This episode is presented by Mightier.

In 1988, Jaime and Tracy Parent were stationed in England when their son Bryan was diagnosed with autism. There was nothing out there. No resources, no roadmap, no Rain Man yet. What they found instead was other families, and Jaime says that has been their best resource ever since.

Jaime is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel with twenty years of service, and a family that moved every three years. Every move meant starting over. New doctors, new teachers, new school district, and a lot of guesswork about which house to buy so they landed in the county with the services Bryan needed.

In this Seen and Heard conversation, he talks about the day clinicians at a UCLA residency program asked what their goals for Bryan were. A job, drive a car, balance a checkbook. He says the looks on their faces were pure pity. You poor delusional people. Bryan is an adult now. He works at Publix, he lives at home, and he competes in Special Olympics bowling, soccer, and basketball.

He also tells the wrestling story. Bryan made the team at Oakland Mills High School in Maryland with no shortcuts, wrestled heavyweight, won matches, and went to regionals, states, and nationals. The first time Jaime watched him wrestle, Bryan got pinned in about thirty seconds. His dad calls it one of the biggest wins of their lives.

Then there is the part aimed at the rest of us. Jaime's advice to other autism families is four words: don't become a wallflower. His message about bureaucracy is that there are big boulders everywhere, but get past them and you will find angels. And his message to military families is one you need before you separate. Autism does not end with your military service.

Jaime B. Parent and Elizabeth Tracy Parent are the authors of The Mission at Home: Navigating Military Assignments, TRICARE, Education, Benefits, and Everyday Life with Your Child on the Autism Spectrum. Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

SPONSOR

This episode is presented by Mightier. Mightier is a biofeedback video game program developed and tested at Boston Children's Hospital. Your kid wears a heart rate monitor and plays games that get harder when they get dysregulated and easier when they calm down, so they practice regulation in their own body at a moment when they can feel it working. Visit mightier.com and use code theautismdad22 for 10% off.

Rob's book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, comes out December 29, 2026. Preorder at theautismdad.com/book.

This episode is sponsored by PESI.

Nicole Carbone's son Luca is almost four, nonspeaking, and diagnosed with Level 2 autism. When he can't tell her what he needs, he bangs his head on whatever is closest. His pain tolerance is high enough that the thing strangers always say, that he'll stop before he really hurts himself, is just not true.

In this Seen and Heard conversation, Nicole talks about the communication barrier underneath the self injury, the AAC device she hopes will ease it, and what it was like to separate her twins into different preschools so Luca could get what he needed. She also talks about the best 40 seconds of her life so far, the day he looked right at her and said "hi mommy" for the first time, and she got it on video.

Then there's the part aimed at the rest of us. A stranger at the park watched Luca hum and asked her if he ever shuts that motor off. And inside the autism community, Nicole says the hardest thing about a Level 2 diagnosis is not the diagnosis. It's the comparing. Her advice is blunt and it applies to every level: don't compare your kid to any other kid.

Nicole is the founder and president of The NEST Project, a nonprofit serving families in Pennsylvania and Ohio that buys what insurance won't cover for kids with special needs. Find them at nestcares.org.

SPONSOR
This episode is sponsored by PESI. Their 2026 Kids and Teens Autism Symposium runs November 18 and 19, online, and it is neuro-affirming the whole way through. There is a full session on demand avoidance, for every kid who got called defiant when it was really their nervous system, and another on kids who mask so well they get treated for anxiety instead of what is actually going on. Two hundred dollars for both days, up to 18 CE hours, and a 30 day replay if you cannot be there live. Built for clinicians, and parents can register too. pesi.com/theautismdad

Rob's book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, comes out December 29, 2026. Preorder at theautismdad.com/book.

Melvin Lopez is autistic. So is his five year old son, Mateo. And the first thing Melvin does in this conversation is take apart the assumption that those two facts give them something in common.

"If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism." That is a saying in his house.

He talks about a day that starts at 4:30 in the morning because his son does not sleep. Not up and getting ready. Up and fully charged. He talks about fighting his own autism at the exact moment he is trying to parent his son's. And he gives the best description of coping skills I have heard in a long time, which is that nobody buys a good tool for the garage hoping to use it every day, because using it every day means something is always broken.

Then I asked him the question this series is named after. Do you feel seen and heard?

He said, "I feel like I'm tolerated."

He was just as honest about the autism community as he was about everyone outside it. That is why I wanted this one out.

Melvin lives in Clarksville, Tennessee, with his wife and their four children. He was diagnosed autistic as an adult, at Level 2, and has a background in the military. His son Mateo is five, is also Level 2, is in kindergarten, and is in ABA therapy.

Level 2 is the designation that reads "requires substantial support." Melvin served, he works, and he is raising four kids. Both of those things are true at the same time, and that is most of what this episode is about.

SPONSOR

Thanks to Lovebug Probiotics for supporting this episode. Probiotics by age, from babies through adults, focused on digestive and immune support. Go to lovebug.com and use code THEAUTISMDAD20 for 20% off.

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

ABOUT SEEN AND HEARD

Seen and Heard is a short series from The Autism Dad Podcast. Real families get about fifteen minutes to describe their actual lives, in their own words, without anyone smoothing it out for them.

MY BOOK

So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism: Real Talk, Support, and Next Steps from a Dad Who's Been There is out December 29, 2026 from Fair Winds Press. If your child has just been diagnosed with autism, this is your compassionate first step guide from someone who has lived it. Preorder at theautismdad.com/book

MORE FROM ME

Everything I do lives at theautismdad.com. More Seen and Heard episodes at listen.theautismdad.com

Melvin does not have public social accounts, so there is nothing to tag.

Dr. Theoharis Theoharides is back, and this time we got into the stuff that has been all over the news. Leucovorin. Tylenol. Benadryl. Underneath the headlines there is actual science, and Dr. Theo walks through what inflammation, mast cells, and folate really have to do with our kids.

The throughline is simple. A diagnosis is a label, not a treatment plan, and there is measurable biology underneath that label that most workups never look at.

Dr. Theo holds five degrees from Yale, spent 37 years at Tufts, has published more than 500 peer reviewed papers, and was the first researcher to connect mast cells to autism. He now runs the Center of Excellence for Neuroinflammation Research in Florida.

In this episode:

- What a mast cell actually is, and why the ones in the brain matter
- Propionic acid, and why it is sitting in most kids' cereal
- The four things he wants every autism workup to cover
- The folate test most kids never get, and why normal bloodwork can still be wrong
- A 30-second test you can run at your kitchen table tonight
- Why constipation changes behavior more than almost anything he has seen
- What to do when your pediatrician refuses to order a test
- How to tell a real supplement from an expensive one
- Twenty years of autism fads, and why stem cells do not work
- When to stop something that is not working

His most honest moment: "I hate the term therapeutic because I don't know what I'm treating."

His best one: "The brain is working. The fact that they don't speak doesn't mean anything."

RESOURCES
FRAT, the Folate Receptor Autoantibody Test. Must be ordered by a physician.
MTHFR gene analysis.
RBC folate and RBC B12, to see what is getting inside the cells.
Flat abdominal X-ray, when behavior spikes and nobody can explain it.

FIND DR. THEO
drtheoharides.com, which has an intake form.
Instagram: @drtheoharides
He sees patients in Fort Lauderdale the third week of each month, adolescents and adults only.

FIND ROB
theautismdad.com
The book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, is out December 29. Preorder at theautismdad.com/book/

DISCLAIMER
Dr. Theoharides is a physician and PhD pharmacologist with five degrees from Yale and more than 500 peer reviewed publications. This conversation is education, not personalized medical advice. He names specific tests, supplements, medications, and doses, and he gives them as clinical context. The right number for any individual child depends on age, weight, and labs. Do not start, stop, or change anything based on a podcast. Talk to your child's doctor.

Deena Nathan's five year old son Hayden is autistic and non-speaking, and he's fluent on his AAC device. In this episode she walks through a day that starts with therapy at 8am, the win she's still not over, and the one thing she wants people to understand about a kid who doesn't talk.

She's also honest about something most people won't say out loud. She has real support, good family, friends who get it, and it's still lonely. Both of those things are true at once, and that might be the most useful thing in this conversation.

What you'll hear

00:00 Welcome

About the guest

Deena Fierstein Nathan is a Certified Life Coach at DFN Connected Growth Coaching, where she works with parents of kids with unique needs. She lives in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago with her husband Kevin and their two kids. She stopped working when Hayden was diagnosed and went all in, including taking classes with his AAC device company so she could use it with him.

Website: dfnconnectedgrowth.com

Sponsors

This episode is sponsored. Mightier is a biofeedback emotional regulation program for kids developed at Boston Children's Hospital. Use code theautismdad22 for 10% off at theautismdad.com/mightier-review.

Best Part Kids is a sensory-friendly multivitamin for selective eaters created by dietitian Brittyn Coleman. Use code THEAUTISMDAD for 10% off at BestPartKids.com.

About your host

Rob Gorski is the founder of The Autism Dad. His book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, is out December 29 2026. theautismdad.com/book

Erin Lamb has been a speech language pathologist for 26 years. She runs a Baltimore nonprofit with its own school for autistic kids. She has a Ph.D. She still missed her own daughter's autism.

Why does autism get missed in girls? Most of the foundational autism research was done on boys. As Erin puts it, everything she knew about autism she learned from boys in the 90s, because that's what the research was done on. That research shaped the training, and the training shaped what people picture when they hear the word autism. Girls who talk early, who mask well, or whose struggles get read as anxiety often reach their teens before anyone says it out loud.

This is a Seen and Heard episode, so Erin gets the floor. She walks Rob through what a day actually looks like in a house with a kid in autistic burnout, with a PDA profile and ARFID, where separation anxiety is the most clinically significant thing in the room. She's honest about what it costs her. "People are like, what are you doing this weekend? And my answer is always caregiving. Because I do not know. I cannot plan."

Then she tells us what changed. She calls it outsourcing the panic. If the school professional isn't panicking, why is she? She handed the worry to the people whose job it is to worry, and her daughter started coming back to her within weeks.

She also gives the best description of an autistic kid this show has had. In the wrong environment it's like parenting all the kids from Willy Wonka at once. In the right one, with the right accommodations and supports, her kid is Charlie.

WHAT YOU'LL HEAR

• Why a speech language pathologist with 26 years of practice missed autism in her own daughter
• What a day really looks like with a kid in autistic burnout, a PDA profile, and ARFID
• What outsourcing the panic means, and how she started doing it
• Who her daughter actually is: the Lorax, Willy Wonka, and Charlie
• What she wishes the outside world, and the autism community, understood

TERMS FROM THIS EPISODE

Autism in girls: autism is underdiagnosed in girls largely because the foundational research was conducted on boys, so the diagnostic picture most clinicians trained on describes boys. Girls who mask well or present as anxious are routinely missed.

PDA, pathological demand avoidance: a profile in which an autistic person's nervous system treats demands as threats, even small or pleasant ones. Approaches that add pressure usually make it worse.

ARFID, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder: more than picky eating. A child avoids whole categories of food by texture, smell, or fear, to the point that nutrition and growth are affected.

Autistic burnout: exhaustion and loss of previously held skills following a long stretch of masking, sensory overload, and unmet needs. Recovery takes fewer demands and real rest, not more pushing.

Outsourcing the panic: Erin's strategy of handing specific worries to the professionals whose job it is to hold them, instead of carrying every worry herself.

ABOUT ERIN LAMB

Erin Lamb is the President and CEO of Gateway Maryland, the Baltimore nonprofit formerly known as HASA, which has served Maryland families for nearly 100 years. She's a licensed speech language pathologist, holds a Ph.D. in public policy, and is the mom of two neurodivergent teenage daughters.

SPONSOR

This episode is sponsored by Mightier, a biofeedback emotional-regulation gaming program for kids, developed and tested at Boston Children's Hospital. Kids wear a heart-rate monitor and play games that get harder when they get dysregulated and easier as they calm down, so they practice regulating themselves in the moment. Read Rob's full review at theautismdad.com/mightier-review and use code theautismdad22 for 10% off. #ad

RESOURCES

• Gateway Maryland: gatewaymaryland.org
• Rob's full Mightier review: theautismdad.com/mightier-review
• More Seen and Heard episodes: listen.theautismdad.com

Find Rob at theautismdad.com, and on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at The Autism Dad.

“Most people don’t even tag her with autism, because she’s smart, she’s so articulate.” Lauren Murray

Lauren Murray is a New Jersey mom of two, and her daughters are almost twenty years apart. Her oldest is about to turn 21, a UCF graduate thriving in Florida. Her youngest is four, level two autistic, with sensory processing disorder and a short list of safe foods. She is also, in Lauren’s words, doing fantastic.

In this Seen and Heard episode, Lauren gives Rob an honest look at a day that starts at six in the morning and does not end until nine at night. Her husband works long days, so most of the week she is her daughter’s sole care provider. Lauren is a former teacher who kept a tight schedule at home, and school does it even better, down to the minute, and her daughter loves it.

Then there is the part so many parents will feel in their chest. Lauren’s daughter is bright and verbal, she speaks better than most of her peers, and that is exactly why people do not believe she is autistic. At the park, one mom packs up her kids and leaves every time she sees them coming, because Lauren’s daughter does not understand personal space and just wants to play. In public, a meltdown gets read as a bratty toddler, when the truth is they have done everything from A to Z to get ahead of it.

And the win. Flying home from a day trip to visit her oldest in Florida, their flight got canceled. They spent the night in the airport, then got emergency landed at an airport none of them had ever seen. Her four-year-old took the whole thing in stride, iPad, comfort snacks, a blanket Lauren packed just in case, a bench, and a kid who just went with the flow.

Lauren also names something a lot of families hit. In New Jersey, the services show up the moment you are diagnosed, but if you do not use them inside six months, they close your file. Not because you will never need help, just because you did not need it that week.

What you’ll hear:

“She took it better than I did.” Lauren Murray

This episode is sponsored by Mightier, a biofeedback emotional-regulation gaming program for kids, developed and tested at Boston Children’s Hospital. Kids play games that get harder when they get dysregulated and easier as they calm down, so they practice regulating themselves in the moment. Read Rob’s full review at theautismdad.com/mightier-review and use code theautismdad22 for 10% off. #ad

About Rob:

Rob Gorski is the founder of The Autism Dad, a blog and podcast dedicated to supporting parents raising kids on the autism spectrum. As a dad of three autistic sons with over 25 years of experience, Rob brings lived experience, honesty, and heart to every conversation.

Rob’s book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, lands December 29, 2026 from Fair Winds Press. Updates and preorder: theautismdad.com/book

Where to find Rob:

You can find me at theautismdad.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at The Autism Dad, and on YouTube at The Autism Dad. New episodes drop every week at listen.theautismdad.com.

"Accommodating these children is like giving them a lifeline, and these children are worthy of it."

Christine Bauereis didn't find out she was autistic and ADHD until her 30s. The clarity came the way it does for so many parents, after her own kids were diagnosed. She looked at her son's reports, then at her own childhood, and the whole picture finally made sense.

Christine is a mom of three in central Massachusetts, part of a blended family. Her 14-year-old, her 10-year-old son Archer, who has ADHD, and her youngest, River, who is six and autistic. River is level two, verbal with moderate support needs, and as she puts it, just wonderful.

In this Seen and Heard episode, Christine gives Rob an honest look at what their days hold. The mornings that used to be a battle, before a new psychiatrist, an ADHD diagnosis, and medication that she calls life-changing turned school refusal into a kid who pops up asking if he has school today. The afternoons that get hard, because River masks all day and lets it all out when he's finally home and safe. And a win that will stay with you, a three-hour food drive she and River did together for families in Worcester, the first full day they ever got through without a single meltdown.

But the heart of this one is Christine's voice as an advocate. When her district's entire SEPAC resigned because the district wouldn't collaborate, she didn't go quiet. She stood up at a town meeting and said the thing every parent in that room needed to hear. Special education isn't a choice. It is a right.

What you'll hear:

Finding out she's autistic and ADHD in her 30s, after her kids

How ADHD medication turned school refusal into excitement

Why masking all day leads to afternoon meltdowns at home

The Worcester food drive that became their first meltdown-free day

When the whole SEPAC resigned, and what she did next

Why she begs parents to listen to autistic adults

"No matter what level it is, it's still hard. Everyone's hard is hard." Christine Bauereis

This episode is sponsored by Time To Evaluate. If you've tried to get your child, or yourself, evaluated for autism or ADHD, you know the wait can be months, even years. Time To Evaluate does it with live telehealth, often within two weeks, from home. A self-paced intake in your own words, one licensed psychologist start to finish, and a formal report you can use at school. One flat fee, no waiting room. Better outcomes, without the wait. Visit timetoevaluate.com. #ad

About Rob:

Rob Gorski is the founder of The Autism Dad, a blog and podcast dedicated to supporting parents raising kids on the autism spectrum. As a dad of three autistic sons with over 25 years of experience, Rob brings lived experience, honesty, and heart to every conversation.

My NEW book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, lands December 29, 2026 from Fair Winds Press. Updates and preorder: theautismdad.com/book

Where to find Rob:

You can find me at theautismdad.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at The Autism Dad, and on YouTube at The Autism Dad. New episodes drop every week at listen.theautismdad.com.

"Stop comparing the hard. Start validating the hard." That one line from Heidi Price might be the whole episode.

Heidi spent years in the autism community before she was a mom. She worked as a recreational therapist, and she married into a family that knows autism well, with two brothers-in-law on the spectrum and two nephews too. She thought she understood it. Then she had her own kids, and she learned how much the level one experience can humble even someone who works in the field.

Heidi and her husband live in North Carolina with their three kids. Two of the three are autistic, and both are level one. Her six-year-old son has autism, ADHD, and a PDA, or pathological demand avoidance, profile. Her five-year-old daughter was diagnosed at three and spent about a year and a half in ABA therapy. Her youngest, who is three, has severe food allergies. As Heidi puts it, it's a fun place at her house.

In this Seen and Heard episode, Heidi gives Rob a real, unscripted look at what their days actually hold. The morning rules you can't break. The clothing battles when the seasons change. The way her son and daughter can need the exact opposite things at the exact same time. And one recent win that will stick with you, where a couple of soda cans, a pair of new shoes, and three days of patience turned a meltdown into a victory lap.

But the heart of this one is Heidi's message about comparison. Every level of autism is hard. The level threes and the level ones. The non-verbal days and the principal-calling days. They can coexist, and one does not have to threaten the other. She's honest about the services gap too, about how her daughter could not get an IEP because she wasn't considered bad enough, even while she was still struggling.

What you'll hear:

"Everyone's hard is hard. We need to stop comparing the hard. We need to start validating the hard." Heidi Price

This episode is presented by Best Part Kids, a sensory-friendly multivitamin for selective eaters created by dietitian Brittyn Coleman. Use code THEAUTISMDAD for 10% off at BestPartKids.com. #ad

About Rob:

Rob Gorski is the founder of The Autism Dad, a blog and podcast dedicated to supporting parents raising kids on the autism spectrum. As a dad of three autistic sons with over 25 years of experience, Rob brings lived experience, honesty, and heart to every conversation.

Rob's book, So Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism, lands December 29, 2026 from Fair Winds Press. Updates and preorder: theautismdad.com/book

Where to find Rob:

You can find me at theautismdad.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at The Autism Dad, and on YouTube at The Autism Dad. New episodes drop every week at listen.theautismdad.com.

Where to find Heidi:

You can find Heidi on Instagram at @triple.a_mom, on Facebook at Triple A Mom, and on my website at www.tripleamom.net. I actually started a business to help families like ours with visual resources that actually work.

Mariam Shapera is a family doctor. In medical school, she got one lecture on autism, and it was clinical and deficit-focused. Then she became an autism mom, and everything she thought she knew got rewritten by her own son.