Trauma and its impact on individuals with neurodevelopmental differences

Join us for Trauma & its impact on individuals with neurodevelopmental differences with Jennifer Abbanat.

Jennifer says:
I am a wife and a mom to three neurodivergent kids (ages 20,18, and 15), each with their own unique needs and challenges. Two of my kids are autistic and two of my kids have Tourette’s Syndrome. All three have also had medical complexities, with my two youngest needing ongoing medical care for chronic illness since birth. I have had to learn how best to advocate and support each of them within the different systems of society (esp medical and educational systems) over the years by essentially creating their own individual “playbook.”

After less than 3 months of first grade, we chose to take our son out of school as they were not appropriately meeting his complex needs and in fact, were creating more distress for him.

I “unschooled” him for 9 years and allowed him to guide me as to what he needed both for his learning and development, but more importantly, his overall well-being as a human. I just wanted my son to be happy and experience joy! He has been an excellent tour guide!

He entered back into our public school in 9th grade through an Independent Study School where he will graduate high school in June. I truly believe every child can be, successful; no matter how that looks. Our kids need the adults in their life to be present, love them unconditionally and to never give up on them.
Despite the challenges over the years, I have found it vital to enjoy the ordinary moments that are often overlooked when families face extraordinary circumstances.

Through the years, I have taken to heart what Dr. Bruce Perry says, “People, not programs, change people.” This is one reason I started a local parent support group, something that didn’t exist when I was going through the early years and seeking helpful resources. I have also joined with a few other “moms” to bring support, resources and education on a larger scale to our community called Yolo Neurodiverse Network. Our focus is on the people who work with, care for and support neurodiverse people.

It can be very hard on families, but I never lose sight that my son experienced some very serious adversity early in his development, and that this is “why” we may see him struggle in areas of life. This guides me to understanding more about relational neuroscience, Attachment Theory, how early adversity can impact the developing brain, and how this impacts everything in his life. Trauma informed, brain aligned, neuroaffirming practices need to be the framework to appropriately support our kids in all settings and especially for those who have vulnerable nervous systems and developmental delays.

In February 2023, I will be completing the Traumatic Stress Studies 7mo course with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, through the Trauma Research Foundation and in 2021 I completed Dr. Dan Siegel’s 6mo course in Interpersonal Neurobiology. I have also completed over 100 hours of professional development in trauma, special education and advocacy, behavioral health, Poly Vagal Theory, neurodevelopmental disabilities and differences, and the many therapy modalities that can help support an individual in the trauma healing process, ie, play therapy, expressive arts therapy, somatic experiencing therapies, and importantly therapies that focus on body up approaches rather than top-down cognitive approaches.

In addition to the Traumatic Stress Studies course, I am also in a 10-month LEND Trainee program (Leadership in Education of Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities) through the University of California, Davis at The MIND Institute.

Transcript

Guy Stephens: 0:11

Well hello and welcome to the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint AASR live podcast series. My name is Guy Stevens, I'm the founder and executive director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint. Happy to have you here with us today. I will tell you a little bit about the Alliance, if you're not familiar with who we are, and what we do. I started the Alliance about four and a half years ago, we initially kind of began around the issue of physical restraint and seclusion happening in schools across the country. I will say that as we've done his work our mission continues to evolve. And it's not just about restraint and seclusion, but in a school setting, and might be restraint, seclusion, suspension, expulsion, and corporal punishment. Very often, it's all the things that are done to kids in the name of behavior. It's often a lot of outdated approaches around behavior management, that not only aren't working for kids, but are failing some of the kids that really need our help the most. And of course, we don't want to see things like restraint and seclusion happening anywhere, whether it be in a school, whether it be a residential facility, mental health care, hospital, elder care wherever it may be. So, we certainly are involved in trying to affect change wherever we can, we do a lot of work around policy change and legislative changes. So at the state level, federal level, as well as local levels. And of course, we do a lot of work around education, which is part of the reason we're here today is we love to be able to share ideas, and to get information out there about better approaches. You know, broadly speaking, it's about trauma-informed, neuroscience-aligned, relationship driven, and collaborative approaches. So we have a vision really about seeing changes. Certainly, in a school context, we want to affect change, and we want to end the school-to-prison pipeline. But ultimately, it's about hopefully making a better world along the way as well. So I'm really excited to be here today. And I see a number of people have already jumped on live. If you are on live, and you have watched us before, you might know the drill. And the drill is I often ask you as we're getting started to tell me who you are and where you're from in the chat. I see Nicole already jumped on here, from New Jersey. So please, in the chat, tell us who you are, and where you're from. If you want to tell us more, you're welcome to tell us more as well. So I am very excited to have a guest with us today, who is going to be sharing what I think is going to be a really interesting presentation. And I'm really excited to see and hear from our guest, Jennifer Abbanat who, gosh, I've known for a number of years now it seems like. Not long after I started the Alliance, Jennifer and I connected. Jennifer is an amazing mother and advocate. She is really a growing expert on trauma and the impact of trauma. You're gonna hear today she does a lot of digging into the impact of trauma on individuals with neurodevelopmental differences. So I'm going to tell you more about Jennifer here in just a moment. And I'll bring her up and introduce her. But I do want to tell you a couple of housekeeping items. Of course, as always, we do them live events for a couple of reasons. One, I don't have to go back and edit them. But two, it's just kind of fun to do it live. But they are available after the fact. So if right now, if you're not going to be with us for the next hour to 75 minutes. Rest easy. We record these, we make them available on gosh, I guess it's three different platforms on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. So you can go to any of those platforms later and you can watch the video. You also have the ability to download it as an audio podcast. So a few days after it goes live. We make the audio podcasts available. You can download that on iTunes or Spotify, whatever your favorite network might be. So again, I see a number of people have already said hello, and it's great to see some familiar names here. I see Amy from Oregon. Trisha here from Idaho, she says excited to be here, Jennifer, she's amazing. She has that right for sure. We've got Beth here from San Jose, and we've got people coming in. In fact, recent guest, Arielle from Alexandria, Virginia. And here joining us from oh my gosh, I want to say Michigan, right. Is that right? Oh, Detroit. Yep. So I was right on that I sometimes misremember things. Not all the time, though. So at any rate, we've got a lot of people who have already jumped on board. So let me go ahead and get to the good part and introduce to you our special guests today. So I'm bringing her up on the screen now. Jennifer Abbanat and Jennifer it's it's great to have you here today. I'm going to read through a bit of your introduction here and I I actually had to shorten it a little bit, but it's still a lot of introduction, because you are doing some really fantastic and amazing things. So of course, you are a wife and a mom of three neurodivergent kids. And if the ages are still right, because I know you sent this to me a while ago, ages 20, 18, and 15 We might have had birthdays since you sent me this. And you said each kid has unique needs and challenges. Two of your kids are autistic and two have Tourette Syndrome. All three have also had medical complexities with your youngest needing ongoing medical care for chronic illness since birth. You have really had to learn how to best advocate and support each of them in different systems, whether it be the medical or educational systems over the years. And I know how that goes personally, it's like flying the plane while you're building it. And it's overwhelming, quite frankly. And the systems are not always easy to navigate. So knowing the level that you've been able to navigate them, I know the work that it's taken to do that, and really kind of helped to create your own individual playbook for doing that. And I know you do some advocacy work as well. And you're always generous with sharing your thoughts and ideas and your passion around this. Through the years, of course, you've taken to heart things that people like Dr. Bruce Perry said, Bruce Perry, of course, said people, not programs change people. This is one of the reasons that you started a local parent support group, which didn't exist when you went through the early years and sought some helpful resources. And as I often say, and I think you're a really good example of that, and probably a firm believer, sometimes you have to be that change in the world you want to see, when you don't find it, you create it. And that probably is a bit of a story of how the Alliance started. You have also joined with a few other moms to bring support and resources and education to a larger scale of your community. You now have the YOLO neurodiverse network. And I'm just going to be easy here and say YNN which focuses on people who work with, care, and support neurodiverse people. Earlier this year, if I'm not mistaken, you completed the traumatic stress studies, seven-month course with Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk through the trauma Research Foundation, and wow, I mean, that's quite a credential and probably quite an experience. And 2021 you also did Dan Siegel's six-month course, in interpersonal neurobiology. And you've completed over 100 hours of professional development and trauma, special education, advocacy, behavioral health, the polyvagal theory, neurodevelopmental disabilities, and differences, and many therapies and modalities as well that can help individuals in the trauma healing process, you have put in a significant amount of time. And, you know, it's funny, these journeys start and suddenly you realize you've been investing all of his time and energy and quite frankly, you become an expert. And Jennifer, I have lots of opportunities to hear you sharing your background, and we're really excited to have you here today. Are you still doing the Linde training program as well, the leadership and educational?

Jennifer Abbanat: 8:23

I officially graduated.

Guy Stephens: 8:25

Okay, gotcha.

Jennifer Abbanat: 8:26

That finished in May. And I'm actually currently doing Dr. Cathy Malchiodi's expressive arts educator and coach program.

Guy Stephens: 8:35

perfect. And that was through the University of California Davis at the MIND Institute. So you ain't done a tremendous amount of, you know, research, you know, in immersing yourself into these programs, and truly, you know, are an expert in these areas. So, really fortunate to have you today. And of course, one credential I can't leave out is that you are also a volunteer with the alliance against seclusion and restraint. It's funny, you and I have known each other forever. And you know, you've always contributed, I guess, only officially a volunteer for a few months. But, you know, I feel like you've been on the volunteer team for quite some time. And of course, you've been helping us with book studies recently, which had been an absolute blast, and maybe later, we'll talk more about that. But more ways to kind of share knowledge, share information. So with all of that, and again, I cut that in about half so I'd have a lot more I could have shared here and feel feel free to share more as you kind of present today. But we're really excited to have you here today. And I know you're taking kind of all this experience you have and what what's really, I think compelling about you know, your what you bring to us is you know we're talking about you know, lived experience. We're talking about, you know, applied experience we're talking about bout, you know, of course studying with some of the foremost experts in the world on some of these topics, and to be able to bring all those things together, I think is really exciting. So I know you've got a presentation lined up for us, but just a huge welcome. And thank you. And we're really excited to have you here today.

Jennifer Abbanat: 10:19

Well, thanks for having me, I'm so excited to be on this side of it. Obviously, I'm always a viewer, whether live or at some point of all these webinars that you put on that are so helpful and valuable for parents like me. It is, it's this kind of sharing of lived experiences that I think were really recognizing the importance of that within the Autistic community neurodivergent community, because we haven't always had it right. And when you have professionals in your life, especially when it comes to your children who don't understand things, or understand how to help them, you know, I do what many parents do is I go and I find the information I go and research. And what a difference that made. It wasn't easy. But you know, it's such a valuable thing. So that, now that I have this experience plus the background history and education part, you know, I don't want to keep it to myself, because I know there's so many other families that might be having some struggles, just like mine was.

Guy Stephens: 11:32

Absolutely, and we're really excited to have you here today to present. I'll share with you a couple more comments that came in here. We've got Jamie from Nashville. We've got Cassie here from the Michigan advocates in seclusion restraint. And since I'm seeing that, I'll let folks know that today is the one year birthday anniversary, whatever you may say, for the Michigan's advocates to end seclusion restraint. They've been doing some amazing work. In fact, I know that we've got another member of the group on as well. But you know, this is about people becoming the change in the world that needs to happen. And this group is absolutely fantastic. I would sing Happy Birthday to them. But I'm going to I'm going to just save everybody from that today. But really great to have them here. We've got let's see, Johnny Johnson, P and W area went back to school of 45 to become a behavior teacher due to experiences I observed, while being a sub parent, a self contained behavior classroom. Again, it's being that change you want to see in the world. Yep, Nicole, also who introduced herself from New Jersey, back at school at 50. For things I've witnessed in the classroom as a para, that's unfortunate, but glad there are others that are trying to make change to and of course, another volunteer here, castes from Washington state. So Oh, and we've got one more here. And all these people are coming on. This is great with Sandra here from North Carolina, as I recall, and happy to be catching the live event. So with that, I'm going to stop putting things on the screen and stop talking myself and hand it over to you. And I know you've got something that you're going to start us off with. And of course, we had kind of talked ahead of time, I'm going to kind of disappear as you present. So I am going to queue up and bring up on the screen, the video that you have ready to go. But I'm going to disappear after that. And I know you've got a presentation to bring up as well. But kind of like you know the movie a lot. And if you you know, say the magic word, I will magically appear and help you out if there's anything you need. So we'll go ahead and get started here. And I would let people know that we are taking of course questions, we're probably gonna hold those off till the end of the presentation. But feel free to put those in the chat whenever the thought crosses your mind. Because sometimes your weight and the thought you lose the thoughts. So put them in chat. Whenever you have a question and we'll come back at the end, we'll address some questions and comments that folks have.

Jennifer Abbanat: 13:56

Oh, do you do you push the play on the video? Or do I,

Guy Stephens: 14:01

you should be able to push a play and I'll actually wait around until you get your presentation up. And then I'll disappear. So let's go ahead and brand. Let's start with that. Great. Let's see if I can figure this one out again. All right. I'm gonna go back

Jennifer Abbanat: 14:24

let's try that again. Okay, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna start over Sure.

Guy Stephens: 14:30

Sure your screen. And once you bring it up on the screen, you should just be able to hit the play button. If all goes well in the technology world. It will play and if it doesn't, then we'll move and

Jennifer Abbanat: 14:40

I'm gonna. I'm gonna start off with just this short little video. It's about 50 seconds.

Guy Stephens: 14:44

Fantastic. And while you're pulling that back up, I'll because we're going to be watching a video on YouTube. I'll say something that Courtney reminded me that I should say which is you know, we of course put these out on all different platforms, but we're trying to increase our subscribe eyeballs on YouTube. So I'm encouraging people to go to our YouTube channel and subscribe to that, because it helps us to ultimately get enough subscribers where we can begin to think about how we can you know, we always offer this for free, but we might be able to monetize that as well to help support the mission of what we're doing. So I see your video has reappeared here, and hopefully, yep, you're good to go. All right.

Video: 15:26

Holly was about eight weeks old when I first got her there and then she just had anxiety like I've never seen in any other code Holly loves to be swaddled in blankets, but then she would get up and move around and the blanket would fall off. And Halloween rolls around. I was out shopping and saw this little duck costume and I thought, oh my gosh, it's so perfect. As soon as I put this that costume on her. It was like an instant calm over her voice she's doing we did try other costumes and they didn't work the same. There's something about this costume. She's been anxiously Risa. She's in her little duck suit.

Unknown: 16:33

Pocket was a brand new baby, we lay Pocket down on top of her and it kind of had the same effect. She really enjoyed having that little buddy

Video: 16:46

we would lay them next to her as a little babysitter and she loved it. She's a great mom

Jennifer Abbanat: 17:09

okay, so just needed to get a little feel-good stuff going on for everybody. That is a video that I have shared repeatedly for years with my kids. These were the things that kind of brought us some connections. And as you can see Polly through relationships found security, she found her safety. And then it was with her duck suit, but then it was with her baby goat brother and I just felt like that was such a beautiful representation of what we all need. throughout the lifespan. It's nothing that stops, so I just wanted to start with something that kind of got everyone's happy juices going. So now I'm going to put my screen back on. Okay. There we go All right. And bear with me for a sec. I'm gonna go to my Presenter View. Oops. Slideshow.

Guy Stephens: 18:23

Okay

Jennifer Abbanat: 18:29

Okay, so, hopefully, guy can you hear me? Oh, let's make sure that that's working. Guy, were you able to hear me? Okay.

Guy Stephens: 18:56

I just want to make sure you heard me. Yeah, we heard you and saw your slides. Okay. Sorry. I was backstage talking and you weren't hearing me there. But yeah, we saw your slides that look beautiful and we can hear you so just press that button again and you'll be off and going. Okay, thanks.

Jennifer Abbanat: 19:13

Thanks for the patience everyone. Okay, here we go. Trauma and its impact on individuals with neurodevelopmental differences. And I have to say it's weird not seeing anyone on the screen so I hope that we can connect after because it does feel weird talking to the abyss a little bit. So why I did this. And you can see on this graphic, how lovely being neurodivergent is and as a society, we tend to think of it as something to fix. But in reality, it is part of the human condition. It's part of the human experience. And having children who are not just neurodiverse, but also autistic, with other neurological, it's really brought me to a place in my life that has allowed me to see that this is what life's about. It's about this diversity without this diversity, it would be just boring, really. And it's such an important thing for us to really step up for this neurodivergent movement, and all the neurodiverse individuals in the world. I myself, definitely neurodiverse didn't know that growing up, but it makes complete sense now, as I've learned through my children, so there's my information at the bottom, I did start my own consulting and advocacy business. And I'll go into a little bit of of that, and why I did that as well. So first, I want to make sure that this can be heavy stuff. It's very sensitive to topics, especially if there's, you have some experiences or sensitivity to trauma and abuse. And so please take care of yourself, take a break as needed, leave the discussion as necessary for your own well-being. My goal was by playing the story of Polly the goat in her duck costume, it was my way of priming your nervous system to be able to move to a more sensitive topic. Sweet videos like this one, I have found to be such a great tool for my own toolbox with my kids, especially in difficult times, it's always been animals that were a way to co-regulate and connect. And it really brought that relational safety and attunement that we all talk so much about we've we've had our own share of farm animals over the years. And again, it was because we found that animals were really our connection to our children, but especially to my son who has developmental trauma and is autistic. So when we had our animals, it, it would always be something that we could focus on and draw attention to and become connected through the animals, as other ways was really painful and hard for my son especially. So we'll go on to the next slide. Guy did such a great job of introducing me and just a little bit more about me, these are just, this is kind of how my brain works. There's a lot on there. And that's kind of how it always is operating. But now I understand it a little bit more as I've gotten older and have children. One of my favorites is this it says the succulent reminds me of life a bit Pokey and protective but blooms these delicate flowers when it's feeling well. And I would say that's a pretty accurate statement for most neurodivergent individuals, when it's feeling well is really the key there. I also want to make sure that I mentioned a little boy who was very near and dear to my heart, Max Benson and some of you may or may not be familiar with his story, but that's actually how I got involved with the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint. He is not just my neighbor, but my dear friend's son, who was restrained for an hour and 45 minutes at a school non-public school here in Northern California and was killed. He had just turned 13 years old. He was a twin. He's a brother, a grandson, a son, a friend. And, you know, when you have an experience like that, so close, and I have my own child who I homeschooled for nine years, basically, because the school could not meet his needs. It really helps bring it back to this reality of what is happening to our children and why are they being harmed. And so through Max's story, there's not a day that I don't think about him and his family. I walked by his house, and then Memorial that's out front all the time. And I will always do this work for the memory of Max because we cannot allow any more children to be harmed or killed and it does happen. My five houses down from me a little boy never came home after going to school. So here's a little bit about my story. At its core trauma is overwhelming, unbelievable and unbearable. And that's by Dr. Bessel Vander Kolk. Whew, I was so fortunate to be able to do the seven-month course with. As you'll see, my journey to understanding trauma started about 19 years ago, when my son was born. His development didn't go as routine as like most parents expect. He was our second child. By then. He was diagnosed with PTSD at the age of five. That was his very first diagnosis and wasn't diagnosed autistic until age six. This is what led me on the path to understanding about early brain development, trauma, and how to best support him. You can see some pictures here. of his many, many hospitalizations. Over the years when he was three, he was hospitalized seven times, with multiple surgeries. And it's not without its impact. And we have to really understand children who are experiencing trauma, whether it be from medical abuse, or different experiences of any kind, we have to really look at this with a holistic trauma-informed lens so that we can better support them and help them. Dr. Judith Herman, I really liked this quote from her traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaption to life. And I think that's perfectly said, when it comes to especially, not necessarily the big T traumas, but the chronic traumas, the chronic things that are continually going on that leave very little room for, for, especially for kids for their development. I like this as well. We are not designed to live in survival mode, our bodies need safety, our souls need rest. And what I'm going to share today is just a tiny fraction of the available information and its impact on development and on individuals with neurodevelopmental differences. So again, there's so much available literature. This is just a tiny fraction, but hopefully, it'll give you some a platform that you can continue to learn on. My favorite quote is, "behavior is the language of trauma, children will show you before they tell you that they are in distress." And that is exactly what my infant was demonstrating to us beyond a fussy baby for sure, but nobody looked at us, other than over protective over compensating parents. Turns out my son's valves were just about to perforate by age two and a half. Due to Crohn's disease and bowel disorder, bowel motility disorder. So you know, we know our children and we know when they are in distress and behaviors are a signal of distress. They don't do it just for fun, or to make our life miserable as I actually did here. And I want to give some optimism, some hope. It's never too late to heal. We now know this. Because we understand the brain better we understand being trauma-informed, and we can share this information and understand better when we see behaviors, whether it's in a classroom or in our home environment, community, anybody we have, we have to see things through this new brain align lens to say, I wonder what's going on. I wonder, I wonder what's happening to that person. And, you know, unfortunately, in our schools, what they see is the behavior and it's something to stop, and without ever underlying addressing it. So I love Dr. Mona Delahooke when she says this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's the signal of distress. It's the cue for us to become curious about what information is trying to be conveyed in the only way this person knows how. And when we approach individuals with this new mindset. This is what kind of brings us to a pause, which allows us to be more present and co-regulate and pushed judgment and punishment to the side because that doesn't ever help a situation as most of us know. And this is especially true in our schools where we hear kids need to be calm, be calm, be calm, and you know, calm is one state but what we really want is regulation and you can be upset and regulated because if you're just present in your body it's you still can advocate and you still can stay within that your window of tolerance. And it's such an important thing because we really have confused some Have these terms within our environments about what we want. And when schools say calm, I'm pretty certain that now I understand they mean compliance. They weren't compliant children. And that's not necessarily a child who's able to learn because they could also be in shutdown, or the fawn mode. All right, let's go to the next slide. And I can give access to these slides. I have some videos. Hopefully, it won't play the science of early childhood development, excellent resources. I love the idea of serving return and why we see critical periods in development. And that was something in my child being born in chronic pain, those critical periods of development, and I'll go into that later. We're absolutely vital, and contributing every day to poor development, and not thriving. You probably are familiar with Dr. Bruce Perry, if you're familiar with the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, and this amazing book that he and Oprah wrote together, What Happened to You, it's a must-read if you haven't. And a couple of quotes from an early age, we store associations and memories of how everything in the world makes us feel. In cases of early life adversity, the infant learns that the world is unsafe, their needs are unimportant, and love does not feel good. And that was something we experienced, nothing soothe my son. And when we would seek help, they would say, Oh, let him cry it out, oh, this that, oh, well, you know, everything under the sun other than I wonder what's going on. And luckily, we've continued to pursue and that's what led us to recognize that his bowels were severely diseased. There we go. So again, what happened to you, it's about understanding how the brain reacts to stress and early trauma. And this helps clarify what has happened to us in the past. And it does shape who we are, how we behave, and why we do the things we do. Perry explains how one's early experiences and the memories they create can shape one's entire world and worldview as they grow. And this is really an important point. sensory inputs are the baby's first window into the world. And as the sensory input sounds, smells, sensations, and so on are processed feelings and experiences that are paired with the sensory inputs are registered to. And this is something that we experienced my son's sensory profile, as we would have called it was off the charts, as in his first 12 months, everything was so dysregulated, he lived in a state of dysregulation. The only thing that soothed him, now I realize I'm like, wow, that makes sense. But me bouncing on a yoga ball holding his head very firmly and his body very secure, next to mine, bouncing vigorously. And I couldn't believe that that was the only thing that sometimes brought him some relief. And now I understand the neuroscience behind that, and why. A little bit on brain development, I'm sure so many of you have seen this, our brains keep us alive at all costs. And it is through the world around us that our senses take everything in and kind of process. And it develops from that bottom up and the inside out. And, I think this is an important part, the cortex is the most uniquely part of the brain, human part of the brain. And, this is where cortical region goes offline for so many of our kids who have neurodivergence and trauma, or just neurodivergence, or just trauma, not both necessarily, because this is again, how the world is being perceived through our senses. And then the limbic region, which attaches that emotion and behaviors and helps us kind of make those predictions about what's coming next, and how we feel about that. So again, starting from the brainstem, you know, stimuli gets processed and determine if the individual was safe, or if there was a threat from the external world. And this is the brain's ability to detect danger or safety is neuroception. And Dr. Steven Porges, has coined that and I think it's such a beautiful way to understand the unconsciousness of what our bodies are always doing. They're always working to protect us, our nervous systems. Again, this is such an important part of it, and I kept kind of knocking down doors going but my son is experiencing something, he's not developing, and not meeting milestones. And the experiences have got to be impacting his development and absolutely experiences build brain architecture and also lack of experiences or pain, anything that causes a disruption. And it is so important to really And again, I know Guy I've always talked about this a lot, understand that. neuroplasticity, talk about something that gave me hope for the first time when I heard that word. And it is literally the brain's capacity to adapt, and change based on experiences, including disease and trauma, the brain's ability to reorganize its structure functions or connections by forming new neural pathways throughout life. And it's never too late, it's never too late to heal. So often, many of our kids are given up on, we experienced that. And, unfortunately, that's another trauma that is being experienced by their nervous system. And it can we can be doing so much more for everybody at any age, through our brains having this amazing ability, and neuroplasticity. Our biological imperative is survival. And so I thank goodness every single day that my son's body, was able to overcome all the adversity that he had experienced so early on, because we were told at two and a half, when he had his first colonoscopy, that his bowels were so close to perforating that he probably would not have survived it that sets you back something, an experience like that definitely set you back to go, oh, my gosh, thank goodness, we fought and fought and fought and went to doctor after doctor to try to get someone to listen to us. And you know, because the body is going to do everything it can to survive, and his behaviors, as we call them. What we saw, was telling us something is wrong, something is wrong. And that's such an invaluable thing. From my experience of knowing that that's actually what saved my son's life. These implicit memories are unconscious and automatic. And, yes, the memory lands in the nervous system as that sensation. And if you couldn't recall anything when you were little, I know I can. And I think this is part of my neurodivergence. I have memories from very early on that are very clear, that come through my sensations and things that I witnessed, that were nothing major, but for me, having a neurodivergent experience, especially fire trucks, I was scared to death. And so I just I have these memories that just get brought up. And so again, that's how these experiences land in our nervous system. Bruce Perry, sequence of engagement, this was what literally got me moving. I learned about his book, The boy raised as a dog, and I just dug in and understanding this sequential engagement, the neurosequential model of brain development, and understanding how you have to regulate, relate, and then reason I didn't have any professionals in my world that really understood it to the level and I just went on my own to learn more about it. I think this slide, I've seen this slide in so many ways. And I just think it just doesn't get enough attention because it really reflects this pattern of stress. The unpredictable versus the predictable. And when we see this, you can see unpredictable extremely prolonged stress leaves nervous systems vulnerable, it sensitizes them. This is what we often see in individuals with neurodivergent experiences because of how we process the world, through our senses and how it comes in. And we have a very sensitized way of being and our nervous systems, definitely, it lands in them. As I just was mentioning about my own memory of fire trucks growing up and living in that state of what's going to happen next and hyper vigilance. So but if the pattern of stress is predictable, moderate, and controllable. Then we do see resilience and tolerance. And I'll just say the word resilience drove me crazy. Early on, because all I would hear is, oh, kids are resilient. Kids are resilient. And I thought my goodness, my kid hasn't even had a chance to breathe without pain. How could he possibly have developed resilience? And, and I think such an important part of this is the capability of a person in any given moment is fluid. And it all depends on our cognitive, our emotional, social motor, all these regulatory capabilities shift with our internal state, and that's where we see regulation or dysregulation. There we go. Another great slide of all functioning of the brain is state dependent. And you can simply see, when we're really regulated, you know, we have, you know, most of our focus and attention is in our neocortex. As we become dysregulated, you can see how greatly that shifts down to only 10% access of our neocortex, and 60% in our brainstem and 60% in the limbic region, which is our emotional. And then, I don't know if you have a child, but I have a child who definitely fight and flight was their way of existing most of the time and 85% he was living in his brainstem. We said that repeatedly, his nervous system was just always on fire. And when we see graphics like this, it really can help us understand what we're seeing in students, in our kids, anyone we're working with as any human because it's we know if someone's in their brainstem, we know what we need to do, through connection, relational safety, to get them back into their new their cortex. Of course, there's limitations of the brain, we have negative biases and our brains based on experiences will fill in those blanks. And so for example, in trauma, it usually will fill in something that is predicting another bad experience. And so it is something that as a child is developing, it's a challenge. No doubt, and why being as predictable as possible with them and, and helping them prior to experiences of what are the possibilities? What are we walking into here? This can be you know, and then if this happens, how can we support you to get through that situation, and it's just getting back to that predictability versus unpredictability. That is why so many of our autistic and neurodivergent kids need so much predictability in their life because their brains will go to the negative bias because that is, again, biologically. So neurodevelopmental disabilities, they're present from birth or early childhood, they can affect how individuals perceive make sense of and interact with the world. neurodevelopmental disabilities can impact personal, social, academic, and vocational functioning in various ways and often co-occur with mental health conditions and physical health conditions. Individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities have a higher risk of experiencing trauma. This is including multiple complex interpersonal victimizations across the lifespan. I don't know about you, but I had a child who was bullied at school for struggling to understand certain rules out on the play yard. These are things that happen so much more commonly in individuals, adults, kids cross the lifespan of people within neurodivergent experiences. This also increases their the chances of them developing PTSD, unfortunately. Neurodevelopmental disabilities, when you're looking at autism studies read, which there's not as many as we know. The research is very slow to catch up to what lived experiences are. But when looking at autism studies, 50 to 80% report any form of child maltreatment, and this includes emotional verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and you can see, so much of this includes the practices of seclusion and restraint. And too many kids with neurodevelopmental disabilities are subjected to these harmful practices in different settings. It's the child who develops trauma. I mean, we know through Max's story, kids also die through this. It's why I'm so thankful for Guy starting such an amazing organization to really get this information out. According to the Department of Education, more than 100,000 and students were secluded or restrained in a single year. I mean, it's too prevalent and people are not taking it seriously enough. And it only takes one time of restraining for a child to be killed. Autism post-traumatic stress and dissociation. This is a really important one too. There's actually very few studies on autism and PTSD. And what we know it shows 32 to 60% of autistic adults screened positive for PTSD. And for women and gender minorities, this rate is even higher. And PTSD is drastically underdiagnosed with only 16% to 20% of autistic adults reporting a professional diagnosis. Yet, self-report has much higher rates of trauma, PTSD, post-traumatic stress and dissociation. And it's something that we really need to take much more seriously. Some of the reasons, this is one that is very well known now pressure to mask as neurotypical hiding your autistic traits and pretending to be someone that is not that person. And this literally causes identity confusion, and when combined with any other kind of childhood trauma encourages the formation of dissociated identities. Early attachment disruptions are common and autistic populations may increase the risk of dissociation, even in the absence of overt maltreatment. And I think this one's really important because, for example, my child who had medical complexities so early on, absolutely, there was attachment disruptions. These are normal if a child was born and is in the NICU for a while, that's going to be an attachment disruption. Again, nothing is set in stone, but when we're aware of it, then we can really work hard to repair and, and make, make things improve. It's something that I'm still working on with my son who's 19 now. At the intersection of autism and trauma, 70% of kids with autism will have a co-occurring condition, such as a psychiatric disorder. That's very profound, and something that we really need to be paying much more close attention to depression, anxiety, OCD disorders. These are all very common in autistic people, and more common than in general population. And yet, still, PTSD has largely been overlooked among autistic people, less extreme experiences, fire alarms, paperwork, loss of a family pet, a stranger's offhanded comment can feel very destabilizing to the nervous system. And, these are traumatizing to that individual. And whether it's a just a felt sense or a memory, it still destabilizes the nervous system and that destabilization just makes autistic neurodivergent individuals so much more vulnerable. The literature shows that individuals with autism are more exposed to bullying, teasing, and ostracizing. As I mentioned, when children are highly stressed, or in fight or flight, they shift from social or learning brain to survival brain. This makes it harder for them to think, make decisions, understand others, and express themselves. And this is Dr. Stuart Shanker. And I'm a big fan of his work as well. And he's got a wonderful website full of wonderful resources. And again, toxic stress derails healthy brain development. This slide is one that shows the importance of over the overlapping of PTSD and Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD, especially in young children, and I will say, this slide really shows how do we know what's autistic traits and what's PTSD and I see a few clients. Parents have come to me. And they don't know, and we don't know it's too crossover. But I would actually, in my experience, I have shared that to me it's the trauma that is more debilitating in the everyday compared to autism. And I say that simply having two autistic kids understanding so much more about autism and one with trauma and one without trauma. And, we have to develop these individual playbooks for our children because their needs are just different. And whether they're both autistic or or neurotypical, there's no two kids that are alike. And we have to individualize our own parenting, to meet them where they're at. And that's just going to always look different. And, so that's how common trauma can be in the autistic individuals, it's important to recognize that some of the things we see and experience, it's not autism, it's the trauma and trauma healing is really very important, just to approach everything through that trauma informed lens. This actually horrified me, when I first read it, developmental trauma and the importance of the first two months of life. If in the first two months of life, a child experienced high adversity with minimal relational buffering, but was then put into a healthier environment for the next 12 years, their outcomes were worse than the outcomes of children who had low adversity, and healthy relational connection in the first two months, but then spent the next 12 years with high adversity. Just think about that for a minute. My son, was the first three years of life experiencing significant adversity. This is a really important slide to demonstrate how important those early months are, not years, months. Popular slide the tray of regulation, this is all the job of the core regulatory networks that are, it just keeps our body in balance. And this is why the rapid growth of the brain during these early months. This is why it's so important. It's to get everything moving in that right direction. And again, everything coming in through the interoception and the five senses. There we go. Love Maya Angelou, I always like to put these in there, because these are things that keep reminding me of why I do what I do. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel. And having my own very sensitized nervous system. I fully understand the deep meaning of that. Trauma, is a disconnection from self. It actually comes from the Greek word for wounding or a wound. It's not what happened to you. It is what happens inside of you as a result of what happened to you. And it's not the trauma event itself. It's about what happens after the trauma. What's happening after the trauma. Are you being cared for? Are you being connected with? Do you have safe relational connections around you? Trauma causes a distorted worldview to the past experiences. And this is both conscious and unconscious. Trauma causes us to get stuck, basically. So this is a wonderful slide. Do you see this as beautiful and relaxing? Or do you see this as threatening and overwhelming. This is again, based on our experiences and our nervous system and our memories that we may not even be aware of. But it's something as simple as beautiful nature for some people can be very overwhelming and feel threatening. And unfortunately, traumatic events are defined by each person's brain and body based on their development experiences. And that's why there's no two people who experienced the same life event, that maybe what might be traumatic to one person is not traumatic for the other. And you know, society uses this dominant perspective, what we call neuro normative norms or, and the reality is, like for my child, he would see that as dangerous, loud. Something that would just be feeling very overwhelming. And so when we see different learners report trauma from just living in a typically developed world, it starts to help us understand, excuse me understand that something that most of us might say, Oh, how could there's nothing traumatizing in here, but we have to look at the world and the experiences through their lens of someone who has different experiences. A typical nervous systems, they're just organized differently and it's not good or bad. It's just different and we need to understand that. in neuroception, is the new everything and it definitely makes so much sense. And Kelly Mahler is a wonderful resource if you haven't heard of her. It is our senses that allow us to feel sensations from inside the body. It allows us to feel for hunger have hunger, thirst, shortness of breath, if we're cold, nauseous, with our if our hearts pounding, and it literally is the connection between the mind and the body. And for many neurodivergent individuals, this is a huge disconnect. They are not connected mind and body. And therefore, we see a lot of these challenges from interoception and lack of the awareness of what's happening. You know, do you have a child who doesn't get signals of hunger I do, I have to bring a granola bar with my child with me wherever I take my, my, even my, she's now a young adult. But you know, when those signals are still so weak, and especially under stress, then they those signals get weaker, or water, I have children who don't get thirsty. And so it is I had to have a watch for my daughter when she was in school to remind her to drink water because she would go all day without it. And having Crohn's disease that's not good at any anything. So it's important these are this is I think the first step and of understanding our kids is understanding what are their interoceptive experiences, and how do we support them and help them understand what they're feeling. Everyone loves the word co regulation, I love co-regulation. You know, it's where one nervous system calms another, the reciprocal sending and receiving of signals of safety, that attunement, it's two nervous systems connecting. It lies at the heart of all human relationships. It is experienced and as a human need that remains throughout the lifespan. Kids don't stop needing co regulation, adults don't stop needing co regulation. And it's a right brain activity. And it's it's neurons that fire together wire together. And that is what brings us in relationship and brings us into that safety in the comfort of another. And kind of a busy slide. Sorry about that. But I always love the Dr. Bruce Perry quote a dysregulated adult can never regulate a dysregulated child. Only a regulated adult can regulate a dysregulated child and notice it's not calming. It's not always it doesn't mean calm always. It's about being connected to self. I am fully present, I feel the ground beneath my feet, I am able to think clearly and I can make conscious choices. It allows us to have access to our higher levels of thinking, learning and attending and it's the capacity to think before acting. Stuart Shanker again, discusses self-control versus self-regulation because these two are definitely very misunderstood in many settings and self control is about inhibiting impulses. self-regulation is about identifying the causes and reducing the intensity of the impulse, and when necessary, having the energy to resist. So self-control and self-regulation makes self control possible. We don't teach children self-control, we teach them about their body and through co-regulation and repeated experiences and with time, hopefully they gain some self-regulation. And that's what brings the self-control. Adult caregivers such as parents, teachers, coaches and other mentors play a critical role in shaping and supporting self regulation development, from birth through young adulthood through an interactive process called co-regulation. This is from the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy and again, it's any one of these adult roles and even kids can co-regulate with each other. Um, just a quick for I'm sure many of you have heard of the window of tolerance. By Dr. Dan Siegel. It describes the best state of arousal or a stimulation in which we are able to function and thrive everyday life. When we are within our window of tolerance we're able to learn, effectively play and relate well to others. But if we move outside of our window we can become hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused. Hypo-arousal looks like freezing or shutting down or dissociating. You tend to feel exhausted, maybe depressed, flat effect, and disconnected. And if you're hyper-arousal, you tend to be in the fight or flight response. And that causes you to have difficulty with concentration, irritability, anger, outbursts, panic, self-destructive behavior, and high anxiety. For questions, we unconsciously ask each other at all times. Do you see me? Do you care that I'm here? Can I tell that I'm special to you? By the way, you look at me? Am I enough for you? Or do you need me to be better in some way? Again, it's about unconsciously, how do we feel when we're with another some of the hope, the best predictor of outcomes among all of this is how well is one connected, how well is one in a relationship and engaged within their community or in their culture, these are buffers and they definitely help absorb the toxic stress that is surrounding all of us. And both at the time of an event or events and moving forward. I love reminding people, it's not about what you know, it's how you are. And it's not about doing too, it's about being with and it's such a valuable idea for when we are with another human really, and that's the relational safety. I don't know if in Dr. Bruce Perry's book, What Happened to You, he goes on to find through the data hit looking at 70,000 individual cases, looking at children, youth, and adults, and through detailed histories and trauma and adversity, helping look at the relational health defined as the nature quality and quantity of connection to family, community, and culture. And they found that connectedness has the power to counterbalance any adversity. And they found one's relational health is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity. Timing of adversity makes a huge difference as we discussed earlier. And also if you have a trauma before age two, it will have more impact on your health than the same trauma taking place at age 17. I'm not going to go into the adverse childhood experiences. I have some information on my website that you are welcome to access as well. It's something that we have learned so much more about. And the fact is childhood adversity can have long term effects on learning behavior and our health. And 80% of those of the 17,000, who had at least 187 87% of those had more than one and we just know the prevalence of a scores. How does this kind of relate to an autistic or neurodivergent experiences and trauma. There's other other types of trauma and other than what just the original 10 Aces looked at. Kelly Mala really does a great job of discussing sensory trauma, being overwhelmed, not being allowed to stim self-regulate. That creates a trauma, social trauma, bullying, isolation and feeling different and masking, compliance trauma, dangers of normalization and surface behavioral approaches, neurological trauma, communication differences, uncertainty processing differences, interoceptive challenges, and medical trauma, experiencing medical procedures, hospitalizations, being misunderstood or not believed by providers. These are really important categories to understand the impact on neurodivergent individuals, and how prevalent trauma may or may not be for them. Childhood Experiences, if a child has had four or more adverse childhood experiences, they have become 50 times more likely to have academic and behavioral issues than other children. And approximately 50% of kids in the US have had at least one significant traumatic experience. Again, the impact of early adversity on child development that toxic stress results in architectural changes have fewer neuronal connections. And this is important, why it's important to identify risks early so that we can intervene as necessary and not waiting, shifting our mindset. When we focus on what's wrong with you. These kids who are emotionally reactive and have behavioral problems, will be viewed without a developmentally or trauma-informed lens. That's by Oprah Winfrey. Dr. Bruce Perry says in that same book, we need developmentally informed trauma where systems because prevention is key. Aces can get under our skin impacting health throughout the lifespan through toxic stress. And as I mentioned earlier, resilience actually tipped the scale towards healthy. Those are buffers that I'd had just mentioned. And you know, so what is exactly resilience according to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, one way to understand the development of resilience is to visualize a balanced scale, as I just had shown protective experiences and coping skills on one side and the counterbalance significant adversity on the other, how well is someone connected to their community. That's one of the buffers. And being resilient does not mean a person doesn't experience stress, it just means that they have the ability to work through emotional pain and suffering. This was really a huge guiding point that I learned from Dr. Bruce Perry many years ago, the therapeutic moments within a therapeutic web, the healing process, one can only revisit the emotional moments in short doses. Otherwise, they can become hyper-aroused, or dissociate. And that takes them out of their window of tolerance. And that's going to look very individual, depending on the person in front of us. It's about the right dose at the right time for a therapeutic moment. And so, I love you know, therapeutic means to heal, and you don't have to be a therapist to be therapeutic. Everyone in our classrooms, as parents, anyone when we are working with who has experienced trauma, we can provide a therapeutic experience by being present and sharing our attunement and attachment and our co-regulation. Because it is trauma can change the brain but so does relationships. And so this therapeutic web is everybody on let's say your child's team or your someone's team that provides that security. We can run from our trauma, we can mask it with substances, people, places, and things. But it will still be screaming in our minds and bodies after this self-destruction, waiting to be felt grieved, and loved. Trauma has to be dealt with, we need to heal from trauma. Again, these Protective Factors buffers and resiliency there are events or experiences that help people more effectively deal with stressful events. They helped mitigate the development of aces. And they can look like healthy relationships from parents, caregivers, neighbors, coaches, relatives, church, that's the therapeutic web, and its supporting and safe social environments. Children and adults really aren't that different when it comes to stress triggers. Nobody copes well when they are tired, hungry, overwhelmed, or feeling controlled. Stress makes ordinary things harder. Now think of an individual who experiences their environment differently. Ordinary activities can create toxic stress for some individuals. Here's another example of that. For different pictures, look at each picture and how do you feel when you look at each of them? What comes up? What do you where do you feel it? Do you have any emotions, a memory that comes up a sensation. These are ordinary events or ordinary places that can cause trauma for many vulnerable individuals. For my child, the grocery store and that birthday party would send him off. We just had to stop. That's what it came down to. And if the environment is creating stress for the individual's nervous system, this becomes a memory stored with a negative emotion and over time with more toxic stress. This can cause challenges for the individual and it can make it harder for the individual to be in certain environments that remind the nervous system of the previous negative experience from the past. This is huge. This is why we need to understand our kids and people that we work with and what are their sensory profiles. What do they find? supports their sensory needs and what causes it to be a problem and adverse. And I will say classrooms, we will hear this a lot. Oh but my classroom is safe. When you have all the dangly things hanging from the classroom, ceiling and bright colors. We have to look at things through a new trauma informed lens because we are inadvertently creating a lot of trauma within our houses and within school environments and other environments. I learned that the The hard way, understanding my child does not like the clutter that I love so much. It overwhelms him. And so you know, we have to work together. And that goes with it in the classroom as well understanding what are the needs of the children in front of us. I will share this with you through on through the slides. But it is an excellent representation of what it may be like, too loud, too fast, too bright. Again, anything that destabilizes an individual's nervous system can create toxic stress. And so just going into a grocery store can absolutely cause stress. For you, me, I as a child, I hated them all. I still hate them all. Now I understand why. But think about all the things that occur every single day, the fire alarms at school, just taking your kid to the grocery store for that last minute Aaron, crowds, anywhere smells. These are traumatic experiences, and they're felt by the body and they are stored as a memory. But don't let the entire staircase overwhelm you. Just focus on that first step and have some water Excuse me. Because it's easy to get overwhelmed. That first step is what helps us bring ourselves back to our present moment, and allows us to focus on our own nervous system. So that we can feel grounded, and then we can take the next step. This is important when we're caring for others, it starts with us. And it is why our own nervous, our own skill, self care is so important. Finding connections and with others within our own lives is just as important. create connections around those we work with and those we care for. Because as you can see, it is all through relationships that we heal. This is just from the CDC and SAMSA. trauma informed care, it just means shifting from the medical question of what's wrong with you to the trauma informed question of what's happened to you. And this is where oops, sorry. This is where our schools are not quite getting it right, at least locally, where I live. I hear oh, we're trauma informed. And I thinking one hour PD last year doesn't cut it. This is it's not about a curriculum. It's about a way of being and approaching every interaction through this trauma informed idea of it's not a checklist, it's not something that we're going to do to someone it's about how are we showing up? And how are we being with these people, anyone? And are we providing an shooing safe messages to their nervous system? That's what being trauma informed means. And recognizing that it's not something that we don't need to know other people's trauma, we just don't, we don't need to re traumatize them by asking them that. But if we recognize that how prevalent trauma is, we can just move forward and and look at this through that lens and just think wow, compassion and curiosity. I wonder what's going on? How can I help this person versus what's wrong with you? These are just a few of the the interventions, therapies and programs that people have found to be helpful and evidence based through for the treatment of trauma, neurofeedback, EMDR yoga, sensory integration therapy, I encourage you to look up something called Smart Moves. It stands for a sensory motor arousal relationship therapy. It's it's like if you walk into an OT space, but it's for mental health, and its uses somatic experiencing and your senses. It's it's a fabulous intervention. That really is something I wish my son had had. It would have, I think been a lot easier for him as he struggled so much to go to so many different offices. Of course, mindfulness martial arts, the Ark framework, which is attachment regulation, competency framework, theater, such as Shakespeare in the courts program, sensorimotor, psychotherapy, trauma informed expressive arts therapy, trauma informed play therapy, ifs therapy, and anything body oriented body up therapeutic models. It's again, starting with our senses and not top down So healing from trauma, we are born in relationships, we are wounded in relationships, and we can be healed in relationships. So in closing, the more healthy relationship a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. It's not what you know, it's how you are. It's how you interact with a child or any other individual. And relationships are the ages of change. And the most powerful form is human love.

Guy Stephens: 1:15:29

Those are fantastic quotes to, to close on. And I love what you said a minute ago, and we put it up on the screen. It's not about a curriculum. It's about a way of being. I'll let you share your contact information here. But yeah,

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:15:42

here's my contact. And I also have all the resources for anyone can read them. We did.

Guy Stephens: 1:15:50

All right, Jennifer, that was fantastic. And really appreciate you coming on and sharing all of this and sharing your journey. And really, you know, I was thinking about a question I was gonna ask you, but I think I know the answer. And that's, you know, what do you what do you wish you had known X number of years ago? And this is it right?

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:16:11

This is it? Is it? Yeah, I, we saw professionalist. The psychiatrist, my son was young. She just said, There's nothing we can do. Sorry. Sorry, promised trauma is trauma. And I thought, are you kidding me? That's that's, that's not an acceptable answer in my mind. Right, like I said, trauma is by far the biggest barrier. You can heal and heal.

Guy Stephens: 1:16:40

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, wonderful presentation. We are a little over time here. But I wanted to really kind of give you some time to run through things. And I'm glad we did. There were a couple of questions that were or comments that came up early on. And if anybody has any final questions, we'll we'll please put those in the chat. And and we'll try to get to a couple of them. One of the questions that I know, in fact, I was just asked here are will the presentation slides be available on the website. And we can handle that a couple of different ways. I mean, one, if you can send them to me, Jennifer, I can make them available for anyone and anyone that wants to reach out to me directly. And of course, you can reach out to Jennifer as well, you have that information. But I'm going to put in the chat, the email that you can reach me at. And if you send me requests, I can send those on to you as well. So we'll let people know that but let me get to a couple of things that was very early on. CASS had actually had to run but had had a question comment and just said, you know, I'm about to run into an OT appointment. So asking this now, but we'll have to watch the recording later for an answer. One thing that's difficult for me as an autistic mom of autistic kids, is that many popular trauma informed professionals seem to position having trauma is better than being disabled. And she mentions the boy that was raised as a dog. And she said, This ignores the reality that being autistic, and a neurotypical world brings trauma with it. That working on trauma is is important. Yes. But But and working, so won't make an autistic person. And unfortunately, we ran ran out of space here. But you know, I think so. So let me let you just kind of take that away and share your thoughts.

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:18:32

It's exactly right. I mean, and the thing is, it's going to be different for every single individual because everyone's having their own experience. To say one is better than the other other kind of doesn't make sense, in my opinion, opinion. They're both something. And as I demonstrated through so many neurodivergent individuals have trauma from just ordinary everyday experiences in life, right?

Guy Stephens: 1:19:02

What would you say ordinary everyday experience has been and I like? I like what what Kat said because I think it's, you're both saying the same thing in a way, which is one of the traumas, I think that we we see in neurodivergent individuals is being are divergent in a neurotypical world. So the neurotypical world itself can be quite traumatizing. I'm actually working with a colleague and have proposed the presentation kind of on that topic, which is, you know, the, the, just that one, you know, individual difference in a world that doesn't see recognize and understand that can be really traumatizing. I mean, you

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:19:44

know, expectations of neuro normative expectations neurodivergent individuals, it's, that alone creates these really intense feelings for many and That again lands in the nervous system and becomes something that gets stuck, which is what trauma does. And it's not again about it doesn't have to be this catastrophic, big T trauma, it's all these micro traumas that just go. And you know, this is where we're listening to autistic community, these, it could literally just be walking out and having sirens just blaring like, depending on where you live, if you live in the city, that could be such a sensory assault on your nervous system, that it creates a traumatic experience. It's, we have to look through the trauma informed lens to really understand, you know, whether it's in our own home or in our schools or in the community, that not everyone's experiencing it the way somebody else. I mean, it's this is a whole new paradigm shifting of perspective taking, like, everyone has different experiences, and we cannot dismiss or diminish what someone else may be having. Sure,

Guy Stephens: 1:21:04

sure. And at the foundation of those different experiences is the fact that, you know, the the individual differences that we all have, right. And two people don't experience the same thing and have the same, you know, have the same impact. Beth had mentioned here, school personnel should be required to have trauma informed training, as well as up to date training on autism, ADHD, etc. Which is a great point. But you know, you made a point, and one of our other listeners made this point as well, viewers, and that is, you know, you can't simply have a two hour PD session on trauma informed care, and be trauma informed in what you're doing. In fact, I've always said that, it's really about changing more than just what you're how you're responding to the students or the kids, you know, much of it is actually changing the entire culture of a building, changing the entire tire culture of a district. And that means that you also become trauma informed for towards your staff, towards your family stories, your parents, you can't do that in isolation, you can say, Okay, well, we're going to apply a trauma informed approach over here, and then do it nowhere else. So yes, I agree. I mean, you know, Jennifer, I was just kind of reflecting on this, and what amazing world it would be if every teacher had been on the journey that you've been on and had all the knowledge that you have, after going through this. And we're not going to get there anytime soon. But I think there is a lot of progress that can be made getting people to understand the impact of trauma, getting people to understand the importance of neuroscience, getting people to, you know, follow, you know, approaches that are collaborative, not doing things to people or for them, but doing them with them. You know, there's there's, there's hope. But certainly, we're not where we need to be Now, are we?

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:22:56

We have a long ways to go. But we've also made some great strides. So

Guy Stephens: 1:23:00

yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know, the other thing I was thinking as you you've been going through all of this is, why don't you write in your book on this. I mean, I know you've written some fantastic articles, because you've written some fantastic articles for us. In fact, I always think about, I have to look this, that's I haven't looked at him for a while. But for a long time, you had the most popular article on our website. And it was regulation before education. And at its heart was a lot of what you were talking about today that, you know, we can't educate people, we can't access a thinking rational learning part of the brain, unless we are working with people and have them feel safe and secure and regulated and connected. So So anyway, I was just thinking about that. And, you know, I even you know, have these ideas. I'm like, you know, okay, what's the title of her book, you know, something from the crow's nest, and then

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:23:55

I'll just say the crow's nest is actually again, in reference to max, because crows are very misunderstood when they're highly intelligent. And a lot of our children are misunderstood. Intelligent, and Andis Smith. So the crow's nest is actually I got commissioned is sweeping to us that I will might his energy is what people I cannot know that more children are being harmed without doing everything I can to prevent it. And using, you know, all this information, the neuroscience outlets like this alliance, sharing this with our local community. Right. Because believe it or not, we're still not where we need to be even after losing a child.

Guy Stephens: 1:24:53

Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, that's one of the things that one of our hopes in doing these mean, you know, we do these events because we want people not only to learn and to get curious and, you know, even, you know, I mean, I know how many trainings and events like this you've you've not only participated in on this end but but have watched and been part of the community for it's so important. So, you know, we encourage people, you know, share these with your colleagues, if you're in a you're an educator or you work in the medical field, or wherever you are, share these with your colleagues. If you're a parent, share them with you know, your the educators in your school, really can make a difference. Couple more comments, and then we'll wrap up because I don't want I've taken your more of your time than I planned on the day. But it's been such a great conversation. Best said that, I think Cass was alluding to the myth that people just the trauma informed therapy, and they won't act autistic anymore. So that was just kind of a viewpoint on that. But yeah, I don't know, if you have any thoughts that had

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:25:59

act autistic, I don't really know what that. But the thing is, when we think of autistic people, we tend to think of, you know, being more rigid and rigid or steaming. And again, that's a human experience, we all do those things. And we really have to normalize the existence of each and every one of us and what we need to say, regulated. I was the kid, I stuck my thumb till I was 10 years old, that my parents, you know, eventually does, like, it was such a big deal to them. And I now as an adult, you know, I just turned 50 last year, and it's like, there's reasons we, and I know, my own experiences growing up, help me understand my children and the reasons they do things. And we, and I see this all the time, you know, we're people are like, Well, my kids sucking their thumb, I need to, you know, do something or I need to stop them from biting their nails, or we need to stop them from this. You can't stop it without understanding it and ensuring that they have another way to self regulate.

Guy Stephens: 1:27:21

Yeah, yeah. And everyone does not need to be the same. I think when the goal, when the goal is about compliance, we are we are vastly missing the mark. And all too often the goal is about compliance. And, you know, you know, I was thinking, you know, kind of about that, that comment. And one of the things that came to mind is, first of all, I think, you know, trauma informed practices can Can I think, be beneficial to many humans, I mean, assuming even trauma can be sometimes beneficial. But I remember someone and I didn't remember who to attribute the quote to, but they said something along the lines of it was an educator, as I recall, but you know, something along the lines of that, if I worked with every child in my classroom, like I support the autistic children, my classroom, everybody would benefit, right. So, you know, there are a lot of things that we can do. And it's about understanding those individual differences and respecting and supporting and, you know, understanding that we're not all the same, that there may be things that are really difficult for some people and, and not for others. Yeah, so, I mean, there's, there's some lofty goals, certainly to have there.

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:28:30

I see so many neurotypical people, people who actually show so much rigidity.

Guy Stephens: 1:28:37

Right, right. Right.

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:28:38

And, you know, in flexibility from others. That's, and that's where, when you're parenting, regardless on the adult, and I have to always make sure that I'm in a place that I can be supportive, you know,

Guy Stephens: 1:28:56

right. And if you yourself are not regulated, you're not going to, I mean, you're you're gonna cause this regulation, you're certainly not going to help somebody that haven't had to learn

Jennifer Abbanat: 1:29:06

how to be so flexible. Oh, my God. And, and that's okay. You know, I wish that wasn't in my nature. But I had to learn how to do that. Because that's what my children needed.

Guy Stephens: 1:29:17

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been a great conversation. We'll go ahead and wrap it up here. But I would encourage people to reach out to you. I look forward to hearing you do more of this. And, you know, when the book comes out, let me know I'd love an early copy. Just put a seed in your mind there, you know, and all that free time I have. That's right. That's right. You know, from the crow's nest, the parents journey to understand the impact of trauma on humans with neurodevelopmental differences. I think it's I think it's I think it's needed. Yeah, there you go. There you go. And you can stick around with me for a second. I'm going to actually announce our next next speaker, but any any final thoughts that you have? Before we we wrap up here,