Rose Griffin:The Path to Inclusive Support and Autism Awarenes

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast, hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.
Today's guest is Rose Griffin, a distinguished speech language pathologist
and Board certified behavior analyst. During her senior year of
high school, Rose took a career assessment that suggested a
career in speech therapy. This pivotal moment marked the beginning
of her professional journey dedicated to serving individuals with autism
and their families. Rose joins us today to share her
inspiring story and the evolution of her career from its
inception in high school. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, no problem. Somebody did an audit.
Of my podcasts and they said your podcast is one
that I should be on.
That's how I found out about your podcast.
Wow. I really appreciate the referral from them. That's awesome.
So when do you decide to go into therapy.
Actually, my mom gave me a career test when I
was a senior in high school, and it said I
should be a speech therapist.
And then I just I shouted a family friend and
that was it. I became a speech therapist.
I never took any classes that I didn't need to,
and I knew I wanted to do that, and you
have to get.
A master's degree.
So so six years of school, Yeah, so immediately once
I entered undergrad. Yeah, I just love the field. I've
been doing it over twenty years and I still really
enjoy it.
So I think that's awesome that you knew what you
wanted to do right from the very start. I've had
friends that have gone to college, learned their craft the
best they could, followed the books, yes, but then they
found that the books just didn't really work out the
way they thought.
Right.
How did you find what you learned in college about autism,
special needes et cetera to relate to the everyday world.
Yeah, no, that's a great question.
I think you know when I was in school, the
incident's rate of autism was two hundred and forty two,
maybe more than that. So we really didn't talk about
autism a lot. I didn't have a specific autism course.
I just I remember when I was in school, in
doing externships, I worked at public school and we had
a lot of autistic students and those are always my
favorite students. So then when I got out my second year,
then I worked at a place called the Learner's School,
which is part of the Cleveland Clinic, and it was
all autism. Every single learner was autistic, and I just
that's always what I've wanted to do, so I just
never looked back. Obviously, as a speech therapist, I work
with a variety of clients, but really, for the most
of my clinical life, I have specialized in helping autistic learners,
and I've worked with all different types of students, but
I'm really specializing with my business ABA speech of helping
kids who don't have a way to communicate find a
way to communicate, whether it be verbally or with an
augmentative communication device.
Yeah, and that's always been my passion.
Well, that's a great passion. Were you surrounded by anyone
in your past it was autistic or that led you
to the path of what you're doing today.
No, not at all, not really, And I mean I
don't not that I'm aware of.
Looking back on some kids in high school.
I think there's one kid who I don't know if
he had a diagnosis BECT then he is autistic, and
I'm kind of friends with him, like online on LinkedIn,
you know, as an adult now, and he's mentioned like, oh,
I think it's so cool what you're doing and all
that with aba speech.
But no, not really, not really.
No, that's very interesting to think that back in the
early nineties autism wasn't even really talked about. We had
ones that were called the weird ones. Now it's much
more prevalent than it's ever been, so it's been continually changing.
I'm curious, how have you seen it change from when
you started to where you are today.
Yeah, I mean the incidents rate has changed a ton,
so now I think it's one in thirty six.
I believe the CDC has said, and we used.
To say it's four to one boys to girls, but
I don't really use that statistic because there's a lot
of talk that girls are just not diagnosed as early
because of a lot of different things.
There are characteristics.
I've had a lot of autistic females on my podcast
who were diagnosed a lot later in life just because
of a variety of reasons and so for that, and
I feel like a lot of people like I did,
never took a course on autism. So you're really kind
of just learning as your caseload evolves. Right, You're in
a school and maybe you're in a specialized program. And
I always sought out those programs where I would be
working just with autistic learners, where I would be really
helping kids who did not have a way to communicate,
whether they be five, ten, eighteen. That was really what
I was passionate about. But I really learned on the job.
Yeah, how do you approach it? I mean there's been
a lot, for lack of a better word, controversy about
ABA therapy.
Yeah.
I was talking to Temple Granted about that, Yeah, and
she said it simply came down to the person that's
doing the ABA therapy, whether they're good or bad.
Yeah.
So with the controversy that was out there because of
the APA therapy going on and off, how did you
address that?
Yeah?
In real life, people love the fact that I'm both
say spach therapist and a BCBA. There are about four
hundred to five hundred people in the entire world that
are both, so it really allows me to talk to
both groups.
Yeah, that's great. So can you explain the difference to
the listeners.
Yeah, yeah, so especial language pathologists really learns. Our scope
of practice is really broad. We could help people who
have swallowing disorders, we could help people who have had strokes,
feeding concerns, language issues. Autism is just one small piece
of really what we do within our scope of competence
in practice, and for Board certified behavior analysts that's a
totally different profession and we can do lots of different things.
Really kind of helping people in the autism world is
like increase functional behavior. That is important and what I
specialize in is communication. And then if we do have
students who are engaging in potentially unsafe problem behavior where
they can't.
Go to a public school, or their.
Grandparents can't come over, they can't go to church, trying
to talk with the client the family and decide like, well,
why is that behavior occurring? And usually not always, but
you could see like if we are able to help.
A student increase their ability to communicate.
We usually see that behavior frending down because oftentimes kids
will not have a way to communicate because they haven't
been taught, they haven't had the right intervention. It's been
hard to reach them, and then they're navigating their world
by using behavior. I love Tumble granted, I heard her
talk when I lived in Austin, Texas, and I mean,
I think it's with a lot of things that really does.
It's just like doctors, it depends on the provider.
You could work with a doctor who's awesome, who makes
you feel really cared for, and then you could work
with somebody who you feel like you're wasting their time
because they need to get onto the next room, right,
So it depends.
What doctors with no bedside manner tell me.
That's not so yeah, exactly right. So it depends.
I mean, I try on my platform at ADA speech
to show how you can provide naturalistic instruction for autistic learners.
And I do think applied behavior analysis is kind of
having this rebirth where we're talking about it's always been
in the research and literature, but a scent you know,
child led therapy not compliance based, although sometimes you know,
sometimes compliance as far as following directions and things like that.
I have a friend who her friend and her autistic
son died in a house fire because just within the
past five years, because he wouldn't leave the house. So
so sometimes compliance for safety and medical issues is something
that is still important.
Yes, that's so true. When a parent comes to you,
they have just found out that their child is autistic.
Their mental health is just all over the place. They're
really afraid. They just don't know what to do. They've
tried things that just haven't worked right, or maybe it
has to a small degree. When you meet them and
meet that child, what is the first thing that you
do to start that relationship so you can build their
life and put it back together.
Just have fun, just play and see what they like
to do, find out what they love and enjoy, and
just try to be present and kind of parallel play
is really.
Just kind of being with them.
Bubbles or if it's a younger student, you know, child,
I love bubbles because they go away and then you
can blow them music and kids like books, but for sure,
bubbles play just seeing what the kid loves and enjoys,
especially if you're seeing somebody in their home. That's a
whole other dynamic. Sure, where they're at home, they have
all their things, and it's nice because you can talk
with parents. I also work in a school, so that's
a you know, different atmosphere. Or you don't just see
the parents adds much, right, but just trying to be
somebody When they see me that they are like, oh
there's ms Rose.
She's fun, she gets me, and so just having a
good time.
I have three kids on my own, so I feel like,
you know, I'm good at all that stuff.
That's great. Is there any autism in your family at all?
No?
What do you do when you get a child that's
a little older, maybe preteens or teens, that's a whole
different dynamic for them. Them Een years are tough for
a neurotypical child, but you add autism to that and
they're trying to figure it all out and fit in.
It makes it really really tough sometimes. How do you
approach that?
Yeah, I feel like every learner is so different. And
I did work at the middle school high school level
for ten years, so I really have a decent amount
of experience with that. I think some kids they're just
you know, they're in a really supportive environment they are
maybe on grade level academically. I'm thinking of one kid
and they do some autistic type you know, stereotopy with
their hands, but they don't really doesn't bother them, doesn't
bother anybody in their atmosphere. So that child may not
even need therapy, you know what I mean, versus somebody
who maybe does have support needs in the area of
social skills. I talk with that student and say, you know,
just think of me as like your social skills coach,
because just like you said, in middle school and high school,
those are really nuanced times for social skills for all people,
and so to have somebody to guide you. And what's
hard about that is there's no curriculum. There's a lot
of social skills curriculum, but there's not going to be
anything that comes out that's individualized for your student.
You know, when I was working with kids at that age.
Level, I used a lot of video modeling, where we
take a video me maybe engaging in the skill, like
answering a question in class or during COVID.
You know, I had a kid who needed to.
Practice asking for a mask break and all these things
that are super super specific. So I always trying to
use video modeling, which anybody can do with a phone.
You just take a video of the skill and then
you show it to the learner.
And you practice.
Yeah, that's awesome. You just mentioned a home scenario. I
spoke with an ABA therapist and he went into a
person's home. Yeah, he immediately assessed the situation for his
own safety, then thought to himself, this might not work.
Have you had situations like that?
Oh?
Yeah, I mean I worked in private placements where the
students I always had to have somebody with me because
it was just unsafe for me to be by myself
if a student had unsafe problem behavior. So students like
that are usually working with the speech language pathologists, a.
Board certified behavior analyst.
Family is very involved, and oftentimes students that are at
those outside placements that's their least restrictive environment because they
can't be educated appropriately or safely in a public school.
So they just have really robust intervention where everybody's on
the same page, with the idea being we really want
to help that student not engage in those behaviors and understand.
Why that's occurring. And then always there's a tie to communication.
There's just almost always a tie that there is support
needs in the area of communication, So how can we
beef up that communication? And really communication is something that
in the specialized programs usually is just worked on all
day every day, because that really is usually the most
important thing for students. They're frustrated and they can't communicate
what they want to and it's hard for them.
Yeah, yeah, I can understand that for sure. You mentioned
earlier that males are diagnosed about four to one. I've
heard that the reason why females aren't diagnosed quite so
early is because they're masking. They're trying to fit in.
They're trying to be socially acceptable. Sometimes that works, sometimes
that doesn't, and most times it doesn't work out as
well as they thought because they still get bullied or
looked at and it's really hurtful. How do you approach
someone like that that is just so tender and needs
help yet is still undiagnosed.
Yeah, I think there's.
A lot, and I really can just speak mostly from
because the kids that I've worked with individuals have all
had a diagnosis. But the people that I've had in
my podcasts that are females that have been diagnosed later
in life.
We talk about masking.
So I think that talking about masking understanding that giving
a name to something that people were probably just doing,
and that it has a negative consequence. And I think
that there's just so much more information out there, which
can be good and which can be bad, you know,
and be like information overload. But for people who are
dealing with that, you know, just being in a supportive environment, right,
it's like kind of doing some coaching with whoever's in
the environment too, right, peers And depends on your community, right,
how inclusive it is and where you're at a baseline,
and if there's any other autistic students. It just really
depends on how big your school district is. I've worked
in big districts and small districts, and sometimes the small
districts are just hard because you may not have any
other kid who has an interest in dungeons and dragons
or something that's really specific.
And so, you know, because we always.
Say, like you, really it's nice to have one friend, right,
you just need one friend. But sometimes when you're thinking about,
like how can I facilitate this or this student seems lonely.
Sometimes in smaller districts that is hard because the student
may have a special interest and because it's a small area,
maybe nobody else has that. But with online, that is
a little bit easier to you know, connect with others
and things like that that have similar interests.
Yeah. Online definitely has its good points and it's bad points.
When I see the online problem is the labeling. They
don't want that label, but yet they need that label
to get to support. Yeah, how do we create that
bridge too, labeling of autism so that they get it
and it ultimately helps their lives moving forward.
Yeah, I mean I think it's just all that autism acceptance.
I mean I think we used to call April Autism
Awareness Month, but maybe now it's called autism acceptance.
I may be saying that wrong.
But you know, I just always say, every single day
is autism one a one day at ABA speech. So
I just always share, Like if you look on my
Instagram Aba speech by Rose, I just share, you know,
I share from autistic adults. I'll share information about early
signs of autism.
And it's not to scare anybody.
It's just to say, like you said, if your child's autistic,
they may have support needs, and why wouldn't you want
to give your child what they need, like why would
you want them to struggle with, you know, toileting or
speaking or walking all those.
Things that every child is going to be different.
And just because you have autism doesn't necessarily mean to
need any services either. You know, you could have an
autism diagnosis, but if you're doing fine in school, doesn't
have an adverse impact on your educational performance.
You may not have any services, you know, like Steven.
Short said, if you met one person with autism, you
met one with person with autism, and that really is true.
So I feel like now there is a lot of.
Controversy online if you spend too much time online like
I probably.
Do, with that is good and bad, right.
I do think autism is just more in the forefront
and it's just like oh, yeah, you know that that, yeah,
he has autism or they're autistic.
It's more of like a cultural thing too, I think.
Yeah. I think the biggest issue is simply it's misunderstood.
It's like you said, April is Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month.
The slogan I use for my podcast is Autism Awareness, Acceptance,
and Understanding. I believe that people can be aware of something,
they can accept it because they're aware of it, but
until they fully understand it, then they never comprehend what
the other people are actually going through.
Well, and everybody's every autistic person and every autistic person's
family experience is going to be so different because every
person so different. You know, you might have somebody who
is on gray level academically or gifted, but is struggling
with social, emotional or social skills. And you may have
somebody who is not yet speaking, is not able to
go to the restroom on their own, and it's just
everything so different. So yeah, I think if we come
from a place of trying to listen and understand, then
that makes us better clinicians.
That's why on my podcast I try to have on, you.
Know, clinicians, but then I also have autistic adults on,
and you know, everybody, just to try to be better
at what we're doing to try to support people.
Yeah, yeah, that's great. When you have someone that's nonverbal,
let's say they're between three and six, what are the
steps you take to help them communicate so that they
can learn grow and then down the road keep our
fingers crossed become verbal.
Yeah, something that we really focus on a lot in
the field of speech therapy and ABA is called joint attention.
Just really in Layman's terms, that's shared engagement. So what
can we do together that would be fun so that
you want to engage with me, not because you're going
to get an external reinforcer like a piece of candy
or something like that, but we're just going to do
this activity because the activity is actually fun. And so
you know, there's lots of behaviors that are like pointing
and showing and eye contact and things like that. And
so the way that I talk about that is a
three pronged approach of using books, music like and I
love music that has motions because imitation like Wheels on
the Bus another really good one, and play so like
bubbles or Simon says, just so we're doing activities together,
and we have seen once we build that shared social reciprocity,
then that really is going to help our student then find.
A way to communicate with the world.
And then once the student is able to either use
pictures or a device or their own verbal.
Speech, then we just keep working on.
More advanced skills and so the student is as independent
as possible with communications.
That sounds like such a great process to do. Now,
you've got a set of parents, they've tried everything they could.
In their mind, they think that everything they've tried is
a total disaster. It might not be, yet their perception
is that this just isn't working. There's nothing that's going
to help my son or daughter. Have you run into
a situation where you had parents like that, you worked
with a child, built that relationship, things actually started getting
a lot better. They could see it. Now they've changed
their mind completely, and it's turning into a success story
that can carry forward for a long timebsolutely.
Yeah. Absolutely. You know. I had a student that I
worked within a specialized program. He was ten.
He had a beautiful augmentative communication device like iPad with
a software on there set up, but he did not
use it at all.
He could not go anywhere, he could not have any other.
Classmates in his room because it was unsafe. He had
to have two people working with him because it was
unsafe to have one. He couldn't go in the community,
his grandparents couldn't come over. And so he was ten,
and so we just really inched my inch systematically worked
on him using his device by himself, and it was cool.
I worked with that student for three years.
We saw like a major decrease in his unsafe problem behavior.
He can now work because I still know his teacher.
He can now work with one person. He is in
a classroom with others, but kind of has his own space.
And even towards the end when I was working with him,
he was able to independently use his device and he
was able to go into the community and order Dairy
Queen on his device. I used to show videos of him.
His parents allowed me in some of the trainings that
I did, and I think that you nailed it on ahead.
It's like sometimes, especially if there's a kid who is
not yet speaking and they don't make any progress in
the public school and then they start to aggressive. Let's
say they're eight, nine or ten, and then they've never
been able to communicate, that school team doesn't know how
to help them, and then they turn ten and they're
aggressive towards staff. And this is something that happens all
the time, and then the school district may say, you
know what, I think you need to go to specialized
program to this really robust intervention, and that is giving
the parents hope, like, wow, these people really get my child.
My child's able to go to a school where they
can relate to others and they're really really learning.
Some public school districts are great and others just have
never met a learner that has needs like that, and
so it's this delicate balance of knowing how to support
all students.
Absolutely. I mean, when parents first learn of their child's
autistic diagnosis, some tend to be really afraid and fearful
because they think it's a death sentence and it's really
not right. Now, they have taught us that they can
do so many great things and become just anything that
anyone would want them to be.
Right, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, with the right intervention and support.
And I think what's nice about applied behavior analysis too
is it's covered by insurance. Now that's why it's grown
so rapidly, because every state is covered by insurance. The
one part that is nice is that usually it's the
insurance mandate if the students getting ABA services, that the
parent also has to get and engage in parent training,
like you said, support for parents.
You know, because it's a speech therapist.
It's great if I can talk with parents, but it's
not mandated by insurance, so it's not a half.
To but with ABA it's a half too.
It's usually mandated by insurance, which is nice because parents
need support. They need to know what's going on and
what's working in therapy and what can be generalized to home.
Yeah. Absolutely, because this is a very complex situation. There
could be multiple people within the family. They all have
to be on the same page, so they know the
good and unfortunately they're not so good about it, and
then when it's not going so good, they learn how
to get it back on track. So is there anything
that I've missed that needs to be addressed for people
to hear.
I think covered a lot of you know, a lot
of things.
I think you know, if your child's not yet speaking
and the pediatrician says, well, let's just wait and see.
You definitely have early intervention. Every single state here in
the United States has early intervention where you can contact
your your state level organization to get an assessment. I
think early intervention is so important because your brain is
just it's ready to learn, so you know, having that
type of support is important. And then if you have
any listeners that are international, I do.
I have many.
There could be speech therapists that you know I do
international consults in Pakistan and Dubai and London and all
different places with parents because there are speech therapists there
and there are BCBAs, but not everybody feels comfortable supporting
autistic learners or has that type of experience, And so
that's another reason that online is nice too, where you
can reach out to people who you like, no and
trust that could help you guide you on your autism journey,
you know.
Yeah. Unfortunately there's several countries that don't even recognize autism.
Right, Yeah, so a lot of cultural barriers too.
Yeah. The shure is, so how do people find you?
Yeah, visit me at abaspeech dot org. We have a
parent membership. We have a parent who does monthly tutorials
all about behavior communication, and we do courses and there's
lots and lots of support if you're not ready for that,
if you just visit me at abspeech dot org. We
have a lot of really nice resources that will be
a support immediately for you and your child.
Well, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you coming
on today.
Yeah, nice to meet you.
Yeah, it's been great.
Thank you, Tony, pleasures allmine.
Thanks for taking the time. Out of your busy schedule
to listen to our show today. We hope that you
enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
If you know anyone that would like to tell us
their story, send them to tonymantor dot com contact then
they can give us their information so one day they
may be a guest on our show. One more thing
we ask tell everyone everywhere about why not me? The world,
the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give
to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.