Letting Go of Control and Rethinking Support for Autistic Individuals | Amy Laurent | TEDxURI

Somebody autistic about making this speech because you guys are all wrong You want to change all of this there's nothing wrong with us we're just different

Autistic power! :)

NOISE HURTS BAD PLEASE TURN HONK LOCK OFF
😢😢😢😢😢😢

HOW TO TURN HONK OFF:
PRESS LOCK AND UNLOCK ON FOB AT THE SAME TIME FOR 2- 4 SECONDS
HAZARDS FLASH MEANS HONK IS OFF
(CONTACT DEALER IF ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED AS SOME CARS MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY
DIFFFERENT)

awesome share... being a dad of an autistic son, I've seen how helping it is for my son when he feels trusted

How. About the last to years for austic kids must have beeen hard

I want to thank each and everyone of you who shared in this video, the Neurotypical and the Autistic people. You have no idea how much this video might have helped people.

Bravo!

who is them? who are they? meh

Amen. I am newly diagnosed at 49. Women are underrecognized, undersupported. I work as a teacher (HS) and know the whole thing needs revamping. Very difficult for NTs to accept.

Amy Laurent, I love this presentation so much. It is so evident that you have listened to autistic individuals, and have grasped what is important. As a nonspeaking autistic, so much of my youth and childhood was spent working on programs which were meant to help me. I learned to keep my hands quiet, my mouth quiet, my shoulders still, my eyes "nice" (no squinting), and "a nice calm body"---but at the cost of starting to have meltdowns at age 15. It was devastating, because I was blamed for loosing my cool, but really, I lost control of my body because I was denied the coping strategies that helped me stay in control of my body (I flap, squint, hop, hum, chatter, flick my shoulders up and down...). Further, it was humiliating to be confined to behaving in ways that others deemed appropriate. I realize that the person who designed my program meant well, but she did not understand my nervous system, and the dysregulation her strategies led to. Thank you so much for putting the word out.

This was wonderful. Thank you.

I was a 5 star student now I'm nothing but a walking talking imposter syndrome example.

when I was a kid a classroom helper of mine told me I wasn’t allowed spin while I walked through the halls. I asked why, and she asked me in return whether I saw anyone else doing it. I asked her why that mattered, and I can’t say I remember her coming up with a compelling answer…

This is SO TRUE. I went to college for Speech Language Pathology and got pushed out because I so deeply disagreed with the oppression and cruelty I was seeing. So much pain CAUSED by SLPs. Families torn apart and given the WORST POSSIBLE advice.... Thank you for speaking the truth. I was pushed out for doing the same despite having INCREDIBLE results when allowed to actually investigate and work directly with children. Parents loved me. Bosses and professors hated any "why" questions.

This is so disturbing, I have no words. I had no idea of the level of mistreatment of children on the autism spectrum. When I took kiddo to his first (and only) sensory integration session, I thought we were just unlucky with the therapist. She completely overwhelmed the toddler by touching him vigorously (who would like a stranger touching them at all, right?), and when he completely lost it at the end, screaming like he was skinned alive, she told me to firmly tell him not to misbehave! She even started off saying she had sensory issues, as well, so I cannot comprehend her lack of empathy and common sense. Parents, protect your children!

🙏🏻

Thank you, Amy, for emphasising our needs! There is so much PTSD in autistic adults because our needs were disrespected, boundaries violated, and "self regulating behaviour" suppressed, just to keep the NT caregivers/teachers/society accept [the heavily masked version of] us. Even now, with health care providers, the amount of gaslighting we face when we emphasise/ask for accomodations is unreal - so thank you for helping us turn the Trend.

Thanks for including community member voices. :)

I write behavior plans for individuals with Autism and ID. I thoroughly enjoyed this video and I am of the persuasion that we should not be trying to end behaviors that propose no harm to anyone else, we should be accommodating to individuals and to them being an individual. I think that with behavior plans we should be as much training staff to work with individuals whose behaviors are different, but not damaging to themselves or others. The only behaviors that I work to modify are those that could be dangerous to others or themselves. And yes, I believe the focus should be on self-regulation. Most of my plans are focusing on the whole person; what can we do to avoid having outbursts that are dangerous for ourselves or others -- positive activities that help regulate the emotional states of individuals rather than force them into a box of compliance to "normalcy." We do things like modifications to environment or instruction to make environments and experiences more conducive to the student/client; increase opportunity for self-care and physical and mental wellness... What I have found is if we take the focus off of the person's behaviors and refocus on the person as a whole person, we as practitioners learn to better serve our clients.

I just hate that this child had a behavior analyst like this. Good for you for challenging them and treating Corey like a human being.

ABAs terrify me. Especially because they feel like the toughest version of “building the child.”

Not all autistics hand flap

Yes!! Yes!! Yes!! Thank you soooooooo much!!

Just Be Aware.

Love her. Love this. Love it all. So happy to see such wonderful ideas and programs available to these kiddos other than compliance based programs.

Feeling safe in an environment is a human need, accomodations need to be in place to eliminate triggers, inclusion and being genuinely attentive and giving feedback are important…

Circular reasoning is a common attribute of neurotypicals.

You still have to think about implicit normalizing values that might turn up as emotional regulation strategies. Beware of good intentions and or the depth of normalizing efforts in the name of 'health'.

Amazing, congratulations for your job ❤

The difference between neurotypical and autistic people talking about autism is absolutely staggering.

❤ Helping people maximize their potential, regulation emotions, and deal with risk factors is a great strategy. That way society can also benefit from the valuable unique traits of the individuals.

Much better than suppressing and repressing, basically killing the individual and their value.

Thank you for this talk I think that you are right and we don’t need ABA we need understanding as autistic people.

I love you! 💕 You are just the best! 💕

Good lecture, but she lost me at “scaffold skills”. It appears that she is trying to make a noun (scaffold) into a verb. I would consider this type of speak as an abuse to the English language, and it only will confuse the listener. English has proper known verbs for a reason.

My god

They ruined me

This is KIND OF a step in the right direction. EXCEPT! even high functioning neurotypical adults easily reach their breaking points no less than once monthly. With amount of pressure we all face on a daily basis coupled with external pressures, the walls close in on EVERYONE!

Neurodivergent people aren't just stimming cuz they can't deal with something which is normal.... it's the fact that "normal" itself is entirely overwhelming.

We need to shift away from this fast paced expectation of life, the expectation of earning and paying and "STRUGGLING" to scrape by. If we had more community and togetherness and less greed and EXCLUSION based on income disparity... people with autism would more than likely not be as abrupt in their reactions to "normal life"

I have so so much to say- control yes it’s behind so much……

When I was young I used to stand with my fists up almost in T-Rex form, there are quite a few pictures of me like this. I loved my picture taken so I was always happy about it. The first time I flapped my hands from being excited I was in 6th grade math and we were playing a class game and I got really excited and started flapping my hands without even realizing. The entire class stopped and laughed at me. I never did it again.

one of those people in the clips was definitely full of it. they are a badge autist. I'll leave it to you to decide which one that was.

This is terrific for exposing the misconceptions of Asd kids and adults.

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Just let god (Allah SWT) do the rest, not in some man hand

I loved her talk, but I am one of those "Behaviorists" that develop behavior plans, and I want to let people know that I and hopefully most analysts, never include "stimming" as a target for reduction unless it is dangerous. As well, a decent behaviorist would not say stimming is due to "autism". The science of behavior tells us people do things for one of four reasons and often things like hand flapping or repetitive noises are caused by "automatic reinforcement" (It just feels good to the person). Everyone engages in stimming, for instance, when I am working, I might twirl my hair or tap my foot. It helps people regulate their body and emotions. Many people with ASD have hyper or hypo sensitivity to noise, light sounds, textures and stimming can really help to alleviate some of the input. Other reasons might include wanting attention, trying to get out of a task or access to something.

Excellent! I love that you stood your ground+joined Cory in his joy! I'm sure he loves you.

The first step to supporting anyone, Autism or not is mutual RESPECT, once this is achieved anything is possible…

Emotional regulation is very hard for me.

Sheeple will always make others feel bad about themselves.

We have a kid in my kindergarten that we highly suspect have autism, and I've seen my neurotypical co-workers physically hold down the 2-year-old, because he had a meltdown.. It was absolutely horrifying to watch.. Starting Monday I'll finally get primary responsibility for this kid and I'm so excited, I have ADHD myself and been interested in Special Education for the longest time and I've said for a full year that we need to get him a diagnosis, and that I'll more than happily take on working with him, because he is such a joy to be around and just the fact that his meltdowns are significantly shorter when I'm handling it, gives me hope that I can successfully support him.. I also feel like I might be more aware of what bothers him, since I have similar issues as well, and his vocabulary is 90% babbling, but I rarely feel like I don't understand what he wants, and when he realizes that I don’t get it, he'll take me by the hand and show me, and I just feel so happy and honored that he accepts me and clearly understands that I really want nothing but the best for him..