#13 Simone Fitzgerald (Part 1 of 2) - severe combined type ADHD and Autism

Diagnosed with Autism and ADHD later in life, Simone Fitzgerald owns and operates a multi-disciplinary clinic, staffed almost entirely by neurodivergent therapists. 

Diagnosed with severe combined-type Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at 34, and then Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) a few years later, Simone says that she never felt more validated than when she was being diagnosed. 

In this episode we discuss what it feels like to have unmedicated ADHD ("like a beehive in your brain"), stimming, masking, and the way that therapies previously enforced masking on neurodiverse people by, for example, forcing them to make eye contact, which Simone says can be physically painful for neurodiverse people.  

We also discuss ableist language, including Kirsty catching herself out during the episode with her own ableist language. 

Simone tells us what is great about being neurodivergent, and gives us some info on her hyper-fixation, including the obscure tattoo that she has because of it. 

Check out our episodes with Dawn Bayly on "finding a way" and the experience of living in a family with multiple neurotypes: 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/05L0JsKl4L5qzKnSIx8FPz?si=2518593889ac4d1f

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5pMIWo3DkJIA3ASYPnl7jf?si=01f182a8c6eb4937

Transcripts available for each episode on the website: https://enabled.buzzsprout.com

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This episode is brought to you by Ability Advocators:
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Transcript

Kirsty: [00:00:00] Welcome to Enabled, the podcast where we talk about, normalise and celebrate disability and mental health. 

By the time this podcast, this episode comes out, it will be, you know, a couple of months potentially in the future, but I feel like we have to check in with each other after this week. We are in the middle of the Women's World Cup at the moment. Not the middle, we're in the tail end where it's getting really stressful and I almost. Can't. Handle it. 

How are we after that Australia versus France? Colin, how are you?

Colin: I couldn't watch the penalty shootout the other night. It was just one of those things. 

Kirsty: Has there been a more phenomenal football game ever in the history of sport? 

Colin: Ahhh….

Kirsty: The answer is never.

We have the wonderful Simone Fitzgerald here. We will properly introduce her in a minute, but how are you going after that soccer game? Football game?

Simone:  I'm going to confess. I am all for the women's world cup. However, I was watching What We Do in the Shadows with my daughter and eating Hungry Jacks and [00:01:00] crocheting. 

Kirsty: No. 

Simone: Yeah. 

Colin: But the important thing is were you watching What We Do in the Shadows, the series or the movie?

Simone: You have to watch the movie first. The movie is one of the funniest things you will ever see. 

Kirsty: Really? It's a vampire thing, right? 

Colin: Yes. A New Zealand vampire. 

Simone: And it's Taika Waititi who does… 

Kirsty: Oh, yeah. Great. Amazing. 

Colin: You pronounce his name very well. I can’t get my tongue around that. 

Simone: An ADHD thing is pronunciation. So, yeah. 

Kirsty: Oh, really? Is it really? Which does lead us into… you, Simone, you are a speech pathologist. And you run a practice here in Port Macquarie called... Complex Care Collaborative. 

Simone: That's right, it's a mouthful. 

Kirsty: Yes, say that three times fast. 

Simone: Yes, yes. That's why we shortened it to CCC to make it easier for our clients. And for us as well. 

Kirsty: But as tricky as the name is to say, equally so you guys are really sort of thought-through and progressive in the approach that you guys take [00:02:00] to therapy and even just your business model as well. And the pretty cool thing about you, and also a lot of your staff, is that you can talk about Neurodivergence with some authority because you are.

Simone: Yeah, so I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 34, so about three years ago now.

This was before, it was like a big TikTok thing and..

Kirsty: Oh, so you sort of pre-empted -  because we had a big upswing in adult diagnosis. So you were leading the charge? 

Simone: Well, kind of, I suppose. I was working with a client and the mum of the client was investigating ADHD and we were talking and she said, you're definitely one of us.

And I kind of went, Oh yeah, like I was under that prior knowledge that everyone's a little bit ADHD. I'm just a bit like, I'm just crazy. And I just, I'm very busy. Didn't really think anything of it. And then I was a sole trader through COVID. So I just started my sole trading practice and then COVID hit and it didn't slow down for [00:03:00] us. I got absolutely hammered with -  Can you do Telehealth referrals? I saw up to six kids a day and was able to go out in the community. I was doing everything myself, doing all my book work, doing everything, and I got to the Christmas period and I thought I'm going to have two weeks off where I just get to do nothing. That's when I realised I have ADHD because I had this thing called ADHD paralysis where my body stopped and I'd let myself do nothing but it was this weird, I'd know I need to get up and do some stuff around the house but I physically don't have the energy to even pick up the remote to watch TV. So I was just sitting in this state of overwhelming tiredness. Like, I didn't know how to function without doing something all of the time. That was when I realised that it's actually really debilitating. It's not just a, oh, squirrel and shiny things, which I do have the [00:04:00] tendency to do. But... For some people, the functional impact is huge.

Kirsty: So you're saying that that sort of debilitating fatigue came from the absence of a need to be doing things all the time, that actually having space where you weren't busy made you tired. 

Simone: Yeah. So the lack of demand around work, because that's how I function every day. It's my routine. And then I had this opportunity to give myself a break, but shutting my body down, it was actually…

I felt trapped in my own body. So, for a week, it was like I couldn't move, couldn't do anything. That was when I realised that, oh, this is much more than just shiny things. And it was a completely different way of being for me. I went to my GP. I'm really lucky I have a lovely GP. And she gave me, she said, oh, let's look into it a little bit and then come back to me in two weeks.

She gave me, um, the Diva, which is like a screener. It looks at how you're functioning now, as [00:05:00] well as how you functioned as a 12 year old or younger. I remember reading all my reports when I was younger that Simone would do so much better in class if she just applied herself, or if she was able to listen. And Simone is so capable, yet she's always talking and she's very unorganised.

And if you speak to most people with ADHD that are diagnosed late in life, that's their reports. So, and when I was young, it was a boys thing. It was a cheeky boys thing that you just grew out of, and you don't, you have it for the rest of your life. So, the funny story with my GP, I got my Diva form, took it home for the two weeks. Obviously forgot to do it, and then couldn't find it, lost it, um, found it online, thank goodness.

Filled it out two hours before my appointment. Yep. Left it on the kitchen bench to go to my appointment, so I turned up with no form. So she was just like, let's give you a psychiatrist referral. 

Kirsty: That was enough for her to say, [00:06:00] yep, you've met the thresholds. 

Simone: Yeah, pretty much. And then I had my psychiatry appointment and I've never felt more validated in my life. And I was diagnosed with severe combined type. 

Kirsty: So when you say combined type, what do you mean? 

Simone: Combined type means that there's two kind of areas of ADHD that are diagnosed. So there's hyperactivity and then there's inattentiveness. So people with ADHD even though with inattentiveness, they might seem really kind of quiet and calm, but disorganised, the brain is still hyperactive.

So that's, it's like an internalisation of ADHD. So I have both. I'm really lucky. But the best way to describe what it feels like to have ADHD unmedicated is like a beehive in your brain. Bees don't stop, and that's all I would hear all day. It'd just be busyness. And it still is to a [00:07:00] degree, but a lot more manageable now that I know about myself and what I need… and it's not just the medication route either. There's a lot of other things that we can do.

Kirsty: Yeah, great. In terms of your neurodiversity though, so that was your first step, and a couple of years later, what then happened? 

Simone: Well, this is all progressed. Like I moved into owning a multidisciplinary clinic now. And I started to notice in the last 12 months that I could work probably two, three days in the week and then I would get to Friday and I'd need to sleep 15 hours a day just over the weekend.

I would just crash, couldn't leave the house, just exhausted. And lots of blood tests and things and nothing was coming up. And I kind of had to think about it for a while and thought, I'm going to see what pattern there is. And the weeks and the days [00:08:00] where I had more interaction with people, which sounds ridiculous because I'm in the most people-y job you can have.

But I think the broad range of people, I found that that was when the tiredness was really intense. So if I had a week of working on just reports, I wasn't as tired, but the people aspect. And then I kind of had to think about it and yeah, I clicked even though I work with autistic people every single day,

I thought, oh, this is kind of resonating with me because ADHD and autism are really, really similar in some of the traits. But yeah, I thought this tiredness is a lot and I spoke to my psychologist about it. She nearly leapt out of her chair. She said, I've been thinking about this for you for months. So yeah, there you go.

So I've recently discovered that I'm autistic. And that I am a very good masker. 

Kirsty: Yes, and I want to talk about that, but I just want to pause for one second there because I noticed that you said there “I've recently discovered that I am autistic.”

Simone: [00:09:00] Yes. 

Kirsty: I want to talk about, because this is something that is really fascinating to me, is like language in the disability community and how people prefer to identify, whether it's that person first language or identity first language.

So in case people don't necessarily know what that means, so person first language might be someone who would say, I have autism, whereas identity first language is saying, I am autistic. And coming from this real move in the disability community in general, but I think, well, from my reading anyway, it seems to be really focused in the neurodiverse sort of community of really embracing this identity first language, because neurodiversity is often seen by people as being so core to their identity and who they are and not a negative. So can you talk us through your preferred sort of language there and why that is? 

Simone: Yeah. So there's a big movement called neurodivergent affirming practice.

So it's affirming and embracing neurodivergence and neurodiversity. [00:10:00] And I mean, it's labelled under the DSM 5 as... Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. So it's very pathologised. It's a very negative connotation to the label. Yes, and looking at the DSM criteria, it's very deficit focused.

And it's not about, we need to stop making it about what we can't do. We need to start looking at a strengths focused approach. So I think embracing that identity that I am autistic. It's not that I can't do things, it's that my brain is wired to do things differently. My social battery is different to a neurotypical person.

So I know now that, if I have a big social event coming up, I give myself days rest afterwards or organise something for myself that's soothing afterwards. And same with work. So it just helps me to understand myself. 

There's a whole stigma of, not looking at people when you're [00:11:00] talking to them or going really quiet and not answering messages.

I'm one of those people because my social battery drains. So just explaining to people I am autistic and that I. When my social battery drains, I tend to just shut down. It's not you, it's not me being rude, I do apologise if it offends, but it's just what I need so that I can keep functioning. 

Kirsty: The autism diagnosis or, or realisation I suppose is, is more recent for you… Did you have to go on a journey to get to that point of feeling like this is a positive thing or was it immediately positive for you?

Simone: Yeah, the journey probably started prior to being validated by my psychologist, my psychiatrist. There’s a grieving process definitely once that's highlighted to you because as an adult diagnosed person, you grieve what could have been. So you [00:12:00] grieve what support you could have had in high school to get through some really challenging things, you grieve what support you could have had in your 20s, which is extended adolescence really, trying to figure out who you are as a person.

That was a grieving process and I find that that's a common theme in people that are diagnosed later on in life. But once that was confirmed and validated, I just felt more understanding of myself. 

Kirsty: Yeah, and you often hear, especially people who are diagnosed later, you hear people sort of say, it was the best day of my life.

And I think that's really such an important thing to sort of put out there that like, this is great for people to be getting this understanding. And, it's not, as you say, it shouldn't be a deficits based thing. What did you call it?

Simone: Neurodivergent affirming. [00:13:00] Yeah. So that's really the big movement that's coming around in allied health practice and hopefully in the medical field as well. Um, acknowledging that there are different neurotypes, there are different approaches to social interaction and we need to start, which we'll go into, putting that into a really broad space so that workplaces are inclusive.

Kirsty: So let's talk about masking. I think most people probably will have heard the term, but what does that actually mean? 

Simone: So masking for autistic and ADHD people means that in particular social settings, we will put on a particular, like, mask. So we might change our tone of voice, might change our demeanour, and be more energetic to suit the communication partner, and because we want to fit in, and try and connect with that person. 

So, generally, [00:14:00] we will change how we approach a certain setting and how we would communicate based on a different social setting. Which is really exhausting because we learn through patterns of watching people communicate and then trying to match it so that we feel like we're blending in, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.

And unfortunately, in a lot of workplaces, masking is kind of... Pushed on people. So someone might be working in retail industries and a Manager may say to them - You're not giving eye contact. You're not saying hello when someone comes in. And that person then is kind of forced to mask. But there is a thing as well, which I would say for myself is conscious masking rather. So conscious masking for me is that I know that I mask and I've made the choice to mask but I would like to kind of educate more people on [00:15:00] putting it on to people that they should be masking to fit a social norm.

And the damage that that can do. 

Kirsty: And I like how the burden of that then shifts onto…

Because we put the burden on neurodiverse people to be the same as neurotypical people. There's something wrong with you and you need to increase your skills. You need to be mimicking the way that my brain says is the right way to socialise.

Whereas if we look at it the other way and say, well, actually neurotypical people, we need to be going. Why do I have this expectation that everyone is going to socialise the way that I do? Why does it make me feel uncomfortable? If they are not responding to things the same way that I am? Because a lot of the more typical ways that neurodiverse people and autistic people especially might be encouraged or forced to mask are…Things like eye contact. Can you talk about what eye contact is like for a lot of neurodiverse people? 

Simone: Well, my experience is it, it hurts. It actually really [00:16:00] hurts. 

Kirsty: As in physically, bodily? It hurts. 

Simone: Yeah. It feels like. Just this overwhelming tension of, like, I can do it. And you probably have noticed that. 

Kirsty: You're doing it really well.

Simone: Yeah, I'm, yeah. Because I've masked the hell out of it. Because every time, like, that was what was drilled into me when I was younger. When you're talking to someone, even when we did speeches at school. Give eye contact to the entire room. Oh, that was, that was horrible. I tend to look up at the ceiling, which you've probably noticed, or look out the window if I'm in a room with windows.

And I just try, like, I kind of bring my attention back to a person really fleetingly, but I find if I do it for a really long time, I can feel myself tensing up. And it's not that I don't want to look at you and I'm repulsed. It's just that my brain doesn't, it just feels uncomfortable sitting in that one spot.

And I think being an AudHDer, and having my hyperactive brain, it doesn't like to stay in the same spot. My eye, my focus likes to move around for me to like hold attention. So like having a fidget. Being able to shift my gaze keeps my brain kind of focused because I'm, yeah.

Kirsty: And I even want to like, just pick myself up and go back to what I said there when I said you're doing it really well. 

Simone: Thank you. 

Kirsty: But even in that language, there’s this expectation that, it’s.. 

Simone: It’s ableist, a little bit. 

Kirsty: It is!

Simone: I didn't think of that. It's completely ableist. Of all people, you're not going to be ableist. 

Kirsty: But no, well, we all, casually, we all are. I've been thinking a lot about the ableist language that I use lately, even in terms of…

I heard Hannah Diviny did a podcast on Listenable, where she talked about how she sent this tweet out to Lizzo, where she picked her up on this ableist slur in her music, and it was great because the music then got changed. But Hannah sort of said that she would have reworded that tweet now because I think she said, she used the word crazy or something in the tweet and she said, for a lot of people, that's, that's an ableist slur as well.[00:18:00] 

I say that all the time. I say, this is crazy, that's insane. Those sorts of things that we don't even think about. 

So when I said, you're making eye contact really well.. Implied in that is that that's what you should be doing. And you're succeeding somehow because you're making eye contact. You don't have, like, you should be able to not look at either of us at any point and you're still succeeding in your social interaction with us, you know.

Simone: I'm still able to respect communication by giving back and forth and listening. And that's the basis of communication. Yeah. And it's the old. Stereotype of communication is eye contact. It's... Yeah. And I work with so many children, and even adults, where I'm trying to build maybe Lego or something, and shifting a child's attention by talking to them about a topic.

Their process might, their processing might be a little bit slower, they might give you 5 10 seconds before they respond. But they've listened intently to everything I've said and they give me a detailed response. So trying to [00:19:00] support parents in, try and think about when you're getting your child to stop and look at me when I'm trying to tell you, you're shifting their attention away from what's probably giving them comfort and the ability to focus.

And... That's disrupting. So you're probably actually not going to get the best out of your child if you try and shift their focus to Look at me when I'm talking to you. 

Kirsty: So I feel like you're focusing on me, with my neurotypical brain, I think this is going well, but actually it's counterproductive.

Simone: Yeah, that's right. So being able to support parents understanding that just because your child might be playing a video game, or playing with Lego and not looking at you when you've given them instruction. There's other ways of getting them to confirm that they've listened to what you've said. 

Kirsty: Yeah, so like what, for example, what would you recommend?

Simone: So, like, I have a 10 year old boy who is obsessed with video games. So, he won't look away from the screen. So, generally [00:20:00] I will say, Odin, let's go and we're going to go to school in 10 minutes. I need you. To brush your teeth, take your medication and make sure you have lunch. What did I just ask you? Right.

And then if he can repeat it back, that's fine. If he says, I can remember the first one, but I've missed the second one. Okay, that's fine. I asked you to do. Your medication, your bag, and brush your teeth. Can you remember now? Okay, when are we leaving? Ten minutes. Right, so just asking questions. And that's, it's just bringing it back to simple communication rather than the eye contact side.

That's not the important bit. It's the listening part. And for people with different neurotypes, the way that they tune in and listen. And the way they need to be stimulated when they are able to do that is, yeah, they've got different strategies. 

Kirsty: Could in some ways be compared to, I know like my grandfather, for example, was left handed. And in those days you could not be left handed. [00:21:00] So he would be at school and he would get the strap and he'd get physically sort of penalised for writing with his left hand. So he had to learn to do something with his body that his body naturally did not want to do. And so, it's the same sort of thing, I suppose.

Simone: When I first started as a speech pathologist, that was a big goal for us. Yeah. Like, one of the goals was, this child will make eye contact when speaking to people. And yeah, it's horrible thinking back that that's something I used to work on with kids. And teaching them, and I always feel funny about it.

I've always felt really funny earlier on in the piece about. The way I was doing therapy and it just didn't feel right. And I used to teach kids to like pretend that there was like a dot in between someone's eyes and focus on that. But now, like I'm thinking back at some of the kids that I was working with and saying, remember looking at me when we're talking - and they'd look at you with this really intense stare.

Like, it's really, really hard to do and I'm really focusing on doing that, so I'm not actually listening to what you're saying because I'm really focusing on the [00:22:00] bit that I've been told to do. It screws with their working memory. Yeah. It screws with cognition because everything else is shut down.

Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's just too forceful. 

Kirsty: Yeah. The goal being to encourage neurodiverse people to pretend that they're the same as neurotypical people. How damaging. Yeah. So another sort of classic one, I guess, is stimming. Yes. What's stimming?

Simone: Oh, stimming. There's so many things with stimming.

So stimming is a repetitive movement or repetitive action that gives a regulation. So it's like an emotional regulation tool that some people might not even realise that they're stimming. So a typical thing for an ADHD person would be tapping their feet and moving their knees or drumming on their legs and clicking.

So some kids will go like that. And there's, so there's an, uh, kind of going off on a bit of a tangent, ADHD thing to do: Autism, [00:23:00] ADHD and Tourette's syndrome actually all cross over like a Venn diagram. Yeah, so historically we've been seeing kids do like neck movements and blinking and yes, they are tics and yes that can be part of ADHD.

It can be an autistic trait. But it could be Tourette's syndrome as well. So it's something that we're working with my staff on trying to learn how we approach it. But learning that it's a stim a lot of the time. So someone clicking is a stim. Lots of different ways of stimming. Cracking your knuckles.

Yeah. People who crack their bones. That's actually a stim. 

Kirsty: Right. So it's something that actually a lot of neurotypical people do and don't realise. 

Simone: And when I was early on in the piece with working with children with autism I was encouraged to kind of get kids to stop stimming because it's so distracting to other children.

Now, I don't care if it distracts another child. That child, [00:24:00] the child that I'm working with needs to stim to regulate. And it's a really good tool for us as adults supporting young people or supporting anyone. If you see stimming increase, maybe that shows that that person might be uncomfortable.

But it also can show that someone is really enjoying themselves at the same time. So it's a really nice, not only is it an emotional regulation tool, but it's actually a really cool non-verbal communication tool to read in people. And there's a lot of non-verbal communication that, AuDHDers, autistic, ADHD people will do that is really, really valuable to key into to understand how we can support neurodiverse people. And that's a big focus of what I do with parents at work. 

Kirsty: Before we move on, I want to ask you, because we've talked about that neurodivergence affirming approach to things, what is great about being [00:25:00] neurodivergent?

Simone: My brain can do so many things at once. So many things. And when I get really, really involved and really love something, I can just spend hours on it. And yeah, I really don't believe that I could have created and developed my career and my practice without my neurodivergence. Because I've got ideas running through my head all the time.

But I feel that that kind of gift has really helped me in being able to create the practice that I have. And now I can educate people. So that's really, I think, where we're moving is that it's a gift to be able to show people that neurotypes are different. And that is a very big. Like, it's not, it's a changing space, but it's not a new space.

And, I'm still a big kid, like, I still have my hyper fixations, like, I'm wearing my boyfriend got me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, um, Homer [00:26:00] Simpson socks with Mr. Sparkle on them because I'm obsessed with the Simpsons. I have a Simpsons tattoo. 

Kirsty: Do you? 

Simone: Yes. No one would ever understand what the Simpsons tattoo is.

Yeah, it's really dark, very dark sense of humour. It's a dignity tattoo. So if anyone's listening and they're obsessed, Simpsons obsessed like I am. Um, Milhouse, one of the characters, his parents, they all go to this big family night where they have all these couples having dinner and all the kids are playing upstairs and the parents are playing Pictionary.

And Milhouse's parents, uh, Milhouse's dad gets dignity to draw as a pictionary thing. And he draws this, which is this really weird blob that has like a weird sail in it. And he gets really cranky at his wife. Like, how do you not know what this is? And then says, do you want me to show the cat? Because the cat's going to get it.

Then he says, why don't you draw it? She draws it. We never get to see the photo of what she draws. And everyone goes, oh yeah, that's dignity. And then it ends their marriage. They get divorced on the [00:27:00] spot. 

Kirsty: What? 

Simone: Yeah. It's my favourite episode of The Simpsons. 

Kirsty: That is dark. 

Simone: It's really dark. 

Colin: I don't watch The Simpsons. 

Kirsty: No. I wasn't allowed to, probably, because of this.

Simone: See, I, so, The Simpsons is my stim, basically. It's, that's how I regulate. 

Colin: So what is it? 

Simone: So, dignity, it's a dignity tattoo. 

Kirsty: So did it explain why he thought that symbolised dignity? Nothing? No. Just left everybody with more questions than answers. 

Simone: No, and everyone just looks at it, and it's a very fine line one, so I've got kids all the time that go, why have you got a pen on your arm?

Colin: Yeah. That's what it looks like to me. 

Simone: It does. But then I'll get random people that'll smile at me in the street, and I'll be like, what are they doing? And then they're looking at my arm, and I'm like, uh. You know, you recognize. You get it. You get me. 

Kirsty: It's your people. 

Simone: I actually met a girl at a gin festival a couple of years ago.

She kept staring at me from like a little while away. And I was thinking, what have I done? And she said, I'm sorry, do you have a dignity tattoo? I said, oh yeah. And she said, oh, so fine. Had one on the back of [00:28:00] her arm and I've never screamed so loud in my life.

That was the whole reason of getting it. I wanted to see however many people I could find in the world that have it. 

Kirsty: Oh my gosh, well, let us know guys, if you've got a dignity tattoo, let us know. You've just found your soulmate, basically. 

So are you excited about the way the world is moving in terms of how we view neurodiversity and that sort of thing. Do you think we're moving in the right direction?

Simone: Yeah, I do. There are obviously concerns that I have and the team at our work, we've been kind of discussing that there is a little bit of a risk. So I think it is a great thing that we're starting to educate more on neurodiversity, feel more accepting of that, put that into practice with not just allied health practice and mental health practice, but we can put it into wider workplaces and 

Kirsty: Soccer clubs.

Simone: Yeah. Soccer clubs. That'd be, yes. That's something I'm really interested in working. [00:29:00] Kids want to play sport. Kids want to be energetic. Kids also want to look at the plane that's flying over the top of our local sports. Yeah, I think it's a really cool space. Neurodivergence is everywhere. Yeah, it is everywhere.

And it's not just a box. Like there's boxes, there's circles, there's hexagons, there's everything. 

But I think there is actually a little bit of a danger in this neurodiversity affirming practice. Where there's that extreme, and there's an extreme in everything, but taking away from the strengths focused approach and kind of, even though they're saying we're being neurodiversity affirming and we're, um, listening to the fact that this person has autism and ADHD but really what they're doing instead of a strengths based approach they're going, you're autistic and, or I'm autistic so I don't have to do that.

Right. Rather than empowering someone to go I'm autistic and I want to be able [00:30:00] to be a speech pathologist which is a very people-y job and it might be challenging or I want to be a psychologist but I can't do that because I have autism or I'm autistic and I really struggle to talk to people.

That's where the danger is I think. And giving people that idea that you can say no to too many things. Rather than empowering them to say, I would like to explore that, how do I do it. And really focusing on the strengths based approach. So I think there is a danger with how we're presenting neurodiversity affirming practice.

Really still focus on the strengths based approach. Still recognising that you need breaks, and you need to look after yourself. But don’t limit yourself. 

Kirsty: Dawn Bayly, who's a local, she's a teacher, she's now a home-schooler. She has some neurodiverse children and, we will link to her episodes in the show notes.

Her mantra is we need to find your way of doing things. So not like this way is [00:31:00] inaccessible to you. But how do you get there? You might go take a different route. But you can get to the same destination. 

Simone: Yes. I was talking to a mum this morning and... And she was explaining that her son's been doing speech therapy with another therapist for a little while and just doesn't engage, doesn't feel like he's gotten anywhere.

And we really focus on, like, we spend ages saying, what does your kid love? What do they love to do? Because I can turn any language therapy, any speech therapy, any feeding therapy into Avengers or Peppa Pig for the next kid or Bluey for the next kid. There's no limitation to what we can do in our space.

We can just be creative with it, which I think is really exciting. Because it stops us being bored at work. And you get to, you get to be a kid. Like I'm really lucky in what I do. I get to be a kid and like play with Play Doh and make stuff out of [00:32:00] clay and yeah. So it's just helping a therapist and for parents as well.