145: How to Foster the Socio-Emotional Well-Being of Autistic Clients and Their Families

TRANSCRIPT

Venita Litvack: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I am super thrilled to have this guest on today and to. Discuss this topic it's called how to foster the socio emotional wellbeing of autistic clients and their families.

My name is Benita lift bag. If you're not familiar with me, I have a passion for all things. AAC, assistive technology and literacy. I've had the opportunity to present a couple of poster presentations related to AAC at Asher. I was a co-author in the Luna's what to do book series that was published by Boystown press.

And I am a host of the speechy situp podcast and a newish mom to a 14 month old daughter. And my guest here today is Rachel Dorsey, who is a speech language pathologist, educator, and consultant, as well as an autism rights. And. Through her private practice consultancy, Rachel Dorsey, autistic SLP, LLC.

She provides therapy sessions and education to [00:03:00] parents, professionals, school districts, and organizations through coaching consultations in services, professional development and courses on neuro diversity, affirming therapeutic practice, the services she offers as a consultant draw upon her own experience as an autistic person and her nearly six years of clinical experience working with early intervention, preschool, CPSP school, age post-secondary through itinerant work and clinic based settings.

She launched recently the goal writing for autistic students, a neurodiversity affirming approach, which is a comprehensive course on building strengths based goals. And it counts for 1.05 Asher and a O T a. A O T a C E. Rachel is an active advocate within the autistic community with a substantial social media presence, collaborating with leading autistic advocates and allies.

Rachel, [00:04:00] thank you so much for coming today. Did I miss anything in that

Rachel Dorsey: intro? No, that was very thorough. Thank you so much. I just want to add this isn't specifically related to me, but I want to add that the work that I do, wouldn't be possible Without the the years of labor from past and current long standing autistic advocates.

That would include the autistic women's and non-binary network that would include the founding members of autism network international also like foundations for divergent minds and the autistic people of color fund doing great work. Yeah, it's important to acknowledge those that just had like years of experience ahead of me.

And it really influenced me in my own Kind of journey as an autistic person and autistic [00:05:00] professional. Absolutely.

Venita Litvack: Thank you for sharing those. Cause I think it's nice for the listeners to be able to have those references as well. So today we have a lot to go over. We'll start with our introductions and backgrounds, which we've initiated already.

Then we'll talk about the discussion about negative consequences of not fostering, social, emotional wellbeing, and autistic clients. We'll talk about the importance of fostering this area early on and the potential challenges that SLPs might face when working with older autistic clients. And we'll talk about ways to overcome those difficulties.

And then we'll finally wrap up with a live Q and a Rachel, I'll let you go ahead and introduce your financial nonfinancial

Rachel Dorsey: disclosure. Yeah. So I'm the owner of racial Dorsey, autistic SLP, LLC, and receive a salary. I received commission from the goal writing course and I've lived [00:06:00] experienced mentor for responsive feeding pro which focuses on on picky eating selective eating and it would, or feeding intake disorder.

And I received compensation for contributions to that and nonfinancial. I am autistic and I have friends and family members who are autistic.

Venita Litvack: Thank you for sharing that. And you will be receiving compensation for

Rachel Dorsey: this. Yeah, I should have included that too. Yes, I will be receiving financial compensation for appearing on this presentation.

Venita Litvack: And we're so grateful that you're here and then really quickly my relevant financial relationship is that I have ownership interest in speechy situp LLC and tassel learning, LLC. And I received royalties from the Lunas, what to do book series. I'm also a member of Ash's special interest

Rachel Dorsey: group 12.

Venita Litvack: All right. So by the end of this pod course, our goal is that you'll be able to identify the impact of not fostering, [00:07:00] social, emotional wellbeing, identify the importance of foster socio-emotional wellbeing early on in life. Identify two difficulties encountered when helping the so Shu emotional wellbeing of older autistic children and describe four ways to overcome those difficulties. All right. So let's get into it. I'm really excited to learn from you today. I've had the opportunity to listen to some interviews that you've done and I'm just so grateful for all the information that you're sharing with the community.

So I'd love to know, let's just start off with this. What's the impact of not fostering the social, emotional

Rachel Dorsey: wellbeing. Yeah. So starting off with a kinda the downer, but like we're going up for here. I guess first, before talking about about the impact of not fostering socio emotional wellbeing I think it's important to, to define what is [00:08:00] socio-emotional wellbeing and for the relevancy of this pod course that, it includes things like having a a, like a sense of identity.

It includes having your mental health is in a stable standing, like not like extremely anxious or depressed but it can also include things like having access to like community resources. It can also include things like having a support network people that like friends and family or other community members.

So socio-emotional wellbeing is a pretty broad Sort of thing it goes all the way from like a person's individual sense of how they're doing what their mental health and their [00:09:00] relationship with others all the way out to society and how society view who is autism and how society treats yeah.

Treats those with disabilities and the stigma that it's a pretty broad thing. Hence why it's hard to come up with a very clear definition of it, but okay. So to move on to not fostering. So when you don't have those things, that's when you don't have a family that is accepting of an autism diagnosis when you don't have when you don't have even knowledge that you're autistic when you don't have a a school system that is a school system that views everything through a superficial.

Observation of behaviors, lens, all of these [00:10:00] things. It leads to some not great things. Oh yeah. And I also want to say that socio-emotional wellbeing includes knowing that your body is your own and that others don't have a right to, to touch, like to do what they will without, consent.

So to not foster all of those things leads to some not great things. The autistic self-advocacy network discusses the, like the importance of having an autistic identity. And if you don't have that, you have a loss of identity. You don't know you're autistic, or if you know that you're autistic, it's shameful.

You see yourself with a lot of shame and try your best to either voluntarily or involuntarily [00:11:00] are like, subconsciously At non-autistic so masking and I can go into masking a whole bunch, but I won't that the simplest explanation or simplest like discussion of masking and masking leads to are prolonged masking is it causes suicidality and suicide idealization in autistic adult.

So you have this really direct kind of pathway. If you don't foster socio-emotional wellbeing, there's map, like you get a lot of masking and then there we go. It's a, I'm not so great. Pipeline to that. In addition, if you don't have a sense that your body is your own and others don't have [00:12:00] adjust the right to take it and manipulate it.

Then you're going to, I'm gonna think of all the therapies that we do and all the education practices that involve taking the student physically and, directing them here or there to do the activity or to sit in their seat. That's telling autistic, that's telling people disabilities that their bodies not their own and that they just need to accept being touched.

And then, so it's important. Think about the. Sexual and physical. There, there is substantial sexual or physical abuse. Autistic children with intellectual disabilities are I believe two times two to three times more likely to experience sexual, physical abuse. Those are children that have intellectual disabilities as well.

If they don't have an intellectual disability, they are two times more likely to experience physical abuse. I didn't really [00:13:00] paint like a really pretty picture. But I guess that's what we're going to get into further about how to avoid these scary outcome. Yeah,

Venita Litvack: very detrimental consequences for not fostering this area with autistic clients and their families.

I've taught, I've heard you talk about masking on social media here and there. That was a really nice simplistic overview of that and how it can lead to all these different areas. I want to talk a little bit more about the sexual and physical abuse aspect and how you had mentioned that certain things that we do that involve touching our client's bodies, that kind of starts to remove those layers that, eventually can lead to sexual abuse.

Physical abuse is hand over hand prompting, a little part of that.

Rachel Dorsey: Yeah. I've heard a lot about that recently, too. Yeah, it, I it [00:14:00] is. And it's a practice that, listen, I was taught that in graduate school. So many clinicians taught that in grad school. So when you clinicians taught yeah, taught hand over hand, taught going from behind and help helping that I'm using air quotes here.

The student like pick up with holding their hands and arm is pick up after themselves. And when someone experiences continuous Touching their body and making it act in a way that they don't want it to act. And they don't have a, and it's just that's just how it is.

There's no way they can get out of it. They stop trying to, they stop trying to resist, resist. Exactly. And they just accept it. And so that's learned helplessness and learned [00:15:00] helplessness. So there, isn't a to my knowledge research that is directionally connecting small seemingly small repeated.

Intentioned therapy and educational practices and golf, physical touch all the way to like sexual or physical abuse. But given the, there's other research that talks about abuse specifically occurring within schools. And I would love to see like what that would be a launch tutor, a longitudinal study that would be like harder to do financially.

But, and time-wise, especially if people trying to just fit tenure but yeah, it hand over hand is it's just one of, one of these. Sorts of thing is a good alternative is a hand under hand where you offer out your hands [00:16:00] and the client can choose to put their hands on top of your hands.

And then help the case. Or client could be an adult to guide through whatever physical thing is in front of them or with like signing or with, a C use. But it allows them by them putting their hands like on top. And you just moving them to complete things or to do something that they want to do.

It allows them to withdraw consent at any time. So it's both asking for consent and it allows the ability to withdraw consent. But even that I try to keep to a minimal but that's a great alternative to hand over hand. Wow. Thank

Venita Litvack: you so much for sharing that because I think anybody that's listening to this, if they were questioning the practice of hand over hand and not showing up, not really knowing what to [00:17:00] do as an alternative, you provided it.

And I think it's such a good alternative, and I love the fact that it gives the client choice. It allows them to build trust with you, and it allows them to understand take that step to understand like, why I'm giving you my hand and we're going to do whatever it is that we're working on.

Versus if we go ahead and take their hand and do the task are they even processing what's going on? Or these are still shocked that you grabbed their hand in the first place without, asking for their consent. So I appreciate that.

Rachel Dorsey: Of course. All right.

Venita Litvack: Anything else that you want to talk about in terms of the negative consequences?

Or should we start moving up the positive?

Rachel Dorsey: Yeah, I feel like we should move into the more positive. Okay. Let's do it.

Venita Litvack: All right. So let's talk about the importance now of fostering the socio emotional wellbeing early

Rachel Dorsey: on. Yeah. I worked in early intervention and pre-K, and I still see some clients that are that [00:18:00] age.

And honestly, to me, I feel the most like optimistic and empowered specifically there. With that, like population with the parents, with the children, because that's a great opportunity to, from the very beginning help the parent understand their child. I didn't put this on the slide, but it's a really great opportunity to help the parent understand their child, understand they might feel, or they likely do feel like depending on like the child's kind of presentation They might feel like distance from their child.

They might, a lot of parents are grieving. The child's not responding or acting in a way that, that like shows like typ like neuro-typical or obvious displays of affection. And it's really [00:19:00] important to help the parents see to point out how the child is actually showing affection, showing that they love you.

It is not the, the neuro-typical way, but it is still valid and they still need you. And this is just one example of how they're doing it. In my head, I'm thinking of like a kid who maybe starts a hubbing, like they're happy having when they're next to a parent and, that would be, demonstration of being a call and being love of loving their parent.

But that typically wouldn't be recognized as an indicator of, affection. But anyway, so it's really important to, to foster this really early on. I'm a fan of autistic people knowing that they're [00:20:00] autistic. as early as possible because positive self identity is linked to positive mental health outcomes.

So if you know that you're autistic as a young child and it's people say, oh how do we talk about we can't talk about that with children. I thoroughly, I do in my practice, but I thoroughly believe that we can and we should, because we talk about things like race and we talk about Different types of family is that, look different ways regarding like gender and sexuality.

We talk about religion. And I think that neurodiversity should be wrapped up in that at just along that, that there are different types of brains out there. Benny way having knowledge that you're autistic from [00:21:00] early on and life lays the groundwork, the foundation for how you conceptualize yourself.

As you get older and see that, okay, others are doing things differently than the way I am. allows you To understand it within the conceptualization of, okay, I'm autistic and this is how my autistic brain works and all brains are different and that's okay.

As opposed to starting to get into some of these negative outcomes, that's yeah from the beginning of seeing that you're different thinking, okay I'm broken, I'm bad. I don't fit. I don't belong. So that's really important to foster really early on. And a big part of that is alexithymia and Terra receptive awareness, which are a little more clinical [00:22:00] terms. So for people that don't know what alexithymia is, that's the inability to tell what or yeah, to, to verbally name the emotion that you're feeling. And terrorists option is being able to sense to accurately sense what is going on in, in your body.

So in Tara awareness is, yeah, it's that awareness of that Aaron terrace option that the research has shown that alexithymia, and interoceptive awareness are linked to each other. We typically think about about things like autistic people can't read the emotional state of others.

But we don't, first of all, I. questioned that. But it will go into it. But we don't think about like [00:23:00] 10 autistic people even tell their own emotional state. And I began working on that. And I, I advocate for parents professionals to, to work on that pretty early on. It, it would start with and this is from Mallory 2019.

I really like Kelly Valor's interoception curriculum. I being able to identify your own bodily sensations and then identify what does that even mean? And then through identifying like what that even means, so for example, identifying bodily sensations.

Okay. My legs feel like jumping a whole bunch right now and I'm flat and I'm flapping my hands feel like they need to flap and then identify what that means. Okay. I. I'm excited, but I'm excited to the [00:24:00] point where it feels uncomfortable for my body. It's just too much energy inside.

Then you can self-advocate and regulate. So you can, ask to I just need five minutes to go into the sensory room and get this out of my, get this out of my system. Just like really, excited right now. I need to jump around and flap and then. Be more regulated.

Still possibly be like excited and happy, but that physical discomfort that can often come with being like elated is, has decreased or isn't there. And so you're able to you're, you don't feel uncomfortable anymore. But a big part of this is also if the teacher was like, no, then then it's pointless.

And a big part of this is also like the community and [00:25:00] societal piece, like it needs to be respected, but that whole thing I start working on very early on and believe it or not. I like the self-advocacy piece of everything is, and my experience easier to work on with younger children than it is older children.

I guess we'll get into that a little bit later today. Okay. You shared

Venita Litvack: so many good

Rachel Dorsey: points sorry. I'm like artistically monologuing. This

is

Venita Litvack: how we do the interviews. I ask the question and we let everybody give their points and then I have some followup questions.

So you're doing an awesome job. One, I know you explained some of the ways that you helped to foster this early on. Do you recommend any good children's books that can help

Rachel Dorsey: with [00:26:00] families

Venita Litvack: to

Rachel Dorsey: teach that identity? Yes. Oh gosh, I've seen, here's the thing. I'm horrible. I'm like, so glad I had these names, like the reference sames built in here.

Cause I'm really not good with proper nouns. There's a book. I'll put it in the handout. I'm gonna put it in the handout. There's this book that was created by autistic team. That is about it's called like something for you. I don't know. But it is, it's my favorite book that is about neurodiversity and autism and and that however you are.

As the autistic person, whether you're a small child, who's not speaking and uses multimodal communication, whether you have you know, however you play, however you express your [00:27:00] emotions, like you'll always be loved. And you'll you're great. The way that you are. I love that book. I just forget the name of it because I'm really bad at proper nouns.

So I'll include it in the handout. I

Venita Litvack: appreciate that. And I'm sorry to put you on the spot. I think that'll be super helpful though. Thank you.

Rachel Dorsey: Yeah, I wish that there were more there's a lot of books on autism for children that are aimed at like the sibling. Like the neuro-typical sibling who has an autistic sibling or like neuro-typical peers who have an autistic class, like classmate.

There's a lot of books for that, but there are many books aimed at autistic aimed at autistic children. That's my favorite on regarding identity? I do Liam's first I think [00:28:00] Flynn was first cut, which is about an autistic black autistic little boy who is And what, who's scared about an upcoming haircut, that one was pretty good about getting that the, potential feeling everything in that situation for that child like that it, it makes sense.

It's same as pretty accurate. And showing, showing children that if you're autistic, you could also be black, which that, that doesn't happen. Very not, there are plenty of black autistic people, and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the representation of the multiple art multiple marginalizations of this intersection being in, in And media that often doesn't happen.

So I like that book show.

Venita Litvack: Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Oh, I could ask you so many questions, but I'm gonna leave the questions to the [00:29:00] listeners instead. And is there anything else that you wanted to mention on this topic before we move

Rachel Dorsey: on? Not I believe, but yeah, we can move on. Okay.

Venita Litvack: So you alluded to some of the challenges that SLPs might encounter, but what are some other ones that they might come across when helping the socio emotional wellbeing of older autistic

Rachel Dorsey: children?

Yeah. With older autistic children's, I'm thinking our middle schoolers, our high schoolers, I'm thinking, even adults, the questions for children, but even adults too. Yeah, the system is hard on, on autistic people. Whether those autistic children are are, have like higher support needs and use multimodal communication and a C or their Maybe [00:30:00] mostly speaking and are seen as being like the quirky kid or the annoying kid or the, a lazy kid in class.

Those kids often right now, by the time we see that are pretty be in down by the system. I mean there is, there's such a range of of like how autistic teenagers can act. But I'm just thinking of Autistic teenagers who are so fed up and angry and don't like, don't want don't want to say, I don't want friends say that.

And think of themselves as being, being an outcast or they are an outcast. I think of autistic children who maybe like desperately want to friends. And even when given the [00:31:00] opportunity to like, even when masking is explained to them as this is what masking is, but it's like your choice there are good.

I pick masking because like they want friends. So there's, there's a lot of also like they could just not know that they are autistic and if they don't know that they're autistic, that could be at this point, it's from what I've seen, largely like parents not wanting the kid to know that they're autistic.

And if you don't, they don't know they're autistic. That may then that they do know that there are noise. They know that they're obsessive. They know that they're lazy. They're they know that they're bad. They know that no one likes them. They know that they do these weird things. They often don't know their emotional state because it.

Was because for so many reasons they [00:32:00] don't might not know their emotional state because displays of auto like displays of emotion from autistic people or early on in life look different. Like they, the example I had of that child trying to budge, like showing that they love their parent, wouldn't be, validated as like affection.

And so imagine that with other emotions too happening continuously. And so if the people around them, aren't helping autistic people

No, their emotional state, because they don't understand autistic people's emotional state. How are autistic people supposed to have the kind of linguistic groundwork to really conceptualize emotions and how their [00:33:00] emotions are connected to bodily sensations. And then if those emotions and bodily sensations are are not deemed important, they're not validated, then it's easy to, for them to be deemed irrelevant or ignored and not paid attention to within the body.

And so then by the time you get to high school, Like people, these kids don't know their emotional state. I'll say that the like Alexa find peace and like being able to key in to what my body is telling me is something that I, as a 29 year old in the field, who's autistic, I'm actively working on this and it's hard.

And so we, I can only imagine being [00:34:00] 12 or being 15 and

And yeah having Having a therapist like ask okay, how are you feeling like a lot of kids, a lot of autistic kids that age, just shut down. Hate that question because it it's so overwhelming emotions are overwhelming. They don't know how to respond to it. Yeah, there's a a lot of barriers in the way there.

And of course here's the societal piece ableism the like ASA and the autistic self-advocacy network. Those other research like about the views of the autistic community it's pretty solid that. Ableism is a huge barrier to fostering a positive, self-identity, which leads to like positive mental health outcomes.

And society, places, stigma on older autistic children and [00:35:00] adults regulating in ways that are viewed as more obviously autistic. And it is really hard to for autistic teenagers who want to, who often want to fit in and not be seen differently to I acknowledge and accept and then act, act on the need that or the thing the realization that they yeah, chewing on fingers and scraping the skin off of, the ends on like nail beds that if you had some sort of like chewy or something like that in those situations, or when you feel like doing that, like that helps.

But first of all, a lot of 15 year olds, they don't want to chewy. And then also a lot of parents, they don't want their 15 year old to have a chewy. But that's just one example. [00:36:00] All sorts of all sorts of like ways to regulate that both the sensory system or emotionally that are like no flapping and jumping and rocking and pacing.

And all of these things is that by the time kids are a teenager has been booted out of them. Or be in that, be in don't mean physically be in, but yeah, be an out of them. So it's really hard to like reteach. It's really hard to reteach those things, especially if an ablest society

Venita Litvack: tells them that it's not okay.

Can you, I know ableism is another one of those topics that we could talk a lot about, but would you mind giving like a little definition of that in case someone is not familiar if they've heard the term, but they're still not really sure. What does

Rachel Dorsey: that mean? Yeah, so able is is a view that [00:37:00] those with typical abilities are superior to those with disabilities.

And also that those with disabilities don't deserve the equal opportunities for for and inclusion and these sorts of things that people with typical abilities. I have access to. Okay. Thank you

Venita Litvack: for that. I think that's a really good overview of that topic. And if people are interested in learning more, they can go and take a look, but this was really informative.

Is there anything else that you want to add before we go to our last

Rachel Dorsey: question? No, that's not really. That is that's pretty, I talked a lot about these things I'm eager to talk about like how to help.

Venita Litvack: [00:38:00] Awesome. Yet. We're just moving on up. Perfect. All right. So let's talk about the ways to overcome these difficulties.

We're going to end on a very positive note.

Rachel Dorsey: Yeah. Oh, something I didn't really talk about, but is important and supported by the literature is that the language that we use when talking about autism is important the autistic community overwhelmingly prefers some variation of identity, first language.

So autistic person also on the spectrum is a popular one for some autistic people. But the, by far the least popular is. It's like the person first. So have autism get Rachel has autism. Rachel has autism spectrum disorder, that sort of thing. And [00:39:00] also the puzzle piece is often used to represent autism due to autism speaks being a large organization run by not autistic people claiming to help.

Autistic people. And yeah, the puzzle piece originated from them. But and it represents that autistic people aren't whole, that there is a piece missing, hence the puzzle piece. And that there's research that the puzzle piece actually ha people have a negative connotation with the puzzle piece.

The autistic community prefers a gold infinity symbol. To represent autism, whereas like the neurodiversity movement, which doesn't just include autism includes all types of [00:40:00] neurodivergency is it's the rainbow infinity symbol, but autism specifically to gold infinity symbol. And so there's research to show that these are important for how others perceive autistic people.

I repeated this alexithymia so moving on, I repeated the intellects that the IVF and terror assumption awareness part here because it is just so freaking important to emphasize T to help To help autistic people from a young age be able to identify bodily sensations and and then identify what that means.

And it starts with, if you're thinking of like, how do you do that with really young children, it starts with with like modeling like modeling, like I've been, I start with modeling how, like my own. [00:41:00] Co-regulation and kind of modeling, like what my body modeling, talking about what my body is doing or using a device to, to, say what my body's doing, what like what my T just to, to, to orient children, to like what their bodies are doing oh, my hands are starting to flap right now.

Oh, I want to jump right now. It starts with kind of orienting children to that. And then and then from there you can build okay what does that mean? Like ax, some this game is super exciting or dur during like maybe some slight dysregulation, negative dysregulation, like the child's getting slightly frustrated orient to I can see what the child's doing and then coat, do a little bit of imitating what the child is doing.

[00:42:00] Like at my body's kind a stiff right now getting frustrated over here, this is just too much. So putting a label on that and then working towards okay if I'm my. Body feels stiff. And my my feet feel like kicking means I'm frustrated and then tried to, trying to figure out, okay what is causing the frustration?

How do we act on that? I can talk about this sort of a thing quite, quite a lot, but that's a kind of an oversimplification of how it goes even at a young age, working on it at an older age is no matter what, it's going to be slow at an older age, it's even harder because the being in touch.

Body is, has been so invalidated so many times. And to the last point here, I would say, be [00:43:00] okay with it taking time. It takes a lot of time to to help autistic students who feel really bad about themselves. Feel like they're you feel like they're not worth it. They feel like they're bad.

They feel like they're annoying. I feel like they're obsessive. They don't even know what to do to feel better. It's going to take. Tie to foster a positive socio-emotional wellbeing and we need to be okay. We need to be okay with that. We need to accept that. It's not something that in an that means that the goals that we write for these sorts of things need to keep that in mind little milestones at a time, or a little, [00:44:00] yeah, little things at a time, because there's no way that I, that a 15 year old autistic 15 year old, who all they know is when they're angry and when they're happy, there's no way that they're going to be able to in the moment, identify what they need.

Identify their emotion, identify what they need act on it. That's I just asking way too much. I can't even do that. Yeah, I'd be okay with it taking time and also, yeah. Education and discussions with parents and other professionals. There's a lot of P yeah. Parents and professionals that the do want to work with like work on like self-advocacy goals.

Want to work on like socio-emotional goals on on the estate on sorry, on these things. But they either want it to happen, within the [00:45:00] next IEP period, they want it to happen using A lot of like behavioral methodologies. They, so there, there could be various barriers with some parents and professionals and the education discussions that you have with those people also need to keep in mind where they are at, in their in their journey or in the, like in their mindset.

So I don't, I hardly ever come in and being like radically neurodiversity affirming because that's going to. To be honest, scare, scare a lot of people away. I need to meet people where they're at and help guide to a to

to eventually being more where I'm at as well as, listening to what they have to say, [00:46:00] keeping their priorities in mind too. So it goes both ways. Yeah,

Venita Litvack: that makes sense. I agree. I think that the alexithymia and the interest of awareness could be a whole other presentation in and of itself.

I have so many questions like revolving around my head, but I know that people are going to have questions as well. So I think that a lot of that will get answered in the Q and a before we wrap up. Is there anything else that you wanted to share?

Rachel Dorsey: Nope, not really. Just thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, since this has been nice and it's a really important topic, it's very personal. It's a really personal topic because being, being autistic myself I think people see, might see me being like autistic SLP and like positive socio-emotional identity, but like you people don't see me at my dark [00:47:00] moments when like my, my purposefully, I don't, put that out there.

And I think it's nice to talk about how. These things are really hard and take time. And that especially means that early on, they need to be, they need to be fostered.

Venita Litvack: Absolutely. No, thank you for sharing that and sharing your personal experience. This is so incredibly important and it is a different way.

I feel like then some of the ways that we typically target like social skills in therapy this is a better way. And I think that it's something that we really need to adopt, but I agree with you that we're having, we have to change a lot of minds in the process, but I like how you suggested kind of meeting them halfway.

We have to do that with AAC most of the time as well. Yeah I just, I'm so [00:48:00] grateful that you suggested this topic. And, clearly I wasn't totally sure what we were getting into. Cause I said social, emotional socio-emotional, but this has been eye-opening and super helpful. And, it's, it aligns with a lot of the messaging out there just in general with raising toddlers nowadays.

Speaking of early intervention, just being respectful teaching them how to label their emotions and that all emotions are okay. And we need to jump on board with our therapy as well, and just respecting our clients and writing goals that are going to be more functional for them. I'm. So is this type of areas targeted in your goal writing course as well?

Rachel Dorsey: It is. Yeah. It's actually a quite big component of it. I wish the courses seven, seven hours in counselor even more, CEO's I wish I was able to go into more detail about how it is. I [00:49:00] do discuss it. It's going to take a long time for these types of things, like for these goals to be for it to generalize, to be at like in the moment.

I wish I was able to go more in depth about about like just how hard it is as I don't autistic person who's like still, does it know how they're feeling? A decent chunk of the time. As like working on it, my like myself and with therapy, but yeah, the course does cover the, like the goal writing aspect of it.

And when is it an appropriate goal and how do you modify, these sorts of goals, depending on the age and the where the client is?

Venita Litvack: Okay. Awesome. We'll share that. We'll share the originally on your introduction slide and we can share in the additional resources [00:50:00] section as well in case anybody is interested, because I think it's going to be extremely helpful for anybody's practice.

But here are all of the references that you alluded to today, and this will be, this handout will be provided or the PowerPoint will be provided. So people can refer to those at another time. And then if anybody isn't already following you, this is your Instagram handle. Is there anywhere else that you want to point them to?

If they're looking for more information

Rachel Dorsey: regarding like finding me my website is Dorsey, slp.com. No art stores, sophie.com. Want to see what's on.

Venita Litvack: Great. Thank you so much, Rachel. This has been incredibly informative and all open up the Q and a now so that we can answer some of those questions that people

Rachel Dorsey: might have.

All right. It sounds good.