[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Shiny through Inspiring Voices of Autism with our show host, Jennifer Dantzler. My name is Cal, starts with a C, not K, and I'm on the autism spectrum and also TikTok Spectrum. Find my place called Calion Disney Head D. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the world of autism. If you enjoy what you hear today, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Subscribe.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Hey there, everyone. This is Jennifer Dantzler, and I'm the executive director and founder of Inspire nd, a nonprofit whose mission is to create truly inclusive communities through education and engagement. The goal of this podcast is to shine a light on real people and their stories in hopes of inspiring others who are on this journey of autism, either themselves, their child, their loved one, their co worker. I truly believe ignorance is not bliss, and we cannot be inclusive communities if we do not understand the people in the community. With autism Now a affecting 1 in 31 people, we need to get louder about this topic, and that's our goal during this podcast. We recognize that autism is a spectrum. There are a lot of people with a lot of different needs, a lot of resources available or none available. And we know that in every episode we can't meet everyone's needs for their specific interest.
However, we hope that in each episode you do gleam some kind of insight as to how you can help your child or yourself be a better advocate. And as we go through our podcasts, our goal really is to address the entire spectrum, the various needs, the various environments that we're going to be in. And we hope that there's something in every episode for each one of you. So let's get started Today. I'm here with a new friend, and his name is Matthew Hannah. I actually met Matthew recently at a conference we were both presenting at called Untapped Business Solutions for the Neurodiverse Workplace, which was put on by Lone Star Life Path, which, if you don't know about Lone Star Life Path, it is a college program in the Lone Star system here in Texas which is intended to support people with neurodiversity. And Matthew was on one of the panels, and I heard him speak, and I said, I've gotta get you on this podcast. So, Matthew, thank you so much for being here.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Okay, so as we talk to Matthew first, I'm gonna talk a little bit about your diagnosis when you were diagnosed with autism and what that journey looked like in the beginning. How old were you when you were diagn?
And what was the reason for Your diagnosis meaning what did your parents see?
[00:02:37] Speaker B: It was long enough ago that my parents don't even remember the specific circumstances. It was a 2004, 2005, back when it was called Asperger's. And it wasn't spectrum, it was just a thing you had or you didn't. I think what they saw is I just wasn't quick on the uptake for a lot of things. Although this was partly just introversion. Very quiet.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: And so they weren't sure if that was like a non verbal thing or like I just didn't understand how to speak very well or anything like that. So they just got me checked because my brother, who's three years older than me, they got him checked like a year before I was checked and he had it, so they thought I might too.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: Okay. And for those who don't know, as Matthew said, there used to be a different diagnosis called Asperger's syndrome. Several years ago when the DSM5 came out, they took away that label and now it's just high functioning autism. Probably if you went and got diagnosed today, that's probably technically the term they would use. I know there's a lot of controversy. Some people liked the term Asperger's, some people like the term high functioning autistic. What's your perspective on that?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: I'm sure we'll get into this later, but I was almost immediately made aware of it as soon as I was able to understand what it meant. And you don't really want like a 6 or 7 year old saying Asperger's because it sounds like something else.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: Yeah, good point, good point.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: They didn't want me saying that in class either.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Okay. Okay, so let's fast forward to now just so the listeners have a perspective. How old are you? Where do you live? What do you do? How do you spend your time?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I'll be 25 and like a month and a half. I live in the Woodlands. I work at Zero Latency Houston at the Woodlands location. That's like a free roam virtual reality arena. Think like laser tag, but instead of, you know, the vests and the guns, you have a headset and a controller is a gun. And they put you through different games. And I'm what they call a game master to where I teach people how to play. I get them into play, do all the safety stuff, and I watch them to make sure nothing goes wrong and everything between.
[00:04:32] Speaker C: Okay, very cool. And do you live at home or do you live on your own? Okay. Do you have any aspirations? Eventually to live on your own?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: If you were to ask me a couple years ago, yeah, but honestly, one, I like where I live, but also affordability where I live is not. It's not in the cards. And luckily my parents are fine as long as I'm doing something with my life.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Okay, great. It is true. It can be very comfortable. There's nothing. Not everyone has to get out on their own. And that's great. What would you say are your strengths?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Wisdom is immediately what came to mind. But I know that's like wisdom how.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: But I guess wisdom in terms of perspective. When I got diagnosed, at the time, it was unusually early, especially for someone who's high functioning.
[00:05:14] Speaker C: Because you said it was around three or four years old.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Three or four or five around there, 2004, 2005. I was subjected, and I'm sure people still are in many ways, but I mean more systemically subjected to what that diagnosis meant because they didn't make a distinction between high functioning and low functioning. In earshot of me, I had several teachers ask my parents, parent teachers conferences if I was retarded or not because they saw the diagnosis on my sheet and they didn't. But they said I looked fine. So not meant to be harmful. That was just the word at the time.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: It was. And now they refer to as intellectual disability. Right. But it was definitely also.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: I can't blame them for that because there was no distinction. Most of the people that came through with that diagnosis were that word. Right at the time.
[00:05:57] Speaker C: Right. Okay. And actually that brings up a good point because a lot of what I do within trainings or talk about, over 60% of the people on the spectrum do not have an intellectual disability.
And there probably still is in this day and age, still a little bit of assumption that they go hand in hand. I think you're living proof that that's not the case. Right? Yes. So, okay, you said one of your strengths is wisdom.
And what would you say another strength is communicating.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Obviously, I'm here, so ideally I need to have a little bit of skill, hopefully. Yeah. I've spoken at several conferences before the one we met at and the one before that. I forget what it was called, but it was, I think, sponsored by A and M in Houston.
There was a pretty big one. There were like hundreds of educators from around the country there. I don't remember what it was called. That was my first foray into public speaking was that one in front of several hundred people. But very early on in life path, actually. I guess just to provide some Perspective. I was not for most of my life a person of many words. We could go into all sorts of psychological reasons, just being introverted as well, but often just not thinking what I had was worth hearing. Just all sorts of trauma, whatever. In the past in Life Path, they spotted very quickly Elizabeth Logue especially who runs the internship program and she was, I think she started at the same year that I started classes there. So she was I guess new in a way as well and I guess had something to prove. And so she obviously had to go around talking to get new people in the community signed up for the internship stuff. And so I think she saw early on an opportunity to where this guy is in the program right now and he's pretty good at speaking. So why don't I ask him to do it and why not?
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Right. It's really hard to believe that you've only done this a few times because you are very personable and very easy to talk to. So I would say that is one of your traits with not even having known you for very long is the personability, if that's even a word. Why are you doing this public speaking? What do you hope to gain from being on this podcast? From presenting at conferences for one?
[00:07:58] Speaker B: In a way I think it's to make up for lost time in terms of not being a very talkative person. I suppose I could get into to where the reason I'm well spoken is not necessarily just because I have an innate skill, but I spent a lot of time when I was younger talking to myself just in my head because like things I wanted to say but didn't.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: And so there's. I've put in a lot of time refining and thinking about things I want to say way before in advance of actually saying them.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: Okay. And I think that's so important for parents to hear, especially of newly diagnosed children is that first of all, your child might be nonverbal right now does not mean they're going to be nonverbal forever. And even if they maybe can't speak at 6, 7 or 8, doesn't mean they don't have a lot to say.
Right?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: So wow, very poignant, very insightful about that. What do you find challenging in your day to day activities?
[00:08:48] Speaker B: It's a double edged sword, the diagnosis when, especially when you're high functioning and you're able to hide it well, stuff can be bothering me but I want to remain sociable so I will just keep it to myself. Even if it's like if someone was, I don't know, scratching their nails on a chalkboard or whatever, obviously everyone's annoyed by that, but things like that, to more of an extreme, to where like, I, I'm trying to talk to people, just do whatever I need to do, but that's going on in the background and it's. I. It's. I'm the only one being bothered by it.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: And so it's like, I want to get out of here, but I need to finish whatever I'm doing. But I also can't be rude to these people to say, I need to get out of here. So it's more like I fit in too well.
[00:09:25] Speaker C: Okay. Okay.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: In a way.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: So it is, I guess, in a way, a communication issue, which is obviously a trademark of autism. But on like the inverse side of what you would think, do you have.
[00:09:36] Speaker C: Coping strategies and did you teach yourself those coping strategies or someone help you.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Learn them in terms of just, like, stimuli?
[00:09:41] Speaker C: Right. So like in that example, if you were in a room and you were getting overstimulated or irritated by a noise, how do you cope with that?
[00:09:49] Speaker B: This isn't very helpful, but kind of couldn't bear it. That's really all there is. That's really the only thing I was taught how to do. There weren't.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: I guess I could get into my childhood in the sense that because I was diagnosed so early and when high functioning typically often wasn't diagnosed at all, we were actually able to function as a member of society at the time.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: It was just my parents put me in a bunch of different things, like several times a week, sensory therapies, things that now are standard were not at the time.
[00:10:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Those, like rolling things that they have little kids go through, like for the rollers on the top and the bottom, stuff like that. Obviously that it does look silly, but at the time, that was like a very serious thing that they were like, we need to see how children respond to this. And I was one of the children that they would send through stuff like that as well as I also did a lot of speech therapy that focused on just, I mean, how to talk to people.
[00:10:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Eye contact. I found that I maintain eye contact a lot more than a normal person.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Just because I've been trained from a young age. I don't want to say trained because it makes it sound like I'm a dog, but I mean, it's more just something my parents put me in because at the time it was really very much sink or swim and they didn't want me to Sink.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Right. Wow. So well said. And honestly, shout out to your parents because again, back in the early 2000s, like you said, therapies were not common practice. There was still not a lot known. And so the fact that they said, well, we're going to do this to help compensate for whatever gaps or challenges you might have really is a testament to them because it was a little bit ahead of the curve for sure. When you leave that situation though, do you find, do you have downtime? Do you have meltdowns? Do you have things where you held it together only for so long or have you just learned how to. How to just deal with it and move past it?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: I'd say all of the above, but mostly the latter.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Mainly because, I mean, the whole goal in terms of a day to day basis at school, especially when I was younger, is just to fit in. That's what I was devoting all of my energy to pretty much. It wasn't like actually trying to study really. But academics is a whole nother subject where, I mean, I could say even if I wanted to do well, I couldn't. But all my energy was focused on fitting in and the fact that I got through the day, to me was a sign that it worked. So I don't have anything to worry about.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: That is wisdom on your part for sure, to have that, that kind of insight and awareness. Do you think that's the correct attitude we should have as society about like your. All your efforts were going to fitting in? Talk more about that.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: I would like to hope that I'm just a product of that specific time period. I was cognizant enough and got diagnosed early enough. A perfect storm of things to where I could just barely, I guess, slip by under the radar in terms of being. I don't want to say I wasn't ever really bullied in school, mainly because I was just either quiet or when I did say something, it was like, I don't know, like a, like a funny joke that I spent hours crafting in my head just because that's. I wanted to fit in. So that's what I spent my time doing instead of paying attention in class.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Do you think we're getting better at not creating the norm that you have to fit into or do we still.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Have a ways to go and. No.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: I think in a way it's important to have those norms because otherwise you could just let people get away with some things that they shouldn't be able to get away with with the excuse of being different.
[00:13:05] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: And Obviously, I understand if you were to take that out of context, that could sound pretty inconsiderate of other people's experiences. But I can say, having been judged my entire life in honestly ways that I wouldn't wish on anyone else, those expectations do need to be there rather than not at all.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Because if I didn't have, like Ms. Logue I spoke about before, like, on me in college, to essentially turn my life around, to actually care about the work that I was doing, then I wouldn't care about it at all. There was an expectation that I need to participate, that I need to become a functioning member of society by going through this program, getting a job, learning to drive, stuff like that. Because if I didn't, then obviously that would also reflect badly on them because, you know, it's their job, but also that be kind of just letting myself down.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Right. What's the fine line, I think. Right. Is the more of those skills you can gain, the more opportunities you have open to you. Right. And that's the hard part. Because I think as parents, what we want is for our kids to have as many opportunities that they want to have. Right. And if you didn't have some kind of societal norm to have to try to meet, the question is, at this point, I think we're still probably a little too strict on that societal norm. So if there was one thing that you could tell all of us in society to change right now, what would it be?
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Eye contact, I guess would be one.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Just as an example, I don't have a problem with it. I know a lot of people do. But the fact that eye contact can make or break an interview, like that doesn't make any sense. Right. I understand, like, why that was a thing historically. Because if I were to speak more broadly, they need to be able to find who's antisocial and who isn't, because they need people who are social to work with each other.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: I can understand in traditional jobs why that is. Even when, like, the nuances of the jobs have moved past, needing to work with other people or maintain eye contact just for the sake of cohesion, that expectation still remained in an interview. The barrier of entry remained arbitrary. Whereas, like, once you're in the door, none of that matters.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: Right. Oh, my gosh. So well said. And I know I do a lot of neurodiversity in the workplace. Training. That's one of the things we try to train on. Right. Like you said in these interviews, the two most important things are the eye contact and the handshake either of those matter if you're looking at spreadsheets or if you're coding or if you're filing, if you're doing medical records, like you said, for most jobs, you don't really need both. Now, maybe if you're a salesman. Right. But that's a small fraction of the people in the world. Right. Who are actually doing those jobs that truly require.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Obviously, this is a generalization, but I would wager most people who are averse to eye contact and handshakes wouldn't be applying to be a salesman.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Excellent.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: So it kind of doesn't make sense for ones where it doesn't really need that to have those requirements.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you're an employer out there and you most likely are employing people with neurodiversity, because neurodiversity now affects one in four people.
Think about your interview process and think about, are you really getting to the heart of knowing whether this person can do that job? And there's just so many things we can do to improve that interview process. I know one of the other ones is like behavioral questioning where they'll ask these crazy questions like, if you could be a color, what color would you be and why? And, you know, have you ever sat in an interview where there was some kind of behavioral question and you just wanted to say, why are you asking me that question? And did you?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: My career path has not been very traditional. Most opportunity that I've had is not been through an interview. I don't want to say that I've never been in an interview. I have, but it wasn't for a job.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: Okay. Okay.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Mainly because I knew I wasn't good at it, so I didn't bother.
[00:16:53] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: At least at the time, or I thought I wasn't good at it. I should say.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: So it's a little bit more of who you knew and what program you were in to help get you that connection. It wasn't a formal, like submit a resume blind.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: My personal expectations were not high, so I didn't bother trying to go to an interview, really.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Okay. Okay. But I think you're a testament to the fact that you probably could have done it right and been. But again, I guess if we continue to adjust societal norms and expectations, then, like, you probably would have excelled. But again, you're sitting here with perfect eye contact and. And all of the. The skills to be able to check off that box. So tell us a little bit more about life path and what that looked like for you and why it was so successful.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Obviously, it's been like a year and a half since I graduated, so some stuff is going to be fuzzy. I don't remember the names of everything but what they did.
I think it was four years for a bachelor's, an associate's or associates, rather. Yeah, I think it's in the state of Texas. It's got its own designation also. Occupational life skills, Associates. Okay, I know. I'm pretty sure Lone Star had to do in some decent work to get the legislature to put a stamp of approval on that. I don't know all the specifics, but I know it wasn't an easy thing to do. Okay, but once they got that, I know they launched it. I don't remember where they launched it. Might have been Kingwood. It might have been.
[00:18:14] Speaker C: I think it might have been Tumble Tomball.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: There's a whole bunch of locations. Yes, there are four year program, start to start. It's basically think of like those career readiness classes in high school. Except actually useful.
Well said because I don't know if anyone's ever taken those classes. At least for me it was just give vague notions of what you want to do and practice. Like pretend that you got an interview at so and so Company, what you would answer those questions are or where you would want to work, why you would want to work there, what job you want to work at. But nothing ever covering how to actually get the job. Okay, only just once you got there. Because it's assuming that you'll get there of your own merit and there's nothing systemic blocking you at all. Okay, that. But inverse, they focused on really what mattered in that actually building a resume. That was like one of the first big projects we did. Like verbalizing like what our skills are so we can put it to paper. Building like a. Like a website for wix to like showcase herself, professional portraits, doing mock interviews with actual business people just you know, to ensure like it's. It's not. Not going easy, right? Yes, that was the first year. Mostly stuff like that.
[00:19:28] Speaker C: True practical application.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: The first two years are mostly. I would say first year and a half, I guess I would say is mostly theory, putting pen to paper instead of, I don't know, showing what you wrote to anyone else. If I were to use that metaphor. Okay, but once you have all that ironed out, then I believe in the second half of the second year they assign you, I guess, to shadows or be mentored by someone who worked on the campus. Okay, I was mentored by the, I believe the head of the honors college At Lone Star Montgomery. I don't know if it's for all locations, but at least Montgomery.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Okay. No pressure there.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Writing out a bunch of questions to ask them, writing down their answers, reflecting on those answers after the fact, submitting it. And then professors would go through and see to make sure you're not just completing it to complete it.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: Okay. You're not just doing it for the sake of doing it.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: You're not doing it for the sake of doing it. And you're the one there in a room alone asking them the questions. There's no professor in the course corner making sure you stay on task.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: And that was a big part of the grade for the second year. The third year was job shadowing. We're not really job shadowing so much as really just helping people do their job around the campus.
[00:20:40] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: So for the third year, I was helped academic advising. I worked with one of the academic advisors, Brandon Boswell, there. He was great to work with, but they assigned me with him specifically, I think, because he also didn't just do academic advising. He was just kind of the person that would like to go around and help do things.
[00:20:57] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: So I would obviously go along with him. I would run events, do some academic advising, obviously, or run events. At one point, I was running a popcorn machine for. For an event of some kind. I don't remember what the event was, but I was standing outside giving out free popcorn, moving tables around, filing paperwork, sorting a backlog of hoodies that nobody wanted. Lone Star hoodies nobody wanted. Or sizes just nobody cared for so that they could, I don't know, like, recycle him or something. And that took like an afternoon, you.
[00:21:30] Speaker C: Know, doing his job for you, building well rounded, versatile skills that still use things like executive functioning skills and time management skills and all kinds of things. Right. That you have to learn to be.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Able to do a job was at the time. For Ms. Logue, assigning me to him is chaos, essentially making sure that I was able to stay on my toes and if not, learn how to do it with someone who was kind enough to teach me how. Brandon.
[00:21:55] Speaker C: Wow. Wonderful. Okay.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: And then fourth year started that year. It was actual community internship. You get a job out in the community for that internship. You, I think, did it like once a week, just a normal shift at the place. I did it at zero latency. Depending on what the employers thought they might hire you after. They did hire me after, but it was a full year of that doing it like once a week. And then later on I was also able to work more outside of that internship, and they would actually pay me for it if. If that's what I wanted. And I started doing that and sort of just ramping up the hours until eventually they hired me at the end of the year. And.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Yeah, okay, wonderful. What is your ideal job? What do you want to be doing next?
[00:22:35] Speaker B: I'm open to a lot of stuff. The advocacy stuff opened a new door for me. I did get a job offer from one of the panelists there who.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: Okay, look at you go where I.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Would work with autistic kids. I'll be sorting that out with him in the fall later because I have some stuff to get sorted through this summer, but I'll see where that goes.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Yes. If I know you're talking about, you need to go do that.
He might have been a guest on this podcast. And so that's wonderful. And especially in the world of advocacy. For any of you who want to get Matthew, I got him first. Yay. But you can reach out infoirend.org and I can put you in contact with Matthew.
What would you want to share with employers who currently have neurodiverse individuals now on, like, the best ways to support them?
[00:23:25] Speaker B: It's often the little things trouble, at least for me. Like, complex tasks I have no issue doing. It's just like, am I supposed to do something without them telling me to do it first? Because obviously, for most things, yes, because it's your job. But some things, no. There's no piece of paper with checks or X's that says whether or not you should ask to do something first, like, or if you should do something when it isn't your job to do it. I'm not the one cleaning the bathrooms, but I could do that if I wanted to. But I'm. I guess I shouldn't really.
[00:23:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Even though I wouldn't have any issue doing it. But, like, that's sort of arbitrary. But the arbitrary stuff is exactly what I think trips at least me up. And I would imagine for a lot of other people on the spectrum as well, it trips them up to where if something only exists as, like a maybe a liability, that doesn't occur to most people.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: At least most people. And on the spectrum, if it doesn't make sense to them, they might ignore it.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: It's just not that straightforward. And a lot of what I do train on, especially to employers, is there's something we call the hidden agenda or hidden curriculum that's not in the employee handbook. Right. And, for example, like, your employee handbook might Say you get a lunch hour every day from 12 to 1.
But if it's not the hidden agenda there where no one does go take a lunch break and you don't know that, then the first day you're going off to take a lunch, but no one told you that. Hidden agenda that says we don't really go take a break for lunch. Right. And so. And those are the things that can.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: I would say hidden agenda is the word I would use for. We were talking about before, like the arbitrary things with eye contact. That stuff should just be gone away with from society in general because it only exists to trip people off. It doesn't add anything.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: Okay, wow. Very well said. Okay, so you talked about some of the nuances. What else do you think current employers could do?
I know one of the things that we talk about is like psychological safety. And so actually here's a question for you. When you meet people or when you went to your employer, like, do you self disclose when you meet new people?
[00:25:28] Speaker B: New people in general? No, for my zero latency. At least they knew because obviously they'd say we're taking on an intern, so. And so. And his hours will be irregular. They kind of have to know that.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: And obviously the. My co workers are going to want context, but usually no, because I mean it's ideally it shouldn't be relevant.
[00:25:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: That should be. The goal is to. Where it no longer matters at all because they would be putting you in a place where that. Whether it be an inhibition or just not being as good at something as other people, that's just not an issue.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: Say you were going to work for another employer and they didn't know that you were on the spectrum. They hired you, you got the job. That never came up. What would you say is something that would create psychological safety to where you then felt like you could disclose, whether it be to a colleague or to your boss.
Like what would be something they could do there that would give an indication to you? Like, I think I actually can tell them because it won't hold me back.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: What I do is gauge like what they find funny.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: If they are very, I guess, like I don't say not work appropriate jokes, but more on the. As if you were talking to a friend versus just a co worker though, like obviously there's a difference in like what kind of jokes you make. Obviously ideally they should still be appropriate and whatnot for the setting you're in, but there's a difference in boundaries there.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: And if I make a joke that would Be more in like friend territory. And they're not okay with that then to me, that says they're a bit more sensitive as to how not only themselves, but how other people are perceived because they are at work. To me, that says disclosing to them would only become a liability because then they'll think about whether they need to be considerate and so and so or not. When that really it shouldn't affect how they treat me at all because they should be treating me nicely anyways.
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Yes. So it's maybe the environment where it's very strict. Very like traditional. Very to your point. Like we have these norms and we're not veering from these norms. And if that's the case, then it might not be as safe for you to say something because they might automatically go to stereotypes or assumptions.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Is that accurate or not even that? Just they, in trying to help me, they, like, do things for me. I don't want to say, coddle me. Look down in a way where they're like, oh, I was being too harsh to this person just because so and so. Where that's not what I want. They should be as harsh to me as they are to everybody else.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: And if they're too harsh, then that means they're too harsh to everybody. It's not about me.
[00:27:55] Speaker C: Yes. And I actually talk about that all the time where I say, I'll watch people give grace once they find out someone has autism. Why can't we do that with everyone? Did that take that much more energy or that much more work? It didn't. So why can't we give grace to everyone in the world? Right. Like, why do they have to have a label to give grace? So you don't want to be held back and you don't want to be put in a certain box or assumption. And that's. If you felt like that was the environment you were in, then you wouldn't self disclose.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: I mean, ideally I wouldn't even work there. Yeah.
[00:28:24] Speaker C: So well said. So well said. What would you say to someone, to employers that are maybe considering hiring neurodiverse people? And maybe again, they probably already do, but don't know that they do. And so, like, are there advantages? Why should people hire people with neurodiversity?
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Think of it as you would someone who has a specific interest or a hobby, not as some sort of neurological condition or disability or whatever you want to call it. Just think of it as like, oh, well, this person likes doing this and doesn't like doing that. And so you Assign them work accordingly.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Other than that it kind of doesn't really matter. You wouldn't not. Some people aren't good at talking to other people like within the normal bounds of what you would expect. Someone not being a people person or not wanting to talk in front of a group of people, you don't judge them for that beyond like, oh well, they just don't like doing that.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: When that's all you really need to do is just ask the person what they like doing and what they don't like doing and then give them the job that corresponds to that most closely.
[00:29:25] Speaker C: So well said, the whole profound statement. Just ask, right? Well how do you know? I don't know. Just ask. Just ask the question. Do you say someone with autism, an autistic person, an Aspie, a person with Asperger's, high functioning autism and Right. There's a lot of variety now. And so I've asked people on this spectrum and they say, just ask me because they'll say, well, how should I say it? And they're like, just ask me like, and I'll tell you how I want to be referred. A lot of people have different answers. Just like if you were to ask me whether I want to be labeled as a mom, whether I want to be labeled as an employer, whether I want to be labeled as a woman, like, just ask. Okay, so my last question, I'm going to switch gears a little bit off the employment and adulting. What do you want to tell the parent of a newly diagnosed child?
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Obviously, you know, the normal stuff. Don't think it's the end of the world.
Don't think that you're like what you thought parenthood was going to be. Isn't going to be that all the traditional stuff because I mean it's not into the world. It's just, just imagine it's someone with different interests than you thought your son or daughter or whatever that you were going to have was going to be good at talking to people. Well, maybe they're not. Do what you would do if your kid normally is not good at talking to people. Either take them to speech therapy or just put them in things where they don't have to talk. There's not much else to it. It only becomes a disability if you treat it like one. Otherwise it's kind of a non factor.
[00:30:47] Speaker C: But I know that's also a very controversial topic right now, right? Because you have the whole spectrum and you have this discussion out there, is autism a disability or not? You've said it Several times in this episode. It depends, it depends on that person. And maybe not autism itself is a disability, but, but if they're self injurious, if they're non verbal, if they can't access the world they want to access, then maybe it is a disability.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: I was thinking though, I don't want to equate it to cancer, but I was going to say that's like asking if cancer is deadly. There's a lot that aren't and there's a lot that are just inconveniences that you can just get removed. And there's a lot where it's going to impact you for the rest of your life, maybe not kill you. But I don't want to make that comparison because I don't want to make it seem as negative as cancer because it's not right. But I'm just saying like you're asking such a broad question about something that could genuinely feel like the end of the world, but also just be like something you go to the doctor for once a month and that's it.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: Great way to end that. Well, first of all, I want to give a very special shout out to Matthew because I had a list of about nine questions and I very much veered from the script. So Matthew, thank you for your flexibility and honesty and adaptability and all of that because I think you've show the epitome of proving we shouldn't put anyone in a box and restrict anything because you just handled that so beautifully. Well, is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you'd like to share with the audience?
[00:32:10] Speaker B: I mean, I will say I'm not really tuned into the debate. I kind of don't, outside of like a conversation like this, I don't really view myself as autistic. It's a non factor as I said. Like ideally it shouldn't impact me and I've. I've oriented my life to where it mostly doesn't.
[00:32:25] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: Because I understand you just gotta play your strengths and weaknesses. And so I've. I've not paid attention to whether it be, I don't know, the civil rights discourse, things like that because I guess I've been in a bubble in a way, just focusing on my own stuff. And I can understand that's why I'm talking about it now because I didn't, but also because I didn't think anybody cared.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Well, I'm here to say that we do care. Yeah.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: And I think I figured that out. Thank you.
[00:32:51] Speaker C: But I think, Matthew, I can't impress upon enough that the those of us who don't know and understand, we want to understand. And so the more people like you can get out there and talk about everything from the eye contact conversation to how you think and process the world to what we're doing intentionally or unintentionally as a society, I think luckily we have moved into the area where we at least want to know more. I always say ignorance is not bliss in this situation.
So shout out to you and I highly encourage all of you out there who have platforms bring Matthew onto your panel because clearly he's an incredible advocate for not only what autism is or is not, but also again, who we are as human beings. Right? And if you might already have a job, but if you're interested in also interviewing Matthew again, please reach out to infantspireindee.org and I will get you guys connected. Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a real pleasure. If you need help or resources, whether you're a parent, someone on the spectrum, a business or a community organization who want to know more or need help or want to share resources, please reach out to
[email protected] do you know the.
[00:34:02] Speaker D: Most important factor in your company's success? It's your people. They're the heart of your business. So how do you harness this potential? Insperity can help. From recruiting and onboarding to employee development and retention, we'll help you build a stronger, more resilient organization. Organization. See the difference the right approach to human resources can make? Because how you HR matters. Find out
[email protected] HR matters thanks for.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Joining us on Shining Through Inspiring Voices of Autism. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share with others who want to celebrate neurodiversity. Until next time, Keep Shining SA.
