The Thrive with Aspergers Podcast

Did you know that Thrive with Autism/Aspergers has its very own reporting team?

Just kidding.

Michael and Cici, from TWAP054 Happy Aspergers Marriage Secrets, attended AspieCon this year.

And they graciously submitted their report of their time there.

What Is AspieCon?

According to their website,

AspieCon is everything you love about ComicCon combined with the best aspects of a community resource fair. It celebrates the incredibly diverse interests of people on the autism spectrum while also providing valuable resources and support for our awesome Aspies and Auties, their families, and their friends.

Dr. Frank Gaskill and Southeastern Psych help organize this convention.

What You’ll Learn

Aspies sharing their world with the outside public

Sensory free zones

Panels included the following topics:

* advanced cosplay techniques

* what to expect in therapy

* educational advocacy – how parents can navigate the educational systems via IEPs and help their child to take advantage of their skills and traits as a student with autism

* The Epiphany School of Charlotte – a unique school for students with Aspergers and other social communication differences

* a Question and Answer session with Aspie Teens – what it’s like to be on the spectrum as a teen

* Parenting on the spectrum – discussing the experiences, challenges, and joys of raising children on the spectrum

* How To Turn Your Passion Into a Career

* Autism After 18

* Employment for Aspies, and how many tech companies are recognizing the gifts of Aspies and Auties

* Celebrities and Famous People with Aspergers/Autism

* Courtney Love, Andy Warhol, Anthony Hopkins

* Athletes like Clay Marzo, Jessica Applegate, and David Campion

* Possible historical figures like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln

Final Impressions

Cici – it was interactive, out of the box, building a strong community, empowering individuals on the spectrum, not a disease, but a difference

Michael – it was a celebration of who you are as a person with Aspergers, squeeze every bit of who you are out of who you are

Join the Conversation

What topics would you most like covered on the show? Who would you like me to interview? Share you answer in the comments below or Ask me a question via my Contact Page.

Do you enjoy this podcast?

Become a Patron of the Thrive With Aspergers Podcast!

Subscribe to 

On April 2, we’ll be celebrating Autism Awareness Day.

Gratitude: Be Thankful For How Far Society Has Come

Autism Speaks is a polarizing organization!

To be sure, there’s a lot of misinformation coming out of there.

But it’s important to celebrate increased awareness of autism.

In the words of my colleague, Violet,

As I have observed over time,  Autism Speaks was a voice for those unable to speak. Any group that grows will eventually have conflicting priorities. It seems to me that if the whole world knows what blue lights and puzzle pieces are about- much has been accomplished. what is needed now is the next steps of awareness, the hows and whys of meaningful communication on all sides.

Autism Acceptance: The Next Step For Autism Day

Celebrating an autism day is not enough.  Awareness by itself is insufficient.

Apartheid was a system of segregation enforced by legislation.  It kept the white Afrikaaners in control as the dominant party from 1948 to 1994.  Through Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and struggles, democracy finally came to South Africa.

Through slavery, United States Caucasians controlled African people from 1619 – 1865.  However, the civil rights movement took years of constant struggle to overcome the effects of racism, culminating in the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

In the same way that racism has held peoples hostage in societies, misinformation often leads to discrimination and inequity for minority groups in our country: including autistics.

We need to combine autism awareness with autism acceptance.

Everyone should transform autism awareness day into autism acceptance action every single day.

I’m indebted to Amethyst Schaber and Shannon Des Roches Rosa Souza for showing us how to honor autism awareness day with acceptance and action.

In this video, Amethyst Schaber, a 24-year-old autistic woman and activist, opened my eyes to the difference between autism awareness and autism acceptance.

First, autism awareness day has too often spread misinformation about autistics.  Many of the people who’ve promoted autism awareness come from a place of love, but from a limited point of view.

Too often, those who promote autism awareness think that autism needs to be cured, or loved ones who see autism as something to be cured.

Even though the effort to raise awareness comes from a place of love, this view of autism has mistakenly spread the view of autistics as “sick, broken, missing, kidnapped, suffocating under layer of autism that parents have to fight and combat.”  (quote from Amethyst Schaber)

What we need, instead, just as the civil rights movement needed minority voices, is autism awareness with acceptance.

How can we promote autism acceptance?

Take the negative brand of awareness and turn it around.

1.  Read up on the history of autism acceptance month. 

Here’s the full story.

2. Highlight autistic people and voices, both verbal and non-verbal, rather than non-autistic people talking bout autistic people without them — enabling non-autistics to view autism from an autistic’s point of view.

Call to Action:

Tweet out these articles, whose authors deserved to be heard:

[Tweet “Check Out These Top Ten #Autism Blogs, by Spectrum Writers  http://bit.ly/10-autism-blogs “]

[Tweet “Listen to the Loud Mute Radio Show http://bit.ly/loud-mute-show #asd #awareness”]

[Tweet “”Autistics are full, whole people, who possess full personhood, deserving the same thoughts as every other perso...

Anger Management and Molding Clay

All my life I’ve had an explosive temper with a hair trigger.

Can anyone suggest a way – any way to keep it under wraps and on a tight leash?

Anonymous, Wrong Planet

I love the picture in this article.

I picked it because I think of learning to manage anger as a skill much like creating a pot out of clay.

Our anger is an emotion – raw, untamed, unfamiliar.

If we’ve never created pottery, we’ll make a mess out of the lump of clay, which represents anger.

But if we learn pottery making skills from a skilled craftsman, we can learn to make progressively better creations out of the clay.

In the same way, you and I can become progressively better at managing anger by applying techniques from those who have learned to manage their anger.

Unmanaged Anger Costs Us

As I shared in the last episode, unmanaged anger costs us!

Unmanaged anger (yelling, throwing things, even hitting people or ourselves):

* Destroys our personal relationships

* Destroys our school or work relationships

* Very often makes bad situations worse

* Anger often leads to aggression (either verbal or physical)

“So What Can We Do To Improve Our Anger Management?”

Here are 3 anger management techniques I gathered via a combination of reading up on autistics and Aspergians stories and also from the general research literature.

Apply these three techniques with a growth mindset and I promise you you’ll see better results with your anger management.

Anger Management Technique 1 –  Self Awareness 

Self-awareness is the first key technique to help us manage our anger.

Self-awareness, according to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, defines self-awareness as “knowing one’s internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions.” (Source, Why Self-Awareness Matters, and How You Can Be More Self-Aware).

According to researchers David. R. Vago and David A. Silbersweig, from the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA,

“through training in FA, OM, and EE styles of meditation, a sustainable healthy mind is proposed to be supported—reducing maladaptive emotions and cognitions common to most ordinary experience, such as lustful desire, greed, anger, hatred, worry, etc., increasing pro-social dispositions (e.g., compassion, empathy, and forgiveness) toward self and other, reducing attachments to thoughts and feelings, and removing biases inherent in habitual forms of cognition.” (source, article, Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness).

Bottom line: As we improve our self-awareness, we’re able to reduce “knee-jerk” unhealthy reactions to ange...

Online learning never sleeps.

It’s always there for you.

You don’t need to travel, you don’t need to get dressed up.  All you need is a computer and some spare time.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing 7 Online Learning Links to help you increase your life skills.

Perhaps you’re new to the autism community, whether you received a late diagnosis of Aspergers/autism, or your child did, or you’re a professional new to autism.

What I’d Like You To Do With These Online Learning Links

First, adopt a growth mindset.  This just means that you say to yourself, “Perhaps I’m not as good as I’d like to be at social skills (for example).  It’s okay.  I’m going to spend 1 hour a week learning as much as I can about social skills via one of these online learning links, and I’ll get much better than I am now!”

Second, repeat the first thing – keep on learning!

7 Online Learning Links

1. Autism Internet Modules

Autism Internet Modules is a site organized by the Ohio Department of Education and various other notable autism non-profit organizations.

All module content has been written by ASD experts from across the U.S., including the Arizona Department of Education, the Indiana Resource Center for Autism, and the University of Miami Center for Autism and Related Disorders.

2.  Second Life (?)

The jury is out on this one.  I’ve heard and read both positive and negative reviews of this online platform.  If you know of a better low cost/free virtual reality platform on which to practice social and other life skills, let me know in the chat button on the lower right of every page of this site.

I explored this site because of this article from The Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas Dallas.

Autistic children were paired with a coach in a virtual learning environment

“Neurocognitive testing showed significant gains in emotional recognition, understanding the perspective of others and the ability to problem solve.” (Source: https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2230/metafocus-interview-with-maria-johnson-of-ut-dallas-virtual-reality-social-cognition-training-department)

This article from the American Psychological Association made me think that maybe we can adopt a platform like Second Life to help each other learn the same types of social skills that kids are learning.

3. College Preparation and Success

This course is self-paced and was originally designed for students who were seeking services from disability learning centers at different colleges.

It’s only $19 [I’m not an affiliate].  Consider buying it even if you’re not a student!  There are resiliency skills, social skills, and other learning modules that will make your purchase worth the price.

4.

Abuse – it’s a big word that’s hard to talk about.  Aspergian and autistic women can find themselves particularly vulnerable to it.

Awareness is the greatest way to reduce your likelihood of becoming a victim.

In this episode, Dr. Liane Holliday Wiley shares her own hard-earned experiences and lessons with us.

Today’s Guest

Dr. Liane Holliday Willey

Website: http://www.aspie.com/

Twitter: Aspie101

You’ll Learn:

4 Types of Abuse You Need To Understand

What is abuse?

Here’s an extensive listing of the different types of abuse, listed by Wikipedia.

In this episode, Dr. Willey covered four types of abuse.

* Sexual Abuse

* Physical Abuse

* Economic Abuse

* Emotional Abuse

She speaks candidly about her own experiences with these different types of abuse.

By listening to these examples, you can empower yourself to be alert for these types of abuse in your relationships and guard against them.

Resources:

Sexual Abuse Resource – About Sexual Assault

Definition of Physical Abuse (and how to get treatment)

Article from the Thinking Person’s Guide To Autism – Identifying Good People and Avoiding Bad People: How Can An Autistic Person Stay Safe?  by Maxfield Sparrow.

Economic Abuse Defined

Live Bold and Bloom article – 30 Signs of Emotional Abuse

Dr. Liane Holliday Willey’s books:

Pretending To Be Normal

Safety Skills For Aspergers Women

I’ll be sending a few more resources in my newsletter.  If you haven’t subscribed, do so now to receive those extra resources!

Copyright: kmiragaya / 123RF Stock Photo

I want you to imagine something with me.

Imagine that you are told that you need to learn to drive a car.

You’re taught how to brake, how to use your mirrors, and how to stay on the road.

But pretend with me that your instructor never taught you about the rules of the road.

He never told you that you need to let the person on your right go first at a four way stop.

You’d feel like you only got part of the education of driving!

It’s the same thing with social skills training.

You need to understand the context within social skills fits.

And that’s where social thinking comes in.

Today’s Guest:

Michelle Garcia Winner

Website:

Social Thinking

Twitter:

socialthinking

You’ll Learn:

* Who is Michelle Garcia Winner, and how did she develop the concept of social thinking

* What social thinking is, as compared to social skills

* The metaphor of the social brain versus the science brain

* Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Communication Profiles

* Practical steps to improve your social competency

* The importance of developing a growth mindset when learning social thinking.

Resources:

Social Thinking Articles on this blog

Social Thinking Channel on YouTube

Find a professional trained in social thinking methods here

Join the Conversation

What topics would you most like covered on the show?

Who would you like me to interview?

Share you answer in the comments below or Ask me a question via my Contact Page.

Also, please leave an honest review for The Thrive with Aspergers Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated!

They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them.

Did You Enjoy This Episode?

Subscribe to the Thrive with Aspergers Podcast via Stitcher, iTunes, or RSS

Please leave a review on iTunes!  Your positive reviews will help drive awareness of the podcast so that many more can see it!

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

 

What is regulation and why is it so important for kids, teens, and adults both on and off the spectrum?

Key Takeaways Regarding This Zones of Regulation Podcast Episode:

* Neurological differences in the autism brain can impact the ability to control impulses and emotions

*  The Zones of Regulation Curriculum was researched and developed by Ms. Leah Keypers specifically for autistic people.  (But I say the Zones work for everyone.  In fact, I’m using it for my own personal growth and development.  Listen to the episode to find out how.

* Learning the zones of regulation can give you tools to develop emotional regulation for yourself.

Get The Bonus Content:  Sign in Below for Free

Check out a list of resources regarding the zones of regulation.

Do you fear hospitals, doctors, and/or medical procedures?

Here’s what one of our Thrive with Autism/Aspergers community members said one day:

“Hi guys. I have to get surgery Tuesday for my foot (running injury) and I’m anxious. Any tips? I hate blood draws and IVs. Mostly I just don’t know how surgery really works, like how do they control the bleeding so I don’t bleed out? I’ve never had surgery just many endoscopies.”

Everybody needs to know about medical phobias, or treatment anxiety, because lack of knowledge fans the flames of anxiety.

What Is Treatment Anxiety?

Guess what?  You’re not alone if you have fears of hospitals, medicine, or surgery/surgical procedures.

There’s even a name for these fears.

Nosocomephobia is the name of the phobia relating to the fear of hospitals. Tomophobia is a fear of surgery or surgical operations. Pharmacophobia is a fear of medicine.  source – 5 Ways to Cure Hospital Anxiety, Surgery Fear, Fear of Medicine

Fear of medical procedures falls under a broader category of  fears, called “Blood, Injection, and Injury Phobias”.

Formally, medical fear is defined (by Steward and Steward, see Further reading) as “any experience that involves medical personnel or procedures involved in the process of evaluating or modifying health status in traditional health care settings”.[1]  

(source: Wikipedia)

Other medically related phobias include.

Fear of surgery

Fear of Dental Work

Fear of Doctors/Fear of Needles

Why Do People Have Medically Related Treatment Anxiety?

Here’s a number of reasons I uncovered from my reading:

* feeling out of control.

* genetics – according to researchers, phobias tend to run in families.

* a person may have experienced a past traumatic event at a hospital, whether a death of a loved one, or a diagnosis if a fatal disease.

* if a person struggles with sensory difficulties, being touched or dealing with fluorescents nights, then hospitals or clinics may make them uncomfortable.

What Can You Do To Reduce Treatment Anxiety?

Suggestions from My Thrive with Aspergers/Autism Group Members

Trust the doctor/dentist/medical professional

[Remember] they’re pros at what they do. I’d be nervous as well, but I know the people doing surgery these days have so much training and the methods are getting cleaner and more streamlined.   A few years ago my mom had a lung transplant. I was so nervous for her. The surgeon came out to meet with me just before the surgery to talk about the procedure. She was so kind, and she not only answered all of my questions, she showed me a lot of compassion. I bet you could request a meeting for yourself.

Educate The Professionals

Tell them you’re autistic. Explain that you’re anxious and that you’d like to have each step explained to you. If you’ll be staying longer than just for an outpatient procedure, bring earplugs and an eye-mask so you can control sensory input.

I found this, but it may be geared more toward kids.

http://www.autism.org.uk/pro…/health-workers/guidance.aspx

I am completely unable to navigate small talk.  I am great at introductions, public speaking, etc.  I just can’t seem to have a conversation that works.  Worse, I am often totally misunderstood.  Walter, Self Employed, Watchmaker (excerpted from Aspergers on the Job, by Rudy Simone).

Have you ever seen ants on a wooded path?  They parade down the path, and as they meet, they touch their antennae, communicating with each other.  That’s what small talk does for neurotypicals.  Small talk helps them feel comfortable with each other, builds relationships and trust, and helps them get along.

Now, have you ever heard of the science experiment in which mice receive random shocks?  After a while, they are stressed beyond belief.  Small talk is like those random electric shocks that make autism employment incredibly stressful for adults with Aspergers and high functioning autism.

Rudy Simone addresses small talk in her book, Aspergers on the Job.   Why is it so hard for people with Aspergers to tolerate?

In her chapter, The Big Consequences of Small Talk, she explains that people on the autism spectrum are practical people with narrow interests.  So it makes no sense to them to talk about something they aren’t interested in.  Second, small talk means different things to non-Aspergians/autistics versus Aspies.  Whereas small talk means safety and security to neurotypicals, small talk signals danger to Aspies.

Here are some tips from Rudy Simone for employees dealing with small talk and autism employment:

* Recognize the why behind your hostility toward small talk.  The information above should help both you and others understand why it’s hard for you.

* You can learn some short responses to “get you through” small talk.  Talking briefly about the sports or about the weather may take the pressure off of you to say something more creative, and you’ll gain a level of acceptance.

* Don’t judge non-autistics.  Realize that small talk is their way of communicating with each other.  While you don’t have to engage in it, don’t come across as judging others, because they’ll pick up on it.  [And non-autistics should not judge you, either]

* You may be able to shift the “small talk” to something more interesting.  But do it gradually, without being condescending.

* Start a blog.   Many adults with Aspergers are very gifted writers.  As you learn to express yourself in writing, you’ll perhaps gain confidence with expressing yourself in person.  And you’ll find that you connect with like minded, affirming Aspies and non-Aspies on the web.

* Holiday parties and other social outings can be stressful, but you may regret not going if you don’t try.  Socializing takes practice and training.  Seek advice from someone about what to wear.  Go to the outing with a trusted friend or partner.

* Seek social skills training help when you need it, or read books that will help you gradually improve your social interaction skills.  Here are some suggested books and sites:

* The Hidden Curriculum

* Improve Your Social Skills

* How to Talk to Anyone

Imagine trying to build a rocket by watching YouTube videos, talking on snapchat, or watching TV.

That would be hard!  And can you imagine what that rocket would look like once you were done?

In this episode, I’m speaking with Dr. Rachel Loftin, PhD, who’s an expert in discussing autism and sex.

She joined the Thrive with Aspergers podcast previously to talk about adult autism diagnosis.

In This Episode You’ll Learn

Why sex education is important

How sex education should be different for autism spectrum

Increase in use of pornography to get sex education versus comprehensive course about health human sexuality

Accepting media or pornography as reality – that’s now how things work – it’s fantasy content that does not reflect what sex is in reality

Making healthy choices

Benefits and challenges of autism spectrum and sexuality

High stakes, high complexity, high consequence

The challenge of having interests that minors may have – as an adult or young adult, be sure to check about the age of the person you’re interacting with online – this will protect you from being targeted as a potential child predator, for example

How to protect ourselves or others from illegal sexual activities

Don’t follow examples from the media as the reality of the way things are – read accurate, reality based sex education materials

Autism and Sex Resources Recommended By Dr. Loftin

Legal

The Autism Spectrum, Sexuality, and the Law: What Every Parent and Professional Needs To Know, by Dubin, Henault, and Attwood.

Sex Education

Intimate Relationships and Sexual Health: A Curriculum For Teaching Adolescents/Adults with High Functioning Autism and Other Social Challenges, by Catherine Davies and Melissa Dubie.

Autism-Asperger’s and Sexuality: Puberty and Beyond, by Jerry and Melissa Newport

Couples/Marriage

Marriage and Lasting Relationships with Aspergers/Autism, by Eva A. Mendes

(You can also listen to a couple Thrive with Aspergers episodes by Eva Mendes here and