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Why Should Neurodivergent Folx get Sex Ed?

Sexual Ableism- have you heard this term before? It was a new one for me. I know what “ableism” is. FYI- ableism is “discrimination and prejudice against disabled people based on the belief that typical abilities are superior”.

I think that when we aren’t directly impacted by things, it is easy to dismiss them and not see them as a concern. For neurotypical people (of which I am one), it is easy to live in a world of privilege and not think about those who are impacted by ableism. Jo Moss, the author of a blog about disability and ableism, further says, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of living in a society that devalues my worth and sees me as an inconvenience and a burden – subhuman even”. Take a moment to think about how it would be to live in a world where you are seen as a “burden” or an “inconvenience”.

Now, sexual ableism is “a system of beliefs that discriminate against people with disabilities in dating, intimacy, and relationships, suggesting the very presence of a disability implies inferiority.” We demonstrate sexual ableism when we:

  1. Assume that people with disabilities are “asexual” or don’t have sexual desires.
  2. Insist that people with disabilities need to supervised and monitored in their relationships
  3. Seeing people with disabilities as perpetual victims or perpetually vulnerable.

Here is where things can get a little complicated. There is evidence that people with disabilities are more likely to be assaulted and experience sexual abuse than those without disabilities. (It can be hard to get an accurate count, because there are instances of sexual abuse that go unreported, especially if the person who was assaulted has language deficits. However, Disability Justice says that 83% of women with disabilities will be assaulted; 3% of abuse involving people with disabilities is even reported.) So, perhaps it makes sense that we feel the need to constantly monitor and supervise them in relationships. Is constant monitoring and supervision our way of protecting people we care about? I would argue that keeping people with disabilities sheltered and not actively teaching them skills that will keep them safe is keeping them in a life of victimhood. When we do not teach comprehensive sex education to people with disabilities, we are keeping them in a state of victimhood.

David Hingsberger, a renowned disability activist and author, said, “Typical children [who receive sex education] have a number of concepts that will keep them safer. They understand modesty and privacy. They understand relationships and appropriate touch within those relationships. But they have something more, they have language. Protection from sex education leave a person effectively mute when it comes to speaking about their body” (p. 19 Just Say Know: Understanding and Reducing the Risk of Sexual Victimization of People with Developmental Disabilities). At the very least, sex education teaches neurotypical and neurodivergent alike how to report unsafe situations, confusion about what is happening, pain or abuse.

Read the next blog post to see how sex education does more than simply prevent abuse for people with disabilities.

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Relationship Safety Skills: Teaching ages and age groups using Discrimination Training

Many professionals working with individuals with disabilities are familiar with discrimination training. This type of training helps individuals distinguish between different stimuli. For example, teaching someone to recognize letters in their name or identify animals involves discrimination training.

This concept can also be applied to more complex areas, such as recognizing age groups (e.g., baby vs. adult, toddler vs. teenager).

Why is this important? Being able to estimate someone’s age is crucial for safe dating and relationships. Consider these scenarios:

  • Scenario: An 18-year-old with a disability begins texting a 14-year-old without realizing their age.
    • Potential Consequence: The 14-year-old’s parent reports them to the police, potentially leading to a criminal record or even placement on a sex offender registry.
    • Solution: Teach the individual that dating minors can lead to legal trouble. Use discrimination training to help them recognize who might be underage.
  • Scenario: A 28-year-old with a disability has consensual sex with a 16-year-old without knowing their age. Later, they argue, and the 16-year-old reports them.
    • Potential Consequence: The 28-year-old could be charged with statutory rape, as the 16-year-old is legally a minor.
    • Solution: Educate the individual on the “age of consent” and the legal risks of relationships with minors. By incorporating discrimination training, individuals with disabilities can better understand age differences and avoid serious legal consequences.

Tricky Situations with Age Discrimination

  • Visual Clues Aren’t Always Reliable
    • You can teach age discrimination using general clues, such as grey hair often indicating an older adult or braces usually meaning someone is a teenager. However, these clues aren’t foolproof—some 40-year-olds have braces, and some 20-year-olds have grey hair.
    • Solution: Start with clear and obvious examples to help individuals learn the concept. Then, introduce multiple examples to show exceptions to the rule.
  • Different Words for the Same Age Group
    • Age groups often have multiple names. For example, a toddler might also be called a “kid,” “kiddo,” or “preschooler.”
    • Solution: When teaching age discrimination, include different terms that refer to the same age group. If you start with “kid,” also teach that “kiddo” and “preschooler” mean the same thing.
  • Visual Cues Can Be Misleading
    • Judging someone’s age based only on how they look can lead to mistakes because appearances can be deceiving.
    • Solution: Teach individuals to ask for someone’s age when in doubt. Role-play scenarios to practice how and when to ask appropriately.
  • People Can Lie About Their Age
    • Even if someone asks another person their age, that person might not tell the truth.
    • Solution: Teach individuals why someone might lie about their age and how to spot signs of dishonesty. Encourage critical thinking and awareness when interacting with new people.

Check out this free resource about discrimination training when teaching about age groups and ages.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Discrimination-Training-Ages-13178190

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Supporting People with Disabilities who Experience Grief/Loss

Losing someone is difficult, but it can be even harder for people with disabilities. This is because, the research shows that we do not often prepare people with intellectual disabilities to handle grief and loss. In fact, in worse case scenarios there is a tendency to assume that the grief/loss won’t impact them at all. This is called “disenfranchised grief” and it essentially means that a person’s experience with grief and loss is not recognized or acknowledged by other people; which also means that the person won’t get the needed support to cope with grief and loss. This means that their overall mental health will be negatively impacted.

In general, death is a difficult thing for society to talk about. It is a topic we often avoid, so it makes sense that we would have a hard time talking about death with people who have disabilities. This reason parents/caregivers/staff do not prepare people with intellectual disabilities about death include:

  1. They worry that the individual won’t understand the concept, so they don’t bring it up
  2.  They worry that talking about death will increase the risk of difficult behaviors
  3. They don’t think that they are not capable of helping the person with the disability through the grief, so they avoid it.

The problem is, not talking about grief/loss and not preparing people with disabilities for grief and loss can negatively impact their overall mental health. In fact, many people with disabilities may develop “complicated grief” (a longer lasting and more debilitating type of grief than normal grieving), because they aren’t prepared for the loss. Let’s look at why our reasons for not supporting someone with a disability through their grief may not be the vest choice:

  1. The caregivers/guardians/staff worry that the individual with the disability won’t understand the concept, so they don’t bring it up
    • We need to presume competence. There is a tendency to assume that someone with a disability does not understand complex concepts; we might base this assumption on IQ or we might base it on what we observe. However, it is ableist to assume that someone’s IQ correlates with their intelligence and their ability to understand concepts. There are numerous books/articles/blogs written by people with disability that show profound intellect.
    • Even if someone does not understand the concept of death, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t impacted by the loss. You don’t have to have a high IQ for loss to impact you.
  2. The caregivers/guardians/staff worry that talking about death will increase the risk of difficult behavior
    • This is known as diagnostic overshadowing, it is when we think that a behavior simply occurs because of their disability. When this happens we don’t address the core reasons for why the behavior is happening– which means that the behaviors will often continue. If someone is displaying aggression because they are stressed that their caregiver passed away, addressing the grief/loss is going to do more good than our typical behavioral strategies (i.e. token economies, extinction, etc).
    • Some research has shown that talking about loss/grief makes the person with the disability feel supported and less likely to engage in inappropriate behaviors. Thus, the behaviors that we see after a loss may be happening because they aren’t feeling supported in their grief, not solely because of the grief.
  3. The caregivers/guardians/staff don’t think that they are capable of helping the person through the grief, so they avoid it.
    • Research shows that many individuals with disabilities can benefit greatly from a simple supportive environment and more intense therapy may not be needed if they simply have that. If all that is needed is a supportive person, we ALL have the knowledge and capacity to support individual with a disability through their grief. One research article said it best when they said, “Grief itself is not pathological and it is a normal part of the life course, staff/parents/caregivers should be capable of offering, accepting and giving honest support” (Clute, M., 2010 p. 167)

How can we help people with intellectual disabilities through grief?

  • One of the most important ways to help someone through an upcoming loss is to involve them in the rituals surrounding death and loss. This means that we give them the opportunity to go to the funeral, visit the grave site, etc.
  • Let the individual help you memorialize the person they lost- a book with pictures of fun things they did together, write a letter to the person you lost, organize a charity event if their honor if they passed away from a specific reason
  • Bibliotherapy and reading books about death/loss. Sometimes those books can give us a script if we aren’t sure how to verbalize things
    • The book below is one I really like:
  • Normal their feelings. All responses to grief are normal. Anger is normal, numb is normal, sadness is normal and peace is also normal. It is so important to normalize all the feelings surrounding grief and it is important to normalize their unique path.
  • Empathetic listening. Just listen and sit with the person in their grief.
  • It is also important to know that even with these supports, some individuals with a disability will need to receive more intensive counseling from a trained professional.

Looking for easy to access information? Check out this free resource?

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Trauma-Informed-Interventions-Medical-Trauma-and-Grief-12915958

For more information, check out these articles:

  • Bereavement Interventions for Adults with Intellectual Disability: What Works? By Mary Ann Clute (2010)
  • Beyond Silence: A Scoping Review of Provided Support for Grieving Children with Intellectual Disability or Autism Spectrum Disorder by Maria Bonin, Lilly Augustine and Qi Meng (Journal of Death and Dying 2024)
  • Supporting People with Disabilities Coping with Grief and Loss: An easy-to-read booklet By Hrepsime Gulbenkoglu 2007
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Teaching Abuse Prevention

While there is debate about the actual prevalence, people with disabilities are more likely to be abused than their nondisabled peers. There are a few reasons why and this is by no means an exhaustive list:

  • They may exhibit behaviors that people assume require them to be restrained.
  • They are “nonverbal” and unable to report the abuse
  • The abuse is coming from a caregiver and if the victim reports the abuse, they may lose access to care
  • When they do report abuse, they are not believed because they have a disability
  • They have not learned the vocabulary to report abuse
  • Words that will help them report abuse are not programmed into their communication devices
  • They are unaware that what happened was abuse, so they do not report it as such.
  • They are more likely to require assistance with self-care tasks (which can make it easier for those assisting them to abuse them)
  • They are isolated and do not have a strong support system to help advocate for them
  • There is over-focus on teaching “compliance”

In the minor reading I have done, I have found abuse prevention programs that focus on using behavioral skills training where individuals with disabilities are taught how to respond in a potentially abusive situation (this is modeled and then they do a role play practice). Some other curriculum teaches individuals how to make decisions that could decrease the likelihood that abuse would occur. In this curriculum, they look at scenarios and review what decisions should be made in order to stay safe. (“On a side note, while I agree that there need to be specific curricula and teaching practices to help individuals with disabilities, I don’t think that we should be putting all the responsibility on them to keep themselves safe.) However, the majority of curriculum that I have seen are not conducive to individuals with moderate/severe/profound disabilities; especially those that have communication deficits. Many of the programs I have seen use a lot of language and verbally mediated instruction.

The majority of my work is with adults who have disabilities; many of whom require help with basic self-care tasks. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood that they will be abused. It can be difficult to teach the concepts of “private places” and “private parts” to people with disabilities who require extensive support. This is because, staff and caregivers often violate the privacy rules that we teach when we help with self-care tasks. When I teach the concept of private places, I teach that a private place may be “Private +1”. A “Private+1” place is a private location (i.e your bathroom) with an additional person that you choose who is helping you with very specific tasks. Then  I go over what specific tasks my client will need help with and what that help will look like. For instance, if a client needs “help in the bathroom” we specifically talk about what that means; does it mean you need help wiping your bottom after a bowel movement or you just need help sitting on the toilet? If my client is able to wipe themselves independently, but a staff member/caregiver is coming in and saying they will help and starts touching my clients bottom, this should be a red flag.

We also talk about the people that will be coming in to help them. Unfortunately, due to the nature of living in a group home, my clients may receive help with self-care tasks from people they are not familiar with. There are specific strategies staff can use to help teach new staff members how to safely do this, but that is beyond the scope of this post. For now, we talk about how a variety of people will be helping and we describe what that “helping” should look like.

Lastly, we make a plan that includes trusted and safe people. We review that your “Safe” person does not have to be your family. If my client was abused/neglected by family members, I do not want to teach that their family is who they can go to for help. I avoid using phrases like “If someone hurts you, tell someone in your family”. We talk about their “chosen family”. We list the people in their life who they trust and are close with. It is vital to have your client list more than one safe person.

Some questions to consider:

  • Am I specifically teaching vocabulary related to abuse prevention?
  • What words/phrases should be included when teaching abuse prevention?
  • Do I feel comfortable teaching this vocabulary (i.e. am I comfortable using the word rape, vulva or penis?)

Abuse prevention is a big topic, and one blog post isn’t going to do it justice. But I wanted to make sure that people have access to visuals or at least a jumping off point. If you are interested in visual/social stories to help you teach some of these concepts, check it out here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Private-Plus-One-Teaching-Privacy-to-Individuals-with-High-Support-Needs-12700079

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Trauma Training in Thailand

These were the amazing graduate students that I got to work with from Mahidol University in Thailand.

In my last post I talked about doing some ACT exercises with the Thai staff at rural orphanage in Kanchanaburi. In this post I want to talk about buffers to trauma and how absolutely amazing the Thai people are.

Usually when I am providing training on how to work with clients/students who have been through trauma, my first and most important recommendation is to regulate yourself. If you are dysregulated when a child is having a “stress response” or a “trauma response” then you are going to make the situation worse. This is because, when a child is having a “stress response” or a “trauma response”, they are not misbehaving (this term indicates that they are choosing to behave in specific way), their body and their nervous system is responding to a perceived threat. When we, as staff and teachers, are also dysregulated we are sending off signals of threat; this means that we are not helping the child to calm down we are telling their body to continue to react to the threat (us).

This ability to model regulation so that another person can start to regulate themselves is called “co-regulation”. There is also of documentation and research to show how effective this process is when working with… well, anyone who has a dysregulated nervous system, but especially for someone who has been through trauma. The Thai people are already doing this and did not need tons of instruction in this area. This was so beautiful to see!

I met with Camille Kolu (an amazing expert in the field of trauma) before I went to Thailand. We talked about what the most important topics of conversation/training would be for staff in Thailand. Camille brought up that there is research that shows there are six buffers to trauma. This means that are six things that can serve as a buffer and build resiliency in someone who has been through trauma. These buffers can increase someone’s ability to go through trauma without drowning in the trauma. These six barriers are:

  1. Nurturing Relationships in your life
  2. Exercise
  3. Stress Relief
  4. Mental Health
  5. Sleep
  6. Nutrition

The picture above shows the six barriers in Thai.

During the staff training, we introduced these six barriers and asked each staff member the following questions:

  • What buffer are you already getting a lot of?
  • What buffer do you need more of?
  • What can you actively start doing to get more of that buffer in your life?
  • Think of a child in your care and answer the same questions.

It was especially pertinent to have the staff do this exercise for themselves. Working with individuals who have been through trauma can be so difficult and can cause vicarious trauma and burnout. I felt that it was especially important to address this and provide validation for the staff who are already doing a very hard work. Additionally, when the staff are taking care of themselves, they will be better able to take care of the children in the orphanage.

We got an incredible reception from this exercise. The staff said that they felt “heard” and “seen”. They also felt like they had a renewed energy and commitment to working with the children.

What I learned from this experience is that there are a lot of cultures that are already working well with people who have been through trauma. And America can and should learn a lot from those cultures.

References

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Using ACT in Thailand

I recently came back from a trip to Thailand where I was providing information to staff at an orphanage/school on how to be trauma informed. I have done international volunteer work in the past and have learned what to do and what not to do. Volunteer trips where you are focused on just hanging out in an orphanage or teaching English for three months in an orphanage can actually be harmful for them. People (and I used to) often go into these experiences thinking that just because they are showing love or having fun, the child is benefiting. What we are actually doing is showing love, but then taking it away again. Ultimately, we are abandoning children who have already experienced being abandoned.

Unfortunately, I have done many volunteering trips the wrong way. I know more now, so I am trying to do better. When I went to Thailand, the focus was not on simply playing games and having fun with the individuals in the orphanage, it was about training staff. The best way to help the children in the orphanage was to train the people that will be their constant caregivers. The Foundation for Children is an organization that cares for children (from birth to age 18) who have been abandoned or whose parents can’t take care of them. Because these children have been through trauma (even if they hadn’t been severely neglected or abused, a simple disruption in caregiving can be traumatic), we thought it was important for staff to be trauma informed. However, before we started, I thought it was important to figure out the staff’s motivation for working at the orphanage. What brought them there? What was important to them? What was hard about what they did? How did they cope? I did this using an ACT Matrix.

The ACT Matrix is a concept that was developed by Kevin Polk, Mark Webster and Jarold Hambright. We start by drawing a horizontal line and labeling the left side “away” and right side “towards”. We talk about how people are always moving either towards things or away from things. What you move away from and what you move towards is very individual, it will be different for each person. But the underly premise is “Are you living a life where you are focusing on moving away from unpleasant things, or are you living a life where you are moving toward what is important to you”.

It was amazing to see how people responded to this exercise. Some said that this exercise helped them clarify what was important to them. It is easy to get caught up in doing rote activities and being able to get in touch with your values can be very freeing and therapeutic. It was also good to see what things staff were moving away from, because this helped me see what ways I could support them. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t assuming what their needs were. The ACT Matrix helped me see what was important to staff and what staff valued. It also helped me see what was difficult for staff and what was making their job hard. Both of these things gave valuable insight into how to start teaching the staff about being trauma informed.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I find out how Thai people are doing it right!

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The Role of Defusion in Social Media Safety

Photo Credit: letstalk.mentalhealth

I have mentioned that I use principles of Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) when teaching social media safety skills. There are six core principles of ACT- present moment, values, committed action, defusion, self as context and acceptance. This blog post is going to focus on defusion.

  • What is fusion?
    • Fusion is when you believe/get caught up or give your full attention to a thought/emotion or judgment you have about yourself is true. For instance, if you are fusing with your thoughts, you believe them to be true. Fusion can occur with our thoughts/feelings or other’s judgements of us.
  • Why is fusion bad?
    • Believing unhelpful thoughts often causes us to act in ways that are not always in our best interest long term. For instance, if we have the thought, “Nobody likes me”, we might engage in actions like isolating. Believing other’s judgements of us can also cause us to act in ways that are not in our best interest long term. For instance, if someone calls you “ugly” and you choose to believe that judgment, you might retaliate and say mean things back, you might internalize that judgement and stop going out or engaging in activities with other people. One way to break this cycle of reacting to our thoughts/feelings/judgements is to engage in defusion.
  • What is defusion
    • Defusion is when you give less attention/meaning to your thoughts/feelings/other’s judgements of you. When you are defusing you are putting distance between yourself and them. If you are defusing, you are noticing thoughts/feelings/other’s judgements for what they are- just words/phrases/stimulation that doesn’t have to control your actions.
  • Why is defusion good:
    • When you are able to engage in defusion techniques you are less likely to engage in behaviors that are not in your long term best interest. For instance, if you have the thought “No one likes me” and you are able to recognize that this thought is not true, you are more likely to do things that bring meaning into your life. Additionally, if someone calls you “ugly” and you decide to use defusion techniques, you are more likely to see that one person’s judgment of you does not make it true. This makes it easier to engage in actions that give your life meaning.
  • Fusion can increase unsafe behaviors on social media
    • Let’s look at this from a social media safety perspective. If I go onto social media and I have already fused with this idea that “no one likes me” I might be more likely to engage in unsafe behaviors as a way to deal with that thought and the feelings it brings up. For instance, I might give out my personal information in attempt to make a connection, I might ignore “red flags” because I want to have a connection with another person. Another example, if I fuse with a negative comment that someone made on my social media profile I might be more likely to believe what that person says. When I fuse with that judgement, it impacts how I act. If I am fused with the negative comment that someone made about my appearance I might say mean things back or find ways to retaliate. I might spend more time filtering pictures or obsessively looking at other people’s pictures on social media.
  • Defusion can increase safe behaviors on social media
    • If I can defuse with the thought “no one likes me”, I can see it as just some stimuli that my brain is sending out; not factual information. If I can realize this, I may be less likely to reach out for connection in unsafe ways because I can notice that my thought is not a true one. Defusion can decrease the motivation to engage in unsafe behaviors. With regards to the example about fusing with someone’ judgement of us- if I can defuse with the negative judgement and see it for what it is- random letters that form a random word that I don’t have to give meaning to or believe- I can choose to not spend so much time believing how others view me.

References:

  • The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT By Russ Harris
  •  ACT Made Simple by Russ Harris and Steven Hayes

If your are looking for lesson plans on teaching social media safety to neurodivergent individuals, check out my TPT store or contact me directly. 🙂

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Being Trauma Informed when Teaching Online Safety Skills

For almost a year now, I have been teaching Social Media Safety classes to Neurodivergent individuals. I have learned some things on the way that I want to share in these next couple posts. The first, and perhaps most important thing, is that it is so important to be trauma informed when you are teaching social media safety. Obviously, the reason we teach any safety skill is because we don’t want to kids/teens/adults to be in unsafe situations. I found that many people who came to my classes had already been in some pretty unsafe situations and I was teaching skills to make sure it didn’t happen again. What this means is that some individuals in the classes already had a history of trauma and it is important to tread carefully while still teaching the content.

In my groups I start by teaching WHY we are even learning these skills. I do this by showing news clips of actual situations that have happened. Many of these clips, while not super explicit, mentioned topics that can be very triggering- suicide, self harm, bullying, emotional abuse, sexual exploitation. For any individual (even those that don’t have a specific history with these traumas), mentioning these topics can bring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings. This is especially true for neurodivergent individuals. Neurodivergent individuals already tend to feel things deeply. Many of them are highly empathic, so these uncomfortable feelings that we are bringing up when we discuss trauma that can happen online, can feel very BIG.

In order to help my clients learn these skills in a safe way, I have done the following (and will address each one in future blog posts).

  1. We practice emotional regulation skills before we start each session.
  2. I have educated myself and educate my clients on polyvagal theory (learning is dependent on our physiological state and there are specific things you can do to help activate your parasympathetic nervous system so you can be ready to learn).
  3. I use trigger warnings to increase agency in how my clients interact with sensitive material.
  4. I don’t shame behaviors. There are reasons why my client’s might engage in unsafe behaviors, even after they have learned the right ones. Let’s validate those reasons, find safer options avoid shame in that process.

If you are looking for materials you can use to teach these skills, check out my store. This lesson might be a good place to start:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Social-Media-Safety-Why-Do-People-Lie-Online-11217969

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Social Belonging and Social Media

How the need for social belonging can cause teens to engage in unsafe behaviors.

I have been leading some groups that teach social media safety skills to neurodivergent teens. (If you are interested in these groups go to the “Online Groups” page). At the beginning of groups individuals did not know what types of red flags to look for that would indicate someone was a predator. For instance, they were unaware that someone asking to talk with you on a more private social media platform was suspect or that someone giving you a gift online could indicate someone had malicious motives. Additionally, many neurodivergent participants were not aware that people lie online and they weren’t sure why someone would lie online. However, at the end of the groups individuals were able to identify red flags to look out for and were able to identify why people might lie online. Both of these skills will increase their ability to stay safe as they navigate social media.

Because of this I’ve been doing a lot of research in this area. I recently read a fantastic book by Emily Weinstein and Carrie James called, “Behind Their Screens: What Teens are Facing (And Adults Are Missing)” that goes over the research behind social media safety. The thing that I love about the book is that it looks at the research from the lense of a teenager. Teens were interviewed for this book and so the information is very pertinent to them. Adults (and I include myself in this) think that teens don’t know the dangers of social media, when in actuality many of them do. The thing is, teens are more susceptible to “peer validation and to the pain of feeling rejected or excluded” (E. Weinstein and C. James, p. 24). This means that they are more likely to do things that (even dangerous things) to get peer validation and belonging. What this means is that when we are looking at teaching social media safety skills we can’t just tell teens all the dangers that will happen. We need to address potential social isolation. This is especially important for neurodivergent individuals who already have a hard time finding belonging.

So, how do we do this?

  1. Virtual spaces aren’t always bad and we can find ones that are safe. I like the ones below.
  2. Look for places that correlate with your teens niche. If they are into Dungeons and Dragons, can you find a local group that does similar things? Are there specific groups at school/community that are neurodivergent affirming.
  3. Sometimes teens will find more connection in groups that are made of mostly of people who are neurodivergent. This doesn’t mean they can’t have neurotypical friends, but the research says that neurotypical people are not often as understanding/accepting of neurodivergent individuals.
  4. Model self-compassion. It is natural for us to think that we are not good enough. And this can happen even more if you are relying on the opinions of others to validate your self-worth. There are a lot of wonderful self-compassion exercises, but one of my favorites is the idea of “common humanity”. Often, when we feel lonely we caught up in how we are the only ones that feel that way. But loneliness is something that everyone feels. There are people right now who feel lonely, just like you. Knowing that you aren’t the only one working through these difficult feelings can make them easier to feel.
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Social Media can help Neurodivergent People Make Friends

How online interactions can be easier for people with Executive Functioning Deficits

In a previous blog post I talked about how executive functioning skills are extremely important when interacting with others. Interacting online with people is one way to help mitigate some of these deficits.

The Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research published an interesting paper (“Exploring The Potential for Social Networking Among People with Autism: Challenging Dominant Ideas of ‘Friendship'” by C. Brownlow; H. Rosqvist and L. O’Dell) that addressed how online interactions are viewed by people with disabilities. The purpose of their study was to “deconstruct dominate understandings of (autistic) friendship”. They did this by reviewing previous literature on the subject and interviewing neurodivergent individuals. Many of the people interviewed for the paper provided very specific examples of how executive functioning skills posed a problem during in person interactions, but were lessened during online interactions. For instance:

  • Autistic individuals said that online interactions gave them the chance to look back at previous conversations, so they knew where to begin.
    • This not only helped them know where the conversation left off and how to pick it up again, but it also allowed them to look back at information about the person they were talking to.
    • Online interactions can help with deficits in working memory.
  • Autistic individuals also said that they were able to plan their responses better when they were interacting online there wasn’t the quick back and forth that is present in “in-person” interactions.
  • It is also easier to focus on online conversations because you just have to focus on the words.
    • Some people might say that you miss out on body language/facial expression/voice tone, which help in understanding another person. However, all those things can also get in the way because neurodivergent individuals spend so much of their time and energy focused on trying to interpret all that information.
    • In person interactions can feel like an overload, while online interactions don’t.

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Are their Pros to Sexting and What Teens Say They Want to Learn About Social Media Safety

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about teaching social media safety skills. I have some online groups coming up and I want to make sure I am addressing the real issue. I hate to say this cause I think it speaks to my age, but I need to educate myself in the CURRENT research and CURRENT views around sexting. The way that adults/parents view sexting is different from the way teens view it.

A study in 2016, “Sexting: Adolescent’s perceptions of the application used for, motives for, and consequences of sexting” (J. Ouytsel, E. Gool, et al.) in the Journal of Youth Studies found that sexting is actually a quite normal behavior for teens and should be seen as an activity that aids in their development. Sexting was used in romantic relationships to increase connection, to flirt or to experience sexual activity without actually engaging in physical sex.

According to “What Do We Know About Sexting, and When Did We Know it?” by Elizabeth Englander in the Journal of Adolescent Health, “sexting is not [always] strongly correlated with high-risk sexual behavior or poor self-image”. Now it can be, but often times these negative results comes when someone was coerced into sexting or harassed into sexting. Additionally, negative outcomes were more likely to be reported by pre-teens instead of older teens. Oftentimes, the stories we hear are the negative ones and so those are the ones that we pass along and use to scare teens. However, a study in 2018 interviewed teens and found that teens claimed that sexting also led to “enhanced self-confidence, positive self-image, and the strengthening of a romantic relationship”.

I am not saying that sexting is good or bad. But I think when teaching about how to be safe online, using shame and victim blaming (e.g. telling a victim of sexual harassment that it was their fault for sending the nude in the first place) isn’t going to work. Instead of using fear-based teaching we need to use a more normalizing approach. This type of approach would focus on: