in our students often times so instead what if we taught students to first name and recognize their emotions imagine how powerful it would be for a student to say I feel frustrated because my project isn't turning out how it planned and to understand how that frustration really feels in their body this shift builds emotional awareness and lays the foundation for regulation that feels good for everyone and most importantly our students r than emphasizing appropriate
• 13:00 - 13:30 emotions begin with self-identifying and understanding their emotions so we encourage our students to name their feelings and notice how these emotions manifest in their own bodies this foundational work empowers them to recognize their experiences without judgment and learn strategies to communicate with them more effectively this uh second strategy is to seek individual perspectives so I want to think about how we've approached goal setting and intervention in the past I know I can
• 13:30 - 14:00 speak personally that uh when it was time for IEPs I would you know talk to gened teachers other Specialists parents and guardians but rarely did I actually uh stop and talk to for my students input so sometimes we focus on implementing rigid goals like mandatory eye contacts or scripted greetings often prioritizing what we as Educators or therapists uh you know think is important while these practices might seem effective for teaching compliance they can inadvertent ly ignore the
• 14:00 - 14:30 child's Comfort preferences and natural communication style so when we disregard a student signals whether verbal or non-verbal it can lead to frustration disengagement and even mistrust imagine a student repeatedly adverting their gaze or showing distress during an interaction but instead of acknowledging their discomfort we insist on practice make them conform what message does this really send in a recent research study uh autistic adults were surveyed and um they were asked about how acceptable
• 14:30 - 15:00 they found various practices in intervention for young autistic children the survey results found it was generally best to consider the individual child's perspective when determining goals learning context and interventions the authors discussed ways to include children in the decision-making like honoring indicators of ascent or descent building on strength uh identifying incorporating preferences and prioritizing communication so that children can learn to self- Advocate more effectively so with this information in mind um you know what if we focus on truly
• 15:00 - 15:30 understanding the perspective of our student this could mean observing how a non-verbal student you know expresses themselves collaborating with Caregivers for deeper insights into the child's preferences or creating opportunities for students communicate whether that's through AAC or other preferred modes by prioritizing our students input we can build trust utor honor autonomy and create interventions that feel meaningful for our students I love this strategy I think it's just very practical and makes a lot of sense that
• 15:30 - 16:00 you know when possible and I think age comes into play here but when possible just really going to seek our actual students perspectives when creating goals okay our third uh strategy we're going to highlight and talk about today is emphasizing self- advocacy um again I don't feel like this is the ground baking this is very you know relevant in um discussions around neurodiversity but I think it's a very very crucial uh strategy so I want to think about how we've
• 16:00 - 16:30 traditionally managed a student's needs in a classroom or therapeutic setting in the past so sometimes when a student said I need a break we might have responded with not now or when they triy to leave a stressful situation we might have tried to redirect them back to the lesson without considering the why so while these approaches might maintain structure they risk discouraging self-expression and undermine the development of vital self advocacy skills now imagine instead we create a space for students to voice their needs and preferences for example a student could say I'm feeling overwhelmed and we
• 16:30 - 17:00 respond with thanks for telling me uh what would help you feel better right now this not only validates their emotions but empowers them to recognize and communicate their needs effectively teaching self- advocacy isn't just about immediate classroom success it's about equipping students with lifelong skills so research shows that self- advocacy plays a critical role in navigating systems like education and employment and methods like video modeling as demonstrated in recent studies can be
• 17:00 - 17:30 particularly effective in teaching these skills to autistic students by emphasizing self- advocacy we aren't just giving students the tools to succeed in the moment but we really are setting them up for Success uh in their future relationships jobs and Beyond so one way to teach self advocacy uh video modeling so you can see I have a little clip playing here on the screen but um I want to highlight this study uh that was conducted at the University of Austin which demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching self- advocacy to autistic
• 17:30 - 18:00 college students using video modeling the study uh attempted to answer three questions first is video is the video model intervention successful at teaching self- advocacy skills to autistic students second will students self-ratings of confidence surrounding self- advocacy skills improve the video model intervention and third will will autistic college students find the intervention helpful so what did they find the results demonstrated uh successful
• 18:00 - 18:30 outcomes across the board for all participants participants showed quick acquisition of self- advocacy skills that they were able to maintain over time uh they did find the intervention overall helpful and reported positive feelings as well uh what I find really interesting and important about this particular study is that it had an emphasis on learning from autistic voices so kind of what we just talked about in the last strategy um the second and third question of this study really focus on how the indiv individuals felt
• 18:30 - 19:00 about the intervention and not just the success rate of the targeted skills so this is just one study example of the power of video modeling and how it can really help our neurod Divergent students learn these skills I also want to think a little bit about how we've managed student Independence in the past I think is really closely related to self- advocacy so um sometimes interventions have prioritized compliance over autonomy and we've used you know I'm guil of using prompts or
• 19:00 - 19:30 ignoring signs of distress just to get through a therapy session um or even removing a child's ability to say no these practices might seem harmless in the moment but they can have lasting consequences leaving students passive vulnerable and unable to advocate for themselves so instead what if we Embrace autonomy as a core principle of intervention this means giving the students the freedom to say no and respecting their boundaries whether verbal or non-verbal for example when a student resists the task uh we could
• 19:30 - 20:00 step back and say it seems like this isn't working you for you right now how can we make this better by respecting autonomy we Empower students to take ownership of their experiences and build the confidence to make decisions for themselves over time this creates a foundation for self- respect trust and resilience three skills I know we'd love to see and instill in our students so Casey I am seeing in the chat a couple things I just wanted to hop in because I'm seeing a couple of the same questions and I just want to ease everyone's mind so directly after
• 20:00 - 20:30 this we're going to be sending these slides over with the recording so everyone will have access to again the slides and the recording so don't worry there please you'll be able to take notes and go back and look and look at the slides um we're also getting a couple request just because a lot of people seems like are trying to take notes on this so they're just hoping you could slow down a little bit so they could catch everything which uh is great you know I'm glad that this is so useful um and then there's a couple questions too about video modeling I'm seeing which would be great I think right now
• 20:30 - 21:00 to touch on just so everyone knows as we keep mentioning it so video modeling is an evidence-based practice and this is really what um I based our whole company on as when I was working in the schools um I was working in schools private practice uh focusing on social skills primarily and I found that just video modeling was so effective and so what it is is it's it's very simply just showing a model of a skill to students and the research that we touched on a little bit earlier um is that it's found there's there's been a lot of research since the
• 21:00 - 21:30 1980s till now so there's current research but it goes all the way back to the 80s that says it is 100% an evidence-based practice very effective for teaching various academic social and functional life skills to students with autism and so if anyone wants to access or see some samples of what these videos could look like which I'm seeing a lot of questions about you could look at we're going to send you to our you know the link to our website you can definitely see that afterwards but we also have a lot of free resources on YouTube and Pinterest so if you want to
• 21:30 - 22:00 check us out on YouTube you can see a lot of free samples there and then you can you know get a great look at what these videos might be we're also going to play a clip U very shortly in a couple of slides awesome thank you Britney I appreciate you jumping in there and I will try to slow down I apologize originally uh I'm from Chicago and we like to talk fast okay so we're GNA move into the last oops wrong way the last strategy uh which is to celebrate personal growth
• 22:00 - 22:30 over uh progress or sorry celebrate personal growth and not social Conformity so again we're going to take another reflection moment I know we're doing lots of reflection but I think it is uh important to our discussion today so let's take a moment to reflect on how we often have defined progress in the past so too frequently we celebrate Milestones that align with neurotypical standards um like refraining from s simming without considering whether
• 22:30 - 23:00 these changes align with the students Comfort or their authentic self well this might not while this might look like success or progress uh on the surface it can reinforce masking um like we talked about earlier where students really are suppressing their natural behaviors to fit in and over time um you know this can lead to burnout emotional exhaustion and reduce well-being so what if instead uh we celebrated growth in ways that are meaningful to our students so for example recognizing when a student gains
• 23:00 - 23:30 confidence expressing their needs feels more comfortable in communication and learns to regulate their emotions in a way that works for them these are Milestones that truly matter because they reflect personal growth and not social Conformity as practitioners it's crucial to continually ask ourselves are we setting goals that align with the student priorities or we projecting neurotypical or social norms onto them by celebrating strengths honoring comp passions and respecting autonomy we can
• 23:30 - 24:00 create interventions that support both happiness and our students well-being uh we can continue evaluate the motivations driving the decisions around our intervention targets and not assume that things that make a good neurotypical life uh are identical to Artistic priorities and I think that's a really core piece there um interventions really should respect and enhance those things that bring happiness and joy for an orever student okay okay I'm going to give a little bit of
• 24:00 - 24:30 recap I know that was a lot of information I hopefully I didn't speed through it too quickly um but I am excited to just like he said throw it over to Britney and he's going to show you some of those video models that we talked about in just a moment here so let's take a quick little recap um the bottom line what we talked about in the beginning was that compliance-based practices can cause harm um and you know the good news is that neurodiversity affirming practices prioritize empowerment voice and authenticity so
• 24:30 - 25:00 avoiding these harmful practices requires a paradigm shift uh we're moving away from compliance to collaboration we're shifting from fixing deficits to amplifying strength and we're transitioning from prioritizing social norms to valuing autonomy and personal growth by doing so we create spaces where neurodiverse students can Thrive authentically and confidently so we're g to take a final reflection and I really just want us to all ask ourselves what is a change that I can make starting tomorrow to better
• 25:00 - 25:30 support my neurod Divergent students My Hope Is that with some of the information that I shared with you today you feel more confident to provide neurodiversity affirming care empowering our neurod Divergent Learners requires an ongoing commitment to learning confronting our biases and just reevaluating our practices something I know as a lifelong learner is both exciting scary and thrilling and I really hope that we can just uh continue some of our discussion here as a group and learn from each other so I'm going
• 25:30 - 26:00 to throw it over to Britney um take it away awesome thank you so much and thankful for all I'm very thought thankful for all the thoughtful questions that are happening in the chat I hope we can get to every single one because they're they're really incredible questions and I think we can um speak to all of them so that to say we we will hopefully get through all of those as and there's going to be a little bit of time uh coming up as well soon to have a live Q&A all right so I did want to talk a little bit about how
• 26:00 - 26:30 we have adapted and have thought about incorporating some of these neurodiversity affirming practices into our work at everyday speech um and thank you so much Casey for everything that you shared okay so first is including emphasis on self- advocacy in all of our lessons so students are learning how to advocate for their needs across settings as the research States video modeling is an important and effective tool to teach self- advocacy skills we heard a little
• 26:30 - 27:00 bit about that from that study coming out of the University of Austin and so we've created new lessons around using self- advocacy at work in school and with friends so um as people have been asking I'm going to show a short clip of one of our videos that's called self- advocacy at school I need something to help me with this noise headphones will make this easier for me I just need to ask coach Mar the noise in the gym is very overwhelming so can I with my headphones please oh of course
• 27:00 - 27:30 Rose so that's just a short clip kind of showing the scene of how the student is positively able to advocate for what they need in the moment because the gym was too loud um and so this is one of our newer videos it comes also with accompanying worksheets web games um so your students can start to learn these skills in a variety of ways um and our videos are typically anywhere from like 4 to six minutes long just so you got a sense of that um and so yes that was just a positive model of showing this skill in a real life
• 27:30 - 28:00 scenario the next clip I'm going to show is another new video Lesson called going to an IEP meeting so again you know in this scene we're going to see a student speaking up for his accommodations and what he needs at his IEP meeting um I used to work in a high school setting and most of my students um at the age of 14 in Massachusetts where I was located uh were required to come into the IEP meetings with us and they were so nervous to do it and I think it was a really big deal for them to come in and then you know it's one thing to sit and listen to but to be able to express
• 28:00 - 28:30 themselves in their needs and wants was just that one step level that was really intimidating for them across like looking at the team of adults in the room um and so that's something that I really really um was mindful of in thinking about creating these resources and having them uh for our students so we can take a look at this clip this meeting is for Ethan's annual IEP review he is showing great progress in math well that's fantastic news so I'm considering changing his math goal to a self- advocacy goal what do you all
• 28:30 - 29:00 think of that I use my current math accommodations to be successful I need to speak up I think we need to keep my current math combinations that's a valid point Ethan can you explain more why you feel your math accommodations are important well the use of a calculator and the extra time on tests really
• 29:00 - 29:30 helped me a lot all right so again we kind of see that positive behavior model and the students are able to take a look at that and say okay well I could do that in my own life and come to my own meeting and and talk about what I need to be successful and comfortable all right another thing that we have been thinking a lot about recently um believe it or not we started this company in 2014 so we have had videos around for a long time now coming up on the 11year mark which is crazy to
• 29:30 - 30:00 me and so you know when we first started we thought a lot about rooting our videos in social behavior mapping and really thinking about the consequences you know understanding the natural consequence of an interaction or if you have an unsuccessful communication attempt or behavior what is the consequence going to be of that the social consequence for the people around you and what this used to look like a lot in our videos was you know we have video thought bubbles that are revealing the inner thoughts of how peers might be feeling about you and while that can be very very helpful in the moment it also
• 30:00 - 30:30 you know could be shining a light a little bit more on negativity and oh peers might have negative thoughts about you and so that didn't feel great to us anymore so over time we've moved away from focusing on those differences of how people might be feeling um and talk about well it's okay we might all have different feelings in a moment or respond to an incident in a different way but let's just talk about what strategies feel good for us or how we might view a situation different maybe focus more on the perspective taking
• 30:30 - 31:00 aspect than saying that there's a right or a wrong way to be you know thinking about people uh not just highlighting so much of that negativity and then in the same vein you know our lessons I would say a little bit in the past used to uh We've shifted away so much from the path of like well this is a right behavior and this is a wrong behavior and now try to think about well you know what there's multiple ways to do a skill and that's okay and so now when it's applicable we're showing multiple ways to do the same skills or offer views of different strategies that you could use
• 31:00 - 31:30 in the same moment rather than only focusing on you know a right or a wrong Behavior okay and one more thing that's been really important to us here is hiring authentic actors so we've really made an effort to hire actors who are representative of the students who are watching our videos which could be anyone and so you know really showing that authentic representation of students of all ages and all abilities uh we specific speically have had requests uh recently to represent the
• 31:30 - 32:00 deaf and heart of hearing community so this is just just an example where one actor we had um uses a clear implant so it's something I I handle all of the casting uh for all of our videos every single year and it's something that's very very important to me I'm trying to be as inclusive as we can not only in our live actor hires but in our illustrations and our animations as well so you'll see we try to implement characters visually who you know have all different abili uh we have some in wheelchairs some with
• 32:00 - 32:30 prosthetics clear implants um really just trying to be very inclusive okay and this was the last uh change or shift I was going to focus on and it's been really about creating videos that are celebrating and learning about differences you we want the students in the building to understand that you know we're not only understanding and accepting learning differences but they're something to celebrate and so this is just an example of a video about being proud of who you are and you know we all have differences
• 32:30 - 33:00 but we're going to celebrate and respect each other regardless of those differences and it's also nice because I feel like it serves as a peer model so you can for the peers in the building they can start to understand oh well that's maybe why this person learns differently or is communicating differently so just kind of building that awareness across the school okay so we do want to have this time for questions um one I want to get to I saw in the chat actually Casey if
• 33:00 - 33:30 you want to flip real quickly to the next slide um some people are requesting articles that they could be bringing in or citations so we have this and we have another page of our references and these are wonderful articles so please anybody um once you have the slides you'll have access to these so you can feel free to use these some people were saying I'd love to bring some of these articles and references uh to use and share in my building
• 33:30 - 34:00 all right we're also going to launch a feedback survey so we're going to have a poll if you don't mind uh answering this please just give us some honest feedback about if you felt like this was helpful for you see if we want to take maybe five
• 34:00 - 34:30 minutes or you know I think we have five to we have 10 minutes left so we could Casey do we want to pick a couple questions and answer them live sure um I if you have the chat up and want to read us them aloud perfect let me see I'm trying to pick ones that I've seen over and over to make sure we're getting to the pressing ones it's a really nice compliments thank you guys a very appreciative of people saying they've had success with
• 34:30 - 35:00 our videos people saying they really love the thought the thought bubbles because they help develop theory of Mind in students and that was definitely the intention so someone had asked a question about how are our videos different than just social stories is it just because we use a video format and they're very similar but we we have a couple differences I would say so our video lessons we have a couple of varieties across different ages so we have lessons for prek and kindergarten students uh they work well for first graders too um and they're very engaging
• 35:00 - 35:30 we have an animated cast um and those videos are super popular um but they are you know there's intentional differences and changes between our prek videos our Elementary videos and our middle and high school videos that being said they all follow a very similar format of we introduce a skill we break it down into manageable steps that is typically seen as an animated introduction so we see that being modeled and then we also show the live model afterwards so typically there's two scenes where you're seeing the skill doesn't go as planned we have the inner thought uh bubbles of the
• 35:30 - 36:00 students who talk about okay how did this make me feel what's a strategy I could use in this moment and then we'll show the skill again and it's HP it's occurring in this positive successful way and that's the format of our videos oh I see actually a chat from somebody who works at the school that I used to work at and we filmed about three years worth of videos at this school um I'll shout out Whitman Hansen and Massachusetts so thank you so much I'm so glad that you use these
• 36:00 - 36:30 videos that's exciting all right scrolling through I'm trying to see more questions I'm actually just seeing a lot of comments which is awesome a lot of people asking for the research which now we will have in our slides so you'll have access to that I did maybe this could be the last one I saw a couple questions about and this is a tricky one so maybe we could all weigh in on this one but there were some
• 36:30 - 37:00 questions around the balance between what if you have a student who's just protesting something that they don't want to do versus a true you know a difference in something that maybe doesn't feel comfortable for them so maybe we could use the example of eye contact Casey and kind of talk through what the changes we've made around that sure yeah I think um oh go ahead B I just gonna finish by saying I think the true distinction there is comfort you know I think our duty is to teach a skill but if it's going against with what a student or a learner is
• 37:00 - 37:30 comfortable with and it's causing discomfort or harm that's the line yeah and I think in a lot of our lessons too we make an emphasis of offering options for the student you know it's not like I said in the beginning of the presentation oftentimes a lot of social skills are not black and white and that offers us a lot of you know it's really great there's some variability in different ways to communicate so um in the example of eye contact you know in the past we might have said you know you need to look that
• 37:30 - 38:00 person in the eye to make eye contact when you're communicating and instead we're offering the option of you know there's another uh strategy called visual referencing and you know how why people use you know still explaining the concept of eye contact and why you know a neurotypical person might utilize that but that it's not something that a neurodiverse person has to be used to be able to communicate effectively
• 38:00 - 38:30 I love that and someone in the chat also had pointed out that at their school they encourage our students to participate in some way so giving them different options just like you said Casey that that would definitely meet their comfort level okay awesome
• 38:30 - 39:00 all right let's give a couple more minutes for questions Britney we've got lots of great questions in the Q&A um if you want to look there to go through oh perfect so somebody did point out do you uh have
• 39:00 - 39:30 do your videos translate to the preschool level for students who are still learning language and so for there I would say we have items such as visual tools and icons and we try to use a language level that is appropriate for those early Learners um but if they're truly a non-verbal student I think it you know you might require a little bit of scaffolding or pre-at the videos to you know maybe watch them a couple times to uh have it to be appropriate to that
• 39:30 - 40:00 level see some more my students love operation Pizza are there going to be more topics for that game that's one of our popular web games so um I can't say 100% yes we haven't made the game schedule for next year but typically what we do is game series and so we have I think we have over about you know 30 different types of games and then within that we we give different uh topics of the game so we
• 40:00 - 40:30 might have a game and it's the same game Operation Pizza where you have to work together on teams to make pizza but then there's questions about different skills so we have a problem solving one a conversation skills one an emotional recognition one so to usually yes there'll be many different series of games okay
• 40:30 - 41:00 a couple of just great ideas for um topics uh which is great so we check in we do a lot of uh user feedback check-ins and surveys each year when we're developing every single year we put out typically around 50 new uh video lessons um and so we always look to our users to say well what topics do you need we're always looking for more so love the ideas for topics here this is really helpful for us as we create new
• 41:00 - 41:30 cont content each year um let's see what else is included in everyday speech I'm new yeah so everyday speech um again definitely please check us out we have free samples on YouTube free samples on our website just everydays speech.com but we are primarily a digital curricula for uh teaching social skills and social emotional learning so we have tier two and three tracks and tier one tracks with whole class lessons and we include video lessons as we saw
• 41:30 - 42:00 samples of today uh interactive worksheets and then also web games could you P please provide goal examples that is a really great idea I love the idea of writing You Know sample goals that are focusing on being neurodiversity affirming and something we already have within our platform is a goal bank so we have sample goals already written for every single I think I mean we had 86 goals so Casey I'm
• 42:00 - 42:30 trying to remember how many we' written in total I think it was over you know a hundred at least yeah definitely there's at least a one to one if not more for every single goal in there so there's least a large goal Bank somebody asked kind of more of a technical question do you consider ADHD as a as neurodiversity as well so yes the I believe the definition is any learning difference so it can include autism as we mention mentioned ADHD specific language disorder I really
• 42:30 - 43:00 think it's any it's categorized as any learning difference so in that sense when we think about the world it is very neurodiverse I don't know if we can run the poll again I don't know if that's possible a couple of people were saying that it disappeared on them let do you have videos that address
• 43:00 - 43:30 aggressive behaviors like hitting or throwing objects we do have a behavioral skill uh with with sample goals underneath it so we do have videos on um just being safe thinking about safety let's see what percentage of your webinars have
• 43:30 - 44:00 you revamped to be neurodiversity affirming um I would say moving forward all of them will be it's definitely something that has been on our mind for the past couple of years and will continue to be all right looks like we're wrapping up so thank you everyone so so much just
• 44:00 - 44:30 really appreciate your time looking forward to learning together um and definitely check us out if you haven't yet thank you everyone it was a pleasure all right have a wonderful day everyone thank you