[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Shining Inspiring Voices of Autism with show host Jennifer Dantzler. My name is Emily and I have autism. 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 follow this podcast. Hey, everyone, this is Jennifer Dantzler, and I'm the executive director and founder of inspirend, 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 affecting 1 in 31 people, we need to get louder about this topic. 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 podcast, 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.
We are here today with some new friends of mine. They are named Jeffrey and Laura May, and they wrote an amazing book called Our Amazing Minds, and it is about children with autism. So thank you so much, Jeffrey and Laura, for being here.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having us.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Why don't you tell me a little bit about the book? What inspired you to write this book?
[00:01:43] Speaker C: The book is about four friends that are all autistic, and they go on a field trip to a children's museum.
And along the way, the narrator of the book, Jackson, he explains what autism is to the reader. So as he and his friends enter a new place, they're talking about how scary that can feel. New experiences.
They experience different sensory challenges throughout the museum. And so he's explaining to the reader what some of these challenges are, what stimming is, how that helps them feel calm and comfortable. And you really see a lot of the positive traits that children with autism bring to the world while also seeing some of the challenges that they face. So we wanted the book to be able to show both give kids, give adults even a healthy understanding of what autism can look like. The reason we did this, our son Jackson, is actually autistic. He's 10 years old. He's who we made the narrator of the book. Several years ago, we started realizing, hey, there's tons of resources for parents to understand autism. But we didn't feel like there was much for kids to understand.
And so we wanted him to really know how he was made, how he's wired, and see himself in a positive light. And so we can't find a resource that really fits our needs. So let's create one.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Wonderful. So how was it writing and publishing this book together?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: It was awesome. So we. We started at the beginning of the year. We knew that there were just certain things that we wanted to. To hit in the book. One being, like, certain strengths and certain challenges. Like one of the characters in the book, he's non sp.
One of the characters in the book, you know, gets laser focused on a task and gets frustrated when she's removed from that task. We wanted, you know, certain parts of what these children struggle with, with autism to be illustrated within the book. So we wrote it together, worked with an awesome developmental editor and a great illustrator, and I guess we got done with it in the summertime. It was really, really cool process writing it together.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Very cool. I don't that. That must be a lot of work.
So I. You.
You really do explain beautifully the different aspects of autism. I loved when I started reading and saw the augmentative communication device because not a lot of people talk about those aspects of things. And it is true. The way you portrayed, explained things like stimming and people needing to use communication devices really is very educational and informative, but really is shed in a very positive light. So I really appreciate that. On behalf of the autism community, why do you think it's so important to. For children to see themselves and their peers positively represented in books?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I think it's extremely important for these kids to feel seen and to feel understood. You think about a kid, a neurotypical kid is already going through this world trying to understand, you know, why they're made the way they're made, their different personality traits, you know, how they interact, you know, who their friends are going to be. And you add another layer to that with, like, a kid with autism, and they just want to feel like they're just seen and understood. So we feel like especially developmentally is so important as these kids are growing up for that to be the case.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Very, very true. What do you hope parents will take away from the book?
[00:05:15] Speaker C: We wrote the book, hopefully to be a resource for parents of neurodiverse children, but also neurotypical children, because we think it can be an educational tool. So I hope that parents of neurodiverse children can feel confident in having these conversations with their kids.
We want them to feel like they have a tool and a resource, and, you know, you start to recognize every child with autism is different. Right. But our hope was that readers could find themselves in pieces of these characters and say, oh, yeah, I do that like Lily and Sophia does that. I do that, too. And so they can relate to multiple different children, and parents can have a tool to be able to explain differences and explain. Explain strengths. And so that's our hope for parents of neurodiverse children, neurotypical children, parents there. We are hoping that they will use this as a tool to educate about awareness and how to be more inclusive. Look at the friendships these kids have. Right. We want everyone to see how much they belong and have a more welcoming society where everyone can be included and seen and understood and loved just as they are.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: We've seen this play out. One really cool thing since we've launched the book is Jackson got to take the book to his classroom. He's in a neurotypical classroom, and got to put it up on the screen and read it to his class. And he took questions and got to answer with his classmates, like, what is autism? And they were peppering them with questions. And it's just really, really cool to see that. We've heard other stories like that, too.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: You know, one of the things I always try to discuss with parents is this aspect of, how much do you talk to your child with autism about their autism? How much do you get them to talk about their autism? And I think the more we do, the more we can reduce the stigma. And, you know, I've always said ignorance is not bliss in our world of autism. And I think for these kids, most kids now know someone else with autism. And so the more they can understand and get answers to questions, it's not so taboo. It's not so mysterious. Right?
[00:07:30] Speaker C: Yeah. We started a couple years ago, started really talking to Jackson about autism. And I noticed that we were always pointing out the strengths to him, and it was, you have such an incredible memory. I can't believe you remember that. That's because of your autism, the way your brain is wired. And it was as he got a little bit older, probably around second, third grade, we noticed his friends started asking questions. Why does he do this? Why he flaps his hands as a stimming aspect. And so why does he do this? And so we realized other people are asking questions. We need you to understand that aspect of it as well and be able to understand and communicate back. You're not always going to be around us when other people ask you and we're not here. We want you to have the tools to be able to say, oh, this is because I'm autistic and this is the way I'm created. And you know, sometimes these things are a little bit harder for me, but here's how I work through it.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think also to help them understand, it's not a bad thing if you have sensory overload and need to go take a break. We all have our things. You know, as I explained in a lot of my trainings, to me, all autism is, is just an exaggeration of human behavior. For all of us. The more we can just understand that we all need to take a break from certain things. It's just a matter, we might be able to communicate that a little bit better or see the signs a little bit earlier. It's traced in all of us, honestly.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: You know, one of the things that I also talk about my trainings are, you know, some of our guys have trouble with personal space. And so we'll, I'll talk about things like when you're in line at Target, the child with autism might be encroaching on the person in front of them. And I say to the parents, you know your kid to say something back. So when the person turns around and says back off and they say, what's your problem? And I would love one day for one of my clients to just be like, I have autism. What's your excuse? Like, you're so rude.
[00:09:24] Speaker C: I general.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: I genuinely have personal space, struggles and boundaries. But like you're just flat out rude.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Have you had any feedback yet so far? What are some examples of feedback you've heard from people who have read the book either in classrooms or to their children?
[00:09:42] Speaker C: One of my favorite, favorite responses that we've heard is a woman that gave the book to her 13 year old son. So he's a little bit older for a children's picture book, but he read it and she told us that he reads it every single night. He said after he read the book, he felt like someone finally understood what was happening in his brain. And that just brings me to tears. Like that is, that's, you know, it's incredible. So, I mean, we've had Stories like that I've heard from another mom who.
Her autistic child is 5, and she read the book and she said, I hadn't even begun to think yet. How will I tell him one day? And what will I say to him? So we were just thrilled. Like, you're already. Now you're thinking about it before he enters school, you can start having these conversations and prepare for this. So we just heard some incredible feedback that just warms our hearts.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: People are buying the book and saying, you know, there's a little boy in my daughter's class that's autistic, and I want her to understand him and be his friend. And so we're hearing a lot of stories like that as well.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: That's just gotta be so gratifying.
Do you think there are any, like, common misunderstandings about autism? And what do you. How do you think this book contributes to getting rid of those misunderstandings?
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's quite a few common misunderstandings. One of them specifically, you know, the character Martin that we put in the book, who's non speaking. I think there's a misconception that if you are non speaking, that you are not smart or that you don't want friendships or relationships, and that is not true at all. So it was really important for us to have that representation in the book to see, just because you can't communicate with words, there are other ways to communicate and you still want to be loved and included. So that was one of the huge misconceptions. And I think just friendship in general, I think people fear what they don't understand.
And a lot of times, if you don't understand autism, some of those kids could be left out or outcast. It doesn't mean that they don't want friendships. They may not know how to play or interact, to quote, unquote, normal standards, but they still want and desire that. And there's still a need for inclusion and friendships.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: I mean, that is why we wrote the book through the lens of four friends. Obviously, we wanted to show various aspects of the spectrum through these kids. We didn't want just Jackson and the story telling you about autism. We wanted to show interaction and friendship. You know, there's a misconception that they're loners, that they want to be isolated, and that's just not the case.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, very, very true. I remember a young adult, well, a young man now I know now, who's in his 30s, who actually has been on this podcast previously. Back when he was in kindergarten, most of the kids were just learning to read, but he could read all the Crayola colors and pronounce them exactly correctly. And I remember the teacher spun it so that he was the smartest kid in the class and the genius. And all the other kids would run up to him asking him to read what was the color of the crayon, because most kindergartners can't read mandarin orange or whatever some of these colors are. And so, you know, I think teachers have a real opportunity here and I think this book is a great platform to start that discussion. And to the point, whether it's a picture book, I don't care. This book should be read to sixth graders, eighth graders. You know, it's just. It's about the storyline.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: We gave it to my parents who have been on this autism journey with us for seven years. And my mom said I learned something from the book. Like great. 70 year olds can learn too.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think to your point, Jeffrey, I love the fact that it was four friends and you didn't try to sort of pile all aspects of autism into one character, which is, I do think what we see out there a lot. By splitting it up, it almost makes it to your point, for people who maybe don't understand, it makes it a little bit more understandable in like bite sized pieces where you're taking the perspective of each aspect of autism. So wonderful job on that.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: How do you think as communities we can move more from awareness into true belonging and inclusion? Like, what can, what can we really do to go deeper as a community?
[00:13:58] Speaker C: It absolutely starts with education. We have to have the proper tools in place. Hopefully this book is just one of the many tools. Right. We have to learn to be comfortable talking about differences. We have to have safe spaces for neurodiverse individuals, not just one hour early at the museum once a month. Where those kids get to go, like, let's just make this the norm. Let's have safe spaces, let's have quiet hours.
Let's have accommodations so that parents aren't at home with their children and they feel like they can't go out because they'll be judged. So I think it starts a lot with education. It starts with people putting themselves out there, speaking up when they see injustices in these areas and hopefully moving to a place where, you know, museums, libraries, schools, zoos, everything out there has. Has accommodations for people with different needs and that becomes the norm and not something that's rare for us to see.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: It's really funny you say that because that is one of the things I get on my soapbox about is sensory friendly nights or sensory friendly events. And then I really always want to say to them, what's really sensory friendly about that? And are you really just trying to get more customers or. It's superficial. And it's like, did you really turn down the music? Did you really limit the number of people that are coming to the event so it's not crowded? And to your point, opening the museum one hour early. Great. So when your child doesn't want to leave after one hour and now the museum opens to everyone else, what are we going to do exactly?
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I just think we can't do enough around the world of education. It does. It starts with. It starts with things like this book. If there was one thing that you could change about community in general to truly move us towards a more inclusive society, like, what would that be?
[00:15:54] Speaker C: For other people to have more patience and kindness.
We had this experience recently at the dentist. You bring that up. It was heartbreaking, actually. You know, the dentist knew that Jackson was autistic, so he gets extra time in his appointment. That's in his. His file. But we had a hygienist that clearly didn't understand anything about autism and had no patience with him and snapped at him within two minutes of the appointment because he needed to take a break. He couldn't handle the tools in his mouth. And so there's got to be more education to all professionals in these environments to be able to understand differences and be more patient and be more kind.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah. The thing I say all the time is if we just gave everyone more grace, whether you're on the spectrum or not, I tell this story a lot. And for my podcast listeners, you've probably heard this a few times, but there was one time on social media, locally, where someone got on there and said, what's this world coming to? I just saw a mom pushing a teenager around in a grocery cart watching her iPad. Is this how lazy we've let our teens become, where now they don't even have to walk around the grocery store? And my first thought was, I knew that this, most likely this was a teenager with autism, and this was the only way for mom to be able to get to the grocery store was to let her daughter be in the grocery cart watching her iPad? And I thought, and luckily, I didn't have to pounce because enough other people pounced to say, don't judge. You don't know their story whatsoever. And I think, unfortunately, that's why autism still to this day is isolating. Right. Because of that fear of judgment, that fear of also like getting in trouble, especially for our young adults. Right. Fear of police getting involved and people not understanding. And so I think you're right that we just can't do enough. It's not just educating our educators and it's not just educating other professionals. I mean, it's just everyone, everyone in the community needs to understand autism. For sure.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: We feel that conviction. I mean, prior to having Jackson, we didn't know much about autism. We were thrown into the world. Kudos to Laura. She hit the ground running as soon as we, we found out. You know, to resource them and to educate ourselves. It starts with taking the steps to, to learn about this and to become more inclusive.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: I think your example of the grocery store, it reminds me, you know, before we had kids, we were the best parents on the planet, right? We knew how to do everything.
And I remember after Jackson was diagnosed with autism, I saw the world entirely differently. I remember going to the grocery store and I'm not kidding, every time I see a child having a meltdown in the grocery store, my mind goes to wonder if he's autistic. Instead of judgment of another parent and what they're choosing to do. Right. Maybe they are overwhelmed. There is too much happening for them right now. And grace pours out of me instead of judgment since we walked into the world of neurodiversity.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Okay. Are there any plans to write a second book?
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Yes. So the. The plan is to make this a series. We would love to explore the sibling relationship, the. The whole parent and kid dynamic. It would be really cool to have each of these characters, them become the main character of the book. You know, especially Martin. We would love to have a book specifically talking about non speaking individuals, but that is the plan.
We're gonna finish out this year promoting this book and then maybe hit the ground running next year on the second book of the series.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: I love that. I want many, many more books to come and almost follow them through their life journey into adolescence and into adulthood. Taking a little bit of a tangent here. Was there a book that impacted either of you when you were young?
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Me as a kid was a book called the Hatchet. It's about this boy that is in a plane crash and he lands on this. On this island by himself and he has to learn how to survive. And it's about, you know, him discovering who he is and his moxie. It's. It's really cool.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: What about you, Laura? Yeah.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Jeffrey grew up in the country, he had to learn how to do a lot of things.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: I read books by like Shel Silverstein. You remember where the Sidewalk Is?
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. Classic.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Classic, right. Collections of short, short stories. And then that must be my thing because then as I got a little bit older. Do you remember all the Chicken Soup for the Soul?
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:20:23] Speaker C: So I like little short stories. Apparently I read westerns.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: I remember mine was actually, it was called the Garden is Doing Fine. And it was after my grandfather died. And so my 6th grade teacher knew enough to let me read something that was, you know, impactful for me. And like, to this day, I'll never forget it. It was, it was life changing. So just, you know, so inspiring with, you know, your book Our Amazing Minds. Just because you've already had a few of those stories and I'm sure there's many more of them that you don't even know about as far as the lives you're changing and the minds you're influencing. A few podcasts ago, we had a mother and son on where we had created an inclusion program in a private school. And listening to this, this young man talk about inclusion, where that's all he knew growing up was just kids in his class, right, that had special needs and it was just. And how much he learned from them, as he said, you know, it's what's not in the textbooks. And I think the more of stories like your, like your book, just we can't have enough of them to really educate the community. So again, I really want to thank you for taking the time to do this and can't wait to see more. One last question. If there is any advice you would give to a parent of a newly diagnosed child with autism, what would it be?
[00:21:38] Speaker C: First, take a breath. Know that it's going to be okay. There's a great plan for your child's life. There's a great plan for you as their parent. Get all of the services you can get.
Now, I know some people don't receive a diagnosis until they're older in life, teenager or even older. But there are services available. Use the resources out there.
We started speech therapy four days a week with our son. Occupational therapy, social skills classes. I said everything that's out there, give it to us.
There are professionals that are educated in this area. They have years of experience. They already know more than you do at this current state. Look for them, find them. Find all the resources and help and fight for your child.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well said. Definitely fight for your child. Okay. And what about you, Jeffrey? Any piece of advice from you?
[00:22:35] Speaker B: My advice would go specifically to the dads. You know, in my interactions with guys, I found a lot of them go through more of a grieving period, I think, than even, even the ladies do. I feel, I feel like when we found out, she. She just hit the ground running and I went through a period of, you know, is my relationship with my son gonna look different? You know, are we gonna go fishing or am I gonna teach him how to play baseball? You know, there's these, you know, you think you, the trajectory of that father, son or father daughter relationship is going to look one way and now you're thrust into this world and is it going to look different? So I would just encourage parents, specifically dads, grieve, but also support your partner. Get in there, help them. Y' all become a team as you move forward.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yes, very true. I know autism has the highest divorce rate of all special needs. And I think, you know, part of that is because it can become so isolating again. You start to retreat back slowly from the world. And again, fear of judgment, fear of your child running away from you in the grocery store, whatever it is, and slow, slowly, over time, you stop going to the block parties, you stop going to the birthday parties. And to your point, create those support systems and, and don't let them go away. Right?
[00:23:46] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Where can we find your wonderful book?
[00:23:52] Speaker C: Yeah, you can find it on Amazon. We also have our website, our amazing minds.org so we've got hardcover and paperback available on both.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, I really encourage our listeners to go buy the book not only to support Jeffrey and Laura on this initiative, but also obviously just to help move one step forward towards creating inclusive community. So, Jeffrey and Laura, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate, appreciate having you and we wish you all the success in the world.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: 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] thanks for joining us on Shining through. Inspiring voices of autism. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow up us, leave a review and share it with others who want to celebrate neurodiversity. Until next time, keep shining.
