Asperger's 101: Breaking The Barriers Transcript …

[Pages:45]Asperger's 101: Breaking The Barriers Transcript

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(Music)

Hello and welcome to Asperger's 101 Breaking the Barriers. My name is Danny Raede . I'm the cofounder of Asperger Experts and I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was 12.

And I'm Hayden Mears, the other cofounder of Asperger Experts and I was diagnosed at age five, but not told until I was 12.

So throughout our work here at Asperger Experts and in this audio program, what we're really gonna be talking about is breaking down those barriers, because there are barriers that separate you from someone with Asperger's and doing a great job and helping them grow and basically maximizing their life. There are a few things that we see a lot of people just get in their way and therefore people with Asperger's never get the help they need. And then they never grow and they don't experience life to the fullest that they can.

Right. They have a subpar way of living and they end up in group homes, institutionalized, what say you. I mean just whatever they can do, basically.

And that totally does not need to be the case. I mean when I was diagnosed when I was 12, my parents first thought it was ADD actually and then took me to

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a psychologist, who said, "No, in fact, it's Asperger's." And at that point, they didn't really know what I was gonna do. And for me, it was just kind of like, "Oh, okay. I have Asperger's."

People ask, "What was it like when you were diagnosed?" I didn't know. I was not aware enough to even just ? I recognized that on an intellectual level. "Oh, okay. There's some diagnosis thing," but then it was like, "Leave me alone. I wanna play my video game."

When I was five, the doctor told my mom that I would never have any friends, that I would never, you know, have a good life. I would be institutionalized. I would never function on my own. And my mom still recalls the day that I was diagnosed and they were told this. That my dad was crying against the car in the parking lot because there was no hope for his son. And let me tell you that I'm glad that I didn't listen, that me or my parents did not listen to those doctors. And my mom discovered these barriers and broke them down for me so that I could live the amazing life that I have today.

Yeah. There totally is hope. I mean I think that ?

There's always hope.

There's always hope. We've seen people with severe autism go on and graduate from Ivy League schools and live amazing lives and anything is possible. I mean we're gonna talk about this in a little bit here, but the brain can be changed.

Right, but you have to know what's going on with their brains and what makes their brains different in order to help them change.

Yeah, so it's like if you get into the guts of a piano or computer or something, you can totally change that thing, but you need to know what to do and you need to know ?

You need to know every part, every piece of that piano.

Yeah, or every piece of that computer and you need to know, oh, if I do this, it will do this, and actually I don't wanna do that. I want to do this instead, so that's what we're here for. As I said, throughout our life, we've had some challenges, but I'm sure that you have some challenges as well. The number one thing that people come to us is my child doesn't get anywhere, or the clients I work with that have Asperger's, if you're a teacher or a therapist or something like that or the students I work with that have Asperger's, they aren't doing anything. They're just kind of living and just existing and not growing.

Right, and a common question we get is what do I do with my child, or my patient, or this person with Asperger's? How do I get through to them?

Yeah.

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And that's really what this product is gonna get to, is helping you get through to your Asperger's child, or patient, or whatever relationship you have with them and maximize their potential, because they have a lot of it. They've just got all of this extra crap that gets in the way.

Yeah.

And these barriers or this crap, after this program, hopefully, you can break it down and get rid of it.

Definitely, so when I was growing up, I mean really the first thing that I had to do to get over myself and to get over all this stuff was to really just get myself out of defense mode. And we're gonna be talking about that a little bit later on, but for me, once I started to figure out how to break down these barriers and once my parents worked with me to break down these barriers, even though they didn't really know exactly that's what they were doing, that's when I really started to flourish. Because you're working with someone with Asperger's, whether it's as a parent, a teacher, a therapist, whatever. You understand that they are extremely brilliant and can tell you all sorts of science facts and stuff about computers and trains or whatever they're interested in.

Abnormally high IQ's too.

Yeah. Way beyond their years, so there's a lot of potential there, but then on the other side, there's all the social stuff, which is me and which was Hayden. I mean that's where we're at, is the extremely nerdy person who was really good at something, but didn't know how to talk to people and had no friends and then therefore had low self-esteem.

Yeah. Spent hours on the computer, video games, reading books, whatever kind of escape they could have from the pain of the real world.

Yeah, and since we've really gotten to the place where we work with our clients on what matters instead of let's teach you social skills, which it doesn't really work unless you do some things first.

Right. You have to build foundation. You've gotta get them on the defense mode. There's all sorts of things you have to do before you teach them life skills.

And we're gonna be talking about those.

Right.

So since we've been working with our model of getting below the surface, we've honestly had some amazing results. I don't say that to be like, "Look at us." I say that to be this stuff works.

Kaitlin. You wanna tell Kaitlin's story?

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Yeah, within two months of watching our life propulsion program, she went form staying at home, stagnant, doing absolutely nothing, you know, watching TV all day to having a job and having her own apartment.

Yeah. Completely moved out. Now, a disclaimer here. Results not typical, yadda, yadda, yadda, all that good stuff. We are not doctors, etc. Do not trust us for any advice in any fashion because otherwise legal stuff. Anyway.

Right, but this is based on our experiences and what we have found works.

So yeah. This is all coming from our experience.

Use at your discretion.

Yes. Anyway, so there's kind of really two worlds here in Asperger's and most people think of the old world as the only world, where your kid's diagnosed with Asperger's.

And that's it.

Yeah, or your client is diagnosed with Asperger's and maybe you're the one doing the diagnosing.

Right, and that's it.

And yeah.

You give them meds. You give them pills. You say, "Okay, go have fun. Maybe you'll end up in an institution. Maybe you won't."

And that's it. That's the help and it's assumed, "Oh, they're never gonna do anything. They're gonna remain at the level they're at."

And it does them a huge disservice because sometimes they're not even aware of what they can do.

Yeah.

And you have to help them get to that point, because then they'll be so much happier.

Definitely, so this old world, this kind of stagnation and just, well, they have Asperger's. They're always gonna have the exact same symptoms. Nothing's ever gonna get better. We just kind of need to deal with it.

Right.

Versus this new world. In the past 30 or so years, and even a little bit beyond that, there's been immense research into what's called positive psychology, which

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is psychology for the rest of us. It's not just how to be happy and how to be positive and all of that stuff. It's how to live amazing lives, how to be fulfilled, how to have meaning.

And there's been a lot of work done in transformative psychology, transformational psychology as well, which is how do you change someone's thought processes so that they can radically shift their entire perspective of life? So what they've shown is that, look, the brain can be changed. It's what's called plastic, meaning that it can be molded and changed and things can be done and new skills can be learned. We look at everything as a skill and it can be learned.

The Asperger's brain is no different. We might have differences in our brains, but at its core, we still have that plasticity to our brain.

Yeah, so what that means is that there is scientific proof for hope, essentially, because the brain can be changed. That means behavior and perception and awareness and ?

Skills. Everything.

Skills. Everything can be changed and improved.

Right.

Which is a game changer, because no longer is it just this person has Asperger's. We're not in this old world of just they have Asperger's, they're always gonna have Asperger's.

Yeah. "Go have fun kind," of thing.

We are in this new world of we can take all the amazing things that are Asperger's, like them being extremely intellectual. And then we can take the stuff that isn't so fun, like the sensory issues and the stress and all the stuff we're gonna talk about. And we can go through a process and just do some things. And set up the environment and talk to them in specific ways. And really rationalize out and work on that part so it's severely minimized. So you keep the good stuff, but the bad stuff kinda goes away.

It's suppressed greatly, to a point where it's not even noticeable anymore.

Well, I wouldn't even say it's suppressed. It's more like some of it just dissolves and it's not like you're holding it down and it wants to come up. It just doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah.

So really, when you're talking about dealing with someone with Asperger's and you want them to get to this growth point, there's four main barriers. And as we

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said, teaching life skills is the fourth one. You do not wanna do that first. That's what everyone does. It's a mistake. It will not work. You'll spend a decade of your life trying to teach them social skills versus if they were super aware and super energized and super confident, you could teach them social skills in a day.

Most people go backwards. They go teach life skills and then onto defense mode first.

Yeah.

And that's not the way to do it. You have to do it in the order that we're about to describe.

So the order is first, the defense mode. People with Asperger's are so in defense mode all the time that until you get them out of defense mode, nothing else is going to happen. Yeah, and then the next one is understanding the Asperger's mind. So once you get them out of defense mode, you need to understand. Okay, how does our mind work? How does the Asperger's mind work?

What differences are there in our brains from a neurotypical brain?

Yeah, and what differences are there in our minds, which some argue is different from the brain.

Right. Right.

And then step three, this third barrier is then you need to learn how to communicate to someone with Asperger's, because you've gotten them out of their own world. You've gotten out of defense mode. You understand the mind. Now you need to kind of have a translation in between. So you need to communicate to someone with Asperger's in a way they understand.

This step is super important because it not only builds from the first two, but it also leads into the next one perfectly, because if you can learn to communicate with them, you can communicate the life skills that you need to teach them.

Yeah, and life skills, we mean relieving anxiety.

Social skills.

Social skills, emotional skills, communication skills, job skills, life skills.

Basically functioning in society.

Yeah, anything that you'd fall under we needed to teach them how to live, that's what really life skills comes down to.

Right, because a lot of times they're just not good at life, but that's because no one teaches them. They're not born with these skills.

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Yeah.

And they might need a little bit of extra work, but if it's gonna improve their lives, then why would anyone give up on them?

See, the sad thing though, is I see a lot of people that do give up. You know, when your kid's learning to walk, you don't go, "Oh, they tried once. Never gonna happen. Okay."

Right. It's the same idea.

Yeah, it's the same thing. You don't go, "Oh, well, you know, we've only had five years of this. They're never gonna do it. Just screw it. It's just not gonna happen."

Right. Yeah, they're done.

Yeah. Don't do that. You're really saying, "Okay, I'm done with the effort. If it doesn't work, try something else."

Right, but always keep trying something new because you owe it to your kid, or your patient, or whoever you know who has Asperger's to stick with them, because inside them, I'd be screaming for help.

Yeah. I know I was definitely screaming for help when I was growing up, so what a lot of the times these doctors and therapists and school providers and everyone else do is they give up hope, because it's kind of an attitude of, well, if they don't try, then they're never gonna fail. And if you have a dream and you fail, then that's horrible. And we don't want them to have them.

Right.

But what they miss is what we just talked about, that you only fail once you give up.

Yeah.

For me, I have some pretty lofty goals in my life that I wanted to do.

Me too.

And statistically, that's not gonna happen. It's like .0001 percent chance that that's gonna happen if you look at the statistics, but you know, when I tell people these, they're like, "Oh, you probably shouldn't do this." I had a school counselor tell me in high school, "You're never gonna do anything with your life. You're probably just gonna go to city college and work at a McDonald's or something." Hopefully they mean well, but what that does is it destroys any chance they have, because you're condemning them to that life.

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Everything you say to your Asperger's child, or patient, or whatever, they remember it, and it affects them for years to come.

Yeah.

I remember I was kicked out of a school. It was called Riverfield Country Day in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I was kicked out in my sophomore year because I had this nervous tic that I would do due to my Asperger's. I would make this noise, this guttural noise with my throat. And I got kicked out of school because they called it distracting. And then my doctor called it discrimination and we almost ? because they didn't even accommodate me at all. They just kicked me out.

Yeah.

And that destroyed my self-confidence and that sent me spiraling into depression. And they had no idea how much that affected me, so kind of branching off what Danny said. It has an impact.

It has a great impact, so instead of going, "Oh, they can't do this. Let's not try." If you try, they'll be amazed. You'll be amazed what you see from them.

And how receptive they are to that.

Yeah, it's how receptive to our ? one of the themes that's gonna be throughout this thing is encouragement.

Right. We're going to say it a lot. Encouragement is so important.

Because I mean that's really the juice that we thrive on is you need to encourage. You need to encourage a lot because there are a lot of people that are not nice in the world, to use a nice word. They're not very nice.

And especially to people with Asperger's who are different, who aren't what these people are used to. And so they treat them extra cruelly.

Yeah.

And so all our lives we're told we can't do things and so every time we're told we can't do something, it just piles up and piles up and piles up until we wanna explode and do nothing.

Yeah.

So encourage them.

Now, what would happen if we were told we could do things?

Right.

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