Two Sides of the Spectrum

• Practices that Center Regulation, Cultural Identity, Authentic Communication, and Dignity with Christina Schmidt

  SLP Christina Schmidt strives to work in a way that centers a client's regulation, their identity, and their dignity. If that resonates with you, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Christina shares in detail how we can best support our clients with communication needs, our AAC users, non-speakers, kids who communicate through delayed echolalia in ways that are both neuro-affirming and culturally responsive. And she shares a model for supporting clients who don’t share our identities, applying it to a real life example of a client she supported who was deeply in burnout from being subjected to compliance-based practices. Christina Schmidt is a Black, African-American Australian, multicultural, and multi-dialectal AuDHD woman who proudly embraces her identity across all facets of her work and advocacy. She's the founder of Free to Be Me Speech Therapy where she provides neuro-affirming support to both kids and adults in a way that honors each person's unique communication needs, strengths, and ways of being. Her work is rooted in justice, joy, and the ongoing commitment to amplifying diverse voices and stories, always with the belief that we deserve to be seen, heard, and free to be.  Want MORE EPISODES of Two Sides of the Spectrum, recorded Q&As with our guests, and a listener chat forum? We just launched our Patreon and we need at least 100 people to join to keep the podcast running! Patreon.com/learnplaythrive View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

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• Startled, Trapped, & Shamed: How to Stop Accidentally Dysregulating Autistic Kids

  All behavior makes sense, we just have to make sense of it. In this conversation, psychologist Dr. Gillian Boudreau helps us see that underlying nearly any behavior is fear. And so often, the fear is related to a child being startled, feeling trapped, or being shamed. But if you aren’t looking for it, it’s easy to miss. In this conversation we explore the nuance of each of these - especially for PDAers - and Gillian's exact roadmap for concrete ways to avoid them (complete with clever acronyms for each). This is a must-listen episode to help you understand your clients' experience in their lives and during your sessions. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

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• Safety As The Foundation of Everything with Dr. Gillian Boudreau

  Episode 67 was one of our most impactful episodes ever, and today we invite you to re-listen. Often as OTs and SLPs we skip right to teaching our Autistic clients new skills. But what about their experiences of felt safety while they are with us? What work do we need to do so that we can show up calm and connected and ready to support our Autistic kids to feel truly safe before they are ready to learn? Psychologist and school psychologist Dr. Gillian Boudreau talks us through this essential and often overlooked first step to supporting our Autistic clients. This is a re-airing of episode 67 in preparation for our next episode, which will be a new conversation with Dr. Gillian Boudreau that builds on this incredibly impactful episode.  Check out Dr. Gillian Boudreau's full course at learnplaythrive.com/calm and her Spring reflective practice group at learnplaythrive.com/practice View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

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• Beyond The "Green Zone" & Beyond Labeling Feelings: Supporting Social Emotional Learning with Katrina Martin

  If you’re anything like me, you learned how masking can harm the mental health of your Autistic clients….and then you never learned anything to put in its place. This leaves a huge gap for our Autistic clients who need us to know how to support their social and emotional well-being in an affirming way.Today’s guest, Katrina Martin, Ph.D., helps us answer questions like:What do I say when a parent is asking for traditional “social skills training”?What do I do when a school is using Zones of Regulation in a way that doesn’t feel affirming?Should I ever have kids match emotion words to faces? When is this helpful, and what is it missing?And so much more.Our guest, Katrina Martin, Ph.D. is a neurodivergent parent to neurodivergent kids, the creator of our online course Bridging Perspectives: Transformative strategies for neurodiversity- affirming social-emotional learning, and the founder of Bridges Learning System. Katrina speaks from her own experience and her extensive work to show us all how we can support social-emotional well-being while respecting authentic Autistic ways of being, connecting, and communicating.And a big update from Learn Play Thrive: All Learn Play Thrive courses will be available for sale only through December 16, 2025, with our final CE summit taking place in February and March of 2026. This is your last chance to take any of our affirming continuing education course. All courses include one year’s on-demand access and various CE board approvals. Visit learnplaythrive.com/trainings before registration closes forever. View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

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• Supporting Autistic Kids During Meltdowns with Amanda Diekman

  This bonus episode is just for the parents you support, and it is all about meltdowns. A meltdown is a full body response to feeling overwhelmed. In a meltdown, our kids' nervous systems are in survival mode. They are going to fight for their lives or flee for safety. One way or another, they are physically releasing the energy of their intense emotions. When this happens, what is in our control, and how can we respond to signal safety to their nervous system? How can we turn down the temperature and bring the child back to safety?In this bonus episode, you’ll Amanda Diekman teaches parents a mindset shift and safety planning strategies to help you manage aggressive meltdowns in a way that helps bring your kid back to safety, without overextending your own nervous system.Join our caregiver community and access Amanda’s full on demand course, Supporting Autistic Kids in Distress, by visiting parents.learnplaythrive.com/community View show notes and transcript at learnplaythrive.com/podcast

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