Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1192 - Creating Better Spaces for Neurodivergent Children

Transcript

#1192 - Creating Better Spaces for Neurodivergent Children · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: Would you like to understand autism better? Today? A preview
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  Speaker 1: of a fascinating conversation that I've had with a professor
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  Speaker 1: from Westmead Hospital and the University of Sydney about autism.
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  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast, Real Parenting
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  Speaker 1: Solutions every single day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
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  Speaker 1: My name's doctor justin course, I'm here with my wife
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  Speaker 1: and mum to our six kids, Kylie, Kylie. Just recently
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  Speaker 1: I've had a discussion with a professor who this guy
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  Speaker 1: knows stuff. His name's Professor Adam A. Guestella. He works
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  Speaker 1: at the Sydney Children's Hospital at Westmead and the Brain
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  Speaker 1: and Mind Center at the University of Sydney and what
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  Speaker 1: he tries to do is build collaborative partnerships between researchers
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  Speaker 1: and clinicians and services to ensure that kids and families
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  Speaker 1: receive the best available assessments and treatments to support well being.
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  Speaker 1: He the co leader of the Child neuro Development and
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  Speaker 1: Mental Health Team for the University of Sydney. This guy
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  Speaker 1: knows his stuff around autism and as you know, there
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  Speaker 1: is more and more challenge and more and more confusion
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  Speaker 1: around raising children with neurodivergent challenges.
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  Speaker 2: I love how you talk about this idea of collaborative partnerships. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: he's a pretty clever guy. He's got some pretty big
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  Speaker 2: letters at the end of his name. But I just
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  Speaker 2: love the acknowledgment that it doesn't matter how smart or
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  Speaker 2: clever you are, you can't be everything to everyone. And
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  Speaker 2: the idea that he is looking at ways to pull
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  Speaker 2: in all the goodness that he can to support family
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  Speaker 2: specifically dealing with this challenge is just It's powerful.
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  Speaker 1: I love talking to him. On Saturday, We're going to
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  Speaker 1: play the full interview, but I know not everybody has
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  Speaker 1: time to listen to the whole thing, and some people
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  Speaker 1: are sort of going, well, should I or shouldn't I
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  Speaker 1: invest I'm going to play this snippet. I asked him
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  Speaker 1: a question that I hear all the time, and I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to hear the way he would respond to it.
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  Speaker 1: I said, when it comes to autism specifically, it used
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  Speaker 1: to be known as autism spectrum disorder, but increasingly people
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  Speaker 1: are pushing back and pushing back hard against the idea
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  Speaker 1: that autism is a disorder or even that ADHD is
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  Speaker 1: a disorder, So I asked him how he would respond
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  Speaker 1: to that particular query.
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  Speaker 3: The issue in this space really is that it's not
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  Speaker 3: all about changing the child, which the term disorder sort
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  Speaker 3: of insinuates that it's something we have to fix in
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  Speaker 3: a child to get optimal health outcomes. And the answer
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  Speaker 3: is certainly not that right. It's about actually going what
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  Speaker 3: in the environment needs to change to make the environment
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  Speaker 3: easier to learn from, What in the environment needs to
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  Speaker 3: change to encourage more cohesive and more supportive interactions with
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  Speaker 3: people and better friendships, and also what in the environment
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  Speaker 3: needs to change so that people can succeed in achieving
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  Speaker 3: the goals they want to achieve. And so the focus
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  Speaker 3: is very much on helping the individual, but also recognizing
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  Speaker 3: that the environment can change in a huge way as well.
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  Speaker 3: And related to that, when people have done studies and
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  Speaker 3: change environments to be more or we term inclusive to
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  Speaker 3: support children and adults with autism and other neuro own
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  Speaker 3: developmental needs, those environments are really good for everyone. You know,
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  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, we start seeing improvements in learning
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  Speaker 3: outcomes for all the kids in the class, not just
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  Speaker 3: the kids that have in your own developmental condition.
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  Speaker 2: I love this I love this. I love this idea
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  Speaker 2: that when we suggest that there's a disorder, we're suggesting
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  Speaker 2: that something needs fixing. And if we turn that on
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  Speaker 2: its head, it's the acknowledgment that our children are broken.
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  Speaker 2: And our children aren't broken. The environment that surround them
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  Speaker 2: is broken. It's not supporting them in the areas that
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  Speaker 2: they need support and to have success. And I just
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  Speaker 2: I love that if we were all on the same
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  Speaker 2: page with this, society in general would be safer for everyone.
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  Speaker 1: This is one of those things that I have been
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  Speaker 1: I guess, banging the drum about for such a long time.
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  Speaker 1: We've created a society that is not in the best
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  Speaker 1: interests of children's development.
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  Speaker 2: He even acknowledges that he acknowledges that when changes are
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  Speaker 2: made to the environment, it's not only the children who
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  Speaker 2: are struggling with autism, right that benefit, the entire class benefits.
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  Speaker 1: Got on and this. I talked to him a bit
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  Speaker 1: about self determination theory. He wasn't familiar with it, and
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  Speaker 1: I said, what do you think and he was like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: this is it right. So that means that if we
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  Speaker 1: can build stronger relationships, if we can help kids to
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  Speaker 1: feel like they're progressing and developing mastery and confidence in
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  Speaker 1: these areas, and if they feel like they're in the
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  Speaker 1: driver's seat of their lives because they've got some volition, choice, autonomy,
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  Speaker 1: they do so much better. And he just like, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and yes. When parents say to me, will that book
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  Speaker 1: that you wrote, The Pairing Revolution, will that help my
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  Speaker 1: autistic child or my ADHD child, My response one hundred
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  Speaker 1: percent is yes, because when you create the environment the
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  Speaker 1: supportive of their needs, of course they're going to thrive.
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  Speaker 1: And that's really what he's getting at. What he was
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  Speaker 1: really doing was just endorsing my book. I shouldn't say that, Sorry, Andrew,
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  Speaker 1: if you're listening now, There's one other thing that I
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  Speaker 1: do have to highlight. Though he's emphasized that environment matters,
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  Speaker 1: it's key, but he also did clearly say that our
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  Speaker 1: goal is to help the individual as well. It's not
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  Speaker 1: either either, and some people are taking it really really
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  Speaker 1: hard and saying no, no, no, no, there's nothing the matter
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  Speaker 1: with my child. My child's perfect. It's the environment's of
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  Speaker 1: the problem. We wouldn't do that to a neurotypical child.
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  Speaker 1: We are very much interested in helping neurotypical children to
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  Speaker 1: grow and we're quite happy to point out areas where
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  Speaker 1: they're not performing strongly and work on remedial interventions and saying, hey,
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  Speaker 1: this is an area where you're not doing so great,
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  Speaker 1: let's build you up there. When we're talking about neurodivergent children,
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  Speaker 1: the same principle applies. We don't just say, well, you're perfect,
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  Speaker 1: the environment's the problem. It really is a both and
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  Speaker 1: rather than either or.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's an acknowledgment that we're all individual, right, They're
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  Speaker 2: all really unique and we have different ways of learning.
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  Speaker 2: And if we understand that and we're able to build
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  Speaker 2: a structure that supports that individual space, then of course
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  Speaker 2: we're all going to benefit.
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  Speaker 1: The great irony is when you get the environment right
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  Speaker 1: and those basic psychological needs are being supported, you become
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  Speaker 1: more growth oriented. Anyway, Okay, after break, one more thing
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  Speaker 1: that Professor Andrew Gostela had to say that I just
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  Speaker 1: got to play you ahead of our full length interview
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  Speaker 1: on Saturday. When I was talking to Professor Andrew Costella
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  Speaker 1: from the University of Sydney and Westmead Hospital about raising
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  Speaker 1: children with developmental needs. We talked about how often it's
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  Speaker 1: usually someone like Grandpa Joe or anymored who'll say it's
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  Speaker 1: poor parenting, or these neurodevelopmental challenges are not actually a thing.
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  Speaker 2: You're saying it like it's your family members that are
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  Speaker 2: often the biggest challenge. But in my personal experience, often
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  Speaker 2: it has been the medical professionals who don't agree or
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  Speaker 2: don't believe that what you're experiencing is real. And as
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  Speaker 2: a parent who was dealing with the day to day
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  Speaker 2: challenges that exist with having a neurodivergent child, to be
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  Speaker 2: told that there is nothing wrong with them and it's
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  Speaker 2: all your fault, essentially, it's such a lonely place to sit,
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  Speaker 2: and not only lonely but heavy. It's heavy because you
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  Speaker 2: know what you're experiencing on a day to day basis,
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  Speaker 2: and you know the challenges that your child is experiencing,
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  Speaker 2: and there doesn't seem to be anyone to help.
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  Speaker 1: Asked him how this plays out in terms of what's
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  Speaker 1: going on with kids in school and push back against
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  Speaker 1: the NDIS and support There are plenty of people who
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  Speaker 1: are arguing that we're wasting all of our tax payer
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  Speaker 1: money on supporting kids that just need better pairing in
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  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Here's what he had to say.
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  Speaker 3: When you don't provide the right support and you don't
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  Speaker 3: give people the needs that they have, then you get
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  Speaker 3: poor outcomes. We know that autistic people and people with
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  Speaker 3: ADHD have enormously high rates of bullying and schools enormously
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  Speaker 3: high rates. They are victims over and over and over again,
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  Speaker 3: and it's a consistent story of trauma and dislike of
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  Speaker 3: schools in regards to their peers for a lot of
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  Speaker 3: young people. We also know that under achievement, particularly in
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  Speaker 3: those later years, is very very common in comparison to
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  Speaker 3: their cognitive ability. And so if we're happy for people
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  Speaker 3: not to succeed and fulfill their potential, if we're happy
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  Speaker 3: for people to be excluded and to be bullied in
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  Speaker 3: our schools and where happens, for people to underperform and
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  Speaker 3: then to have what is often lifelong self esteem issues
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  Speaker 3: and difficulties then moving on into other fields, then yes,
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  Speaker 3: we should leave things the way they are. Stark.
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  Speaker 2: So, what I love again about this is this actually
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  Speaker 2: creates this beautiful framework for what support workers that go
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  Speaker 2: into children's homes actually do. It takes me back to
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  Speaker 2: a conversation you and I had recently on the podcast
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  Speaker 2: where we talked about this notion and idea of not
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  Speaker 2: necessarily putting so much energy and effort into our children
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  Speaker 2: hanging out with their classmates at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: but finding positive role models adults in their lives who
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  Speaker 2: can benefit them and they can learn and glean from
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  Speaker 2: and see different perspectives. And if we look at that
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  Speaker 2: with the acknowledgment that often these kids are the ones
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  Speaker 2: that are victimized, they are the ones that are bullied,
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  Speaker 2: they are the ones that are left alone in the playground,
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  Speaker 2: and recognize that we have support workers there to be
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  Speaker 2: another safe place, another safe port, another person who's cheering
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  Speaker 2: them on from the sidelines. That actually changes the conversation.
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  Speaker 1: You can hear the entire interview with Professor Adam Gstella
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  Speaker 1: from both Sydney Children's Hospital at Westmead and the Brain
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  Speaker 1: and Mind Center at the University of Sydney this Saturday morning.
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  Speaker 1: Great conversation for anyone who wants to know more about
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  Speaker 1: neurodivergent needs raising kids who are autistic or who have
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  Speaker 1: an ADHD diagnosis. This is a conversation that I just relished.
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  Speaker 1: It's a little bit geeky, Kylie, It's an opportunity for
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  Speaker 1: two psychology needs to geek out a bit on the
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  Speaker 1: academic research, but really really compelling, all about helping with
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  Speaker 1: executive function and you know what I'm not. It's just great.
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  Speaker 1: Saturday morning, that's when you want to check it out.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
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  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. If you'd like more information and resources to
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  Speaker 1: make your family happier, visit us at happy families dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot um
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  Speaker 3: M hmm