Latest / The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show / Episode 29, Season 2: Navigating Autism with Dr. Theresa Lyons

Transcript

Episode 29, Season 2: Navigating Autism with Dr. Theresa Lyons · The Dr. Sarah Hensley Show

0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Love Doc podcast. I'm your co host
0:14
Speaker 1: Raina Butcher here with our host, doctor Sarah Hensley, the owner, founder,
0:18
Speaker 1: and CEO of the loved Doc relationship coaching services. Hi,
0:23
Speaker 1: we are super excited today.
0:24
Speaker 2: I'm very excited about our guest today and I think
0:27
Speaker 2: it's going to be very impactful for our community.
0:29
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So today we have doctor Teresa Lyons with us,
0:33
Speaker 1: who is the owner, founder, and CEO of Navigating Autism,
0:39
Speaker 1: which is your platform, right, so tell us, Yeah, tell
0:43
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about that platform, and you
0:45
Speaker 1: know your background, your education, and just let our listeners
0:50
Speaker 1: know a little bit about you.
0:52
Speaker 3: Sure. So I got involved in autism solely because of
0:56
Speaker 3: my daughter. So this was not a plan. This was
1:00
Speaker 3: what I'm doing right now is nothing what I thought
1:03
Speaker 3: my life would be, or motherhood and parenting would be. Previously,
1:07
Speaker 3: I had worked in the pharmaceutical industry, so I have
1:10
Speaker 3: a PhD in computational chemistry from Yale. I worked in
1:14
Speaker 3: farmer doing drug design and then moved over to the
1:18
Speaker 3: business side and understanding how how do doctors make decisions
1:23
Speaker 3: and how do pharmaceuticals get prescribed? And obviously for a
1:26
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical company, how do you make that happen more? And
1:30
Speaker 3: my daughter was diagnosed at three and a half with autism,
1:34
Speaker 3: and that's when I asked, Okay, so what do we do?
1:38
Speaker 3: What's the plan? And the answers that I was getting
1:42
Speaker 3: was really unsatisfying, especially for someone who has that deep
1:46
Speaker 3: experience in pharma. There's always something to do, and it
1:50
Speaker 3: just was really poor answers. And so I stopped working
1:54
Speaker 3: and really just got into the research so that I
1:56
Speaker 3: could help my daughter. And now we're helping many people.
2:01
Speaker 1: That's exciting. So we want to know. We want to
2:04
Speaker 1: know what you've discovered in the science, what you've found
2:07
Speaker 1: out along this journey. Yes, of you know, helping all
2:12
Speaker 1: these people that you're now helping.
2:15
Speaker 3: The first most critical piece of information that parents need
2:19
Speaker 3: to know is that autism does not have to be
2:22
Speaker 3: lifelong for everybody. And I know that's shocking to say
2:29
Speaker 3: something like that, but it's true. And that's one of
2:31
Speaker 3: the first critical pieces of research that I came across
2:35
Speaker 3: when I started to come up to speed with Okay,
2:37
Speaker 3: what is autism? Let me go to PubMed, let me
2:40
Speaker 3: read the literature, let me go back a decade or two.
2:42
Speaker 3: This is all that I did for the pharmaceutical industry,
2:45
Speaker 3: especially as a medical strategist is come up to speed
2:50
Speaker 3: and I read these articles. There were a few over
2:54
Speaker 3: the decades that showed an autism diagnosis was not permanent.
2:58
Speaker 3: And when my daughter was die diagnosed back in twenty thirteen,
3:02
Speaker 3: the percentage was around ten percent. So these are scientific
3:05
Speaker 3: publications that peer reviewed quality science, and it showed about
3:10
Speaker 3: ten percent of the kids who were diagnosed with autism
3:13
Speaker 3: lost their diagnosis and they called it an optimal outcome
3:17
Speaker 3: back then, And that is really what started driving me
3:22
Speaker 3: to say, Okay, let me, let me really understand this,
3:25
Speaker 3: because if I don't have quality information, my daughter is
3:30
Speaker 3: going to have a completely different life than what she
3:32
Speaker 3: could have. And that's really that that first step of
3:36
Speaker 3: understanding what actually is possible.
3:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that is so hopeful for so
3:41
Speaker 1: many people because I think a lot of the issue
3:45
Speaker 1: with autism is just you know, lack of knowledge and
3:49
Speaker 1: lack of you know, people being really able to dig
3:52
Speaker 1: into like the research because you know, you and you
3:55
Speaker 1: and doctor Hinsley, because you're trained scientists, can really dig
3:58
Speaker 1: into the research. No know what it all means, you
4:01
Speaker 1: know where your brain doesn't completely flat line out, so
4:05
Speaker 1: like most people. So you know, I think that you know,
4:10
Speaker 1: having you here to really break down the approach that
4:14
Speaker 1: you took going forward, once you were able to look
4:18
Speaker 1: at a bunch of the research and be able to say, Okay,
4:22
Speaker 1: this is what we need to do from here in
4:24
Speaker 1: order to optimize you know, your daughter's life and now
4:29
Speaker 1: of course the life's of many that you're helping. So
4:32
Speaker 1: I know that you take more of a holistic approach.
4:35
Speaker 1: And so that's really where we want to dig into.
4:38
Speaker 1: What are those approaches? What are you teaching your clients
4:40
Speaker 1: and your community.
4:42
Speaker 3: Sure, so just research is always evolving just to update
4:47
Speaker 3: that stat. So parents say ten percent, that's kind of small, right,
4:50
Speaker 3: but that was ten years ago. So in twenty twenty three,
4:53
Speaker 3: another study of that was published looking at different children
4:57
Speaker 3: and the rate that they lost their autism diagnosis. And
5:01
Speaker 3: now that percentage is thirty seven percent.
5:03
Speaker 4: That's amazing, it is.
5:05
Speaker 3: So it's yeah, and the trajectory of how things are changing,
5:10
Speaker 3: right is the direction that we as parents want to
5:13
Speaker 3: go in. And also when someone is starting to think, okay,
5:18
Speaker 3: should I do something differently? The stats are really there
5:23
Speaker 3: to show things are changing. But you have to be
5:25
Speaker 3: at the cutting edge. It takes anywhere between twenty and
5:29
Speaker 3: thirty years for research to go from discovery to actually
5:34
Speaker 3: mainstream process. So for especially for me, I knew, I
5:38
Speaker 3: don't want to wait thirty years for my daughter, she's five.
5:41
Speaker 3: I'm going to wait till she's thirty five for me
5:43
Speaker 3: to actually do some of this stuff, you know, And
5:47
Speaker 3: that wasn't really where I wanted to be. So really
5:50
Speaker 3: having that cutting edge information and then also knowing the
5:53
Speaker 3: science is there, it shows that autism isn't permanent. And
5:58
Speaker 3: believe it or not, there's a new term now. So
6:00
Speaker 3: back in twenty thirteen, it was called an optimal outcome
6:03
Speaker 3: if the child lost their diagnosis. Now the phrase of
6:07
Speaker 3: non persistent autism is being used in the scientific literature
6:12
Speaker 3: just because this fact is well known with the scientist
6:16
Speaker 3: and quite established. That's really yes, because.
6:20
Speaker 4: You don't see this. You don't see people talking about this, Yeah,
6:25
Speaker 4: you don't.
6:26
Speaker 2: And that's what I have seen. And I have a
6:28
Speaker 2: couple of friends who one friend her child lost her diagnosis.
6:33
Speaker 2: So she was diagnosed at three, she's now nine and
6:36
Speaker 2: has lost her diagnosis. And they did a lot of
6:38
Speaker 2: the holistic route, right and then I have another friend
6:43
Speaker 2: who her her child is kind of an anomaly. She
6:47
Speaker 2: shows a lot of the symptoms but can't seem to
6:50
Speaker 2: get a diagnosis because she doesn't tick exactly every box
6:54
Speaker 2: even though she's nonverbal still at like nine ten years old.
7:00
Speaker 4: And so it's interesting.
7:01
Speaker 2: And then when you see people talk about this online,
7:04
Speaker 2: people get really heated. Some people say, I know autism
7:08
Speaker 2: is just genetic, it's just what's happening. Other people say, no,
7:11
Speaker 2: it's completely environment So tell us, based on your knowledge,
7:17
Speaker 2: what are the contributing factors to being diagnosed with autism
7:21
Speaker 2: to ending up with autism.
7:24
Speaker 3: So the diagnosis itself has to be understood. So how
7:28
Speaker 3: is this diagnosis made. It's made just by observation. So
7:32
Speaker 3: typically the processes you get an observation by speech therapy,
7:35
Speaker 3: occupation therapy, physical therapy, some type of educational or psychology,
7:41
Speaker 3: and then you go to a developmental specialist and they
7:46
Speaker 3: might watch a child for ten fifteen minutes and then
7:48
Speaker 3: they make a diagnosis. So it's all based on observation.
7:51
Speaker 3: There's no lab task, there's no urine test, no MRI,
7:55
Speaker 3: nothing along those lines. And that's where it definitely can
7:58
Speaker 3: get frustrating. And it gets parents are just left with
8:05
Speaker 3: this diagnosis and then this huge vacuum of okay, but
8:08
Speaker 3: what do I do? What caused it? And how do
8:12
Speaker 3: I start to go forward? So you can start to
8:15
Speaker 3: look at what are the increased risk factors and that's
8:19
Speaker 3: always a good place for parents to start because they
8:22
Speaker 3: know the environment that they grew up in. The genetics, right,
8:27
Speaker 3: So when you have this diagnosis, you really start to
8:32
Speaker 3: look around and say, okay, when did we really start
8:35
Speaker 3: to notice things? How can we start really getting granular
8:38
Speaker 3: with health? Right, there's functional medicine, which really looks at
8:41
Speaker 3: root causes, but then there's connectual medicine who says, all right,
8:44
Speaker 3: let me give a temporary solution in the moment, and
8:47
Speaker 3: you want to use both. And the whole idea is
8:51
Speaker 3: really to get to know your child's chemistry their biology. Right.
8:56
Speaker 3: So some of the basic things are like, okay, what's
8:58
Speaker 3: vitamin D status. Vitamin D is the absolute cornerstone in
9:03
Speaker 3: the immune system, So if someone is deficient, then it's
9:07
Speaker 3: just not really giving them a chance to even be
9:10
Speaker 3: able to overcome any of these environmental problems that we have.
9:16
Speaker 3: We can look at risks to begin with, so just
9:19
Speaker 3: air pollution, simple air pollution. So there's particular matter two
9:23
Speaker 3: point five And there's been a lot of research on this,
9:27
Speaker 3: and they've been able to show that in the third trimester,
9:31
Speaker 3: if a woman is exposed to a particular amount of
9:35
Speaker 3: air pollution and these are not even elevated amounts, that
9:39
Speaker 3: the increased risk for autism for that baby is thirty percent. Right,
9:43
Speaker 3: So it's like, Okay, that's an environmental factor. We're never
9:47
Speaker 3: going to have a publication that is going to be
9:50
Speaker 3: able to say this is the cause for all of autism.
9:54
Speaker 3: And I think that's what a lot of parents and
9:56
Speaker 3: doctors are waiting for. What is that one cause? And
9:59
Speaker 3: it just doesn't work like that when you have all
10:01
Speaker 3: these different environmental factors and then you also have genetic factors, right,
10:06
Speaker 3: So you can't just come up with one thing that
10:09
Speaker 3: is going to explain one hundred percent of all lautism parts.
10:13
Speaker 3: So that's why for parents it's important to say, all, right,
10:16
Speaker 3: what is the most relevant for my child. What is
10:19
Speaker 3: the science that explains the issue my child is having.
10:22
Speaker 3: It's not going to explain it for everybody else, right,
10:25
Speaker 3: but the focus has to be on that child and
10:28
Speaker 3: those risk factors.
10:29
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that makes that actually really sums it up,
10:33
Speaker 2: I think, really nicely and can kind of settle the
10:36
Speaker 2: debate that, hey, y'all aren't right. It's not just genetic,
10:39
Speaker 2: it's not just environmental. It's it's a combination. It's a
10:43
Speaker 2: unique combination for each child. And so tell us a
10:48
Speaker 2: little bit about your platform and what it accomplishes and
10:53
Speaker 2: how you serve the individuals that come to you for help.
10:57
Speaker 3: So I've been working with parents over ten years now,
11:00
Speaker 3: guiding them through the science, and I started one on one.
11:04
Speaker 3: I've worked with parents in twenty one different countries. You know,
11:06
Speaker 3: there's different food sources, different medicines, it's just everything, but
11:12
Speaker 3: needing to understand, okay, does the science apply universally? The
11:17
Speaker 3: science not not very specific things, but can the science,
11:20
Speaker 3: the research publication that is out there really help parents?
11:24
Speaker 3: And it can. So over those years we've been able
11:28
Speaker 3: to discover there's something called the Navigating Autism Matrix, which
11:32
Speaker 3: are seven categories that parents really have to be vigilant about.
11:36
Speaker 3: They have to understand the cutting edge research in each
11:39
Speaker 3: of those categories and then decide, okay, is that relevant
11:44
Speaker 3: for my child. So the platform guides them through the
11:47
Speaker 3: science so they know they don't miss anything and they
11:49
Speaker 3: don't have to, you know, go searching and what about this?
11:51
Speaker 3: What about that? The platform teaches them the science, it
11:55
Speaker 3: allows them to order functional medicine lab testing so that
11:59
Speaker 3: you can really understand the chemistry of that unique child.
12:03
Speaker 3: And I can't even say that, okay, on one particular test.
12:07
Speaker 3: Anyone with autism is always going to come back this way.
12:10
Speaker 3: It's so varied and that's what makes autism so complex.
12:15
Speaker 3: But if you break the science down into something that
12:18
Speaker 3: is logical and step by step, then you can go
12:21
Speaker 3: through and see what is relevant to your child and
12:25
Speaker 3: then really address it. So the platform teaches parents the
12:28
Speaker 3: science in a very years a friendly way and then
12:33
Speaker 3: allows parents to order functional medicine testing so that they
12:36
Speaker 3: can really understand the chemistry. And then once the tests
12:39
Speaker 3: are back, that's when we guide parents into how do
12:42
Speaker 3: you get a good healthcare team? Because it takes a team.
12:45
Speaker 3: You're not just going to find like one doctor who's
12:47
Speaker 3: going to be able to address everything. You want a team,
12:50
Speaker 3: but you want to build that team based upon the
12:52
Speaker 3: lab results, so that you find a person, a doctor
12:57
Speaker 3: who is interested and is very good at a dressing
13:00
Speaker 3: whatever is specific for that child, and then we have
13:03
Speaker 3: health coaches to help with motivation and setting goals because
13:07
Speaker 3: it's a long journey. This is not something that changes overnight,
13:11
Speaker 3: so you've got to think about like mindset and all
13:14
Speaker 3: of that. So that's that is what the platform does.
13:17
Speaker 3: It really guides parents through making sure none of the
13:20
Speaker 3: science is missed, that they understand it, and then they
13:23
Speaker 3: start really building a team around them. And we also
13:26
Speaker 3: take flexible spending, so we try and make it as
13:28
Speaker 3: easy for parents as possible.
13:29
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. You know you said you hit on. You
13:31
Speaker 1: said it's seven pillars.
13:33
Speaker 3: Correct, Yes, yep, there's seven categories.
13:36
Speaker 1: So are you able to just go into a little
13:39
Speaker 1: bit more detail about those seven pillars and what they sure? Okay, perfect, yep.
13:44
Speaker 3: Yeah. So you have diet, which is important, right, and
13:50
Speaker 3: children can't be eating stuff that is causing inflammation in
13:53
Speaker 3: their bodies. They can't be eating stuff that feeds infections.
13:56
Speaker 3: And again this is why you want to do lab
13:58
Speaker 3: testing to really understand and the health so that you
14:01
Speaker 3: don't make tough diet changes that might not one hundred
14:07
Speaker 3: percent be needed. Right, So we want any effort we do.
14:10
Speaker 3: We want it to be logical, and we want it
14:12
Speaker 3: to be so that it's meaningful and impactful. So understanding
14:16
Speaker 3: diet all the cutting edge research going on in there.
14:19
Speaker 3: You have gluten free and dairy free, and you have
14:21
Speaker 3: all these There's eight different therapeutic diets that are commonly
14:24
Speaker 3: used to address autism symptoms, and there can be over
14:27
Speaker 3: forty five symptoms that you can address with diet, right,
14:31
Speaker 3: But it's all about making sure that you're working on
14:36
Speaker 3: what's relevant to your child. So we have diet, we
14:39
Speaker 3: have healthcare team. That's where you can order functional medicine testing,
14:43
Speaker 3: you can learn to interpret the test results. I love
14:47
Speaker 3: talking with parents when they're actually explaining their child's lab
14:51
Speaker 3: to me, So we call them like science review sessions.
14:54
Speaker 3: I'm not the one teaching and explaining. They've gone through
14:58
Speaker 3: the platform and they're like, oh yeah, line seven, this
15:00
Speaker 3: is not good. This means this and that, and it's like, yes,
15:03
Speaker 3: they're empowered now.
15:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, knowledge does that. And that's what's so beautiful.
15:09
Speaker 1: That's what's so beautiful about your platform because I'm just
15:12
Speaker 1: right now, as you explain all these things, I'm putting
15:15
Speaker 1: myself in the shoes of a parent who has an
15:18
Speaker 1: autistic child, and getting that sort of diagnosis and not
15:23
Speaker 1: knowing where to start would be so incredibly overwhelming on
15:28
Speaker 1: top of the emotional toll that it takes on you
15:30
Speaker 1: right as a parent. So that's another piece, right, Like
15:34
Speaker 1: you're overwhelmed because you know, obviously, anything that goes on
15:37
Speaker 1: with your child is you know, scary, and you want
15:42
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're okay. But then you have
15:44
Speaker 1: all of these pieces and all of these nuances that
15:48
Speaker 1: you're like, well, what do I do with this?
15:51
Speaker 3: Yeah and so, and then don't forget, many kids with
15:54
Speaker 3: autism have trouble sleeping. Over eighty percent of kids with
15:57
Speaker 3: autism and trouble sleeping, So then parents are I can
16:00
Speaker 3: say from my personal experience, there were times where I
16:03
Speaker 3: was like I can't really even think, like right, right,
16:07
Speaker 3: what clothes do I wear? I like, my my brain
16:10
Speaker 3: just could not handle that after you know, five seven
16:13
Speaker 3: nights in a row of not sleeping. So it's it's
16:16
Speaker 3: important to make it as easy as possible because the
16:20
Speaker 3: stress on an autism parent is real, and it's it's
16:23
Speaker 3: coming from everywhere. You get calls from school, you're just
16:26
Speaker 3: trying to work. You got to stop working you got
16:28
Speaker 3: to go over here, and then you have all these
16:30
Speaker 3: family obligations and oh, my gosh, it really.
16:34
Speaker 4: Is so stressful.
16:35
Speaker 2: And it even makes me think of, you know, my
16:38
Speaker 2: daughter who had some autoimmune issues, and just how drastically
16:43
Speaker 2: we changed her diet and how hard that was to
16:48
Speaker 2: keep her. You know, she's at the birthday party and
16:52
Speaker 2: they have the cupcakes with the red dye.
16:55
Speaker 4: You know, of course we don't want.
16:56
Speaker 2: Her to be eating that at that time, and then
16:59
Speaker 2: she feels left out, and then she feels like something's
17:02
Speaker 2: wrong with her. And it was just like, we're trying
17:06
Speaker 2: to optimize her immune function, and we know that those
17:11
Speaker 2: types of chemicals and refined sugars and all of those
17:15
Speaker 2: things cause inflammation, and we're trying to get inflammation down
17:20
Speaker 2: as a big component of controlling her autoimmunity. And thank goodness,
17:25
Speaker 2: she's in remission and we worked really really hard.
17:28
Speaker 4: To get her there.
17:30
Speaker 2: So it sounds like you help parents navigate these exact
17:34
Speaker 2: types of situations. If it sounds easy, oh, change their diet,
17:38
Speaker 2: it's not easy when your kid is in the real world.
17:41
Speaker 1: Oh you just said there were eight different diets at
17:43
Speaker 1: like forty five different I was just like like, my
17:46
Speaker 1: head was already spinning trying.
17:48
Speaker 4: To It can stress you out trying to follow all the.
17:51
Speaker 3: Rules, yeah, exactly. And then it is stressful because people
17:56
Speaker 3: then question, oh, she can't have a cupcake, right, it's
18:00
Speaker 3: a healthcake, you know, and it's just like, oh, my goodness.
18:04
Speaker 1: You don't understand.
18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's so hard. That's hard for the child too,
18:11
Speaker 1: I think, because then they feel, you know, this sense
18:13
Speaker 1: of being left out or maybe this sense of like, well,
18:17
Speaker 1: I'm not normal, so I can't eat a cup Yeah.
18:19
Speaker 2: My daughter went through that, and it was part of
18:22
Speaker 2: what we had to address in therapy as well, that
18:25
Speaker 2: you know, we don't know why your immune system is
18:27
Speaker 2: doing this, but there are things we can do that
18:31
Speaker 2: can help it work better. And ultimately it worked, and
18:35
Speaker 2: I think now she's kind of a believer because she's like, well,
18:37
Speaker 2: you know, what can I say? Yeah, I don't have
18:40
Speaker 2: autoimmunity anymore. I don't have these symptoms anymore.
18:43
Speaker 3: So yeah. And some kids learn that on their own
18:47
Speaker 3: when their parents take out food of their diet and
18:50
Speaker 3: then they're at a party or family party or at
18:53
Speaker 3: school or something like that, and then they eat something
18:56
Speaker 3: they can feel it themselves. So sometimes many kids are like,
19:01
Speaker 3: all right, now I understand, but still it doesn't make
19:05
Speaker 3: it easier to be out with all your friends eating
19:08
Speaker 3: stuff and you're looking at it like I want to
19:10
Speaker 3: eat that, but it doesn't make me feel good. So
19:13
Speaker 3: some of our kids are really having much more adult
19:16
Speaker 3: level thoughts even when it comes to food, because of
19:20
Speaker 3: just what it does to their bodies. And that becomes
19:24
Speaker 3: the difficult part. And that's the reason why anything that
19:27
Speaker 3: you do with autism, you want science to guide you.
19:31
Speaker 3: You don't want to eliminate, you know, like red dyes obviously, right,
19:35
Speaker 3: but like you don't want to eliminate certain things if
19:38
Speaker 3: it's not necessary. And how do you know if it's necessary.
19:41
Speaker 3: You start doing lab testing and you really start to
19:44
Speaker 3: understand from a chemistry standpoint, from a biology standpoint, what
19:48
Speaker 3: is going on with my particular child so that I
19:52
Speaker 3: can make good decisions for them. And that's really where
19:55
Speaker 3: it gets complicated and overwhelming very quickly.
20:00
Speaker 2: We have diet, we have health care team. Yeah, continue
20:03
Speaker 2: to tell us what these other pillars are.
20:06
Speaker 3: So then there's mindset, so mindset for the JAB but
20:10
Speaker 3: also for the parent. And so this is hugely important
20:15
Speaker 3: because parents were. You know, we're doing things, we're trying things,
20:19
Speaker 3: and then maybe the day didn't go the way we wanted.
20:23
Speaker 3: How do you pick yourself up? Right? It's you can't
20:26
Speaker 3: expect every day to be a glorious day, right, That's
20:30
Speaker 3: just not the way it works. So how do you
20:32
Speaker 3: have that growth mindset? Which is what we need because
20:36
Speaker 3: our children are watching us, right, so we're teaching them
20:40
Speaker 3: how to handle stress, how to handle all these different adversities.
20:45
Speaker 3: So mindset for the parents is important for themselves, but
20:48
Speaker 3: also for the children. I just want to say that
20:53
Speaker 3: many times when kids with autism are not speaking, most
20:59
Speaker 3: adults typically not their parents, but most adults think, okay,
21:03
Speaker 3: that child's not learning. They have an intellectual disability, they
21:06
Speaker 3: can't communicate, they might be behaving kind of unusually. And
21:11
Speaker 3: so many kids with autism they get lumped into the
21:14
Speaker 3: bucket of oh, they're not learning, right, and that's not true.
21:18
Speaker 3: The beautiful thing about this work is as you address
21:22
Speaker 3: these different health issues, these different health barriers, then kids
21:26
Speaker 3: start learning more, they start expressing, and then parents are
21:31
Speaker 3: just shocked and they're thinking, my child's been learning all along.
21:37
Speaker 3: I knew it, right, And so that's one thing I
21:40
Speaker 3: really want to leave parents with Even if their child
21:43
Speaker 3: is not communicating, they are learning. They're watching you, they're
21:48
Speaker 3: listening to their brother do homework, right, They're picking up
21:51
Speaker 3: all this information. And so when parents, and this is
21:55
Speaker 3: something that happens all the time with the parents we
21:58
Speaker 3: work with, is that as their health improves, the parents
22:02
Speaker 3: are just so amazed at how much they've been learning
22:06
Speaker 3: all along. So certainly don't write off your child as well.
22:09
Speaker 3: They can't speak, so therefore they're not learning. That is
22:12
Speaker 3: not the case. Whatsoever.
22:13
Speaker 4: Do you see nonverbal children becomfortable over time?
22:17
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yes, that's exciting.
22:19
Speaker 4: That is so exciting.
22:20
Speaker 1: I have a question related to a personal situation, you know, So,
22:25
Speaker 1: what's the correlation between autism and appraxia? No, a praxia
22:31
Speaker 1: And we talked a little bit about this on our call,
22:33
Speaker 1: but you know, it's the disconnection between the brain and
22:37
Speaker 1: how the words are come out of the mouth. But
22:41
Speaker 1: I'm just curious if you know anything about the correlation there.
22:46
Speaker 3: Sure, so A praxia and it's usually childhood. A praxy
22:49
Speaker 3: of speech is when there's issues with motor planning for
22:54
Speaker 3: just speech to be produced, So that can be a
22:59
Speaker 3: diagnosis along with autism. More commonly, especially with kids who
23:03
Speaker 3: are more on the severe side of the autism diagnosis,
23:07
Speaker 3: is dyspraxia. So dyspraxia is when there's problems coordinating both
23:13
Speaker 3: ross motor skills and fine motor skills. So these are
23:16
Speaker 3: like kids who maybe they can't cut their food. They
23:20
Speaker 3: might be able to feed themselves, so they can't cut,
23:22
Speaker 3: or they can't ride a bike, or they can't tie shoelaces. Right,
23:26
Speaker 3: there's an impairment of all of the motor planning, and
23:31
Speaker 3: dyspraxia is very common as a diagnosis along with autism,
23:36
Speaker 3: especially in kids who are nonverbal. So one thing to
23:41
Speaker 3: really do if you notice your child sometimes their motor
23:45
Speaker 3: is fine and then maybe they can't do that particular motor. Again,
23:50
Speaker 3: this is also when you ask a child like point
23:54
Speaker 3: to red, and many kids with autism have different motor
23:58
Speaker 3: challenges and so they they know in their mind, okay,
24:01
Speaker 3: that's red, I want to point there. If you have dyspraxia,
24:05
Speaker 3: then even though your mind is saying point right there,
24:08
Speaker 3: that is red. I know red, right, the arm might
24:11
Speaker 3: go to blue and it's not what the child wants.
24:14
Speaker 3: But then this is when kids are labeled, oh, you know,
24:17
Speaker 3: intellectual disability, and it's because of a motor impairment. So
24:22
Speaker 3: it is definitely important to go in front of a
24:25
Speaker 3: speech therapist who has experience with apraxia or dyspraxia. And
24:30
Speaker 3: the speech therapy for a praxia is very, very different
24:34
Speaker 3: than for another child who might be having other difficulties
24:38
Speaker 3: with speech production. So with a praxia they use a
24:41
Speaker 3: method called prompt and so the speech therapist goes for
24:45
Speaker 3: specialized training, but they're actually helping teach the motor of
24:51
Speaker 3: everything that gets associated with making different sounds, and that's
24:54
Speaker 3: where they sound, so they're actually teaching the lips how
24:57
Speaker 3: to move the jaw. Right, so much involved with speech.
25:01
Speaker 3: I took it for granted before all of this, but
25:04
Speaker 3: you have your lips, you have your tongue, you have
25:06
Speaker 3: your jaw, you have breathing, right, there's so much going
25:09
Speaker 3: on for us to talk. And so if there is
25:12
Speaker 3: a motor planning issue, it has nothing to do with cognition.
25:16
Speaker 3: It has to do with the production of speech. And
25:19
Speaker 3: that's two separate areas in the brain. And this is
25:21
Speaker 3: why many kids are learning. They're just not able to
25:26
Speaker 3: demonstrate it, and it's because of a simple motor issue,
25:29
Speaker 3: not problems with their cognition.
25:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really interesting.
25:34
Speaker 1: How interesting and proof again that you know, it's just
25:36
Speaker 1: not one size fits all here, Right, It's just so
25:39
Speaker 1: there's so many nuances to look at, and I think
25:42
Speaker 1: that that's really where the knowledge becomes power is just
25:47
Speaker 1: in exposing that alone. Right, is that Hey, it's not
25:50
Speaker 1: this big, blanketed idea of one thing. It's it's these
25:54
Speaker 1: really small things that we all have to look at collectively.
25:58
Speaker 1: And beautiful that you are doing this connect Yeah, it's
26:05
Speaker 1: so beautiful and it's so interesting, Like I'm just hanging
26:08
Speaker 1: on every word. I do want to pivot a little bit,
26:11
Speaker 1: just because I think this will correlate a little bit
26:13
Speaker 1: with Doc and her practice. But you know a lot
26:16
Speaker 1: of people I get a lot of questions, you know
26:19
Speaker 1: from people adult you know, people that are in relationships
26:24
Speaker 1: and you know, have these diagnoses. Maybe it's you know,
26:27
Speaker 1: just neurodivergent and how it correlates with attachment. And so
26:32
Speaker 1: this is really where I want to kind of pull
26:34
Speaker 1: both of you in. You know, maybe someone has adult
26:38
Speaker 1: autism and then you know they they're also struggling with
26:41
Speaker 1: some attachment issues and how somebody maybe with autism, can
26:48
Speaker 1: you know, because a lot of them, I think probably
26:49
Speaker 1: feel hopeless in terms of ever having a normal, good relationship.
26:56
Speaker 1: Now that's not the case for all of them, of course,
26:59
Speaker 1: but I think this is an issue that they face.
27:01
Speaker 1: And so I don't know how much you work with
27:04
Speaker 1: adult clients or what you've seen in the science, but
27:07
Speaker 1: I'm just very curious if there if you both think
27:10
Speaker 1: that maybe there's some correlation there. I have.
27:14
Speaker 2: I see a lot of clients that I categorize as
27:17
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidant, and they are on the journey of trying
27:22
Speaker 2: to find out if they are also you know, high
27:25
Speaker 2: functioning ASD because their social and emotional skills are not
27:31
Speaker 2: quite what you know most people are, and it's really
27:35
Speaker 2: hard to tease apart what is part of attachment because
27:37
Speaker 2: dismissive avoidance where they suppress their emotions their entire lives.
27:40
Speaker 2: They don't build a lot of neural networks around you know,
27:45
Speaker 2: expressing emotion, around labeling their own emotions, around putting words
27:50
Speaker 2: to their emotions. They may get diagnosed with alexithymia and
27:55
Speaker 2: they're like, how much of this is potentially neurodiversence. How
27:59
Speaker 2: much of this is the fact that I was severely
28:01
Speaker 2: neglected as a child, so I just didn't make these
28:04
Speaker 2: pathways in my brain around talking about emotion, and then
28:08
Speaker 2: they get very dysregulated over other people's emotions as well.
28:12
Speaker 2: So I don't always have an answer for them. I
28:15
Speaker 2: can say, here's what we know about attachment. I can't
28:17
Speaker 2: do anything around telling you, you know, if you have
28:21
Speaker 2: or do not have ASD. That is for another provider
28:25
Speaker 2: to tell you. But I can only speak to generally
28:29
Speaker 2: what are the hallmark traits of someone with this attachment style?
28:32
Speaker 2: And we know that dismissive avoidance do struggle with things
28:35
Speaker 2: like making on eye contact during vulnerable conversations, shutting down
28:40
Speaker 2: and getting very overwhelmed around emotional conversations, really struggling to
28:46
Speaker 2: process their own emotions, label their own emotions, connect to
28:49
Speaker 2: their body with their own emotions. We do know those
28:52
Speaker 2: things are part of dismissive avoidance, but they can also
28:55
Speaker 2: show up in individuals with ASD, so we don't have
28:59
Speaker 2: a great mesod of teasing that apart. So I guess
29:02
Speaker 2: just speak on that topic in general and what you
29:04
Speaker 2: know and what you might see.
29:06
Speaker 3: Sure, there's a lot that I can talk about with that.
29:10
Speaker 3: So first is really understanding again any health issues. There
29:14
Speaker 3: are some health issues that when not resolved, then it
29:20
Speaker 3: causes the body to be more in that fight or flight.
29:23
Speaker 3: So if they have this dissociation of their body, right,
29:27
Speaker 3: can they really feel their body? Can they feel their emotions?
29:30
Speaker 3: It might be because they've been in fight or flight
29:33
Speaker 3: freeze for so long that they've never really shifted into
29:37
Speaker 3: that calm state, and that is something that happens with
29:40
Speaker 3: autism a lot. And what's on the platform as well
29:44
Speaker 3: is you have that initial stage of okay, let me
29:46
Speaker 3: identify what the issues are, let me resolve them. But
29:49
Speaker 3: then there's also this unwinding period for the parent and
29:53
Speaker 3: the child. But because a body might have been in
29:57
Speaker 3: that fight, flight or freeze for so long that it's
30:02
Speaker 3: hard for them even to know what happiness is and
30:06
Speaker 3: to label the feelings. So it could be from an
30:09
Speaker 3: autism diagnosis, or it also could be from underlying health
30:12
Speaker 3: issues that have never been resolved but caused this, you know,
30:16
Speaker 3: low level chronic stress that has pushed their body into
30:21
Speaker 3: you know, just dissociating in that sense. And for kids
30:27
Speaker 3: who have autism, and this is applicable for older and
30:31
Speaker 3: the oldest person with autism I worked with was fifty four,
30:34
Speaker 3: So I run the gamut.
30:36
Speaker 4: Yes, that's quite a nature range.
30:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so one thing to till when you want
30:46
Speaker 3: to learn. There's something called relationship development intervention, and that's
30:51
Speaker 3: one of the key areas in the educational area where
30:55
Speaker 3: parents have to stay up to date with. Right. Most
30:57
Speaker 3: people hear about ABA applied behavior analysis, and that teaches
31:02
Speaker 3: life in a very linear way, and so when it
31:05
Speaker 3: teaches kids' emotions, you know, you hold up a little
31:08
Speaker 3: picture and there's a person with a smiley face, and
31:11
Speaker 3: then another one will be frown and so they're taught
31:14
Speaker 3: to recognize emotions by just basically memorizing. And so that
31:19
Speaker 3: is also something that contributes to stress later on when
31:23
Speaker 3: you're trying to navigate life, and life is a dynamic, right,
31:27
Speaker 3: you can't go through life trying to memorize social situations.
31:31
Speaker 3: So something called relationship development intervention is something that's used
31:37
Speaker 3: quite a bit when you're wanting to teach the child
31:40
Speaker 3: how to thrive in that dynamic environment which is life.
31:46
Speaker 3: So they're definitely are techniques that can teach that and
31:50
Speaker 3: even people who are you know, teenagers, mid twenties. There's
31:55
Speaker 3: different ways to learn RDI that would be age appropriate.
31:59
Speaker 3: So's there's many different ways, but you just want to
32:02
Speaker 3: You always want to know, Okay, is this some health
32:05
Speaker 3: issue that is causing this, because if you don't resolve that,
32:08
Speaker 3: it will always feel like you're trying to do something
32:11
Speaker 3: but it's working but not working. So that that would
32:15
Speaker 3: be how I would look at that question.
32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would say that they would get a
32:19
Speaker 1: little bit more complex as they age because life automatically
32:23
Speaker 1: becomes a little more relational as you age. YEA, every
32:26
Speaker 1: everything we do, basically, you know, from work to you know, family,
32:31
Speaker 1: and you know everything in between is very relational. And
32:35
Speaker 1: so if you don't know how to navigate that then
32:39
Speaker 1: and you have you know, roadblocks that stand in the
32:42
Speaker 1: way that even make it harder. I could imagine that
32:45
Speaker 1: it could be really difficult for those people who maybe
32:48
Speaker 1: do have a neurodivergent or autism diagnoses. I don't know
32:53
Speaker 1: about you guys, but I know during the holidays there's
32:55
Speaker 1: tons of packages coming to my house. I'm not always home,
32:58
Speaker 1: and we all know that there are package pirates out there.
33:01
Speaker 1: So what do you do well, I'll tell you what
33:03
Speaker 1: I did. I purchased a new DIY Cove security system
33:09
Speaker 1: and I think it's like less than a dollar a day.
33:11
Speaker 2: Yes, very affordable. And it's customizable, which means it's not
33:16
Speaker 2: just a one size fits all product. It is a
33:18
Speaker 2: product you can customize to your own unique home security needs.
33:23
Speaker 1: Yes, and guys, listen, Sarah thinks I'm tech savvy, but
33:27
Speaker 1: I'm really not. And I was able to put my
33:29
Speaker 1: Cove system together all by myself.
33:30
Speaker 4: I'm proud of you.
33:31
Speaker 1: Yes, I know, thank you. So it's affordable, convenient, it's
33:36
Speaker 1: going to keep people from stealing your packages off your porch,
33:39
Speaker 1: which I cannot believe is still a thing right with
33:42
Speaker 1: technology in the way that everyone has a camera nowadays,
33:45
Speaker 1: but they still.
33:46
Speaker 4: Do what everybody does, so you might want to get one.
33:48
Speaker 1: If you don't have one, they still do it. So
33:50
Speaker 1: if you are looking for an affordable, convenient, easy to
33:55
Speaker 1: put together DIY home security system that is literally made
34:00
Speaker 1: for anyone, Cove System is for you. You can visit
34:03
Speaker 1: them at covesmart, dot com, mention love doc and receive
34:08
Speaker 1: ten percent off. I just love that what you're doing
34:13
Speaker 1: is kind of covering all the bases. It's so it's
34:17
Speaker 1: so exciting and so awesome. And she's got four more pillars,
34:22
Speaker 1: I know. So I don't know if you want to
34:24
Speaker 1: go more into that. You know, I don't know how
34:26
Speaker 1: much you like to kind of keep things, you know,
34:28
Speaker 1: a little gatekeep so that people will will come to
34:31
Speaker 1: you and be like, okay, what else, what else?
34:34
Speaker 3: But you have the categories, but then you actually have
34:37
Speaker 3: to do the work in right and that's really where
34:41
Speaker 3: the magic happens. Yeah, it's one thing, and that's why
34:44
Speaker 3: with the platform, it's not just about information. That's why
34:48
Speaker 3: we have the health coaches to really help parents take action.
34:52
Speaker 3: Because you can learn all you want, but if you
34:54
Speaker 3: don't apply that, if you don't do the hard work,
34:57
Speaker 3: if you don't get up and buy something different at
34:59
Speaker 3: the grocery restore or you know, do that functional medicine task,
35:03
Speaker 3: nothing changes.
35:04
Speaker 2: Tech knowledge is just the first and I say that
35:07
Speaker 2: to my clients all the time, that we just have
35:09
Speaker 2: an awareness outcome gap. You can have a lot of
35:11
Speaker 2: awareness of what the problem is, but if you're not
35:14
Speaker 2: building your capacity to execute something different, then you're not
35:19
Speaker 2: going to get anywhere. And so you actually have to
35:21
Speaker 2: use the tools and do the work and then you
35:25
Speaker 2: see the results. You can't just know about it. I mean,
35:28
Speaker 2: I think it's so many things are like this. If
35:31
Speaker 2: you want to change your body, you can have the
35:33
Speaker 2: best diet program and weightlifting program and exercise cardio program.
35:37
Speaker 2: But if you just sit at home and you'll get
35:39
Speaker 2: it and you don't and you eat McDonald's, it doesn't matter.
35:43
Speaker 2: If you're staring at that plan. You can have a
35:45
Speaker 2: great plan, but if you don't work the plan, it's useless.
35:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got to do the plan. And that is
35:51
Speaker 3: the tough part, right And I understand that it's just
35:56
Speaker 3: so tough, but nothing changes if you don't start executing.
36:00
Speaker 3: You have to do something different, and you you want
36:05
Speaker 3: to conserve your energy. So that's why you want to
36:07
Speaker 3: have that strategy first, Like you're talking about with exercise,
36:10
Speaker 3: you want to have a plan. What are you doing
36:12
Speaker 3: what like what are the different aspects that you're changing.
36:15
Speaker 3: So for any large goal that we have, we always
36:18
Speaker 3: have some kind of plan. We have it based in
36:20
Speaker 3: logic as much as possible. And with autism, it's just
36:24
Speaker 3: become so pervasive to be like, oh, it's so complex
36:27
Speaker 3: and nobody knows, and just try this, try this, try this,
36:29
Speaker 3: and then you end up exhausted and you don't want
36:32
Speaker 3: to do anything, and then you might not even know
36:36
Speaker 3: the stat of thirty seven percent of kids with autism
36:39
Speaker 3: lose their diagnosis, right, So you're you're losing a huge
36:42
Speaker 3: opportunity by just not getting things going in a logical way.
36:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think a lot of parents end up
36:50
Speaker 2: just throwing spaghetti against the wall, just like reading about
36:53
Speaker 2: this or reading about that and trying this and trying that.
36:56
Speaker 2: I know a good friend that I had and again
36:59
Speaker 2: her daughter's sign. This has been very kind of complex
37:01
Speaker 2: and very not informative, But I have never seen one
37:06
Speaker 2: person try so hard and try so many things, from
37:09
Speaker 2: diet to genetics, to biohacking and supplements, to light therapy,
37:14
Speaker 2: to sound therapy, to speech therapy, to occupational therapy and
37:20
Speaker 2: just feeling like, Okay, we found another piece of the
37:23
Speaker 2: puzzle and maybe this is going to be it, this
37:25
Speaker 2: is maybe this is going to be where we see
37:27
Speaker 2: a corner turn and then they just the corner's never turned,
37:32
Speaker 2: and it can feel really hopeless. But when there's nobody
37:35
Speaker 2: guiding the process, when you're just a parent out there
37:38
Speaker 2: hearing about this therapy or hearing about that therapy, and
37:41
Speaker 2: you're just kind of jumping on these bandwagons. It can
37:45
Speaker 2: feel exhausting because you don't know how to go through
37:48
Speaker 2: the process strategically and with someone that can guide you
37:54
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, this is important for your child.
37:57
Speaker 4: This over here that looks good.
38:00
Speaker 2: We don't maybe need to go down that rabbit hole,
38:02
Speaker 2: but here are the places where we can start, and okay,
38:06
Speaker 2: here's the next step. Just having someone that's a guide
38:09
Speaker 2: that can take that stress off of you to not
38:12
Speaker 2: feel like you're just throwing spaghetti against the wall, because
38:14
Speaker 2: I know with my daughter and her autoimmune disease, I
38:17
Speaker 2: was throwing spaghetti against the wall until I found someone
38:20
Speaker 2: who essentially really understood the functional medicine side of it
38:27
Speaker 2: and the genetics side of it and could say, Okay,
38:31
Speaker 2: here are your daughter's genetics, here are things that here
38:36
Speaker 2: are her labs, here are where her labs are not normal,
38:42
Speaker 2: and here is how those labs are interacting with those genetics.
38:46
Speaker 2: So we can say, oh, maybe some you know, genetic
38:50
Speaker 2: traits are influencing the way she's metabolizing this or metabolizing that,
38:56
Speaker 2: and here's where you need to supplement to maybe correct that.
38:58
Speaker 2: And here's how the diet piece of can help and
39:00
Speaker 2: what specific diet pieces can help. And we had somebody
39:04
Speaker 2: that could put the puzzle pieces together for us and
39:07
Speaker 2: it was life changing. And so it's that sounds like
39:10
Speaker 2: that's exactly what you're doing for autism. Of course she
39:12
Speaker 2: had a different diagnosis. She had a different diagnosis altogether
39:16
Speaker 2: than autism. But tell us about a few more of
39:20
Speaker 2: these pillars.
39:21
Speaker 4: And just.
39:23
Speaker 2: Because you know, as someone who sort of navigated this,
39:27
Speaker 2: not autism diagnosis, but you know illness with my child,
39:31
Speaker 2: where all you want is your child to be better
39:34
Speaker 2: and to have as much normal see as possible. The
39:37
Speaker 2: stress that it creates, feeling like you're just throwing spaghetti
39:40
Speaker 2: against the wall.
39:41
Speaker 4: Tell us about some.
39:42
Speaker 2: Of those other pillars and how you can help parents
39:45
Speaker 2: strategically navigate them so they don't feel like that.
39:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we'll summarize. We can summarize them at
39:51
Speaker 1: the end.
39:52
Speaker 4: Yes, they will summarize them at that yeah.
39:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:55
Speaker 3: So the next would be supplements and prescriptions. So this
39:59
Speaker 3: is a huge category because you go on TikTok and
40:02
Speaker 3: you'll see supplements, lions made and just everything and you'll
40:08
Speaker 3: have parents showing, oh, this is what worked for my child,
40:11
Speaker 3: and I understand the inks that, oh, let me just
40:14
Speaker 3: try it. But a lot of times that's where it
40:16
Speaker 3: comes from. I will say there was a research publication,
40:21
Speaker 3: scientific research publication that analyzed the top one hundred most
40:26
Speaker 3: popular videos on TikTok about autism, and the scientist looked at, okay,
40:32
Speaker 3: was the content, was the science they were talking about?
40:35
Speaker 3: Was that actually accurate? And so seventy percent of the
40:40
Speaker 3: videos that are popular about autism on TikTok are either
40:44
Speaker 3: blatantly wrong or overgeneralized.
40:47
Speaker 4: So it's I find that in my field too. Yeah,
40:51
Speaker 4: it drives me nuts.
40:52
Speaker 2: It makes me want to beat my head against the wall, honestly,
40:54
Speaker 2: and like that has one hundred thousand likes, and that
40:57
Speaker 2: is so inaccurate.
41:00
Speaker 3: It's both success, yeah and view. People think views somehow
41:04
Speaker 3: equate to okay, I can trust this or this is validity. Yeah,
41:09
Speaker 3: but it's not so. Supplements, there's different levels of supplements.
41:15
Speaker 3: We start out with basics. So you know, something like
41:17
Speaker 3: vitamin D. I said it before, but it is something
41:20
Speaker 3: that is not controversial. It is foundational for health. You
41:23
Speaker 3: can get the blood test, although blood tests, I know,
41:26
Speaker 3: are not favorite to do with the child, but you
41:28
Speaker 3: can get the blood test through your conventional general pediatrician.
41:32
Speaker 3: You can get values and that's where you can start
41:35
Speaker 3: to optimize. And there are different basic things to make
41:38
Speaker 3: sure their child is getting what their body needs. And
41:42
Speaker 3: then it gets more and more specific depending on whatever
41:45
Speaker 3: is their health issues to focus on. So supplements and
41:49
Speaker 3: prescriptions are important to incorporate, but it gets its entirely
41:53
Speaker 3: own category because it retends on what do the labs show, so.
41:58
Speaker 2: You have and then for my daughter, that also interacted
42:02
Speaker 2: with her genetics. So you know, one supplement for my
42:07
Speaker 2: daughter might not do the same thing for someone else
42:11
Speaker 2: because maybe she has the you know, MTHFR or the
42:14
Speaker 2: COOMT or you know. I could think of a million ones,
42:17
Speaker 2: you know, and I learned all about methilation and all
42:22
Speaker 2: of that stuff. I mean, I could draw you the
42:24
Speaker 2: methylation chart at the end of our journey.
42:28
Speaker 4: But it freaking worked. It freaking worked.
42:31
Speaker 2: She hasn't had a symptom. She actually had two autoimmune diseases.
42:34
Speaker 2: She doesn't had a symptom and I don't know how long.
42:38
Speaker 3: Awesome, Yeah, that's fantastic.
42:39
Speaker 4: She looks a pretty.
42:40
Speaker 2: You know she now she's on just like a basic
42:42
Speaker 2: supplement protocol, like we know where her like, her deficiencies
42:47
Speaker 2: tend to be right. So she's on vitamin D, she's
42:50
Speaker 2: on iron. Iron was big for her. There were a
42:54
Speaker 2: few things that it's like, Okay, we need to You're
42:56
Speaker 2: probably gonna have to supplement with these things for the
42:59
Speaker 2: rest of your life because, let's face it. But we
43:02
Speaker 2: even were able to drop the diet stuff. Now she
43:05
Speaker 2: sees what she can eat junk if she wants, and
43:08
Speaker 2: she's still her labs look great and she's thriving. And
43:11
Speaker 2: so I don't know how we did it, honestly, Well.
43:16
Speaker 1: I want to know with these protocols, like people with
43:19
Speaker 1: severe autism, how like have you seen the severity ones
43:24
Speaker 1: be able to come out as well? Correct, that's amazing,
43:28
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
43:31
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter where on the spectrum you lie.
43:34
Speaker 1: The timeline is just different.
43:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, the time, I think the timeline can be different,
43:43
Speaker 3: but it depends on how how diligent the parent is.
43:48
Speaker 3: I think the most difficult part of someone who has
43:52
Speaker 3: severe autism is the belief that they don't have to
43:56
Speaker 3: have it. I think that is really the challenge and
44:00
Speaker 3: from the parents that I've worked with a lot of times,
44:04
Speaker 3: there becomes like this murky middle when you start so
44:07
Speaker 3: severe at such one end and you jump and you
44:11
Speaker 3: move so much that sometimes it's hard for the parents
44:16
Speaker 3: to adjust to that new life. Right, even if things
44:20
Speaker 3: aren't completely changed. But let's say you have a child
44:23
Speaker 3: who would headbang and smash walls and you had to
44:27
Speaker 3: watch them all the time, and there wasn't a moment
44:29
Speaker 3: of peace at all, and you work on some of
44:31
Speaker 3: their health issues and maybe they're still not speaking, but
44:34
Speaker 3: maybe they're calm six days out of seven. You have
44:38
Speaker 3: no idea just how unnerving it is for a parent
44:43
Speaker 3: because their reality is now just completely different where they
44:47
Speaker 3: had to be on edge. They had to be vigil
44:50
Speaker 3: all the time, what's the next thing that's going to happen.
44:52
Speaker 3: So even though that child hasn't completed the journey, and
44:56
Speaker 3: that you can never tell what could be that out come, right.
45:01
Speaker 1: But the parent's nervous system has adapted.
45:04
Speaker 2: We just talked about this, how adaptive the nervous system is.
45:09
Speaker 2: And even when the trauma is over for people or
45:16
Speaker 2: things get better, in this case, things just improving. I mean,
45:21
Speaker 2: it is traumatizing to see your child, you know, violent
45:25
Speaker 2: or headbanging and hurting themselves, or worry about them escaping
45:29
Speaker 2: the house and going into the street or getting lost.
45:32
Speaker 2: Those are tremendous, tremendous nervous system stressors. The nervous system
45:37
Speaker 2: isn't just going to go, oh okay, it's different now,
45:38
Speaker 2: so we're good.
45:39
Speaker 4: It's not how it works. It's not how it works. People.
45:42
Speaker 2: Your nervous system has adapted to constant threat. And so
45:45
Speaker 2: then that's a whole nother level of what the parents
45:48
Speaker 2: have to do to unwind that in their nervous system
45:51
Speaker 2: as their child, I guess is improving over time so
45:55
Speaker 2: that they can experience the joy of their child being better.
45:58
Speaker 1: I could see where the mindset piece, the mindset pillars.
46:01
Speaker 2: Just huge, huge, and I'm so glad to hear that
46:03
Speaker 2: that's a pillar because a whole part of my teaching
46:08
Speaker 2: program and my coaching program is mindset work, because if
46:11
Speaker 2: you do not have the mindset that one you can
46:16
Speaker 2: change to your relationship can change three.
46:19
Speaker 4: You're looking from.
46:20
Speaker 2: You know, right now your lens is very wounded, and
46:24
Speaker 2: you have to accept that, and you have to be
46:27
Speaker 2: willing to do the hard work of rebuilding a more
46:30
Speaker 2: objective rational lens that you have to look through. It's huge,
46:34
Speaker 2: and belief is such a strong moderator of outcome. I
46:38
Speaker 2: wish people understood how powerful belief is. In fact, you know,
46:43
Speaker 2: in the beginning of sort of this model of ego
46:47
Speaker 2: depletion in the nervous system, we used to think that
46:51
Speaker 2: there was a biological component, there's a psychological component, but
46:55
Speaker 2: that belief as a single psychological component was one of
46:59
Speaker 2: the big factors in determining resilience.
47:04
Speaker 3: M hmm.
47:05
Speaker 2: Through stress is the belief that you can be resilient.
47:09
Speaker 2: That is one of the largest determiners of being resilient
47:13
Speaker 2: is the belief that you can be resilient.
47:16
Speaker 3: It's it's powerful, it's very powerful. It's hard for some
47:20
Speaker 3: autism parents to see past that current stressful sure, absolutely,
47:26
Speaker 3: it's really difficult.
47:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what I think we've covered what five now
47:30
Speaker 1: are there?
47:31
Speaker 3: Okay? Yeah, okay, well just quickly the so we have
47:36
Speaker 3: educational approaches. We kind of touched on that with the
47:39
Speaker 3: RDI when you asked the question about the older person
47:43
Speaker 3: who has trouble with the emotions. Then we also have
47:46
Speaker 3: probiotics because gut health is really important.
47:51
Speaker 2: Tell us about that, because everybody has a bad gut
47:55
Speaker 2: that has.
47:58
Speaker 4: Nervous system issues.
47:59
Speaker 2: In my practice, somethinking back to my practice, I've never
48:04
Speaker 2: met a fearful avoidant that has said my gut works good. No,
48:08
Speaker 2: they had early childhood trauma. Their gut is messed up.
48:12
Speaker 2: We talk about our guts all the time. You give
48:15
Speaker 2: us a little brief blurb about how to help our
48:19
Speaker 2: guts and how this can be relevant for people who
48:23
Speaker 2: are navigating autism with their children or just anything, or
48:26
Speaker 2: just any of us.
48:27
Speaker 3: Honestly, yeah, definitely, So just understanding so specific to autism.
48:34
Speaker 3: A lot of times things like constipation, diarrhea, bloating gas
48:41
Speaker 3: that just get lumps into the diagnosis and doctors will say, oh, well,
48:45
Speaker 3: that's just part of autism, right, But it's not. So
48:48
Speaker 3: it's really important for parents to look at their child
48:52
Speaker 3: and say, all right, if they didn't have an autism diagnosis,
48:56
Speaker 3: would I or a doctor be concerned about this medical issue.
49:00
Speaker 3: If that answer is yes, then you need to address it.
49:03
Speaker 3: So for a child that doesn't have an autism diagnosis,
49:06
Speaker 3: is it okay for them to poop twice a week? No?
49:10
Speaker 2: Right?
49:10
Speaker 3: But somehow when people get an autism diagnosis, it's like, well,
49:14
Speaker 3: that's just autism. No, no, it is not right. So
49:18
Speaker 3: gut health is something to really be mindful of, and
49:21
Speaker 3: a lot of times it just gets negated easily, as
49:25
Speaker 3: in like, oh, well you're just not eating well enough, right,
49:28
Speaker 3: which could be the case, but there could be different
49:31
Speaker 3: gut infections that are driving those cravings. And then it's
49:37
Speaker 3: there's so much involved with the environment that impacts our gut.
49:41
Speaker 3: So something as simple as leaky gut as as common
49:46
Speaker 3: as that has become a phrase now, and testinal permeability
49:49
Speaker 3: is really a scientific matter. So sometimes kids are having
49:54
Speaker 3: sleep issues because of gut issues, and so really tea
50:00
Speaker 3: that apart and understanding Okay, is there really a gut
50:03
Speaker 3: issue and what is the gut issue? There's different infections,
50:07
Speaker 3: like there's h pylori, so someone's like, oh, my kid
50:09
Speaker 3: just keeps eating and eating. It's like a bottomless pit. Okay,
50:12
Speaker 3: we really need to look at different infections. So for
50:16
Speaker 3: gut health, it's really follow the intuition. If it wouldn't
50:20
Speaker 3: be okay for someone to have that kind of symptom
50:24
Speaker 3: if they didn't have autism, then just by having autism,
50:28
Speaker 3: it should not make that symptom okay, right, So really
50:31
Speaker 3: follow the intuition and gut health is vitally important.
50:36
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of ways to test your gut
50:40
Speaker 2: health now, and not a lot of companies let you,
50:43
Speaker 2: you know, send in samples and give you a profile
50:46
Speaker 2: of what you've got going on in your gut. But
50:49
Speaker 2: I think a good functional medicine practitioner again can do
50:54
Speaker 2: the right types of tests and check for those infections
50:56
Speaker 2: and check the microbiome and the flora of the gut
51:00
Speaker 2: and tell you, you know, do we have the balance
51:04
Speaker 2: of this or an imbalance of that, and can give
51:07
Speaker 2: you a really customized profile. Where again, if you just
51:10
Speaker 2: get online, you're going to see an ad for a
51:12
Speaker 2: probiotic here or are they are and it might not
51:16
Speaker 2: be what you actually need.
51:19
Speaker 3: Right exactly, And that's where becoming very specific is important.
51:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and starting at the right place right Like that
51:26
Speaker 1: was going to be one of my other questions, was
51:29
Speaker 1: you know, with these pillars and these steps per se
51:33
Speaker 1: within your program, you know, I feel like it would
51:36
Speaker 1: just be so much easier to navigate because it's it
51:40
Speaker 1: gives you it's like building a home, right, so it
51:42
Speaker 1: gives you the foundational piece first, and then you get
51:46
Speaker 1: to build from there versus just being so over consumed
51:49
Speaker 1: with things. And that's what I think as a collective again,
51:54
Speaker 1: where we struggle in so many facets in our world
51:57
Speaker 1: is over consumption is becoming this huge issue because you
52:03
Speaker 1: don't know what's true, right, So then there's a truth
52:06
Speaker 1: recession in our society where we don't know what to believe.
52:11
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's that old saying of keep
52:14
Speaker 1: it simple stupid. I prefer keep it simple, cis because
52:17
Speaker 1: I don't like the word stupid, but like, just keep
52:20
Speaker 1: it simple and get back to the basics. And I
52:23
Speaker 1: think that hopefully, you know, as a society, that we
52:28
Speaker 1: can go there, you know, we can go there and
52:30
Speaker 1: get back to the basics and start at the foundational
52:33
Speaker 1: pieces of what the science is really saying in so
52:36
Speaker 1: many facets of our life and and stop with you know,
52:40
Speaker 1: the scrolling or even you know, the chat gbts or
52:45
Speaker 1: like trying to get your answers from there, you know.
52:48
Speaker 1: And I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for the human race. And
52:52
Speaker 1: you know, I always have hope that you know, there's
52:56
Speaker 1: you know, smart people like you ladies here that are
52:59
Speaker 1: doing the work and looking at the science and and
53:02
Speaker 1: ultimately helping people where where it really matters. And so
53:06
Speaker 1: I just want to be Yeah.
53:07
Speaker 2: It's just so important to have a trusted guide. Yeah,
53:11
Speaker 2: and that's really what you are in this journey and
53:14
Speaker 2: in my own lane. You know, I try to be
53:16
Speaker 2: that as well, because it is frustrating that statue gave
53:20
Speaker 2: me about TikTok oh.
53:21
Speaker 4: I feel that so hard.
53:23
Speaker 2: And just how long will someone go down the wrong
53:28
Speaker 2: road before they realize that it's the wrong road? You know,
53:32
Speaker 2: life is precious. Time is precious everybody. Time is the
53:35
Speaker 2: great equalizer. We need to make sure we are using
53:38
Speaker 2: our time to our benefit and to our well being.
53:41
Speaker 4: So which ones have we come? We missed.
53:45
Speaker 3: Last one? Okay, success that one. A quick story as
53:52
Speaker 3: to summarize this. So on the platform, one of the
53:56
Speaker 3: parents this month just shared with me how they're try
54:00
Speaker 3: child used to be addicted to the tablet and the
54:03
Speaker 3: mom used to hate how the child would play it
54:06
Speaker 3: all the time, but it was like such a battle.
54:09
Speaker 3: And so one night the child just came up to
54:12
Speaker 3: the mom and gave her the tablet and said, I'm tired,
54:16
Speaker 3: I want to go to sleep. Oh, the Mom's like, yes,
54:22
Speaker 3: of course, are you kidding me? And it's celebrating with
54:26
Speaker 3: people who understand how big of a win that is,
54:31
Speaker 3: and all of the hard work she's done, the different
54:34
Speaker 3: health issues and just so much went into that where
54:37
Speaker 3: if you told someone like a neighbor, they'd be like, oh,
54:41
Speaker 3: that's great, and you wouldn't You have to celebrate all
54:45
Speaker 3: that hard work. So things like that can happen and
54:48
Speaker 3: then we just cheer everyone on.
54:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:51
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love that because it's a positive reinforcer to
54:55
Speaker 2: keep going. Right, look at this exactly going. And I
54:58
Speaker 2: hear that in my practice too. I hear, oh wow,
55:02
Speaker 2: my da husband came to me and initiated an emotional conversation.
55:07
Speaker 4: I am flabbergasted, and.
55:09
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, that's a celebrated, celebrated and realize that
55:14
Speaker 2: that change is possible. And that is just I think
55:19
Speaker 2: the biggest message I've heard come through today is that
55:21
Speaker 2: change is possible. The second message I've heard come through
55:25
Speaker 2: is you need a trusted guide because the information out
55:29
Speaker 2: there is not only massive, but oftentimes incredibly wrong. I mean,
55:34
Speaker 2: in my field, I saw just a video yesterday of
55:37
Speaker 2: some famous, supposedly famous psychologists saying that emotional neglect led
55:42
Speaker 2: to anxious attachment, because if there's an absence of love
55:45
Speaker 2: in childhood, you'll work harder for it in adulthood. And
55:48
Speaker 2: there could be nothing further from the truth in science
55:51
Speaker 2: that it is not absence of love. It is intermittent
55:55
Speaker 2: love that creates attachment, anxiety and neglect creates avoidance, and
55:59
Speaker 2: that is established in thousands of studies. So how does
56:03
Speaker 2: somebody who's a so called expert get up there and
56:06
Speaker 2: make this statement that is so grossly inaccurate And I
56:09
Speaker 2: swear it had over one hundred thousand likes, and I
56:12
Speaker 2: am thinking, my goodness, here are all these anxious people
56:16
Speaker 2: out there trying to figure out how they were truly neglected,
56:20
Speaker 2: and maybe they're picking out little instances, but you know,
56:24
Speaker 2: they weren't truly emotionally neglected. They just it was too inconsistent.
56:27
Speaker 2: There's a difference between absence and inconsistency and how that
56:33
Speaker 2: creates a profile of how someone will behave And so
56:36
Speaker 2: in my field, I know, I see it all the time.
56:38
Speaker 2: Clearly in your field it's a big issue as well.
56:41
Speaker 2: So we have to find experts that know their stuff.
56:44
Speaker 2: We have to find experts that are just not parroting
56:47
Speaker 2: other people. That's what I see a lot too, is
56:50
Speaker 2: people are jumping on a bandwagon and then somebody hears
56:53
Speaker 2: something and then they get up and they repeat it
56:55
Speaker 2: instead of actually going to look at peer reviewed science
56:59
Speaker 2: and have the capability to look at what's good science
57:03
Speaker 2: versus not so good science, Like what is an observational
57:07
Speaker 2: study versus a randomized control trial? And what can we
57:11
Speaker 2: learn from those two things or what can we not
57:14
Speaker 2: conclude from you know, the observational study that we could
57:18
Speaker 2: conclude from a randomized control trial. That's just a small example.
57:21
Speaker 2: But this is where somebody knowing science matters and clearly science, Yeah,
57:27
Speaker 2: you can see the gaps, you can absolutely. Our job
57:29
Speaker 2: as scientists are to identify the gaps in the literature
57:32
Speaker 2: and to try to create new science that fills in
57:34
Speaker 2: those gaps, or to extend or continue to validate existing data.
57:42
Speaker 2: Because studies can be a one off, they can be
57:44
Speaker 2: a fluke, right, they can be we can get a result,
57:48
Speaker 2: and we don't want to hang our hat on one result.
57:51
Speaker 2: We want to hang our hat on something that's been
57:53
Speaker 2: replicated over and over again, and we do. You know,
57:56
Speaker 2: we can talk all day about all of that, but
57:58
Speaker 2: it's just as relevant to this field as it is
58:01
Speaker 2: to my field. And I'm so excited to just be
58:04
Speaker 2: able to recommend you to my community of folks that
58:08
Speaker 2: are out there potentially raising children with ASD and not
58:14
Speaker 2: knowing where to go and being overwhelmed. And of course,
58:18
Speaker 2: raising a child with autism affects effects marriages. It affects
58:23
Speaker 2: marriages a ton, and I see it a ton in
58:25
Speaker 2: my practice that they're stressed and that stress impacts the
58:29
Speaker 2: way that their own marriage functions. And so you're not
58:32
Speaker 2: just helping a child, You're helping a family with the
58:36
Speaker 2: work that you do.
58:36
Speaker 1: That's huge, and that's what you know. Our mission is
58:39
Speaker 1: here at the Love Doc which is why I knew
58:41
Speaker 1: you would be a fantastic guest because it all correlates
58:44
Speaker 1: and it all comes back to the overall mission of
58:46
Speaker 1: really just helping people. And so just tell our listeners
58:50
Speaker 1: where they can find you.
58:51
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you can go to Navigating Autism dot com and
58:56
Speaker 3: we spell autism differently, we spell it AWE t I.
59:01
Speaker 3: Or you can check me out on my YouTube channel.
59:04
Speaker 3: I've had that channel for for ten years. And you
59:07
Speaker 3: started with teaching taking one scientific publication and just teaching
59:12
Speaker 3: it on video. So if anyone really loves science, then
59:15
Speaker 3: definitely hop on over to my YouTube channel because that's
59:19
Speaker 3: a great place to start.
59:20
Speaker 1: Beautiful, wonderful.
59:22
Speaker 2: Well, we will link your YouTube and your website in
59:25
Speaker 2: the show notes for our audience, and we are just
59:29
Speaker 2: so happy that you were able to come on here
59:31
Speaker 2: and talk to our community and to serve families in
59:35
Speaker 2: this just really comprehensive way. It's really holistic way that
59:39
Speaker 2: doesn't just focus on one little thing but really looks
59:44
Speaker 2: at autism as an entire big picture with multiple puzzle
59:48
Speaker 2: pieces and really even within those puzzle pieces you get
59:53
Speaker 2: very very you know, nitty gritty per se or explicit
59:56
Speaker 2: and what do we need to look for? And so
59:59
Speaker 2: that a beautiful service that you are giving to people.
1:00:02
Speaker 2: And just thank you for coming on.
1:00:04
Speaker 3: Thank you to our body for having me.
1:00:06
Speaker 4: Yes.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: So, of course, if you are looking for resources, if
1:00:10
Speaker 1: you are in this situation that we just discussed, first,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: our heart goes out to you. But doctor Teresa Lyons
1:00:17
Speaker 1: is a wonderful resource for you. One stop shop is
1:00:20
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, where you can really start to
1:00:22
Speaker 1: dig in deep to what maybe your child or someone
1:00:25
Speaker 1: you love needs who has an autism diagnosis, and of
1:00:28
Speaker 1: course please always go check out doctor Hensley at the
1:00:31
Speaker 1: lovedoc dot com. Please continue to tune in. We love
1:00:34
Speaker 1: you guys. Please write us. Feel free to write us
1:00:37
Speaker 1: and give us topics or things you just want to
1:00:39
Speaker 1: learn about, Because I'm telling you right now, when we
1:00:41
Speaker 1: do episodes about science, I love it. The nerd in
1:00:45
Speaker 1: me absolutely loves it, and we hope that you guys
1:00:48
Speaker 1: love it too. So continue to tune in and until
1:00:50
Speaker 1: next time, peace, love and perspective. The b