'11 Things Not To Do With An Autistic Child' Part II

Jeremy Brown, author of "11 Things Not To  Do With An Autistic Child," an insightful article easily found online, provides so much to contemplate. that Dan and Mike pulled a second brew from his basic ingredients. To be honest, they simply take ingredients 6-11 from the list for this particular concoction. ABA on Tap is thankful for the author's parenting insight and uses an ABA filter to continue exploring the 'Do' aspect, while honoring the parenting gems in the article.

This is a light and refreshing blend, 'thanks' to Jeremy Brown and his parenting wisdom. So get cozy, help yourself to a pour, and always analyze responsibly.

Article Link: https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/what-not-to-do-autistic-child/

AND--if you are ready to enjoy the benefits of Magic Mind and boost your brain performance, please use the following link and use the discount code ABAONTAP to receive 20% off your purchase, and 56% off a subscription.
https://www.magicmind.com/ABAONTAP

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

All right. Welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on Tap. I am your host, Very, very grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, along with Mr. Daniel Lowry. Mr. Dan? How you doing, sir?

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

Great to see you, Mike. I'm doing excellent. Glad to get some consistency back in the recording. How are you doing, brother? Feeling good, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15

Feeling good. Busy weekend, but productive weekend. Really excited to get back into this article review that we started to kick off our fifth season of ABA on Tap. Cheers. Cheers to you. A little excerpt from Autism Parenting Magazine. You can be found online. Eleven things not to do with an autistic child by Jeremy Brown, who is a parent, as well as an author, a parent of, I believe, two autistic boys. So he shares some tips here that, I guess, don'ts. We often talk about dos in contrast to don'ts when we do parent education coursework and things like that. So I found this a very practical way to present some good information to our listeners, whether you're a parent or a professional. We can, in contrast, present some of the dos or some of the minor points of disagreement we might have with the author and the approach here, although the idea here is just to promote good parenting practice overall. There's no need for long-winded disagreement or correction. We found the information very fruitful, very useful, and it actually provided us with two episodes of ABA on Tab, knowing that it was 11 things on the list, and we got through exactly five. So if we're able to be a bit less loquacious this time around, maybe we can get through six. Wish us luck. Throw us right in here, Mr. Dan. What is number six on this list of things not to do with an autistic child?

SPEAKER_00: 2:44

Yes. Well, number six is don't yell or rush at them. And in lieu of that, I feel like that's why we decided we were going to stop and make this a two-part episode because we didn't want to rush it. Good idea. So... Just looking back, number one was don't let them think autism is bad. We discussed that. Number two is don't complicate their tasks. Number three, don't suddenly change their routine. Number four, don't compare them to their peers. And number five, don't speak in metaphors. So moving on to number six, don't yell at or rush them. And he says, you know, as parents, we've all been there, kids getting on your last nerve. And he said, add autism diagnosis on top of that. And that might even trigger a larger reaction for a multitude of reasons. So before I move to the second part, I know we've all been there, but I don't have kids. You have kids. You were having a great birthday party, and your kid might have been acting up a little bit, doesn't have the autism diagnosis. So anything from a parenting perspective that you want to... discuss about dealing with a situation where you might be frustrated, now also acknowledging and accommodating for that autism diagnosis?

SPEAKER_02: 4:05

It's a nice loaded one you're presenting here, Dan. Well, it's so layered too, right? In the sense that, and I like the example you bring up, a super practical one, bedtime, bedtime on my recent birthday celebration. And because of the excitement, because of the day's activity, we've had a lot of movement, We skipped the nap, even though we tried the nap. There was no nap that day. So it comes down to bedtime, my wife trying to put my daughter down to then come back and continue celebrating with people. And it just was a fight for my daughter. Now, this is a great example of the don't yell or rush at them in the sense that You know, any effort that my wife does or makes in that moment to rush that situation is probably going to be counterproductive.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

You're going to

SPEAKER_02: 4:53

lose time. It reminds me of the things you say during our crisis management training to remove energy, to not add any of that extra energy. And that's really hard because I can imagine my wife sitting there going, I really want to get back out there. And, oh, of course, you'd be doing this to me today. And, you know, whatever frustrations you're cultivating inside your own mind, makes it very easy to then feel like some sort of authoritarian stance, some sort of pressing, some sort of rushing is going to make the situation better. Let me add more complications to that. If you have onlookers, for example, and you're feeling that pressure, you might seem kind of soft toward your kid in that moment unless you're somehow taking some authoritarian stance. So you put those two things together and it creates a recipe for... rushing at your kids and hearing to get moving sure to do those things that you know at least in my case i i know you can do this 80 of the time without you know a huge crisis and of course of course here we are in a situation where it'd be great for you to go just go straight to bed and but all if we don't stop and think of all the variables that are that are prohibiting that or making that complicated, we might blame it on three-year-olds. And then suddenly we're fighting with a three-year-old. So I think that was maybe more of a long-winded answer than you may have bargained for. But I think it really highlights that point. that if this author maybe is doing as a parent, what do you do? You don't do these 11 things with your autistic child. What do you do? Remaining as calm as you can at least 80% of the time is probably one of those things that the author would agree you would want to do as you don't do these 11 things in contrast to your child. And that's just it. It's really difficult, I think, is what I'm trying to highlight, is you can have best laid plans. You can have everything mapped out. You can have your... visual structure and your schedules and your if-then statements and you've primed and, you know. All the antecedent strategies. You can do it all. It doesn't mean that your consequence is going to be this beautiful rainbows and unicorns vision of compliance and collaboration. And in fact, again, if you're in a good range, 10 to 20% of the time, any child or any given human animal with a large forehead is gonna throw a little bit of a wrench in your plan. Something's gonna run late. And so to the author's point here, even in those situations, Try not to rush or hurry at people. Certainly try not to do that with your children. And then to the author's credit, given his own personal experience, I can only imagine this has probably been very counterproductive for him and his wife in trying to parent successfully. And

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

you mentioned two things to be concerned with. I'll add the third variable that might be in play, not with your situation specifically, but when he says add the autism diagnosis on top of that, that goes back to what we talked about in the last episode about autism potentially being a different way of communicating, right? So with you and your daughter, you know, without her having that diagnosis, you have similar ways of communicating and understanding each other. Whereas if we're going to look at, you know, individuals with autism communicating differently or speaking a different figurative language, that adds a whole different variable. Not only that, but as we talk about, and we talked about in the de-escalation series on the podcast, when we start to escalate, we start to lose blood in our prefrontal cortex and our hippocampus. Same thing with the kiddos that we work with, right? That's why a lot of the kids that we work with that might have developing language might not talk as they start to get escalated because their prefrontal cortex and their hippocampus literally is lacking blood flow. Well, so is ours. So now we've run into these communicative issues because where it might be very naturally for me to communicate with you, Mike, so I don't have to think about it too much, somebody maybe on the spectrum that might communicate a little bit differently. Not only do they need to think about how they're communicating, but I need to think about it too, and it might not come as natural. So I think that can add another variable into play as well.

SPEAKER_02: 9:03

For sure, I agree. So not that you ever want to, to go back to the first point, ever want to think of or have your child think of the autism as bad. We have to acknowledge the author's point here that there are certain traits, individual traits, that may or may not be related to the diagnosis. Maybe here he is saying these would be related particularities that idiosyncrasies, if you will, that are going to be specific to every child and certainly could be complicated or augmented by the autism diagnosis. And I think it's good to be aware of those things. It's good to know when you're walking into them, when you might be better suited to circumvent them or preempt those situations. And again, this is a nice dance balancing act that certainly every parent has to consider. And yes, with all due respect, certainly the autism diagnosis might bring more particular situations that a parent, especially with two boys, for example, would be very mindful of. Hence the wisdom the author is able to share with us here. in this article.

SPEAKER_00: 10:07

Yes. You mentioned the autism diagnosis not being bad. Again, I just want to reiterate, it's not bad. It's just different, right? It's like, I have a stick shift. My girlfriend has an automatic. It's just different. One's not better than the other. They're just different. And if you're not in practice, you might need to think about, oh, how do I drive this stick again, right? Because it's just different. Two other things that he mentioned, which are also part of my handout that I give to my parent groups and my new hire groups. And don't rushing them. So number six on my handout is giving the child time. So important. I'll see sometimes there's the continuum of independence and quickness. And as therapists, we really want to be focusing on having the client be more independent but unfortunately parents are always in a hurry and therapists are always trying to run the next program so everything's done quickly so in best case scenario it's done not independently at worst case scenario it's done not independently and takes longer because now you've got pushback from the kid and you tried to rush them and you're trying to save a minute is now going to cost you 20 minutes of tantrum and have it done less independent. So I definitely see this a lot with individuals that may have auditory processing delays and things like that. A lot of times, like we say, less is more. So don't rush them. Giving an individual time to process and really focusing on that independence versus that quickness on that continuum is going to behoove whoever is presenting that instruction. And then additionally, number five on my top 10 tips is reducing the loudness of your requests. As he says, don't yell at them. So I think a lot of times what happens is parents are trying to communicate it's really important by yelling. But if yelling means it's really important, what does talking quietly mean? It means it's not important, right? So then what's going to happen is you're just going to teach your kid they don't have to listen to you when you're quiet. And it's actually going to circumvent the whole situation, right? A parent might be like, well, yeah, I yelled at them and they listened. Okay, well, that's good, but then that just means you're going to have to yell all the time because they didn't listen when you were quiet. You basically paid off the fact they don't need to listen when you're being quiet because if it's important enough, you'll start yelling and then they need to listen. So those are a couple things I think we need to be really cognizant of there, that yelling piece as well. At the end of the day, what's going to maintain a behavior is going to be the consequence. So me saying, hey, if you want your iPad, do your homework, should be the same as if you don't do your homework, I'm going to take your iPad. Because at the end of the day, it's the iPad or whatever those motivators or reinforcers or consequences are going to be, not the yelling that's going to get it done.

SPEAKER_02: 12:47

Yeah, for sure. I like what the author says here. When I'm at my best, I'm able to speak calmly, get him, my child, to respond calmly as well. Keeping your cool can help you and your autistic child communicate better and grow your bonds. And again, not to in any way contrast the author's point there, but let me just... augment that to a general parenting tip, to a general communication tip for anybody at work or whenever you're speaking to any other animate object, pretty much. I would say the idea that you can maintain your arousal at a certain level, at a certain baseline level, in order to keep your cognition. And this is sometimes close to impossible. We are all human. So the idea that, again, to use that sort of... very traditional ABA mastery criterion of 80%. You know, 80 to 90% of the time you're able to maintain your cool and your calm, then I think this is what the author is saying in the spirit of this article. I like to say the other 10 to 20%. That's when your kids get to understand the other emotions that you can go through. And again, you want to keep those within a reasonable limit as well. But Really kind of saying, it's okay. It's okay to lose your cool sometimes. Your kids need to see you frustrated, upset, sometimes realize life situations also make you cry. But again, really making those the limit, the very small portion as opposed to the 80 or 90% of the time that you're super, super cool, demonstrating how to be cool, cognizant, calm as you work through different solutions. And it does. I mean, again, I can say this as a professional. Much easier for me as a professional to walk into a situation and keep my cool throughout a 45-minute tantrum. And then I have to empathize and know that in my own home, as I can preach these things all day, when I put them in practice, those same 45 minutes with one of my children being in some level of crisis can seem like an eternity. So again, I empathize, and that's why I have to keep reiterating a lot of these self-regulation strategies that we talk to our clients about. that I talk to, the parents I lend education to about, I have to put in practice myself. And they do work. I can say they do work very well. It's not always easy to implement them. It's not always easy to practice what I preach. But I can say that everything that Mr. Brown here is saying and his don'ts, everything that you're contrasting with your dues, these are certainly strategies that will prove effective if you can be consistent as a parent and or professional.

SPEAKER_00: 15:26

Absolutely. And like you mentioned, it's so much easier to do it with a client than your own kids because you're not paid to be with your own kid unconditionally, right?

SPEAKER_02: 15:34

I think I pay a lot

SPEAKER_00: 15:37

to be with my... That's a different... That'll be the next podcast. But yes, just kind of wrapping up. what you said and expanding on it. I think you can acknowledge that you've seen this because I've seen this a lot in the field as well. You know, parents yelling at their kids to calm down. You know that modeling piece, right? Absolutely. One of the parents, it was really cool actually in one of my parent groups, mentioned that she had the realization because her kid now tries to interrupt her because she works telehealth in her meetings. And then she realized, oh, well, when the kid's doing his telehealth school, a lot of times she interrupts. So she's like, oh, did I set that precedent? And I think we have to be cognizant of how we're modeling things as well. As you mentioned, that yes, we might get upset, but it's going to be really hypocritical and counterintuitive if we're expecting a kid to be calm as we're not calm. Understanding that we will, like you said, 10 to 20, maybe even 30% of the time lose our cool, but it also comes down to how are we going to restore that situation and explain that situation to the kiddo so understand that maybe when we all get back to baseline you go up to the kiddo depending on their age and explain hey you know what I lost my cool got a little bit upset with that but I'll do better next time not just well I can lose my cool and that's okay and you can't lose your cool and that's not okay

SPEAKER_02: 16:56

so you're actually you're suggesting apologizing to your child Dan that traditionally that might have been a no-no in ABA I'm being facetious obviously but it The idea that you're... You're focusing on a more child-directedness or orientation, I think, is super important from a behavioral perspective, knowing that we can think of an apology as something very qualitative. But the idea that if you think of all the behavioral markers or what you're modeling, if you're being sincere about your apology, now you're modeling a return to baseline. You're modeling a correction or overcorrection with regard to your own behavior. So we can break this down behaviorally, and we don't have to be so esoteric about something like an apology. However, you and I would agree. I agree that sometimes a forced apology, which would be our tendency traditionally in the APA, unfortunately, just to restore or correct the situation, would then miss the rest of the qualitative pieces we just discussed in the parent now, demonstrating return to baseline, correction, a lot of other... I won't try to analyze it fully right now, but I think it's a really good point you make. The other thing that you allude to that I think is of great importance... is this sort of learned hopelessness or zero-one contrast, meaning the idea that you blow your lid a little bit with your kid. The moment you realize that, that's the moment you can bring it back down.

SPEAKER_00: 18:16

There's always an escape hatch. Always. There's always a way to get back.

SPEAKER_02: 18:19

Just like you can always escalate, which we're trying to avoid, sometimes you have to in terms of the urgency. Make sure that things are urgent or there's an emergency, something that's really pressing before you... purposefully blow your lid, those 10 to 20% of the time. But the idea that all of those things are are aspects of observational learning that could benefit your child in terms of you getting frustrated. And then again, in that moment, you don't have to go to 60 miles per hour in those three seconds. You can rev it back down, bring it back down, hit the brakes, and demonstrate to your child, again, some good way to resolve conflict in that moment. So really, really good. We're going to get in trouble again. We have five points. We're already well into the hour here. And we haven't moved on to number seven. So unless you've got anything else, sir, Move us forward.

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

Yes, yes, absolutely. We'll do that. Yeah, I think what you said is incredibly valid, always offering that escape hatch. So, yes, we want to not lose our cool, but each point in that continuum, how do we get back to baseline? And even if we lost our cool, how do we restore it to the best of our ability? Number seven, this is actually an interesting one that comes up a lot, I feel like, in ABA as a whole. It's been part of the masking movement. It's been part of... kind of anti-ABA community, although this is something that I feel like ABA has done a good job of acknowledging and moving away from. And number seven is don't try to stop their stims. I think that historically, ABA may be didn't do a good job of this and was telling people that they needed to stop stimming or hand flapping or things like that but everybody stims like you've mentioned you know you get called in price is right those people jump up and down and spin and wave their hands and all sorts of things um so we all stim um my girlfriend can't stop stimming when it drives me crazy when we're on a road trip or something always fidgeting or doing things right it's It's not an autism thing. It's not something that we should stop. In fact, a lot of times we don't even know why we're doing it. Our good buddy and owner of the company that we're at during meetings and stuff will move his leg and it'll feel like there's an earthquake in the room and it drives everyone crazy. But again, he's not on the spectrum. Just want to highlight everybody stims at times. But this is one of those masking pieces of not trying to get people to not stim, but try to give appropriate, try to, if it's going to become significant, significantly socially stigmatizing, educate that person on that, not saying you need to stop stimming, that then becomes an authoritarian piece, but might say, hey, if you don't want to stand out in your class, instead of hand flapping or spinning around, maybe you could squeeze your hands in your pocket, or maybe you could tap your foot or something like that, that may be a little bit more subtle and might less stand out in front of your peers, which kind of goes back to that original piece of do we need to accommodate for individuals on the spectrum, do they need to accommodate date for us again I will just reiterate I think with the stimming piece it's no longer you need to do this because this is weird or you need or I'm sorry you need to stop doing this because this is weird or because this is autism it's hey these environments might perceive it like that like in a certain way and as a result of that can I help you become aware of that and if you are aware of that and want to not appear that way to other people Here's some other ways that you could stem or you could self-regulate without it being so overt and apparent.

SPEAKER_02: 21:48

That becomes a very interesting conversation, again, blurring the line between autistic individuals and certain traits that now we're assigning to a particular demographic based on a particular designation. I hope I'm going to make sense here. So I chew on my pens, right? You know, nobody sits there and calls that a stim, right? It's only because I'm not diagnosed, perhaps. Again, I'm kind of asking these questions rhetorically or openly.

SPEAKER_00: 22:19

Also, because you're able to focus on the task. I think one of the big differences with the stims that we see in the ASD is it's all consuming. So instead of... And again, it goes back to maybe they actually are focused on us, but because they're looking at the stim, it's back to that communication piece.

SPEAKER_02: 22:35

Thank you for moving me along very well here in my open-ended point that you made me think about. So yeah, that idea. So is it all-encompassing? Is it not all-encompassing based on how the individual is reacting? Is it in any other way interfering, meaning if I'm chewing on my pen and that's where it stops versus I'm chewing on my pen and it's collecting drool and then I'm flicking my pen? So there's so many levels. This becomes such an interesting conversation because you can get into the minutia and get way deep into the weeds, and then sometimes it's as simple as saying, hey, it's about the rest of us being more tolerant. That's not really harming anybody. Exactly. So there's just so much space in between there. This is one of those areas where I think... maybe from an ABA alongside the neurodivergent community, one of the areas where we could probably cultivate much more exchange and dialogue. Because I imagine it is a lot of these things that traditionally professionals in ABA might have tried to stop for reasons of idiosyncrasy. And certain people are saying, no, man, it's like me asking you not to tap your foot. What do you care? Unless it's really shaking the whole table, in which case, tap your foot over on the carpet, it won't make a difference unless I see it. But it's more like, you know, in your example, the idea of us singling somebody out in a meeting and no matter where they're tapping their foot, saying, hey, stop that, that's bothering me. We can also become hypersensitive or over-focused on those things. Again, now, and I'll be not the first to say it, but I'll be the one to say it next, and I'm sure you'll agree, we have been guilty of that in ABA and sort of trying to do this correction-style approach of you're flapping your hands. If you don't flap your hands, then things... look, the optics are a little bit more normalized, and therefore we've made progress. But we may have left some individuals devoid of a very important self-regulatory process. Whether we think it looks weird or not shouldn't be an issue, right? DAVID

SPEAKER_00: 24:32

ROCKEFELLER JR.:

UNKNOWN: 0:00

:

SPEAKER_00: 24:33

Yep, that's a great point. I feel like historically in ABA, we may have been a little bit authoritarian in saying the way that you need to act is you need to act like how I'm acting physically. And that is very authoritarian. It's cool because in my training, when we go over the functions of behavior, there's one example that I go over where I talk about, you know, identifying the function of a kid spinning in his room, looking out a window filled with light, and we identified a sensory. And they're like, well, why do we need to stop that? And I'm glad that they asked that question because we don't need to stop that. It's not hurting anybody. It's not affecting anything. I think the issue with the stims is saying that The only way you can exist in this world is if you act like me. That's where we run into some problems. But if we say there's various ways of you existing in the world, and here's going to be potentially the consequences of each one of them as we're concurrently maybe educating other people that other people, like say neurotypical people, that other people people on the spectrum may be behaving differently. It's not wrong, it's just different. That can be that balance of accommodation kind of on both ends of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_02: 25:42

One of the more interesting resources I've come across, and I don't have the reference here in front of me and it's going to slip my mind, but I think it's out of Penn State University. It's an article that talks about the importance of spinning uh in development and it's been something very enlightening for me to share with parents or professionals and and i like the point you made i think it's a really good rubric to or filter to put things through the idea that my child is spinning incessantly and ending exclusively over and over and over and over again they don't engage in any other activity they don't look at any other person or they don't grab any other object they just spin spin spin so the notion that i might Stop that. No. The author's saying that's not what we do. The notion that I might collaborate or join that now in a way that then...

SPEAKER_00: 26:30

Contingent imitation.

SPEAKER_02: 26:32

Contingent imitation works very nicely. Counting the spins before you maybe touch their hand. Giving them something in their hand to move around or a marker to see every time they pass you to sort of engage their gaze shift or their eye contact. Absolutely. Which is going to be something important

SPEAKER_00: 26:47

for the next point. You've expanded, not just done the repetition, but you've expanded. Expand

SPEAKER_02: 26:50

and vary. Expand and vary. Can you become a part of it? knowing that... And they might very well tell you, no, don't interfere with me. Now that's your way of interacting. Oh, you told me no. Let me acknowledge that. Now let me decide whether I'm going to try to engage you again with that, knowing that you told me no. How long am I going to pause? So my point being, there's a lot of things to task analyze in these situations. The main point being, no, don't stop it. Obviously, if it's injurious... That's going to be a different level. We won't get into that, but the answer should be pretty obvious there. But I really like the way you broke that down. What is the overall impact of the stim? Absolutely. And then, knowing that the aim isn't to stop it outside of highly risky or dangerous situations, where do we go from there? Now it's much more open-ended.

SPEAKER_00: 27:37

And it kind of goes back to what we talked about on the previous one, too, where you were talking about your wife dealing with your child as she was tantruming. A lot of times, too, our response is going to be based on our perception of how other people around us are judging, right? So in that situation, you mentioned somebody might not appear to be harsh enough, I think is the term you used, or somebody might appear strict enough, might appear to be placating it. Now we might be worried about, are these other people not think I'm involved in this situation? Same thing with stimming. This is where this used to be one of the number one things that parents would want to work on when we would do the functional analysis is, I want to get my kid to stop spinning. Why? Because of the optics of it. It looks weird. Yes, it looks weird, and it makes the parent feel a certain way, not the kid. So now we're doing something, as you talked about, now we're trying to give the kid the drug for a symptom that the parent's having.

SPEAKER_02: 28:33

Sure, sure. And again, it's all self-regulatory at the end of the day, and we can all relate based on certain little motor movements or repetitive things. that we do to self-regulate, whether you're tapping your foot in the air, on the chair, on the floor, putting your pencil or your pen in your mouth, any of it, any of it. We all have a million things that, based on our own profile, nobody has chosen to scrutinize or to single out. And again, it starts with that, the idea of what is the function of this? Is it some sort of, yes, automatic reinforcement in terms of input? Is it some sort of pain attenuation? We can all, the idea that, you know, I hit my my thumb with the hammer and for some reason pounding my fist on the table makes me feel better. Or cursing or yelling. The idea that that distress expression or that overload and catharsis of it is going to be helpful. That's why we cry, for example. I think that there's a lot to learn here in terms of the idiosyncratic nature of what we call stims or stereotypy and then how maybe we over-encroach on those in an effort to normalize, which again, the author is certainly cautioning against and we agree. Don't stop the stims. Analyze them. Figure out what the purpose, the function is. Go with it. Go with the flow. Certainly there's going to be things that are from a social perspective more or less appropriate. There are people that might go too far in the other direction in my humble opinion and kind of It's having things that might be a little more impactful in an environment that isn't ready to sustain them. Exactly. Please be ready to collaborate in those situations, too, knowing that the idea is that we don't want to encroach on any given individual. We don't want any individual to be perceived as encroachment on their greater environment if we can avoid that.

SPEAKER_00: 30:19

Yep. Before I move to number eight, anything else you wanted to touch on on the stimming? No. I feel like that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02: 30:26

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 30:27

Thank you, sir. Number eight, well, this kind of goes with the stimming, is the don't force eye contact. And that's why we talked about stimming being all-encompassing, because the individual might be looking at it. And so often, we associate eye contact as attention. But in fact, we don't. And in fact, I will pass this to you and shout you out for this one, Mike. You have been a really integral resource, and you've brought to our company the idea of changing eye contact to gaze shift. Because we rarely target response to name. We now target response to auditory stimuli. And we rarely target eye contact. We target gaze shift. Let me pass it to you.

SPEAKER_02: 31:06

Well, thank you. And I have to... to acknowledge the giants in our field. First of all, again, as I'd like to do here, Pat Freiman, you sort of credit me for bringing the idea to our company. I like that because, like Pat likes to say, I never had an original idea in my life. And like he likes to allude to, I love thinking I had an original idea and then going to the literature and going, oh, look, somebody thought of that 20 years ago. So in that sense, Schreibman, Whalen, and Ingersoll, I came across some of their research, kind of PRT-oriented toward NASA. naturalistic teaching-oriented research. And yeah, in their joint attention protocols and the research they've done there, there was a real focus on gay shift, knowing that, to your point, I think you explained it very eloquently, and it fits back into this authoritarian piece of sort of correcting things and making them look, from an optics perspective, as what the normal vision is. is supposed to represent, and then working from there, sort of a bottom-up approach. And yeah, the notion that gay shift, you know, little things that have come out from our exploration of this, like what is the purpose of eye contact from a developmental perspective? Well, there's an etiquette piece, there's a cultural piece to it, Many people would say outside of Western cultures that direct eye contact is actually disrespectful in other Eastern cultures or some Eastern cultures. So we know that that's not necessarily something that's a requirement for communication.

SPEAKER_00: 32:34

Well, I had a trainee from a Middle Eastern culture in this last training group who said it's disrespectful to have eye contact to your elders. You're supposed to look down.

SPEAKER_02: 32:43

Yeah, so again, now, meaning that as a child, for me, the developmental piece here that really resonated for us was saying, why do kids need to look at our faces? And it became more about something like a three-point gaze shift. The notion that as a language learner, I look at an object, and I hear in my ear, my parents' voice, for example, labeling that object, or telling me the word that corresponds to that object, which then gains my joint attention, and I shift my gaze to their face, given the sound, hopefully they tell me the word for that object again, and I contend that the most important part of that second point gay shift is for the child to be able to not see the parent's eyes necessarily, but to see the parent's mouth.

SPEAKER_01: 33:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 33:31

Because that's a motor movement that can be imitated along with blowing air out from your diaphragm. And I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point. You've got words all of a sudden. Now, what else do faces serve a purpose for? When you have really poor vision as a child, like most infants do, and you can see maybe 18 inches away from your face, well, the face has a lot of contrast. White eyeballs and teeth cover in his mouth, eyelashes and eyebrows, a good way to start understanding how things symbolically orient when your parent is expressing emotion, for example. So, these are all things that, again, I don't think we had traditionally looked at in ABA. We knew that eye contact, from an etiquette and cultural perspective, had a significance, and then I would contend that developmentally these pieces from this particular line of research with Schreibman and Whalen and Ingersoll give us a different way to contend, join attention and how gay shift, night eye contact, is a part of that toward now socializing, learning language, expressing emotion, all those very complex things that come from a simple gay shift toward somebody's face.

SPEAKER_00: 34:37

I think historically in ABA, a lot of the individuals that we work with struggle with the rule governed behavior, but when a lot of the individuals that we work with on the ASD spectrum understand the rule, then the rule, because of the lack of inflexibility, that becomes the rule. And then eye contact almost becomes uncomfortable where you have an individual just staring at you because, oh, if I'm supposed to look at you, then that means I stare at you the whole time because that's the rule. There's no nuance to the rule. That's just the rule. And then we run into issues of Now you've gone from not enough eye contact to way too much eye contact, both of which could leave you in kind of an awkward situation.

SPEAKER_02: 35:13

And maybe you're standing too close to me on top of that. Exactly. We see how the situation compounds,

SPEAKER_00: 35:18

right? Exactly. Number nine, let me get into don't leave them unattended for too long. So this one I would like to also probably pass back to you because you know more about this being a parent of your own. But I have some ideas that I want to touch on. Let me pass it to you first about don't leave them unattended for too long.

SPEAKER_02: 35:41

I appreciate that. I think this is a really rich example, and I'm going to try to cut through it pretty quickly just in the interest of discussion. But one of my longtime mantras has been don't leave well enough alone. And I think that this fits right into the idea of don't leave them unattended for too long. Now, what I mean by don't leave well enough alone is I'm going to use my personal example that I use whenever I talk about this concept is my kids are doing, they're fine, they're in their rooms. They might even be tidying up their rooms. They're doing their homework. They're bringing their dishes out from their rooms, putting them in the dishwasher. And all those things can happen, and I don't say a word. And then something goes awry. And my undivided attention is immediately lent to my kids. So I think in the spirit of going back to what the author is saying here, when he says don't leave them unattended for too long, for me, this means that if you're checking in, You're providing yourself with those opportunities for, I guess, what we could call, and I'm sort of fudging the definition here, but the idea of non-contingent reinforcement. I'm coming in, and yes, it's contingent on you do something within range, but I wasn't expecting. I didn't ask you. I'm just kind of checking in with you and saying, hey, cool, hey, what's going on? Nice. Oh, good job doing your homework. Or maybe, oh, you're doing homework. Cool. All right, yeah, I'm doing this. Just referencing each other. And that allows for a lot more incidental teaching, I would say. Things that don't have to be so planned. Things that are more spontaneous. And I think, again, it allows for that ratio of being able to check in and And reference something as aligned or acceptable or doing well and giving you that nice ratio of doing that four to five times before you have to come in and correct something. Or, you know, again, kids, whether autistic or not, I contend, they're supposed to get into trouble. They're supposed to push limits. That's how they, you know, we can't teach everything. In fact, they help us do a lot of the teaching. It's our

SPEAKER_00: 37:46

job to set the wall and their job to see where they're

SPEAKER_02: 37:47

at. Perfect. Perfectly stated. So, yeah, that's what I would say there. I'll throw this back to to see the wisdom you've got to share on this. But yeah, don't leave well enough alone. Don't leave them unattended too long. That model's a good referencing pace. I'm checking in with you. Come check in with me. Back and forth.

SPEAKER_00: 38:06

Yes. So I think the author, Jeremy Brown, he was doing it from more of a supervision perspective. I really like where you took that, though, Mike. I really like that don't leave well enough alone. Because so often, I'll tell parents... you know, notice your child when they're being good and they just won't. So I'll tell them, hey, put a timer in your pocket and set it for 15 minutes. And every time that timer goes off, go find your kid and praise them. So I can't reiterate enough what you said. I think that's such an important point. I'm going to take a separate, I'm going to go down a different road on don't leave them attended for too long. I'm going to say that maybe we should look at this on the opposite side of things and that maybe we are watching our kids too much that are on the spectrum. I see this a lot with some of our, you know, teen groups and things like that, that these kids are always just used to having people watching them all the time. Like in our social groups or stuff like that, there might be case managers just always sitting behind them taking data, or people always sitting behind you taking data. And it's always like there's Big Brother looking over you. I mean, for lack of better terms, that's weird. And if you thought somebody was always watching you, that would be a really weird way of going through the world. And that's one of the reasons that we've talked about the really high percent of physical and sexual abuse for adults on the spectrum and with mental handicaps is because places like the bathroom and dressing and stuff like that, they're never left alone. Now, I think there's a difference between a parent running those routines and us as a therapist. But I want to also look at that. Maybe we should leave them alone a little bit more. Obviously, if, like Mr. Brown mentions, there's safety issues, then yes, of course, that would take precedent. And we would not want to leave them unattended if the individual's gonna have safety issues. And yes, we should, like Mike said, make sure that we're noticing the good behaviors that they're doing, but also making sure that we are giving individuals time to be alone and have privacy is a really important thing as well.

SPEAKER_02: 40:11

Right on. That's a good point the author makes there. I like the contrast that we were able to present along with the author's view here. There's some level of referencing, some level of autonomy that you have to respect. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good balance right here. It's a dance. Checking in, giving them space. Checking in, giving them space.

SPEAKER_00: 40:31

Number 10 is don't force them to eat food they don't like. But before we talk about food we don't like... Let's talk about some food we do like.

SPEAKER_02: 40:41

Yes, sir. Well, we've been talking a lot about keeping your cool, keeping your calm, being able to perform at your best mentally. And it's a good time to talk about Magic Mind. Could not be happier to be able to feature this product on our podcast. You know, being a parent, I think I talked about this last time. At this point in time here, it's early in the afternoon for us in San Diego. We record on Sundays as... My daughter takes a nap, and at this point, I'm six hours into the full-time workday. I'm almost eight hours into having done yard work or grocery shopping or some level of driving back and forth. So by the time we get to the podcast, I need that extra boost. I've had my coffee, and in fact, I've got to tell you that this is really good behavior I've been adopting. Three days before, usually, if not more, I start taking this, knowing that I need to prepare to be at my best mentally, and I need something fresh, something clean-tasting, something with good, good, wholesome ingredients. And a lot of people don't know what these are, so Mr. Dan, I'm going to get your help here. Really simple things like lion's mane mushroom. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00: 41:51

Which may improve mild cognitive impairment, help for depression and anxiety, speed recovery of nerve injuries, heart health, stomach ulcers, and even Amazing

SPEAKER_02: 42:03

stuff. What about another nice natural ingredient like rhodiola roses? What did you find on that, Mr. Dan?

SPEAKER_00: 42:09

Similar things. So really good for treating stress-induced fatigue, stimulating the nervous system and depression, and just general alertness.

SPEAKER_02: 42:18

Awesome, awesome, awesome. What about something very popular on the market these days for alertness and calm? L-theanine.

SPEAKER_00: 42:24

So what if I was to tell you that also helped reduce stress, improve mood, but L-theanine also has a sleep component. It helps improve sleep, which as we all know, if you're not sleeping well, you're not being well.

SPEAKER_02: 42:37

So add B vitamin complex to this, a little bit of matcha, nice agave for sweetness. You've got a beautiful, beautiful little nice clean shot. I keep it cold in my refrigerator, take it along with my coffee. And again, the more days I do this in a row, the better I feel the effects. It's hard for me. Almost impossible these days, sir. Then thanks to Magic Mind, I don't have to worry about ever recording ABA on tap without my Magic Mind shot. So to boost your brain performance, your memory, your mental acuity, your alertness and awareness, Add Magic Mind to your day and do it today. Simply use the link in our episode description or go to www.magicmind.com forward slash ABA on tap. That's triple dub magicmind.com forward slash ABA on tap. Use the discount code ABA on tap in all caps to receive 20% off your purchase and 56% off discount. A subscription. Let's go. All right. Rediscover your mental power and endurance. Shake, breathe, and drink. Magic mind.

SPEAKER_00: 43:47

If you want to implement these 11 strategies that we're talking about, best to have the best mental state, magic mind. I agree. It should be number 12. Nice. Number 10, don't force them to eat food they don't like. This is an interesting one because there's a lot of ground we could cover on this from our friend who left our company, I don't know, six years ago, went up north a little bit and called back about the escape extinction. I have a child who is in my parent group. The child's on the border of getting a G-tube because of they're not eating. You have a client that you've worked with that got diagnosed with ARFID, and you've had a lot of... A lot of experience, good success with that. The basic question being, is it things they don't like or things that they need to eat? But there's a lot of ground we could cover on that. Let me pass it to you first, Mike, on this one.

SPEAKER_02: 44:36

This is probably a whole episode in and of itself. Let's bookmark that. Put that in the filing cabinet. We've got some close colleagues that could probably lend a lot of information. What's really interesting about this is, again, the patience element and the idea that as a better parent, you're Most perfect intent to provide your child a nutritious, varied diet could walk you right into now this undue pressure to force them to eat things they don't like. So it's not that parents ever, I don't think they ever start with a poor intent. There's a concern. you're not eating enough of this, you're not eating enough of that, for my opinion. Or worse, the pediatrician said, you're not getting enough of this or that for your blood work or some sort of analysis that's done.

SPEAKER_00: 45:24

And maybe it might affect that individual's ability to thrive.

SPEAKER_02: 45:29

Right, right. So there's always a reason to worry about this as a parent. And then there's, I think, what the spirit of the author is saying here is these are situations that are going to walk you right into conflict. right into unnecessary escalation, knowing that, yes, as a parent, you want to give a variety of foods towards some strong or adequate nutritional intake, and then sometimes you've just got to feed your kid. Why? Because if they don't eat, then you might be walking into another antecedent or motivating operation for distress expression because they can't self-regulate because they haven't eaten sufficiently. So the idea that you're not going to force it means it takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of careful planning. It takes a lot of modeling on your part. It takes a lot of what I've called in my recent work food science, meaning that instead of placing any focus or importance on the idea of the child placing that food in their mouths, we want them to experience it with every other sense first. And almost removing... almost discouraging, the idea that we don't want you to eat it. We want you to smell it, touch it, cut it, look at it, learn about it, how it grows, where it comes from. I'm going to inform you on every other aspect of this food and stay very patient throughout that, knowing that I might have pressures as a parent to... supplement the nutritional intake or the caloric intake or there's a lot of really very real challenges that can worry a parent around eating. But again, my best suggestion here is the patience part of it and the persistence. Continuing to demonstrate, to model, to handle, to cook new foods. I can't tell you how many times I walk into households and they're like, oh, we're really worried about their weight or their nutritional intake and everything being modeled in the household is not the ideal model. So it starts with us as parents. And I'm not speaking as some sort of health guru who's in perfect health. But I can boast that my kids do eat a variety of foods and that this is never an issue, or seldom an issue. I shouldn't say never. That's not true. Seldom an issue for me in terms of getting a variety. began from the beginning, right at the get-go when they were six months, in trying to introduce them to a variety of foods, because we also eat a variety of foods, and we also cook a variety of foods. Again, it's really a very layered, complex process, and it doesn't get solved overnight, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00: 48:05

It's interesting you bring up the modeling because I remember you saying this in one of our interactions with a parent because I think they were saying the kid eats too many cookies or something like that. And we were like, well, the kid's not buying the cookies. Like somebody's buying the cookies and bringing those to the house. So yeah, a lot of the modeling I think is really important. There's maybe like four tiers as we're looking at getting somebody to eat food they don't like. The first most significant or important tier would be like, is this individual failing to thrive? Are we looking at basically a G-tube? As a result of them not being able to eat, that's a level of severity that we might have one response to. Moving down maybe one level from that, up to 85% of individuals on the ASD spectrum may have GI issues. And I remember the very first parent group that I ran, I think you were in that one, with the husband and wife, the dad was a doctor, a pediatrician. And he was like, well, is the reason that they have GI issues because they have autism or the reason they have GI issues because maybe they're eating a very limited diet and not getting the fiber and the nutrition? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, he was a pediatrician. But that would be maybe like a step down of like this individual is having GI issues, not to the point of needing a G-tube. They're eating, but they're not eating well-balanced enough that they're not able to– they're having behavioral or health side effects as a result of that. Moving down one more level might be just– trying to get that individual to eat things that the rest of the family's eating. So that's the first one, is the individual able to thrive? Are they having health issues as a result of it? Now are you having to, so is the parent now having to cook a separate meal for the kid as opposed to everybody else in the family, which is time consuming and maybe now not necessarily as much of an inconvenience on the kid because the kid isn't having GI issues or isn't failing to thrive, but it's more of an inconvenience around the people around them. They're going to, I don't know, in and out, and now they have to also stop at Carl's Jr. to get the chicken nuggets because the kid won't eat the In-N-Out. That becomes an inconvenience. And then the last thing is just maybe like the fourth and final tier is just a well-balanced diet. So those are kind of the things we want to look at. And there's going to be different interventions for each one. If they're not eating the perfectly well-balanced diet, well, we can probably make accommodations for them. There can be a lot of trade-offs within that. If we're worried about us having to accommodate, again, that comes back to us more than them. But yeah, maybe there is a level of now intervention to some extent. Moving forward, if they're now having health, moving up a level, if they're having GI issues, now we might might be a little bit more intervening on what they're eating because their behavior is a result of that. And their behavior just being a manifestation of their being uncomfortable. And then lastly, certainly if they're on the verge of a G-tube or something like that, failing to thrive, having serious health side effects as a result of that, there could be a different level of intervention.

SPEAKER_02: 51:00

Yeah, and I think that there is a time and place for things like escape extinction. When somebody is about to get a tube in their nasal passage or on the side of their abdomen, what's going to be less restrictive is certainly something like escape extinction. I think we've run the risk in ABA of using things like escape extinction when it's not a feeding problem, but just an eating problem. Or an inconvenience problem. Or our parents' too worried problem, and it's like, well, that's going to be a little too restrictive in my opinion and you might be creating some collateral effects of using such a restrictive procedure for an eating concern, eating question as opposed to a true feeding issue where now you've got low caloric intake, poor nutritional intake, things that are going to require greater medical intervention. So that's a really rich topic that we can probably benefit from exploring through a full episode. We should circle back

SPEAKER_00: 52:02

to that. Yes. I will share one example, though. This example just resonates me because this was earlier ABA, Dan. This was probably my first year, definitely first two years in the field. I remember I had a client who was three years old at the time and ate very limited diets, of course, chicken nuggets. But the parents wanted him to eat vegetables or try vegetables. And the way we did it in ABA back at the time is you had your target sheet of vegetables and fruits and vegetables.

SPEAKER_02: 52:28

First the vegetable, then the chicken Absolutely. The gross under-interpretation of the pre-mech principle.

SPEAKER_00: 52:35

Exactly. And, you know, we had the targets labeled out, right? So you had to do broccoli five times, and then you had to do strawberry five times, and then you had to do orange five times. You couldn't move the orange if you didn't do the five strawberries.

SPEAKER_02: 52:45

You know what happens if you move the orange?

SPEAKER_00: 52:47

The

SPEAKER_02: 52:47

kid spontaneously combusts. The child spontaneously combusts. Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_00: 52:51

Absolutely. So we were on the strawberry, and I was with this kid for three hours, three-year-old kid. And I remember him sitting in his little high chair thing. And I wasn't forced. I was sitting next to him, and I presented the strawberry, and all he had to do was put it in his mouth and lick it. And I sat for an hour and a half of this kid's session, this kid tantruming his head off, basically, not wanting to eat this strawberry, and I sat there for an hour and a half. The kid finally ate the strawberry literally about five or ten minutes before I was about ready to leave that session, that three-hour session. I waited an hour and a half for this kid to eat the strawberry. And I left again. This is early on ABA Dan. Thinking, yes, I got this kid to lick a strawberry, and man, I was able to do it. Why? Because we made, like you said, the pre-med principle, the first thing contingency. Well, I said first strawberry, then we'll do something else. So if I say first strawberry, you have to eat the strawberry. I made the instruction because it's authoritarian ABA. Once we make the instruction, the kid has to follow through. Left feeling very accomplished. Again, more seasoned ABA Dan would look at, is that the best way to spend an hour and a half? Could I have been more flexible? In that situation, is there a way that we could have been more authoritative rather than being authoritarian? So I always think back to that kid and the strawberry and how, you know, and at the end of the day, that kid's probably not any more likely to eat the strawberry. He's just going to associate that strawberry with the trauma of waiting an hour and a half. Yeah, but you

SPEAKER_02: 54:21

got your data point.

SPEAKER_00: 54:22

I got my data point. And I need five more of them, right?

SPEAKER_02: 54:25

Well, and then they need to be consecutive days. I don't know that you ever mastered the strawberry. How does this tale end?

SPEAKER_00: 54:30

The tale ends with I left happy. Yes. And he probably doesn't eat strawberries to this day, but we got our data

SPEAKER_02: 54:37

point. But you got your data point, man. Nice. That's a really good anecdote you're sharing there. And it's good for us to harken back to that and go, hey, this is the philosophic doubt part of it. Even that worked enough to move the pieces forward. So clearly we can do better. We can do better. Yep. A million other things you could have been doing as you waited for that strawberry to get licked, right?

SPEAKER_00: 54:59

Yep. Got to get that data point though, right? Because the insurance companies want all the data points or the case manager at the time or whoever. Got to get that data point so it doesn't matter what we need to do. Got to get that down.

SPEAKER_02: 55:09

Lick strawberry. All right. Do this. Yep. All right. Moving on, man. We're wrapping up here. Getting close to our hour. Our timing has been perfect. We get to do Mr. Brown's article, Full Justice. We've got one more, yes?

SPEAKER_00: 55:25

Yes, one more. Yes, sir. Number 11, don't give up, which also might be a whole other episode, but go ahead, Mike.

SPEAKER_02: 55:32

Wow, man. What can I say about that? So if you've arrived at a comfortable set of procedures, if you feel like you understand the function of your child's behavior, if you practice what you preach and do the breathing exercises and you self-regulate, if you've achieved that 80% to 90% calm and cool situation, then persistence is... The next step, the idea that you rinse and you repeat. Some days it's going to be shorter. Some days it's going to feel longer. And it might be longer. This is where the data does come in, as much as we might poke fun at how entrenched we can be in our data sometimes. The notion that we can look objectively at the fact that average distress expression or tantrum was 30 minutes and now it's 20. That's good. That feels good to parents. That feels good. That's a reward saying, wow, I put forth this work and it was hard. But I see the improvement. I can feel good about myself as a parent. I can feel good about my child's progress. Hopefully, the 10-minute difference is now leading to the expression or admission of very rewarding or reinforcing replacement behaviors as well, where they're enjoying their child. And that's where I would go with this idea of don't give up. Learning is dynamic. It's gradual. It's constant. And it's ever-changing. So I think that somewhere in there, we have to just continue doing that, reaching into our most unconditional love for our kids, for what we do, for our science, and staying patient. And that means staying patient throughout. And if you can do that, then it means you're not giving up. And I know that sometimes you've asked the question, how long does it take for somebody to do this or do that? And my answer is usually, as long as it takes, right? Until you see that target behavior, that desired behavior. Did we say the proof is in the pudding? The proof, affirm the consequent, right? Sometimes you happen upon the change despite your best plans. Some curve in the road leads you to where you need to be, and I'm glad I was looking. I'm glad I was staying aware. So in terms of don't give up, make your best plans, and then stay alert, stay aware, stay observant. Realize that just because you feel organized, you need to look at your data, look at the outcomes, and make sure that the organization led to the desired results, and if not, adjust accordingly. So there's a lot to do that helps us propel and not give up and stay constant for our parents, for our children as parents, for our clients as professionals, for our families as professionals, knowing that we certainly do our best not to give up on the situation, to continue to analyze. So I can only imagine a parent's unconditional fervor to continue to find the solution.

SPEAKER_00: 58:17

Yep. And that's where I would contend it's that reciprocal piece that sometimes breaks down, right? So maybe... the individual on the spectrum, their neurology isn't quite online in a certain area. And as a result, maybe the child's really young and the parent's doing a bunch of behaviors and the child's not responding. So the parent's doing some more behaviors to try to get some interaction and some happiness out of their child. Kid's still not responding. Parent does this and that and the other. And the kid just doesn't respond. So finally the parent's like, well, I don't know what to do. And then they stop enriching the environment. And then what happens is you have a de-enriched environment. So when the neurology is ready, it does come online. It's being exposed to a de-enriched environment.

SPEAKER_02: 58:55

That's such a tough dance, right? You can do too much. You can do too little. So if you escalate too far, that's not the kind of enrichment you're talking about. If you start giving up and pulling enrichment away, that's certainly not what we want. So it's such a careful balance, and we certainly send our best, our strongest encouragement to all parents out there who are trying to figure these things out. Hopefully these 11 tips prove helpful for, yeah, I mean, this is good stuff from Mr. Brown. We appreciate his article very much. Any closing thoughts, sir, as we hit the hour

SPEAKER_00: 59:31

mark? Yes, I do have one closing thought on the don't give up. You know, it's It's no joke. It's very challenging being a parent of any child, much less a child with special needs. Last I checked, the divorce rates were in the 80% really, really high. And as a parent, you might feel like, hey, I'm not built for this. But by virtue of you listening to the podcast, by looking into resources and things like that, you are built for it. And there's going to be nobody better than yourself to to parent your child and help your child thrive and be successful. So it is important, as Mr. Brown mentions, to seek out professional help and services and things like that. Just because we act like things don't exist doesn't mean they don't exist. If you're stressed out with your kid, you're stressed out with your significant other, put that on the table and talk to somebody. Find some supports. There are tons of supports. available through where we're at. There's San Diego Regional Center that can loop in with a lot of supports. In fact, the first day of parent group now, all I do is talk about resources so that people don't give up because while it's a monumental task sometimes, you are built for it and there's a lot of supports that are available for you. So don't hide from it, embrace it, and look into those supports because that'll help you out and your child as well.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:56

If you're a parent or professional out there, you've got a circumstance that seems tough and we might prove helpful, please reach out to us. We'd be glad to do a quick and dirty analysis here. We obviously wouldn't be able to have all the variables, but the idea that if you've enjoyed this analysis thus far or any tips that we might offer, we are glad to give a cursory overview of anybody dealing with a real situation and put our better analysis hats to work. So yeah, stay patient, stay calm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:21

I will say one last thing. Thank you to Mr. Brown again for doing the article. It's not easy to put yourself out there, but amazing article. Thank you for that, and always

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:31

analyze

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:31

responsibly. Cheers.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:34

ABA on Tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.