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
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