Autism Weekly Podcast

This week, Jeff sits down with Camille Proctor, Founder and Executive Director of The Color of Autism Foundation. Camille started the foundation in 2009 after a long fight to get her son diagnosed and after support groups where no one looked like her. Today it's a national resource for Black families navigating diagnosis and services. Camille talks about why Black children are often diagnosed later or misdiagnosed, and what it's like to wait months to get from diagnosis to services in underserved communities. She shares what providers get wrong when they make assumptions instead of asking families who they are. She also explains why the parent should be treated as the navigator, with the provider as co-captain. Camille walks through the foundation's free five-week parent training. It teaches families to collect data in plain language, advocate in IEP meetings, create social stories, and support a loved one in crisis without calling the police. She also shares how autistic trainers shape the work and what gives her hope for the future. Resources: The Color of Autism Foundation: thecolorofautism.org Programs page (general support group, dad support group, five-week parent trainings): visit thecolorofautism.org/programs Newsletter sign-up: thecolorofautism.org Natasha Nelson, autistic trainer and Army veteran: @SupernovaMama on social media Kevin and Avonte's Law (wandering and elopement prevention) SPARK autism research study: sparkforautism.org ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.

For most autistic people, the supports end at 21 or 22. The friendships, the structure, the built-in reasons to be around other people, all of it was attached to a school system that stops. Dr. Rachel Loftin has spent her career with the people on the other side of that line. She is chief clinical officer at Prosper Health, which she helped found and which is now the largest provider of mental health services for autistic adults in the country. She is also on faculty in the psychiatry departments at Northwestern and Yale. In this episode, she joins host Jeff Skibitsky to talk about what connection really looks like in adulthood, why so much social skills instruction teaches autistic people to disappear into a crowd, and what parents of young kids can start doing now. In this episode: Why "social skills" usually means eye contact and small talk, and what it should mean instead Where teaching autistic people to blend in helps, and where it causes harm Telling real loneliness apart from a genuine preference for time alone What actually happens when a young adult ages out of school-based services What families should have in place at 16 or 17 Realistic first steps for an adult who is already isolated What sexuality education usually misses for autistic adults What parents of a 7-year-old can do now that pays off at 27 RESOURCES Dr. Rachel Loftin Bio and publications: https://prosperhealth.io/medical-reviewer/rachel-loftin Co-editor, Handbook of Autism Spectrum Disorder and the Law (Springer) Editorial board, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Prosper Health Website: https://prosperhealth.io Self-reflection quiz for adults wondering about autism: https://prosperhealth.io/autismquiz Telehealth diagnosis and therapy for autistic adults, covered by most major insurance For adults and families navigating the transition Autistic Self Advocacy Network: https://autisticadvocacy.org The Arc, state and local chapters: https://thearc.org Autism Society affiliate finder: https://autismsociety.org Your state vocational rehabilitation agency, searchable at https://rsa.ed.gov For healthcare access AASPIRE Healthcare Toolkit, free tools for autistic adults and their doctors: https://autismandhealth.org ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.

Most parents know their kid plays video games. Far fewer could name the game. Andrew Fishman, LCSW, says that gap is where the nightly fights start. Andrew is a licensed clinical social worker who works with teens and emerging adults, writes about video games and mental health for Psychology Today, and is the author of Parenting A Gamer: Help Your Child Build Healthy Habits, Make Positive Choices, and Find Balance in Virtual Worlds. He has led social groups for autistic teens and adults, and he is a lifelong gamer himself. In this conversation with host Jeff Skibitsky, Andrew explains why gaming works as social scaffolding for autistic players. No eye contact to manage, no body language to decode, and everyone in the lobby already shares the interest. Autistic people play roughly twice as many hours per week as neurotypical people, and Andrew makes the case that there is a good reason for that. What we cover: Why gaming rarely becomes a clinical problem, and the specific signs that say otherwise Transitions and the "five more minutes" fight, plus why changing when a kid stops beats fighting over that they stop Turning off public chat, and the parental controls most families never find Skills that come out of play: social practice, reading, math, and real world interests Why playing badly alongside your kid is a gift, not an embarrassment What Andrew wants gamers, parents, and providers each to take away Resources Andrew Fishman, LCSW Book: Parenting a Gamer: Help Your Child Build Healthy Habits, Make Positive Choices, and Find Balance in Virtual Worlds, available wherever books are sold Website: videogamehealth.com Psychology Today column, Video Game Health: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/video-game-health Practice: The Juniper Center, Park Ridge, Illinois The Juniper Center Social: Video Game Health on Facebook and Bluesky Mentioned in the episode Parental controls and chat settings: look for communication or privacy settings inside each game and switch public chat off. Console-level guides are at the PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo family settings pages. ESRB Family Gaming Guide for ratings and platform control walkthroughs: esrb.org/tools-for-parents Roblox parental controls: corp.roblox.com/parents ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.

Most kids in the U.S. aren't diagnosed with autism until after age 4, long past the window when early intervention makes the biggest difference. The problem isn't that clinicians don't care. It's that a traditional evaluation can take six to eight hours end to end, and there aren't enough specialists to go around. This week, Jeff sits down with Dr. Cheryl Tierney, a board-certified, fellowship-trained developmental pediatrician, professor of pediatrics at Penn State, and Chief Medical Officer at EarliPoint Health. For more than 25 years she has evaluated and diagnosed children with autism, learning, speech-language, attention, and sleep disorders. Dr. Tierney explains how EarliPoint's FDA-cleared eye-tracking system works: 12 minutes of natural video scenes, 120 data points captured per second, more than 86,000 data points if a child watches the full session. The result is an objective read on how a child uses eye gaze to learn from the world around them, plus proxy measures for social engagement, language, and cognition. She is clear about what it is not. It is not a standalone diagnosis, and it is not about forced eye contact. The conversation also covers what happens after diagnosis. Repeat assessments let clinicians see whether a child is closing the developmental gap in months instead of years, which means treatment can change course while it still matters. In this episode: Why "wait and see" became the default, and what it costs families How roughly 60 percent of referred children may not need a lengthy assessment Why clinicians using the tool report seeing 33 to 50 percent more patients What families say after going through it, especially those who have done both pathways Where payers and Medicaid are heading on coverage Why a language-agnostic tool matters for rural and non-English-speaking families Resources EarliPoint Health: https://earlipointhealth.com Find a provider near you (EarliPoint Network directory): https://earlipointhealth.com/earlipoint-network/ For parents: https://earlipointhealth.com/parents/ Research and publications: https://earlipointhealth.com/research/ Eye-Tracking-Based Measurement of Social Visual Engagement Compared With Expert Clinical Diagnosis of Autism (JAMA, 2023): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2808996 Development and Replication of Objective Measurements of Social Visual Engagement (JAMA Network Open, 2023): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2808909 Providers: request a demo or start a conversation: https://earlipointhealth.com/contact-us/ ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.

The UNC researcher behind the Black Empowerment and Autism Network on bias, access, and building care systems that actually fit families. Autism research has historically been built on a narrow slice of the population. Dr. Brian Boyd argues that gap is not just an academic problem. It shows up as later diagnoses, thinner services, and worse outcomes for the families who were never in the data. In this episode, Dr. Boyd joins host Jeff Skibitsky to talk about founding the Black Empowerment and Autism Network (BEAM), now close to 70 members across research, medicine, and clinical practice, and what it takes to build systems of care that respond to the families in front of them. What we cover Why a two-year-old whose first word was "pentagon" shaped two decades of research on focused interests How BEAM started as career advice and became an international support network, including Black autistic researchers The three places disparities show up: access, quality of experience, and outcomes Why Black autistic children are twice as likely to carry a co-occurring intellectual disability diagnosis What culturally responsive support actually looks like in practice, starting with cultural humility Practical advocacy for families who feel dismissed in an IEP meeting or a doctor's office How underfunded, understaffed systems push providers toward cookie-cutter care What researchers owe communities before they ever collect a data point Why Dr. Boyd is still hopeful right now About Dr. Brian BoydDr. Brian Boyd is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor in the UNC School of Education and Director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC Chapel Hill. His work focuses on evidence-based practices, racial disparities, implicit bias, and how schools and service systems can better support autistic people and their families. He founded the Black Empowerment and Autism Network (BEAM). ............................................................... Autism weekly is now found on all of the major listening apps including apple podcasts, stitcher, Spotify, amazon music, and more. Subscribe to be notified when we post a new podcast. Autism weekly is produced by ABS Kids. ABS Kids is proud to provide diagnostic assessments and ABA therapy to children with developmental delays like Autism Spectrum Disorder. You can learn more about ABS Kids and the Autism Weekly podcast by visiting abskids.com.