Tim Goldstein, Autistic Philosopher of Neurodiversity: Life in the Neuro Cloud™

This is the second episode of my enjoyable and informative discussion with Maisie. If you missed the first episode check it out at:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/451957/episodes/11618327

Maisie Soetantyo brings a unique viewpoint to the autism community. She started working with autistic individuals in college and too it up as her career. So she has an academic foundation for understanding autism and then many years of working with the autistic professionally. But when she learned her son was autistic it brought an entirely new perspective to her understanding of autism.

Maisie is the founder of Autism Career Pathways and now helps autistic individuals to join the workforce. Listen in and learn how her understanding changed and grew when autism came to her own home.

You can find more about Autism Career Pathways at:
https://autismcareerpathways.org
or email Maisie at:
[email protected]

Maisie Soetantyo brings a unique viewpoint to the autism community. She started working with autistic individuals in college and too it up as her career. So she has an academic foundation for understanding autism and then many years of working with the autistic professionally. But when she learned her son was autistic it brought an entirely new perspective to her understanding of autism.

Maisie is the founder of Autism Career Pathways and now helps autistic individuals to join the workforce. Listen in and learn how her understanding changed and grew when autism came to her own home.

Our discussion was so informative and enjoyable there is a second episode with the rest of our discussion.

You can find more about Autism Career Pathways at:
https://autismcareerpathways.org
or email Maisie at:
[email protected]

During the years I have been involved with neurodiversity I have had the opportunity to meet, collaborate with, and become friends with many of the leaders and innovators in what started as the autism at work movement which has evolved to become the neurodiversity at work movement. There were far less of us then.

One of those who has been a leader from early in the movement is Ed Thompson, founder of Uptimize. Uptimize has been the leading provider of training for companies globally for much longer than most people even heard the word neurodiversity. They bring the power of neuroinclusion to the workplace,
optimize culture, processes and environments to enable every type of thinker to thrive.

I have the honor and privilege to be one of there global subject matter experts. Besides being an advisor this also allows me to occasionally do presentations and trainings as an Uptimize representative. This episode is a recording of a virtual presentation I gave in Oct. 2022 to a major health care provider which serves approximately 200,000 patients in the US. It is what Uptimize calls a Lunch & Learn and many of us would call a Neurodiversity 101 presentation.

Listen in as they start learning about neurodiversity and neuroinclusion as their first step to add the neurodistinct to their already extensive diversity focus and programs.

Due to life taking me on a journey I wasn't looking for I have some great episodes which were recorded in 2019 and never released. I am finally able to get back to releasing more episodes and am starting with the great unused material I recorded about 3 years ago.

Mel is enjoyable to listen too and we went down many paths frequently jumping from one topic to another. Mel is the person who got me to understand that a person cannot be neurodiverse as it is an adverb dealing with the makeup of a group. Like many still do I was using the term as a noun for non-neurotypical. This is prior to my coining the term neurodistinct for us non-neurotypical individuals.

I have changed some of my thoughts and terminology in the 3 years since this was recorded. But it still has a great discussion and many of Mel's interesting insights.

PlanetND Website, the URL has changed to https://www.planetneurodivergent.com instead of the one Mel gave in the podcast. You can find out more about Mel on her professional website MelHowton.com

This is the audio track of a presentation I did for BACEmploy.com and their students in their LaunchIT program. This program trains autistic adults and veterans with PTSD the technologies to become Google certified.

This is an amazing program and Susan who runs it does a wonderful job teaching not only the tech, but the skills to be a successful employee. If you want to see the video version with the presentation deck head to my site at:  https://timgoldsteinmedia.mykajabi.com/blog/interviewing

For more interviewing help and tips check out my book "Geeks Guide to Interviews: 15 Critical Items for the tech type" Available on Amazon

I had the wonderful opportunity to speak to Church Mutual  ( www.churchmutual.com ) for Disability Awareness Month. They currently sponsor 2 Paralympic athletes, 1 a skier who uses a wheelchair and the other a track sprinter who is autistic. Last year Church Mutual focused on disabled with mobility challenges. This year they wanted to highlight the rapidly growing segment of diversity called neurodiversity to give deeper understanding of individuals classified by the ADA laws as having a cognitive disability like autism. While there are many other named and unnamed conditions among the neurodistinct than autism, it was the focus because of their sponsoring an autistic Paralympian and because I am autistic and able to speak to it from lived experience.

In the endless ways something can go wrong Zoom messed up when I turned my camera back on for the live show. It of course worked perfectly for the prior 15 minutes as were were doing a tech check. Thinking it was my camera I tried making some quick adjustments on it and changing some of the lighting. Better, but still looked like a ghost. Looking at the recording made by the camera it was actually working perfectly. Bummer that is not what Zoom was displaying. In the spirit of "the show must go on" I shared by deck which displayed perfectly and my ghost image was now just a distracting little box on the side.

This episode is the audio track of the presentation. I start with facts about disabilities and how odd it is that a white wheelchair and person on a blue background is the symbol of "handicap" in the USA as 25% of Americans have a disability and only 1% of Americans use wheelchairs. We then touched on invisible disabilities and that cognitive disabilities are the largest group in America's disabled population. Finally we dove into neurodiversity where we focused in on autism.

Thank you to DisabilityIn ( disabilityin.org ) for introducing me to this amazing company. It was a pleasure to speak to them and help support the amazing job they are doing in diversity.

I think you will enjoy this one as it delivers a huge amount of information is a very short time. Learning nuggets are short recording which deliver an impactful statement or point on a specific topic.

This set was recorded for Uptimize in 2018 as video clips. I pulled the audio track to create this episode. As I mention in the introduction I was still struggling with the correct terminology to use. In this recording I mostly use the term neurodiverse incorrectly as a noun meaning non-neurotypical. Some of my Australian friends finally convinced me that neurodistinct is an adverb and refers to the make-up of a group. Since then I coined the term Neurodistinct to mean non-neurotypical and now use neurodiverse properly as an adverb.

When you hear neurodiverse in this recording just think neurodistinct and you will then be up to date with my terminology.

For those of you who want to understand neurodiversity terminology better take a look at my blog post Neurodiversity Refined: https://www.timgoldstein.com/blog/neurodiversityrefined You can also download my Neurodiversity Explained infographic from the post.

This episode is Tim Goldstein's pre-panel presentation for the Neurodiversity in Tech session at DisabilityIn's virtual conference in January 2021. The panel was just me and Brent Amundson VP HR at Dell Computers. While I can only share this part I think you will still find it interesting and get a lot from it.

Disabilityin.org
Disability:IN is the leading nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion worldwide. Our network of over 250 corporations expands opportunities for people with disabilities across enterprises. Our central office and 25 Affiliates serve as the collective voice to effect change for people with disabilities in business.

Apologies for the sound quality of the presentation. It is the audio track off the Zoom recording. Amazing how much it flattens by voice compared to the intro and outro sections. All the more reason people need to learn to control the sound of their voice so their authentic message gets through. Thank to Roger Love and his vocal training method for changing my voice and relationships.

I have known Emma for a few years now. She is truly a special person. I love talking with Emma as I always leave with new insight and approaches. Emma is one of those unique people who understands the autistic mind and the world we live. She brings her understanding of the autistic adult's challenges combine with her vast experience in the education world to know the effects both positive and negative the various approaches used with children can create when they become adults.

I hope you enjoy listening to Emma as much as I do. 2020 has been hard on all of us. Emma is one of the special people in my life that has helped me get through. Thank you Emma for just being the caring, kind, amazing person you are.

Contact Emma:
essentialeducationgroup.com
www.emmapinnock.co.uk
LinkedIn
[email protected]

About Emma:
As an educator Emma has had a rich and varied career. 

She has been a teacher for 14 years, working in a range of environments such as PRU’s, Hospital schools, Special schools and Mainstream education.  

Emma has also been in a range of senior management roles for 8 years and in her most recent role, as the Head of a specialist provision, focused on the needs and education of children with autism.

Emma’s passion to support SEND has derived from her personal Journey.  This has led to her belief in people’s abilities to overcome barriers and difficulties.

 Emma is solution focused, strategic and has the ability to develop vision for schools, organisations and families. Emma has both personal and professional experience of living with special educational needs which uniquely impacts her ability and insights. She strives to encourage people to see past their comfort zones, to be solution focused despite the difficulties and to stretch themselves past the norm. As a teacher, trainer, coach, team member and much more; Emma seeks to inspire people and organisations to make room for neuro-diverse people to uniquely take their place.


Thank you Per for the editing help I needed to get back to publishing episodes.

I have known Emma for a few years now. She is truly a special person. I love talking with Emma as I always leave with new insight and approaches. Emma is one of those unique people who understands the autistic mind and the world we live. She brings her understanding of the autistic adult's challenges combine with her vast experience in the education world to know the effects both positive and negative the various approaches used with children can create when they become adults.

I hope you enjoy listening to Emma as much as I do. 2020 has been hard on all of us. Emma is one of the special people in my life that has helped me get through. Thank you Emma for just being the caring, kind, amazing person you are.

Contact Emma:
essentialeducationgroup.com
www.emmapinnock.co.uk
LinkedIn
[email protected]

About Emma:
As an educator Emma has had a rich and varied career. 

She has been a teacher for 14 years, working in a range of environments such as PRU’s, Hospital schools, Special schools and Mainstream education.  

Emma has also been in a range of senior management roles for 8 years and in her most recent role, as the Head of a specialist provision, focused on the needs and education of children with autism.

Emma’s passion to support SEND has derived from her personal Journey.  This has led to her belief in people’s abilities to overcome barriers and difficulties.

 Emma is solution focused, strategic and has the ability to develop vision for schools, organisations and families. Emma has both personal and professional experience of living with special educational needs which uniquely impacts her ability and insights. She strives to encourage people to see past their comfort zones, to be solution focused despite the difficulties and to stretch themselves past the norm. As a teacher, trainer, coach, team member and much more; Emma seeks to inspire people and organisations to make room for neuro-diverse people to uniquely take their place.


Thank you Per for the editing help I needed to get back to publishing episodes.