Episode #57: Interview with Yasmine White, CEO & Founder of Voices Together Synergy Autism Podcast · Episode #57: Interview with Yasmine White, CEO & Founder of Voices Together I had a very special guest join us, her name is Yasmine White and she is the founder and CEO of Voices Together which is the largest music therapy organization in North Carolina. I was lucky enough to be introduced to Yasmine by my good friend and colleague, Jonathan Chase who some of you may be familiar with from previous podcasts. Yasmine and I had a lovely conversation where she described music therapy and her curriculum specifically. She inspires the audience to understand that music lives within all  of us and calls parents to share music with children of all ages and abilities. Here are two articles that Yasmine mentioned in this podcast and that she has shared with our listeners: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BpLKfmZL52I8FO69rL3VEhDJ3iMdQBVm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d...

Episode #56: MP - Paralyzed by The Ripple Effect Synergy Autism Podcast · Episode #56: MP - Ripple Effect I have such a deep respect for so many of my adult clients and how they think about things. Over the last couple of weeks, I have spoken to at least 3 different adults about this one concept that just blows my mind. Let me try to explain. As humans, each of us has a different level of awareness of our personal impact on the world. You might have seen sweet memes about how sharing your smile can impact others - as you never know who needs it. Or you might be concerned about using plastic straws due to the photos of affected turtles in the vast ocean. But for some autistic people, this very concept of realizing one's impact - that their actions have ripple effects into the world can actually be paralyzing. What we may observe as inaction (and term incorrectly laziness), we tend to interpret as selfish but it may. actually be paralysis due to extreme selfLESSness. Let me go a lit...

Get Rid of “Wait & See” Synergy Autism Podcast · Episode #55: MP - Get Rid of Wait and Ssee I used to think the “wait and see” approach only affected little ones before the age of 2 or 3. Parents bringing their children in with concerns about social engagement and medical professionals stating that the child is still within normal limits so let’s “wait & see.” The hope being that the child would outgrow the lack of engagement, not yet saying words, or having what seemed like extreme reactions to sensory information.  I did think it was tragic that children were then hitting preschools and kindergarten with pretty significant delays and undue stress that may have been alleviated by being served earlier with appropriate interventions. However, the longer I have now been in the field., the more I see the long term effects of the “wait and see” approach. The hesitancy to diagnose autism affects teens and adults later and we really need to be attending to those downstream issue...