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ABA and Autism Parenting: Myths, Realities, and Individualized Support with ABA Service Provider, Susan Marcovsky · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Inchtones podcast, season two. I have Susan Markovsky here today, a New Jersey owner of a ABA education center known as Hand Over Hand. And as you all know, having two children with profound autism. I have been living and breathing ABA and atypical educational private experiences since my daughter Millie was just over 2. And I'm so thankful for Susan to be here today to share about her practice and her center centers, I should say, but also to relieve listeners and other mothers and caregivers out there about ABA and dispel some of the myths and preconceived notions as ABA education has evolved and has changed. And to understand that I, I believe it's best in sharing from a direct experience. I went in to day one drop off of Millie to a private ABA preschool in central New Jersey in spring of 2018. To say that I was a shell of myself would be an understatement. I was holding the car seat of my newborn son at the time too, and remember, literally, like, almost like it, you know, vibrating. Because I, I thought to myself, how is this my reality? How am I not dropping her off at the local Montessori school that my older daughter went to? And I want to normalize that because there's so much emotion and emotive intuitiveness about being a young mother anyways that when it takes a turn, it is going to rattle you. But that doesn't mean it's wrong and it doesn't mean it's bad. And I really want to sit in that space today in conversation with Susan because as she's been involved in this educational system for decades now, and I'm going on my Dec. My first solid decade too, we can have conversations to remove sort of the film and the biases that are sort of rampant in the autism community about aba. Susan, thank you so much for being here today and for what you founded based on your own lived experience as a mother to a child with autism.
• 2:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, I was gonna say that. You know, my son is 22, so I've, I have seen somewhat when, when my son was diagnosed, I remember stepping off the airplane and seeing like an autism sign on the wall and being like sending that picture to my husband. Cause it was like just at its infancy of what we see today. I mean, it was just starting. So it was like at the time there wasn't the resources, there wasn't the conversations, there wasn't, you know, the understanding at the time. And to think about like, you know, to see a poster on a wall when you Come off an airplane was like, felt like such a wow, you know, can you believe they're even talking about autism? So to watch the evolution of autism and watch the evolution of ABA and to see how that has kind of changed the shape of my son's life and what that's meant for him is like, you know, I can speak to it. We've done, we've done all the different things, you know, we've done the in district programs, the out of district program, the private program, the, you know, the home services and all. And even today in college where my son goes, he's still receiving support for a bcba and now it's on the phone. It's, you know, it doesn't have to be. I think there's sometimes that one way of looking at ABA and ABA is a very broad, it's just a broad scope of what it means.
• 3:44
  Speaker A: It really is. You know, I think that going back to that feelings of wow, how far we've come and you and I can sort of sit in that now, you know, beyond those first few years. But I want to talk about like normalizing the discomfort in choosing the right thing for your child as a, as a mother of a newly diagnosed autistic toddler, maybe because I think sometimes we misinterpret fear or nerves as it's wrong. And it's actually, I think can be reframed or reoriented. As this is so new to me, let me just keep getting in. It's a gathering of information. It's not a failure. It's new. And you're feeling that because it's unfamiliar.
• 4:29
  Speaker B: It is. I mean, I cried my eyes out when my son went to a private program at 3. I was a stay at home mom. And, and the day that I dropped him off, it was really, really a hard day for me. And then when he got back in the car and saw, I saw he was flat. It was tiring. He was used to being at home with me.
• 4:46
  Speaker A: We were used to exactly.
• 4:48
  Speaker B: You know, he would nap when he felt like napping. And so when he got in the car, I was like, did I make the right decision? Was this wrong? Bad? Is this. And I spent the next week re researching what I was doing. And then as I was doing my research, I was like feeling, you know, he was settling in. It took about a week for him to settle in, for me to settle in. And then I was like, then so quickly I started seeing, like he was more responsive, he was making better eye contact. It was such a quick evolution. With that, I don't know what your experience was.
• 5:19
  Speaker A: Like, well, I was just going to say, like, you know, like you said, like, they get in the car, they're wiped. And it took like that week. One of my favorite, like, longtime bloggers is Jen Hatmaker, you know, and she talks about this span of motherhood, but she always reminds mothers, every fall she's like, guys, that first week of school, just order pizza. We are all recalibrating to like post summer, your kids are supposed to be white. This is not make you a bad parent. But like, I think sometimes we want transitions and new things to go, okay, we're trying it. Let's make it work. You know, and it. And ABA for a young toddler is going to make them, yeah, it's going to re. It's resetting and it's learning a new set of way, a way in which to learn. But then when they do, you realize, I'm so glad I sat in that discomfort for them to thrive. And I think that that's something that I get asked so much like, oh my gosh, like, what are your thoughts on aba? And even the question is so charged. Right. Like, people come at it as like, oh, like you had them in a rigid ABA program. What does that even mean? I mean, honestly, for me, it was like, yeah, we had a set, like desire of, you know, things that we wanted to execute and to have skills that were gained. It was such a loving environment on a preschool level. Even though there was, yes, there was rigidity to it and structure that allowed for them to learn full stop. Talk to me about what kind of how we can approach that as advocates, but also for you as an owner, to dispel those and make parents feel more comfortable.
• 6:55
  Speaker B: Well, I think too, it's kind of like any provider, I don't care what provider you're going to, any medical provider, there's people do things in different formats and in different ways. And like, I can speak to hand over hand, because hand over hand what our model is to be inside of typical preschools. So when you're talking about you want to drop your child out, like, that's where your heart led you to drop yourself, your child off. At Montessori. We have the ability to modify the teaching style for kids that come to us that really should be an inclusion, should be in a typical classroom, and that's where they belong. But they just kind of need to learn, you know, how to follow directions from like a, in a group or how to initiate or respond to a peer Those kinds of higher like level skills, we're able to. Whereas if we sat at any type of rigid, repetitious, that child would be behavioral because that's not where they are. And so we're able to modify and provide that natural environment teaching for those kids that, that, that's their benefit, their skill set. And for kids that might need repetition, a little bit more of it in order to learn. You know, for us it's about the broader, like, what can we do to maximize teaching and meet that child's potential and whatever that looks like. And I think that is good ABA and that is modern aba. And there are some kids that in order to learn that they have to have more repetition. Other kids.
• 8:28
  Speaker A: Structure in place. Exactly. You know, my kids are now in a much more like holistic, dynamic educational environment. Still private, not in the public school district, but I would say that foundationally the ABA services that were received, the myths were dispelled so quickly for me as a parent. And I, I guess I, I say that because what you're talking about is this like sort of, you know, it's an iep, right? It's this individualized plan that you get to form alongside, you know, a. Like whether you, you know, as a behaviorist or the BCBA that your child is, is with and their paras and all these things that in and of itself is a lot and the formation of that too. And I always want to just remind parents that, yes, even those teams that are set up to decide upon, allow yourself the time to recalibrate and reorient to that maybe not take it as a. This is too much like we're, you know, I'm creating a robot of my child. Like, who needs these kind of teams? Your child does. You know, and honestly, I always, I said this to like as a joke. And I wish I had an ABA person in my life to keep me sort of like on task. And like there is something so beautiful about aba, period, you know, and about just the analysis of it.
• 9:46
  Speaker B: One of my best friends is in education and she, I remember when my son was at a very young age, she said to me, and in typical, you know, education, she said, ABA is just good teaching. It's taking the areas that are challenging that you're not learning. And it's individualizing and providing care in order to teach what is difficult. And so like, that's really, when you break it down, that's what it is. It's looking to say, what do I need to do to catch up? What do I need to do so that I can, you know, meet goals and. And grow and learn. And that's really what it is. And I think we all want our kids to learn, and we'd be doing them a disservice if we didn't want them to learn. And there's a different learning style, and sometimes you can go into a stable classroom and they're teaching in a different style that might not meet the needs of a child with autism. You know, a child with autism and a child with, like, say, let's say down syndrome have completely different skill sets. One or so, you know, kids with down are historically very social. Children might have to learn how to interact socially and. But there might be a cognitive difference there. You know, so it's a very different style. And this is really honing into the expertise of what it, you know, how different children with autism were.
• 11:08
  Speaker A: Well, so you mentioned before that, you know, you do have a now adult son on the spectrum that's in college. Obviously, that was such an integral part to your foundational mission.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. How. How has.
• 11:20
  Speaker A: How has that evolved since then?
• 11:24
  Speaker B: So, I mean, it's such an interesting. Like, it's such an evolution, and to this day, it's not. I mean, even yesterday and the day before, he had reached out to me because he's in. He's a music player in college. He's a music performance major, and there's a new student that's working with him in orchestra. And he said. He called me two days ago and said, she's not being nice to me. And I said, well, what does that mean? And I said, is she just not being. Is she being professional? Yes, but the expectations of, like, okay, not everybody has to like you. Not it. Everybody has to get you. Because he wanted to report it right away. Mm. And then yesterday, he sent me a text and said, she told me that if I'm gonna continue acting like a child, she's gonna continue treating me like a child. So, like, Even in college, 22 years old, this social piece and sometimes immaturity, you know, along with having misdiagnosed kids, you know, he still will. You know, he'd kill me for, like, broadcasting this, but, like, he likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, you know what I mean? Like, he's 22 and he's in college. He drives. He lives in his own apartment.
• 12:28
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: And he still.
• 12:31
  Speaker A: But those are such grounding frameworks to their nervous system, and it should not. And I. I. I interject because it's such a. It's. It's such a reframe of what those inputs give to children like ours, no matter their age. Honestly, I always laugh. I'm like, I'm so glad that both of my children aligned with Daniel Tiger. I love listening to Daniel Tiger. I'm like, I need to hear this over and over again. Grownups come back, we can take care of each other, help our friends out. I mean, I'm always. And you know, honestly, Mickey Bell's clubhouse too.
• 13:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean he, and he loves Disney and he wants to go to Disney College program and it kind of. You tie in these associations and he's, you know, like, I'm hoping he actually just interviewed for Love on the Spectrum. I'm hoping he gets selected to go on Love on the Spectrum because I feel like, to tell a story, I feel like he has such a story. What he's gone through in college, as you think about, you know, you still have autism. You know, autism doesn't go away. So he still has those struggles and we're still living that even with this, you know, you look at kids and you say, okay, there's kids that have more profound autism and kids that are quote unquote, higher functioning. But there are. He, he. From the, from this dialogue with a fellow student of his, he said, he said to me, mom, I'm going online. I'm buying a button that says I have autism. Please be patient. And I said, do you want to do that? Do you, Are you like, you know, these are questions that we have to have where I'm like, is that what you want people to know right away, this is your life? Like, this is your. And how. And that, like, you know, I was mentioning it to somebody that I work with and she said, imagine what he must be feeling on a day to day. The exhaustion of having to be on track and do the things that you're looked at in a way that is acceptable to a, a community of neurotypical people when they have a different neurodivergent brain?
• 14:26
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 14:27
  Speaker B: And we, and you know, tying it back to like the ABA piece, I think I should too, is that there are all these needs, these sensory needs that each child has, is not respected. And I do. And again, this might be old school. I think it was, I think there was, you know, I think years ago there was more of that. Like if you behave a certain way, there's, you know, you're not allowed to, you know, and I think that's part of the misconception of ABA today. But for, for I can speak for us, you know, I don't want to talk to any other about any other company. But we honor children for who they are. The only time we ever want to interrupt a behavior is if there's an actual safety concern with a child hurting themselves or they are not able to learn because it's the first and they just can't learn. And we have to like figure out ways of teaching them. Otherwise they're not continue to, you know, the developmental delay that they have is not going to. We're not going to see any progress. So. And progress in a good way, progress not in a way that needs to change them.
• 15:39
  Speaker A: Right. What are some of the best questions that you get that allow you as a provider to show that you are taking in the full humanity of their child?
• 15:49
  Speaker B: I mean that is one is like, you know, do you first, like, you know, the related service say, how do you incorporate speech therapy?
• 15:56
  Speaker A: And do you.
• 15:57
  Speaker B: Because that is also an old school like these separate modalities of learning. And historically they have been separate. And today in certain practices, ours as one of them, we say there's experts in different areas and we can come together and we can collaborate and we can work together to make sure that we're all respecting and learning from each other and helping each other. And I know that for us we have related service providers that will share with us and share with our therapists and share with our BCBAs. This is the, you know, the letter formation that works. This is developmentally like, whereas we might be able to have a child imitate to learn a sound, we don't know the developmental order. And so a speech therapist is going to let us know. This is what you should focus on first. And these are, I'm going to show you great strategies. And then we say, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us. And we're going to help incorporate that and practice that.
• 16:56
  Speaker A: I always loved. I always loved collaborate. I mean, that was something that my children's school had done too. And what I loved about it was, is not even just from the therapeutic positioning of the specialist, but when your child is more on the profound end of the spectrum and they're not able to tell you even verbally what they desire or what resonates with them. I always loved that the related services practitioners could tell me, hey, this entire toy closet has a hundred different games. She loved playing with the garden set Legos. Now how would I know that as a parent unless I am going to buy out the Lego store and I would of a one of different choices. That was one of my favorite and continues to be one of my favorite things about related service practitioners is that it's another set of loving, genuine eyes to find out who your child is. Period. And I like and I always say like that's my greatest gift as a mother is these people, the ABA therapists, the behaviorists, the BCBAs, the speech therapists, the occupational therapists, physical therapists, they are tuning and that attunement is, is why the support then allows the child to grow. And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's rigid and that it's. We're going to hit these goals of education. This is about discovering who your child is when you're unable to know that like a typical, like a typical parent
• 18:20
  Speaker B: of a typical child would a hundred percent. And you know, I think there's ways of, you know, you learn ways of helping your children and that you might write just what you're saying. So whether it's a toy or whether it's an avenue of how to get them to bring out the best sides and like you, you know, there's definitely, I mean think about, you know, for even children that are. When you're. There's plenty of non verbal children that need some kind of assisted device to help them get their words out. And what if you didn't have those service providers like you know, kids can be trapped inside themselves and be behavioral because they can't communicate. So and holding them and grabbing their mom's hand to take them to what is not the future of what can help them always. You know, so I can, you know, to imagine if like you can't, you know, so it's like anything we can do to help our kids be able to come out and be who they are is you know, is I think the goal for any parent and to you know, you don't. Nonverbal communication is a beautiful thing. You know, it doesn't. You don't have to have words but you, there has to be a mechanism to communicate.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: Yes. You know and you know we're all looking to provide as much independence for our children on the spectrum as possible. And what that looks like also insists upon the parents being rooted in reality. And I sometimes think a lot of the maybe emotional swirl around the intensity of the team aspect of this education for your child in the spectrum and what it entails. Cause it, it is. We only have so much energy. I wish I could be up 24 hours a day and just spend time tweaking and implementing and doing all this. It's not, it's not in the cards for any person that is a human mammal. And at the end of the day, I think sometimes it does come down to the parents being the leaders of their children and of their family, saying I have to be able to have the space to not be such a. In such a bottleneck of like what has to happen and allowing for that the expansive nature of a different way of learning and a different way of your child becoming independent. My Millie is turning 11 in a few weeks and Mac is eight and a half. And neither of them are fully potty trained and toilet trained yet. Millie is getting there. And in a million years, I never 10 years ago would have thought that this was my reality. But that doesn't take away from the humanity of what they have learned and how they have grown. And I always want to put that back into parents. It doesn't. The way in which independence is taught does not disqualify from you from being a really good parent. Right. And you know what, you're the provider. The service that you're providing, whether it's bringing the services into a generalized education classroom or a more private setting that I always just want to reinforce how that, that that is what's best for your child and that that also means that you are a really good mother for or parent caregiver in trying a different way.
• 21:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And I, I think that, you know, the blessing in our kids being who they are and how they, you know, no matter how it doesn't take away that sometimes things are hard. Sometimes things I think were hard for every parent, just that much harder for a parent of a child with autism. Sometimes. And sometimes there's just this beautiful gift and this lesson to be learned that I can't even imagine, you know, if I, I can't imagine the, the other world of not having had this experience and, and, and to under. To open up an entire community of people and what they go through and I don't. Can't even speak to what everybody. I just know from working with lots of different children and you know, being in hand over hand, I see the, you know, it's the every component of every child coming in their needs and skill set. Yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker A: It's about expanding. You know, it's about, it's not about changing your child. It's about expanding access to what your child is able to do in this world.
• 22:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker A: You know, I, I challenge a lot of assumptions about what I can do as a mother of two children with profound autism. And I always say my capacity is so much Greater than I ever thought possible in what we can do. And to shatter the assumptions about your child too. Because if the, the more limiting your beliefs are and what they can do, they will become more limited in their abilities. And I think the earlier we build that from within that we're not here to change the child. We're here to provide the expansive structure of education to allow your child to have access to everything that you ever dreamed before you had children and that white picket fence, Disney World dream of yours. Right.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: I was. When my son went to drive, I had most people saying to me, you're gonna let him drive. When he was going to college, he refused to stay.
• 23:25
  Speaker A: And now where do you think? Let's pause that. Cause that. I love these kind of conversations.
• 23:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:30
  Speaker A: Where do you think those questions come from? Cause I, I, I'm just gonna give a parallel, totally different example. I'm gonna send Millie to a day camp a few years, I sent her to daycare a few years ago. It is a general day camp. She has an aide, and it's in a state that, through the ymca, was an incredible program. You're gonna send her nine to four at an outdoor camp. Talk to me about the root of those questions.
• 23:56
  Speaker B: I think they, they, for me, I think it is the attending. I think, number one, it's like, do you think he'll be safe? How? You know, they see maybe the way that he can become more aggravated or irritated in certain situations. So they think, like, what if he got pulled over? What if he got in a car accident? Would he be able to handle himself? Does he have the attentional capabilities to keep his eyes on the road? Does he, you know, like, how is he just going to navigate the, you know, knowing where to go, how to get. And so I looked at it and said, okay, he's really great with directions. He's really focused on the things that he wants to be focused on. Driving. Something he was really looking forward to. And in New Jersey, it's required to have your, you have to.
• 24:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: Driving school. So what I said is, you know what? When he goes for driving school, I'm not going to put limits. He goes for driving school. I'm going to ask the instructor, how does he compare to other kids his age? Is this safe for him? Of course I'm not going to put him in a situation. Of course I'm going to worry when he goes, you know, like any parent would worry that. But I know he's not drinking and driving, and I know he's not, you know, there's other. There's different concerns, but, you know, it's all part of the learning process. And so we can talk that he did get in a little. He got. Last year, he like, he. I guess he pulled out and he. It wasn't. And nobody got hurt. Yeah. And he continued driving. You know, you don't think you have to. So he. When he. When the person flagged him down and he pulled him over, it was another college student. And I got on the phone with another college student and I said, I'm so sorry, my son has autism. He didn't know he was supposed to pull over. I guess I never told him that, but.
• 25:49
  Speaker A: Or he. Or he heard it at some point and it didn't register because it wasn't. Or reinforced.
• 25:54
  Speaker B: Whatever it was, whatever it is, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I'm like, okay, moving forward. If ever there's anything. And again, that was a great. From 16 to 21, that everything was fine. And even in the learning process, we were fortunate in the sense that when my son was. His year of practicing was over Covid. So we had like, wow, like open parking lots and like we had open highways.
• 26:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Speaker B: I took him for an hour a day over Covid, had the free reign. And I would sit there with my foot pushed, carved, hoping, breaking. And it was very scary. But he's great. And now he drives back and forth from Ohio and six hours in the car by himself. And I don't even, you know, I want him to check in with me. But again, the limits. If he can't do it, we would know. And so those. I think that was the thing is other people were putting limits because they see. They might see the differences. And I'm looking at it and saying, I want him to be his potential. I want him. If he can't, we'll know. If he can, then we gave him the opportunity to show that he. What he's capable of. And that's always been the framework for us, you know, like, show us. Just like any child would. Any person would be able to prove it. And not every child can go to college. You know, we weren't sure. Can every child. You know, we. I have friends that their kids are. Are neurotypical and college wasn't for them.
• 27:28
  Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I. I think that you're just. You're just. It's. It's reinforcing that. It's an ever evolving, always dynamic system of reorienting to the next right thing, which has been the foundation of what I've always said as my mission in inch stones is we're not measuring over the course of like a year here. We are looking at the day to day progress. These small inch by inch wins over the milestone because this is not anything more than the life happening for us in front of our eyes getting to celebrate who our children are becoming, period. And I believe that when and I hope an episode like this for listeners and other mothers and caregivers allows for that expansive possibility to reduce the overwhelm and allow mothers and these maybe that are first just starting on their journey to take a deep breath and know that yes, this the way in which your child after they receive a diagnosis doesn't make your child change. This now gives you all the tools and allows you to, it directs you to the places like hand over hand. Aba to begin forming this team of you and practitioners and behaviorists to allow your child to thrive and what that means to you and your family is going to look different than your next door neighbors. And that's okay, but it doesn't make it wrong. And I want to give as much peace as I can to those early on in their journey because early support can be so empowering and doesn't have to be so overwhelming if you can know that this is the next right thing for your child.
• 29:10
  Speaker B: And I would say too what I, you know, because I am on all the parent message board because I have a child with autism and I'm still interested in and, and lending my experience to other people too. I, and I do see a frequency, an increased frequency of parents that may not have ever tried ABA that are very vocal and very negative about it. And I think that we have to support each other more than, and you know, like if you have had a direct experience and it may have been one and maybe you had the wrong provider and there's a lot but to, to take an entire type of learning and I feel like it's a disservice to families that their children could really, really benefit from it. And so on that side, it's like I also would say to families like go in with an open mind and an open heart and don't necessarily listen because you don't know what the experiences are of other people. And you don't want to create a limitation that otherwise might not or should not exist for your child because you're into somebody that you don't even know who never even had their own experience with it. And they're just.
• 30:24
  Speaker A: That's right, that's right, right. And they're in the anger or the misinformation from someone that's a keyboard warrior actually does nothing to your own reality and what the potential and possibilities are. I think that I'm not sure if this is offered, but just, you know, finding the ability to see and go to a virtual, A tour or a virtual tour of schools to really see how these children are lear or what it looks like when they're allowed to integrate and be implemented as a one on one, with one on one therapy in a school, in a generalized school education, that this can be done. And the more we talk and the more that you use your voice as your child's best advocate and your maternal instinct and your, the data that you've collected at home about them, that is all real and will only benefit, you know, your child in the end. I mean having Millie and Mac, they are a boy and a girl, they are two and a half years apart from at the end of the day, they, they have the same exact diagnoses. Right. Level three anapraxia. They could not present more differently because they're their own individual. And what they each need is. Looks so different throughout the years. And that is what reminds me to keep doing what I'm doing in conversations like this because it, it, it only serves to me to be a, a voice of why having the open mind and going in, knowing that you can become empowered to, through your individual education journey with your child with autism can end up reducing the overwhelm that you feel in the unknown right now.
• 31:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I will also say too, as, as a mom who's been doing this for a long time and granted, you know, I'm really blessed that my son can go to college and do all those things. But I will tell you, and I know from my own, you know, you have this like, oh, by kindergarten or by 10, you, everybody kind of, I don't wanna say everybody. I created these like, you know, time frames that I wanted to. I felt like there was this pressure to get there by a certain time and, and now I see. I almost feel like my son's learned more in college than he's learned through, through middle school and high school. I mean, when you're young you learn a lot. But college has taught him more about social interactions and people. I feel like it doesn't, the learning doesn't stop. It doesn't. The age doesn't stop the learning. And so which is why we continue to have him work with professionals because he's still benefiting from it and he's in he wants the help. You know, he gets to an age where he recognizes that the people that are in his life that are therapies, he's a social coach, he meets with the bcba and he meets with a psychologist and he loves them all and he wants them all because he recognizes that they help them. When kids are younger, it's up to the parents to make those decisions for them. But I can speak to it now and say, like, you wouldn't want to go without any of those supports because it gives him insight about himself and how he can help himself.
• 33:32
  Speaker A: Yes. And be the best version as a self advocate. You know, at the end of the day, this is again, to your, your son as, as the best example. This is about expanding your child's access to what they have inside them to communicate their independence, their connection to others. And when early aba, you know, autism education is done thoughtfully, it can build foundations that are so that, that last so far beyond those preschool years. And in, you know, sitting on a totally different town in New Jersey than you in a totally different, different, you know, school system, I can say with a hundred percent confidence that those foundational ABA systems that were put in place for my, for my two are foundational to why they are thriving now with a variety of different therapies on the, on the day to day. For parents that are listening, I hope that the overwhelm and that feelings of being unsure dissipate a bit in conversations like this. And I just want to say deep thanks to Susan for what you do and for what Hand Over Hand provides to the families here in New Jersey. And we'll be sure to list all of Hand Over Hand's information on the episode summary when this goes live. Anything else that you'd like to leave our, our listeners with here today? Susan?
• 34:50
  Speaker B: I just, you know, if it, if at first it doesn't succeed, try, try again, you know, like, I think that, you know, our kids are worth it and that can go for just learning in general. That can go with the provider like, you know, don't necess. We have had a number of families and that whether it's school districts or another ABA provider that wind up, their path leads to us and they have a great experience. So like doesn't, you know, one just keep, keep trucking, you know, keep moving, keep moving.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for what you do and to the autism community for who you are. And until next time here on the Inchtones podcast, awesome.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Thank you.