About twenty years ago, I worked as an autism consultant in a large school district. This was during the era of time-out rooms, before schools widely discussed the harms of isolation and well before sensory rooms became common. A special education teacher brought a seven-year-old boy to the time-out room, and I met them there. … Read more
When we talk about supporting autistic learners with change, we often focus on preparing them for what will happen next. Catching change starts somewhere slightly different. Years ago, I developed and ran a summer day camp for autistic campers, along with their siblings and friends. At the time, I did not have a word for … Read more
A teacher sits down on Sunday night to plan for an autistic student who has been struggling. She already understands that behavior is communication. She knows regulation comes before reasoning. She has moved away from reward charts and consequences and is trying to build support around safety, relationship, and autonomy. Then she opens her laptop … Read more
A child returns to the same three songs. Talks about trains through every conversation. Memorizes television episodes, studies maps, focuses on video games, sorts figures, or watches the same short video again and again. Adults often notice the repetition first. We may worry that the interest is taking up too much space. We may try … Read more
Appointment Support for Autistic Learners Begins with the Adults, Too You know the feeling. The appointment is days away, and something in you is already bracing. You run through the variables: how the waiting room might smell, whether the provider will be running late, what you will do if the learner you are accompanying cannot … Read more
New environments are part of everyday life. A visit to a relative’s house. A community event. A new playground. A family trip. A different store. Even a place we’ve never been before can bring new sights, sounds, smells, and routines. For many autistic learners, navigating a new environment is significantly more than a change of … Read more
Sometimes disappointment doesn’t look sad. Sometimes it looks like: And sometimes the child looks just as surprised by the reaction as everyone else. The behavior is visible. What the body is carrying usually isn’t. Adults often see the outside of disappointment: the yelling, the refusal, the tears, the shutdown, the anger. But many neurodivergent children … Read more
Why constipation in neurodivergent kids is so often misread — and what their bodies actually need Some of the most chronic, exhausting, quietly distressing experiences in a neurodivergent child’s life happen in the bathroom — or don’t happen there, and that’s the problem. Constipation, withholding, irregular patterns, sensory distress around toileting — these are everywhere … Read more
A Regulation-First Starter List for Families of Neurodivergent Kids When school ends, the structure that has been quietly holding a child’s day — the bell schedule, the predictable transitions, the sensory containers of the classroom — fades. For many autistic kids, that external scaffolding has been doing real work all year. It has been telling … Read more
Strong energy states — the ones often labeled as outbursts, meltdowns, aggression, or “challenging behavior” — are rarely about the moment they happen in. They’re usually about everything that came before. For many neurodivergent learners, strong energy is the end of a long chain: By the time the strong energy appears on the outside, the … Read more