32. What is Neurodiversity? Parent’s Edition

Introduction: Simplifying Clinical Jargon for Parents

Heidi Trusler: Welcome back to Beyond Words by Pop Family. You may be wondering, Heidi, why are there two versions of this episode on my feed? Here’s the thing, Tina. My guest and I are both speechies, and we got a little bit carried away and started going down some clinical rabbit holes. Our main goal, beyond words, has always been to simplify things for parents. So we made the call to split it up, and put the clinical jargon version into a separate extended cut. The version you are listening to is the one for parents who might be newer to the topic of neurodiversity or want to cut straight to the point. There is no right or wrong episode to listen to. Myself and Tina go through. In this episode, what is neurodiversity? What does neurodiverse mean? We cover what it means to care for someone who’s neurodivergent and what neuro affirming speech therapy practice looks like.

Meet Speech Pathologist Tina Evans: Clinical Lead for Neurodiversity at Pop

Heidi Trusler: Tina Evans is one of our speech pathologists here at Pop, holding the title of clinical lead for neurodiversity. That basically means that it’s Tina’s role to be across everything neurodiversity. Formally, Tina has a Bachelor of Health Sciences majoring in hearing and speech, and completed a master’s in Speech and Language pathology at the University of Sydney. Tina, welcome to Beyond Words.
Tina Evans: Thank you for having me.
Heidi Trusler: I’m very excited to have you on. I’d love for you to talk our listeners through a little bit about you. Who is Tina? Why did you become a speech pathologist and why are you passionate about neurodiversity?
Tina Evans: I really wanted to help people. I think coming out of high school, I tried to get into medicine and find find my way there. I started in a Bachelor of Health sciences, majoring in hearing and speech and I loved it so much, that I decided speech pathology was the way to go. So I ended up doing a master’s. And while I was studying, I actually worked as a support worker for, children with disabilities. I worked with Northcote, in their respite service, which involved doing a lot of the caring aspect and, community, research programs with those children. That really inspired me, to go into the neurodiversity space because those children just, I guess, left a lasting impression on me and, really made me want to be the person that went out there and advocated for them to meet their communication needs, but also to help other people see what I could see in them. Personally, I also have some neurodivergent family members that also inspire me every day to do the work that I do.
Heidi Trusler: so lucky for us that you, didn’t take the medicine route. so. mostly going to be mums listening. And really I’ve been largely non-clinical since I had many. I was saying two little fellows, both neurodiverse, but that’s a very small snapshot of neurodiversity. You know, my brother’s neurodiverse. I have a whole career of working with neurodiverse kids, a very, very passionate about it. But I’ve been a mum really for the last three years I’m coming from a parent’s perspective what I imagine the parents are thinking out there, because I seeing this change in language and a shift towards the use of the term neurodiversity and I just want to know what it means. Like what does neurodiversity mean?

Understanding the Meaning of Neurodiversity and the Neurodivergent Umbrella

Tina Evans: neurodiversity is really a term that covers all the diverse brains that we have as humans. So it recognizes that no one person has the same brain and neurodiversity as the term itself actually encompasses both neurotypical and neuro brains. So neurodiversity is a collective term. to a great. Yeah.
Heidi Trusler: And I really.
Tina Evans: Love this, visual from the lived experience educator, it’s the neurodivergent umbrella, which may be familiar to some people, but it really captures just how many different brains might fall under the term neurodivergent. Like we often think autism, ADHD, potentially cerebral palsy. But there are so many other brains that that do fall under this term of neurodivergent. So when we use that term to refer to individuals, these are some of the individual brains that do fall under that. And as speech pathologists, we would more than likely come across all of these different brains it’s about recognizing that our brains are different in terms of how they develop and how they function and even behave. And that can then mean that we have differences in how we interact and explore with the world. And that is totally okay. We can be neurotypical or neurodivergent, and we just have a different way of viewing and being in the world. And that’s what your diversity is all about.

Neurotypical vs. Neurodivergent: How to Tell the Difference?

Heidi Trusler: I love that because I really, I really what’s the word identify with neurodiversity so strongly, like my personal experience of being neurodiverse, every single person. What we’re saying, essentially, is that everybody is neurodiverse. There is there is a spectrum of brains in the universe, and everyone fits into it somewhere. But it is vast, Yes, and there are certain parts of our neurodiversity that make us who we are and make us unique. And being neurodivergent is just a way for us to explain a certain, I’m trying to simplify this, but just as certain, number of different diversities like what’s the difference between because, I mean, there’s part of me that really wants to we’re not going to go down this rabbit hole today. But like, what is neurotypical? You know.
Tina Evans: Like A I’m not. It’s cool. that is. Well, yeah. It’s.
Tina Evans: I mean, I am.
Heidi Trusler: Yeah. Technically I’m classified as neurotypical because I sort of see it as like, I loved school. I’m pretty Type-A. I’m you know, organizing and stuff like that comes easy to me. So that’s more neurotypical. But, like, I hate bright lights. I’m stimulated. I’m overstimulated. Really easily, you know, which are what?
Tina Evans: More.
Heidi Trusler: I twirl my hair. I used to suck my thumb. You know, all of those things that I lean towards. I needed to regulate, What? How do we. do we tell the difference Yeah.
Tina Evans: No that’s that’s a great question. And I guess that’s where the lines can blur sometimes and where terminology can get confusing. But neurotypical really refers to, I guess, the majority of brains that have more similarities than the neurodivergent brains, I suppose. So it’s I mean, you’re a normativity is another word that’s sort of thrown around. No. And only things.
Heidi Trusler: Big one.
Tina Evans: But I guess it’s looking at the majority of brains processing and developing in a certain way, whereas neurodivergent brains have a lot more diversity and differences in how they develop from a neuro cognitive perspective. When you look at society as a whole, there are more brains that might be similar, and then your neurodivergent brains are often marginalized because they don’t function like, the majority, if Yep. sense. And it comes from like, I guess, models of disability as well, Yeah. that these differences often mean that, people with neurodivergent brains marginalized in society at times.
Heidi Trusler: Absolutely. Do we have any stats on that? Like
Tina Evans: Approximately 15 to 20% of the global population is considered neurodivergent.
Heidi Trusler: That you go what I tells us. thanks. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it’s really difficult to tell because there would be people out there that may be divergent, that may not have gone down the pathway of getting a diagnosis formally.
Heidi Trusler: Yes.
Tina Evans: They wouldn’t. Well Of course. you know, it’s.

The Shift from the Medical Model to Advocacy in Allied Health

Heidi Trusler: And so now I want to take, help understand this term, I actually want to go into the past a little bit. So a decade or so ago, I been a speech pathologist for, you and I. Pretty similar. I’m about 11 years. And anyway, around a decade.
Tina Evans: behind.
Heidi Trusler: So when I first started the the term neurodiverse or neurodivergent didn’t exist. had like disability and non disability, and there were certain parts of nerd diversity that didn’t fit into disability. so and certain, neurodivergent, people that didn’t want to have the term disability, placed alongside them. And so how I feel is that we have really progressed in our explanation of basically diversity of brains, which is awesome because everyone has has a different brain. And it used to be this disability term that not everyone fit into. And then we would have these other terminologies for like children with dyslexia and children. And some people would say, that’s a learning disability as opposed to, you know, and and so we would use this term and then the sort of the feel that correct me if you disagree that when the NDIS started rolling out, I feel like the language and terminology changed to functional. Yeah.
Tina Evans: I, I think a lot of it came back to the, the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning as well. It When? back to that. Which talks about, I guess, differences in participation and functioning and how, potentially a diagnosis may or a different brain, might change the way that someone interaction is able to participate in their world world. And what the ICF does is I mean, it’s been around for, for ages now. I couldn’t even tell you for how long. But it’s something that we got taught at university and it’s it’s ongoing. And we always refer back to it, and even the NDIS refers back to it. Sorry. It recognized that there were barriers to participation with the population that is marginalized and neurodivergent brains. Sorry. I guess we recognize that it’s sort of come from there, but almost evolved with the different models of disability and advocacy groups really participating in society should actually fall back on the choice of the individual, regardless of how they brain works or what diagnosis is attached to the name. So, quite steadily, I guess, over the last few years, but not without the really hard work of groups of people that are neurodivergent, and have been voicing their opinions and their experiences to, to help us get there. So I right. in the Allied health professions and the medical model as a whole, like there has been a shift in the way that we think and for the better, and hopefully we keep progressing that way. So that we can keep recognizing differences and not trying to change them.

The Importance of Empathy in Neuro-Affirming Speech Pathology

Heidi Trusler: it just comes down to I mean, if I’m to oversimplify it like empathy and not sympathy, empathy Empathy. Yeah. put yourself in another person’s shoes and what would they actually want? Not what do you want? It’s the biggest learning curve for me. As a clinician, I felt like I was really good at it. But like in my family, you know, Yes. when I had my clinicians had on, I’m like, oh, I’m, I’m quite strong with that skill, but it’s still just a really difficult skill to transfer into different parts of your life. Like when you’re ordering a coffee or, you know, to think, what does that other person want or need? Or how do they want to participate in this activity?
Tina Evans: Yeah, And I think we also have to bring in, like, differences in experience and in lived experience, not regardless of neuro type. You’d be looking at what someone’s journey was from birth and how they were raised, and what values and experiences they have had in their environments that also changes the experience. as speech pathologist working with parents and families from all sorts of walks of life, and they bring a lot of that, which makes, understanding the concept of neurodiversity sometimes a bit of a journey. And that’s okay too. But we can’t separate that. And the experience of neurodiversity from someone’s upbringing and background and potentially even in trauma and it experiences that they come with as well.
Heidi Trusler: Yeah. It’s the big picture essentially shapes your brain. I remember that lesson at uni where it’s like, this is your brain when you’re born and then it’s like this Yes. So like, obviously, yes, there’s nature, but there’s a lot of inertia and environmental impacts. And I mean, gosh, we did not have enough time to talk about that today. But you’ve just made me think about I listened to it. I wanted to get in the passion zone before this morning talking to you. And I actually listened to, the Yellow Ladybugs podcast Love. this morning. When you’re talking about lived experience. And I listened to it was a nice quick one, 15 minutes masking and internalizing. She talks about what it was like for her to go to school, and I was just like, my heart was just out of my chest, like, this is all of the kids that I’ve been fighting for for the last decade, essentially, and I it was this awful experience of becoming a speech pathologist. And I loved school like I cried the day I left school. Such a freak. I couldn’t say that word. But, like, I loved it so much, and I just wanted to stay with my friends every day. I’m an absolute extrovert. It was just a big sleepover. You know, I was a school prefect or whatever. I just loved the structure, It’s arrived on that. and I just becoming a clinician. I could not, and. And I had a brother with a disability. Yes. Jack has down syndrome. Hank. Neurodivergent. I knew that school wasn’t great for him. I was in grade one in machines, and I noticed that they were pushing him around the. Playground. But I hadn’t really as a child. Obviously, I came in. Together and really, really thought about. What school as a structure or. As an tution or the system we call it, what that like for those kids.

Is the School System Equitable for Neurodivergent Brains?

Heidi Trusler: You know, it really makes me now, as a mother, I think about those structures. And even if my kids are neurotypical, like, should they should we be supporting that structure because it’s not necessarily equitable. For all. The different brains that exist. And I know the level of privilege that I come from when I think about that decision, like, I think if I have a neurodivergent child, my choice would probably be to homeschool them.
Tina Evans: Yeah. But it’s a very tricky area. And, I mean, even with a lot of the families I work with now, we, we run into barriers at school, Yeah. the speech pathologist often does take the role of advocating for those families in those spaces. And that’s it’s all part of, neurodiverse affirming practice where, where we can voice our, our opinions and our, well, we can say in terms of what this child can do so that they can have their potential met at school. And it’s often really, challenging because of the structures that are already in place. they reflect a, an even bigger system that’s bigger than even then. That sort of says this is the way that we should learn, and this is the way that we should develop, and this is the way that we should interact. And, it works for some kids, but it doesn’t work for all kids. Like I myself was a bit introverted at school. It wasn’t my favorite place.
Heidi Trusler: If we go back to the stats, what, 15 to 20% of neurodivergent isn’t. And so, you know, that’s 15 to 20% of kids that are unlikely to enjoy a classroom. Yes. Yeah. And.
Tina Evans: In order for schools to to make their learning needs and their differences in how they learn, we also need resources and funding, which a whole other topic that, it more barriers. And
Heidi Trusler: we’re being idealistic. This is how we’re talking. If we have all the resources in the world. Sure. But, most teachers in schools don’t have that. So then that’s what we’re we’re Yes, exactly.
Tina Evans: try their best. And yes, I guess that’s where we’re really pivotal in being that voice for that family and those students and just sort of where can to to help people understand the neurodiversity and their differences and their learning needs.

What is Neurodiversity Affirming Therapy? (NDA Practice)

Heidi Trusler: So as a speech pathologists, what does it mean to be ND affirming. And I’m going to say that and affirming because. So that we don’t have to say so what is that. What is that?
Tina Evans: Kind touched on a key word before about having empathy. And I’m so proud to be part of a that inherently comes with that. A lot of us fall into the role of speech pathologist because we are empathetic people, and we want to do the best for the greater good. But it really starts with acknowledging people and valuing them for who they are and being, in a, in a place to say, hey, I know you’ve got a different brain. I love your brain. I love that you are different and you learn and play in a different way. And I’m here to tell you that that is okay. I’m not hated. Change your brain or teach you a certain way of thinking. I’m not here to say there’s one way to do things, or one way to interact with the world. neurodiversity. Affirming practice is really putting a bit of a spin on traditional approaches and looking at moving away from deficit based therapy. We’re not trying to fix anything. We’re just trying to value the person and honor them for who they are and how they think and use much more of a strengths based approach to help them develop their skills in the communication so that they do have more opportunities to interact positively with their world.

Devil’s Advocate: How Does Structure and Evidence Fit into NDA Practice?

Heidi Trusler: All right, now I’m going to play the devil’s advocate. I’m a parent, I parent. What you just said sounds amazing. Sounds idealistic, but, this new language and it is a new way of thinking You’ve still got to learn to read right, to function in the world. And some people are never going to learn to read. And that might be a cognitive level that they can’t their brain isn’t going to be able to do that process. But learning to read is not natural. It’s, it’s it’s a learned process. Yes. and then there’s evidence based practice, which I’ve spent a lot of my career doing with neurodiverse kids and adults, mind you, and it works. But how does that kind of structured learning and, or drill based or like, this is the way that we should learn. How does that fit into indie affirming practice? So I guess
Tina Evans: evidence based practice is actually taking our clinical experience along with the evidence and being creative in how we approach and deliver interventions. I guess going back to training at university, a lot of the intervention programs that we get taught, one way berries. This is how you work through a speech sound area, and this is how you work through literacy. Skills. that’s the top part, right? That’s the best scientific evidence. That’s evidence. Yeah, what we have available to us at the time.
Heidi Trusler: that’s what we’ll, we’ll get hung up on. Like, this is the study that’s been done and this is what we have to do. Yes.
Tina Evans: But there are so many aspects that haven’t been researched. And if you think about neurodiversity, it’s actually really challenging to, research for all the different types of brains, different learning and different skills. So if you were to potentially look at how someone lends language, a lot of the language studies are based on one way of learning language. They’re based on analytical language development, which is what the neuro normative population will often learn language in that way. But where you don’t really have many studies on how that could look different for neurodivergent kids because they haven’t put those populations together. It’s really tricky. There’s so much diversity in it. So it’s hard to get a control group. It’s hard to create that, robust research. Sorry. I mean, that means we’re left with what we’ve got. And in order to actually do the best ab pay practice, we have to also then use our clinical experience. And what we’ve seen to be different and diverging from the typical style in neurotypical, and then be creative in how we approach what we call the intervention programs and not be scared to, change the way that we deliver them in, in some aspects to me, neurodivergent, client’s needs and also their values about how they want to interact with the world.

The Therapy Journey: Understanding Family Values and Expectations

Tina Evans: And this is where, when I’m talking to parents about the whole idea of neurodiversity, we might really just focusing on, on on their child and, and talk about, well, what does your individual child’s learning trajectory look like? What has their development looked like? What has their journey so far been that is so important? Setting the ground running is that to speech therapy? To start off with, we want the foundations of I understand what that family has been through so far and where everything’s going and what their expectations and values are for their child going forward. And if we can do that, then we can set goals that really honor who they are as a person, but also don’t necessarily set expectations for them to meet neurotypical norms or milestones, because we have recognized that this child is developing, in their own way, their own trajectory. And that’s okay. Sorry. It’s I guess part of NDA farming practice is really, having those open discussions with parents about what that looks like for them and their family, their child, and what they understand about it. Because we often don’t get there straight away. We might have to go on a bit of a journey together to understand the child’s even more. And understand that neurodiversity and support parents to also come along with that idea. Because we do live in a world that is still very much based on the majority way of thinking. It’s neurotypical. The expectations in society about how we go to school as we said, how we go to work, and how we interact and socialize very much, still ingrained in neurotypical expectations because that’s the majority. Sorry. It is a learning curve. It’s a learning curve for parents. It’s a learning curve for educators. It’s a learning curve for the whole care team. OTAs, physios, psychologists, whoever is on board, and it’s often a team effort. So I guess neurodiverse affirming therapies also really holistic. And we talk about holistic therapy and family and child led therapy all the time. It brings all of that together. But under this big lens of it’s okay to be different.
Heidi Trusler: that’s a really good explanation. And In the past, you know, if we’re looking at that ab just evidence based. Practice, we’re just showing. That picture. And like one third of it where you arguably sort of we go to uni and we training and we learn like all of the academic stuff like there’s what the studies have said. So you start from that background and then you gain clinical experience. And I tell you what, there is no better training than actually just doing the job and learning how different people within different brains react to different stimulus and different. It’s a different feedback. And arguably that is just the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. Is doing that. And then largely you work out what works and what doesn’t work, from that. But my favorite, arguably my favorite part. And when I think being holistic, like you said, comes in is the patient values because you are taking your training as a speech pathologist, then you’re taking your clinical experience, what you’ve done in the past, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and then you’re gone. And then you’ve got to overlay it you’ve got to take on basically that empathy. If you don’t have it, you’re going to do a bad job. You’re it’s going to be like a stream, a three legged stool, and you’ve chopped off one leg of the stool. If you aren’t deeply invested in knowing the family and the child’s values and where they’ve come from and where they want to go, then you’re doing a bad job Yes. and you know you’re not going to be a great therapist, and you’re certainly not going to be affirming either, because you can’t just plaster exactly what you think and what you’ve studied on to a family and expect it to work. And It’s a it’s a lot of the reason why I started pot, because I was sick of trying to fit children into a system that didn’t necessarily what. Now, I was a vehicle for this system that I didn’t love, and I wanted to be able to create something that was different.

Clinical Burnout, Masking, and Emotional Safety in Therapy

Tina Evans: You’re bringing up, like, previous experiences, like, early in my career, which I guess made me even more so passionate about, like, just advocating. But I’ve been in clinical situations where I’ve seen other clinicians who have taken their learnings from, university and really honed in on that evidence based practice. ultimately, with that, I’ve been realizing where forcing a child to interact in a certain way, even though they were neurodivergent. And I remember being so the clinician sitting there watching that going, that child is in distress, you’re not doing anything that looks to be harmful. But at that cognitive, emotional safety level, you’re probably harming them without realizing. And, that comes back to ideas around masking and forcing children to act in a certain way, creating this stress and trauma that we may not realize as neurotypicals, but is inherently there. And just years and years of that, like a lot of our neurodivergent kids are in therapy for the long haul that they they hae for several years they might be here for the lot, for life. And we support them throughout different parts in their journey. But if we’ve got a therapist that is not aware of their own biases and the nuances within the therapy, that may actually be forcing a child to act a certain way, then we might be inherently creating, masking in and teaching them how to not be them. And that takes up so much more energy and ultimately leads to burnout and hollow the podcast in itself.
Heidi Trusler: I don’t want to do a whole pod cop unmasking because I also. So I’ve done. This. Like like I all have yet. write like. And so this is not a guilt trip for a speech pathologist who’s made me cry. Like all of us have made a child cry because you’re coming to our office to do something difficult. And if a child hasn’t cried in your office, I don’t know if you’re doing therapy like someone’s at some point you’ve pushed a little bit too hard or you’ve got on that level. So, you know, for parents, we sort of work on a staircase and our job is to find the perfect like The perfect challenge. Level perfect lunge, but not too hard, but it’s not too easy. And then just incrementally do. And so if you go too high, the wheels fall off and, and I don’t I, I’ve done that. I do that all the time. But it’s not that you’re not neuro affirming. Do that. It’s that it’s forcing because I come back to. Right I forgive that go back to EBP and make it really simple parent values.

Case Study: Academic Families vs. Farming Families

Heidi Trusler: So I’ve worked with families, right. I used to do it in Sydney early in my career. Best training ground ever. I had highly intelligent, highly paid academic parents sending their neurodiverse child to me to keep them at Grammar. Yeah, I’ve. I’ve had that too. and I was like calling my mum, saying, But it’s this not this is not me. This child also really valued academia. That was the. Family environment that the child had grown up in. And actually they were so academic. They just didn’t learn in the way that I was trying to teach them, like I was early in my career. I was like, I don’t agree with this, but as a more experienced clinician, I could have done a way better job. Now but that’s I. your journey to getting you to being a Yes. therapist. And I keep drilling this kid and Yeah. and the child was, you know, just not I just didn’t understand. But it was the it was the values, my values and my biases. And I it really affected me being able to really work with that child. I could have changed my clinical practice to make it work better, as opposed to the same profile child who has a farming family whose parents are happy with their child doing farm labor when they leave school, you know, that parents that parents values is completely different to the values of the family who are completely academic and want their child to be doctor.
Tina Evans: Yeah, exactly. And that just is a great example you’ve got your child in the middle of your, your young adult, all different ages. Neurodivergent. We recognize that, we recognize what that looks like in terms of how they develop. They how they learn, how they play, how they prefer to interact with the world. But then you also have to look at the people around. Them. And their expectations and biases. And the environments that they are in. So it’s putting in the affirming and holistic practice together. You can’t separate any of those concepts. They all come together and go hand in hand.

Building Rapport: How to Use a Child’s Strengths in Therapy

Heidi Trusler: And I think that that’s what the risk of when you read we’ve got this great, like handout essentially that we’re going to give alongside this podcast. And that’s the risk that when someone reads, we’re going to do it in their way or that’s strength based. So I really want to jump in to the checklist that we’ve got, because I want to talk I want to talk with you through some like real life examples and I want to the therapy that builds on strengths because when people first started working for me at pop, one of the things that I would love to do, I’d. So this is one of the ways that I’ve always been, neuro firming. And it was the way that I was trained as well by a great clinician, is that you’ve got to find what they’re really good at. Yes. Like, it’s not. really like. Because if you don’t know what they’re really good at or what they really like, well, number one, how are you going to build rapport? How are you going to make friends with this kid or adult or whoever’s coming into your office? How are you going to get them to do something hard? I would find whatever that child was better than me at, which was generally a lot of stuff. And I would have this games. Generally, I’d pick my games and toys based on my deficits, most of my caseload, were autistic or ADHD children and young adults, and many of them, not all, but many of them would just pick up puzzles. Like Yes. I want. And I’m not good at puzzles. I’m a words and language girl, and, so they would just smash me in these puzzles. That’s my example of strength based, but like a parent would be like. But they just play games, you know what? Why? And can you give an example of therapy that builds on strength?
Tina Evans: Yeah, definitely. I mean, a lot of before I jump into the example, a lot of it comes back to how we describe what we’re doing with parents. And some do really like what they want you to do, that they want you to go, with their, their child’s interests. And that’s amazing because they honoring the way that their child plays. But while we do the game or the puzzle, we are often modeling language and commenting and using a lot of positive, affirming language as we do. Sorry to encourage that child to play and learning that way. Another example is, I have a lot of autistic clients and they learn a lot through media and watching shows, songs, Disney films, Star Wars It’s something they’re motivated by that they are ultimately learning language from. So a lot of parents, would come in with, I don’t really want my child to have screen time, which is fair enough. There’s a lot of evidence behind limiting screen time for a child’s cognitive development that that’s where we look at. Well, this child might be neurodivergent, and this is actually something that is supporting them to learn in their way at times, obviously, that the barriers and different expectations you. Don’t know that. Yes. But, if that’s where a lot of our language is coming from, then what we might do is speech therapists in, in, in our sessions and also encourage families to do throughout their everyday routines is have those instances where we actually take on and use a lot of the language that they’re pulling from media in everyday routines.

Gestalt Language Processing and Monsters Inc. Examples

Tina Evans: So it might be, I have a client who he’s really into monsters Inc, and when things go wrong, it’s 2319. So we often use the language and the tone and expression from that movie when there’s something going on to alert them and introduce that concept. So what we’re doing, being strengths based and interest based, is actually taking on their language too. We’re not changing it. We’re not saying no, you have to say it this way. We’re saying, okay, I recognize that that’s the language you’ve learned and associated to that activity. So I’m going to use it to you. I’m going to follow your lead in actually imitating you. So a lot of traditional approaches teach the child to imitate the adult or to imitate the person. That’s modeling the skill. Whereas if we flip that in an NDA affirming way, what we’re doing is saying, actually, I’m going to join in with you. I’m going to acknowledge your attempts and your language, even if it might not make sense entirely to a neurotypical brain. I’m going to work out what it actually means. I’m going to do the work. Because what society does to neurodivergent people is say you need to work in the No, I Yeah, know, I know. I communication breaks down, do, Charlie. you haven’t tried to think in a neurotypical way.
Heidi Trusler: And on the weekend, parent said to me, oh my gosh, Heidi, this person, their child, and they don’t correct him. And I went, sounds doing a great job. So I just like, gently explained that sometimes correcting is really not good.
Tina Evans: Yeah. But it also comes back to who’s responsibility is it? And if we’re modeling in therapy and supporting parents to understand that it’s not just about focusing on the child’s individual skills and ability to imitate a certain way of being or communicating, then it also means that we’re taking some accountability and also recognizing that we’re part of that communicative interaction. And if the interaction fails, it’s not just the child’s fault. It’s not just the child being neurodivergent that has caused the interaction to fall apart. It’s actually because the neurotypical person, or the other brain in that, interaction has not also done the work to meet them where they’re at will meet them halfway. Sorry. I guess that’s that’s a big the big difference it’s we talk about double empathy problem. And that’s something we talk about without clients, without families. We can again have a whole other podcast on that. it’s really about recognizing that it’s everybody’s responsibility to facilitate positive interactions and learning. And we have to come along for the ride as well,
Heidi Trusler: And we have to realize if we’re coming back to therapy that built on strengths, if we’re a parent, we’re looking for a therapist that champions them little. And you know what? I’m going to use the word quirkiness, the little quirks, the little quirks. Because, you know, back in the day when it was just disability or back when our parents were kids, it was, oh, that’s the quirky kid, right? That’s a lot of, what? When I hear what my mum says or what my dad says about, you know, back in a world that had way less diagnoses. I just think that those little quirks and the things that we really need to be tuned in to, like, what it was it the the Monsters, Inc quote, you know, that’s just the beauty of how validating for that child to hear you say, he’s little, he’s little quirky. And for it’s those quirky little things that your child might say or do. And if you if you are imitating them, it’s sort of validating the person that they are and the way that their brain works and what they wanted to say. So that is strength based. It’s actually propping them up. And that’s a beautiful example.

The Role of AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication)

Heidi Trusler: Why is it important that if your parent, child’s neurodiverse, you’ve got a speech pathologist, perhaps, or and or another allied health professional, like an art or, physio that might be involved? Dietician. Why is it important that they educate and support all communication partners?
Tina Evans: as we said before you can’t separate the individual skills from who they interact with and where they are in their environment. And then the levy from Playland Chat has a really nice visual that goes with that. But as speech pathologists where, you know, position to understand how they communicate. I mean, we talk about this with speech pathologist all the time, but to live, you know, world communication is a major part of that. Even if you can’t move or, Like Explore the world physically, you can have ways to communicate regardless of what way that is. And it’s our job to help those people find those ways, but also to support the people around them to do that. And again, coming back to that double empathy problem, if the people around them aren’t trained in their way of communicating or learning, then they may, without realizing, not push them to do the things that they can possibly do. So, I’m going to use assistive in a moment to do communication as an example here. So I say, where we have someone who might be, minimally speaking, on non-verbal, those terms are changing to say, we’re learning and developing there. But, people might often assume that they can’t do understand things that they probably can because they just can’t say it or express it. But with I say there are ways that we can tap into that and tap into what they know. It’s amazing. Like what doors that can open. And we need to encourage that. We’re often met with barriers when it comes to communication partners embracing ASAP, because it’s also new and a different way of communicating for them that they’re not used to. Sorry. As speech pathologist, it’s so important that we actually help to educate them and use our knowledge to make it easy for them to to implement this in their environments and also take it on board as something that ends up becoming part of retaining part of natural environment rather than something that’s a work or a challenge that that’s too hard in a pocket there. But if you’re doing that, then we’re limiting the potential for this child to show what they can do, and interact with their world. So, yeah, just to summarize, I guess involving the communication partners in that person’s world is so important to increasing the opportunities for positive interactions and opportunities to learn. We can’t function in our society without people around us.
Heidi Trusler: Where social beings. connection and interaction and relationships. And Yes. we literally. There’s evidence we will not survive without it.
Tina Evans: Yeah, exactly. We just need someone to say it. It’s like this. No, the potential.
Heidi Trusler: I think it’s the single, strongest predictor of longevity. Like, if you’re live longer, long, it’s baby. So basically, speech pathologist the most important professionals in the universe.
Tina Evans: We’re not biased. I don’t. There’s no bias.
Heidi Trusler: None.

Clinicians as Advocates: Sitting in the School Meeting

Heidi Trusler: But really, if you are a parent and your clinician or your speech pathologist, your you allied health professional, if you’re having if your child is having difficulty in, at school, at sport I don’t know in any other area of their life, then it is your clinician’s role in you can get your clinicians support. Obviously, if you have the means, there’s a barrier there. But, your clinician, if they’re in day affirming, should act as an advocate. To have a difficult conversation, to sit in that room and ask the teacher the difficult question, or to sit there with you and support you as the parent. It’s probably my favorite job as a speech pathologist.
Tina Evans: I feel like it’s an ethical obligation to a degree, but also just where we’ve got, power in our knowledge and in our ability to understand people and the ways that they interact with their world.
Heidi Trusler: Absolutely.
Tina Evans: we have the communication skills to teach them that, then we should be doing We
Heidi Trusler: And every single teacher became a teacher because I love teaching and they love kids. And, I mean, there’s some people who are not very nice. Sure, but I haven’t met many of them. Most teachers that I meet a really keen to do better, but they also want their job to be easier. Like you want your day to go a bit smoother. You don’t want things to be difficult and so really we can help teachers and why we talk about teachers because we generally at top work with school aged children, it’s the majority of our caseload. But, you know, we could be working with employers, workplaces to help them understand their neurodiverse employees as well. And there’s a role that we can play in educating and supporting, or I’m So how do we build a positive relationship while still maintaining the challenge and keeping that safe space?

Creating Safe Spaces: Telehealth, Trampolines, and Physio Gyms

Tina Evans: comes back to, I guess, taking the time to build a relationship if you. Can spend the time as a clinician, or as a communication partner in general to get to know a person for who they are and what they like and what their strengths are, then you can ultimately use that as tools to tap into tasks that might be challenging for them, because, as we said, like we want to challenge our neurodivergent kids, we want them to reach their potential. Like we can say that they can do so much more We’re coaches, we’re working that brain. find the ways that work for them in order Yeah, them but it’s also really tuning in to like in every session and every interaction and really tuning in to what is going on with their whole body.

It’s not just like we communicate with everything. We communicate with our our gestures, with our body, cuz we thumb out seeking a sensory input or movement. A lot of our neurodivergent kids, when they go to speech therapy might, not be acknowledged in that sense. Potentially. Like I do sessions with kids on the trampoline outside. It’s so good that it’s really telehealth that we can do that. But even when I was working as a face to face clinician, I’d take them down to the physio gym when I was in a multidisciplinary clinic, because that worked a lot better for that neurodivergent brain. Then in the clinic room, like the clinic room had no windows. It was claustrophobic, like I felt close to phobic in the child. But I could regulate myself in that space with a lot of energy. It wasn’t a safe space for a lot of our kids. So if we were to just continue with a traditional model of, I’m just you have to do therapy because that’s where therapy is, rather than actually, I’m going to take you to a space where I know you feel more comfortable, and I can see that your body is more regulated, then I can teach you things because I know you’re safe and your body feel safe, then that is what we mean when we come. Stay positive. Even in safe spaces. So being able to be that person that goes, hey, I can see that you’re not feeling really comfortable here. Let’s let’s go over that. Let’s, let’s go to the gym. Do you want to do you want to go outside? Do you want to go to the Let’s talk. language anyway. We don’t have to be in a, in a room. We proven that through through working through telehealth, but, language and communication goes everywhere. It doesn’t have to be an a set environment. It feels really clinical and and unsafe.

But it’s also being able to reduce the demands and like the Chloe clinician will go. I know we don’t have much energy today. So I’m going to reduce the demands today right down. And as I say your body get more comfortable then I’ll increase them again. So being able to step through that and adjust Well, demands and expectations I wanted to do. us. Yeah. so for in parent friendly terms. So that could mean if you can say that they don’t have many spoons. Yes. Today we’ll talk about spoon theory another time. But when you can see that, like you’ve said, we don’t have much energy today for a clinician and guide and affirming therapist might just try three times instead of you might be able to go ten times. You might be out of practice for scale like ten times before you do a reward or preferred task or, when there’s lots of spoons present. But you’ve really got to be able to adapt to that child and environment and to be able to maintain the safe space. Essentially. Yeah. I love that, just quickly let’s go to. We’ve got this great, great handout.
Tina Evans: So this hand outs really a, An overview for parents and an introduction into neurodiversity. If I’m in practice, and there’s a bit of a check in, see how things are going. Some or all of these things as part of your, therapeutic, relationship with your speech pathologist. So, is this the way that we’re shaping our goals, our therapy tasks? It’s not so much a bang and all. It is literally just. Here’s the place to start. Here is, us learning together. It’s us, trying to move towards being more affirming. Like we can always do better. We can always ask the questions. And that’s that’s where this checklist came from.

Free Resources: NeuroWild, The Brain Forest, and Yellow Ladybugs

Heidi Trusler: And I want. so many tools out there as well beyond punk, but, we tried to simplify it a little bit for our families and Yeah. That looks like it’s just like, you know how there’s those books for dummies? You know, this is like intro level. Neurodiversity. If you’re especially if you’re a parent and your child has just got a diagnosis. Like what? What should you be looking for? What can help you? And we we know this because we go to meetings at one of our clinicians, went to a meeting, a school meeting with two teachers, two weeks ago. And the feedback from the teachers was, wow, I wish this service was around when my kids were going through school. And I was just mortified because I’m not discrediting what our therapist did, but all she did was go to a school meeting and say, these are the accommodations we should be making for this child. This is the therapy I’m going to be doing. Like really? This kid has ADHD and they’re not going to fit into your system. So let’s make it work a bit better. And the teachers what you know. So I still am surprised that, you know, I’ve been working in this area for a decade and we it’s not mainstream yet, but these are just some really good check points. Starting point. If we are in the therapy room, we’re not even talking about the next step really, which is out in the wild. Yeah. And I know that that’s a pretty good segue way to some of our really great reasons, because I love it. Actually, it’s called neuro walls, and I’ve just realized she’s code neuro wild because, well, that’s what I, what I’m thinking because, we’ve been talking today about what we should be doing in therapy or what we should be doing as speech pathologist, or what you should expect from your speech if But that’s like the first step. But what’s in your family home or what’s in your safe space? What’s in your therapy room? But out in the wild, know, it’s very different story.
Tina Evans: very different. Neurobiology and a speech pathologist, herself and ADHD. She’s incredible. And she also has a really good way of simplifying concepts around neurodiversity in cartoons and yet really talented. She’s incredible, but definitely a go to for parents, like, not knowing where to start because it does really simplify things down and make it easy to understand. We’ve got onwards and upwards there. Psychologist and Menin. She’s an incredible psychologist who, also wrote the Brain Forest book. That’s also a really great resource, to start with, in terms of understanding neurodiversity and different brains. And it’s really positive, affirming way of explaining that to your kids as well. So definitely one to check out. You mentioned, like, yellow ladybugs before. And we also mentioned Playland chat. all of our favorites at at Pop that we follow. And we also have resources that, that we can point our families to. We’ve got some blogs. Lovely. Beth has put a blog together about, neurodiverse affirming social communication. So go on and check that out. And we also have some other blogs that we follow. There’s Neurodiversity Collective, there’s a lot of information on there. But that that is, linked in the podcast. So also a really great way for parents to start. So we’ve got our podcast and I’m sure they’ll be many more episodes to follow after today. But yeah, just so many Slighty. It’s just.
Heidi Trusler: I’m just going to add one more if I, Yes. love, doc. Amen on Instagram, I love him. He. is that? I don’t want to get it wrong. his daughter has ADHD.
Tina Evans: He’s great. I listen to him too. And.
Heidi Trusler: And he has scanned over 10,000 brains, and he he I feel like he’s a little bit more geared towards for, young adult. Like adult, like, maybe not so much like little kids. But he does talk about he talks about, like, topics that people are scared to talk about. He talks about treatment. He talks about medication. He talks about diet and the impacts of diet. He talks about drugs and alcohol when you get old. So he talks about a lot of those things and all of the studies that he’s done. And how like he’s worked in with those areas. And I find that really interesting.
Tina Evans: He also lets you make your your mind up for yourself as well. He’s like, he’s the research and he’s my practice, doing what you will with that, which is That’s it. gives two parts of the triangle, and then he lets you put your mind to that.

Conclusion: No Correct Brain, No One Way of Doing Things

Tina Evans: that’s what it is. It’s about asking questions. It’s about just evaluating our perceptions and biases that we come in with and just trying to do better, be Exactly. better for our divergent kids as well. And families.
Heidi Trusler: the the goal of this podcast is to help moms make better decisions, essentially. And if you listen to this and your child and your child is neurodiverse, hopefully it helps you decide what’s going to be best for your family. It’s not you need to do it. This specific way. Like the example I gave of the academic parents versus the farming parents. Like there is no right way to raise your child that it’s going to be through the lens of your environment, your experiences, and the resources that you have at hand. know, if you’ve got all the resources in the world versus not many resources at all, then that really changes the trajectory of what your Jenny’s like. Yeah.
Tina Evans: Exactly. So no correct brain, no one way of doing things, and it’s just a matter of finding the team to support you to to work that out along the way.
Heidi Trusler: I think I could link it there. Well, actually I don’t want to, but thank you very much, Tina. I always was such a robust conversation with you. This is why your, pop’s clinical lead for neurodiversity.
Tina Evans: Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and your questions. That was lots of fun.
Heidi Trusler: And your passion. We’ll have to. We’ve got a few follow ups to do so. Everyone can see you next time.
Tina Evans: Sounds good. Thanks so much, Heidi.
Heidi Trusler: I hope you enjoyed learning about neurodiversity and what it means to be neurodivergent. We’d love to hear your questions on this topic and hopefully we can answer them in a future episode. You can reach me by leaving a comment on your podcast app or sending us a DM on our Instagram. Our handle is at Beyond Words by Pop Family. Head to the Shownotes to get your free copy of our mini guide to neurodiversity. Plus, follow for even more episodes. Before I wrap up, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of land, seas and waters throughout Australia and pay respect to elders past, present and future. Please also remember that this episode is not clinical advice. If you or your child are facing challenges in the areas we discussed today, please seek in individualized speech pathology assessment or chat to your GP. Take care and we’ll catch you in the next episode.