Best Autism Podcasts: Top 10 Episodes of 2022

Transcript for Podcast Episode: 208
Best Autism Podcasts: Top 10 Episodes of 2022
Hosted by: Dr. Mary Barbera

Mary: You're listening to the Turn Autism Around podcast episode number 208. It is our last episode of 2022 and I am so happy to be recording this. I'm happy that you are listening. This is my fourth episode of my top ten podcast episodes of the year. I started the podcast in 2019, in January, so I have the top ten that I picked at the end of 2019, 20, 21, and now 22. We can link those other top ten podcasts. If you are a recent follower, a recent listener, you may want to hop back in and catch up on my top ten podcast episodes from those years as well. If not, no worries. We do a really big mix, so I'm going to highlight some of my favorites, some of the ones that did well, and some of the new things we're doing on the podcast. So let's get to the top ten podcasts of the year.

Narrator: Welcome to the Turn Autism Around podcast for both parents and professionals in the autism world who want to turn things around, be less stressed, and lead happier lives. And now your host, autism mom, behavior analyst and bestselling author Dr. Mary Barbera.

Mary: Okay. Welcome back. This is going to be a solo show, hopefully a pretty quick show. I never know when I start. I always think it's going to be quick and then it kind of takes a lot of time. But I hope you are having a really wonderful holiday season and celebrating with family and, you know, wishing you all the best. So let's get to the top ten episodes. So the first one and we're going to go in order of not my favorites. We're going to go in order for them to appear on the podcast. So whenever I say episode 208, which this is 208, we're going to link all this in the show notes of 208. But you can always find the episode by going to MaryBarbera.com/208 to get all these episodes.

1. Episode 164: Autism Case Study with Michelle C : From 2 Words to 500 Words with ABA Online Course

Mary: So our first one is podcast 164. So again, using that same structure, MaryBarbera.com/164, but I'm not going to say that all the time. You can just go to the show notes if you want to pop back. Okay. So my first episode that I want to highlight is episode number 164. This is a success story case study with Michele C and it's an update from her original episode when she first appeared on podcast 78 in 2020. So Michele C is now one of our co-chairs for the turn autism around approach her daughter Alaina, which we talk about in episode 164. This episode was aired on I love the date, 2/22/22. And it has a lot of significance in so many ways. I didn't realize, but well, it was the anniversary of our podcast starting, so it was the third anniversary. Our podcast actually started on 2/22/2019. So it's third anniversary was also Elena, Elena's fourth birthday on 2/22/22. I didn't know that until we were recording. And we also, Dr. Rick Kubina and I, who has been my mentor for over two decades. He appeared on an early podcast. We can link that on the show notes, but Dr. Kevin and I published a white paper about Elena's success with the term autism around approach, and that paper was published on two 2/22/22. So there was just a lot of significance around that date. So you can get the white paper by going to the show notes here or by searching MaryBarbera.com/whitepaper. But basically just to catch you up on the Hot Seats/ podcast success stories, Michelle C. found my course after her two year old Elena started to show pretty significant signs of autism, only speaking two words, she was throwing herself on the ground, scratching herself until she was bleeding. Significant delays. She had heard about ABA. She had gotten an evaluation. In February of 2020, Elena was diagnosed and then the world shut down due to COVID. So she found the online toddler course. She took it. She took it quickly. She binge watched it. She was alone at home with her two year old and newborn daughter staying at home. And while her husband works as a police officer during COVID, she was shut down. She had no services, no Zoom services, no anything. She was kind of caught in that in-between mode of having a diagnosis and then not being able to do anything about it. She took the online course and within 33 days she did a language sample before she started, which is part of our program. And then 33 days later, she did another language sample that's all published in the White Paper. She also had standardized speech evaluations right before the diagnosis and then at the conclusion of the course just by chance. So that's all covered in the white paper. And basically Elena went from, like I described her to now at four years of age, being completely included, no support, no services, completely conversational. In Episode 164, you know, Michelle talks about how she expresses herself and just the joy that they have gotten from bonding. And yeah, so Michelle came full circle. Her daughter is doing exceptionally well. I think she might have another year before kindergarten, but she's doing great. So we outline all that success in 164.

2. Episode 167: 167 How to Help Your Toddler Talk! Hot Seat #4 with Elissa

Mary: Okay. The second podcast I want to highlight is 167 How to Help Your Toddler Talk! Hot Seat #4 with Elissa. So for those of you that have been following along for over a year, I did start I think last year I started these hot seas. Michelle C was more of a success story. But Elissa who has Lexi and she has a blog called Life with Lexi, which is an excellent blog, you should join and read. But Elissa is a special education teacher. She works with kids with autism, and then her little Lexi at two years of age was showing signs, got a diagnosis. She took the online toddler course and then moved up to the verbal behavior bundle as well. And she was having some struggles with her daughter talking, even though she was in our courses. And so we did a hot seat. One of the things I liked about that was she immediately took action. And one of the pieces of feedback I gave Elissa was not to just use pictures in the shoe box, but to create like another shoe box type of program. So she used an oatmeal container, had a large slit into the top of that, and used 3D objects to label foods and vehicles and label animals. The. The objects that really helped her daughter, Lexie, really expand her language. So that hot seat is our fourth hot seat. It's a great one. 167.

3. Episode 169: Why Timeouts Don’t Work and ALternatives You Can Use Instead

Mary: OK The third podcast episode I want to talk about is episode 169 and this is called Why Timeouts Don't Work. So we developed a mini course now, the online toddler course and the verbal behavior bundle. They both take a pretty significant amount of time and investment of resources, but we wanted to develop a little mini course to give to people or to have people invest in. It's right now $47 and it was called No More Timeout. We actually recently changed the name because the whole course is basically how to prevent and react to tantrums and other problem behaviors in very young children ages 1 to 5, chronologically or developmentally. If you have an older child who's having problem behaviors, it's all proactive strategies. It's a course that stands alone and can be accomplished in I think it's 100 minutes. So it is you do get 2 BA CEU's, you get one and a half contact hours if you're an early intervention professional. And for parents, it's very much a step by step guide to help you with videos embedded to help you reduce problem behavior starting right now. So now the link for that is TurnTantrumsAround.com. For all the information about how you might be able to purchase that very brief introductory course, but very powerful, a lot of people that have taken that course are singing its praises and it really has helped them. It also helps if you want to just dip your toe in the water to see what my full courses and community are like. So that was highlighting just some of the ways you can reduce problem behaviors without bribes, threats or punishment, and that includes time out. But we really didn't. I don't think the name of the course No More Time Out really resonated because I don't think parents and professionals out there are really using time out. They're using all kinds of things that are just not working, like threats and bribes, but they can look different, which we're going to talk about in a couple of minutes when I have another episode that I want to highlight. Okay.

4. Episode 170: Forever Boy, A New Autism Memoir with Kate Swenson

Mary: So we are on to podcast number four that I want to highlight. That was podcast 170 with Kate Swenson, who wrote a great book called Forever Boy about her son Cooper and their journey with autism. Kate was previously on the podcast on Podcast seven zero and then just happened to be on 170. And she was more recently on the show this past fall with her good friend and partner, Amanda DeLuca, with their nonprofit called The More Than Project. In that more recent podcast episode, we also talked about how I am going to be the keynote speaker at the More Than Projects annual event. It's going to be a live speaking engagement in Minnesota on April 29th, and then the full conference is April 29th and 30th. I'm really looking forward to it. The registration is going to come out in January, so that's not going to be through me. It's going to be through Finding Cooper's Voice. So make sure you go to Finding Cooper's Voice. You get on the waitlist. Stay tuned for information. And she has said that priority registration is going to come from members of Coop's Troops, which is her monthly membership, which I've been a part of since the very beginning. So if you're on the fence about joining Coop's Troops, you may want to do that, especially if you want to come and meet me and Kate Swenson. But her book has done really well. It's an excellent read. It's called Forever Boy. It's really about her journey. You know, my stuff is much more step by step and telling you how to improve the situation. And while Kate's style, her writing is beautiful, it is more, you know, more caring and just kind of helping you process through things like grief and, you know, what does normalcy look like? And, you know, she also has the additional you know, she has four children total. So she's got a lot going on in her life. But anyway, her son Cooper is doing well now. But if you're in Cooper's troops, you kind of can see more of the struggles as well as the successes.

5. Episode 171: Top 5 Questions: Tackling Autism Tantrums and Other Common Problem Behaviors

Mary: Okay. Next podcast to highlight is podcast 171. This year we started two different new types of podcasts and one of them is the top five series. So we Kelsey General, who's been with me since the very beginning, almost 2016, I think she found my courses. She works for me, she's our community manager and she appears on the podcast every month or two where we discuss the top five questions about a specific topic. So 171 is the top five questions we get about tackling autism tantrums and other common problem behaviors. So that was I don't know that that was our first top five, but that was the one that got a lot of use, a lot of listens, a lot of downloads, and I think it's a good one to listen to.

6. Episode 180: Is There Medication for Autism? with Psychiatrist Dr. Micheal Murray

Mary: Okay. Next one on our list is podcast 180. Another thing we started this year was we are bringing back every month or two, we're bringing back a classic rebroadcast. So one of the criteria for bringing back a podcast and I think this was the one that we brought back first because it is with Dr. Michael Murray, who is Lucas's psychiatrist. He's been his psychiatrist for about eight years since he's been 18. And Michael Murray is also an autism dad. And it is just one of my favorite episodes. So it was previously 28 and now it is also 180. But over the years since Dr. Murray has been on the show, we have learned more. We have learned more about getting the word out. We've learned more about marketing. And this is really a gem. So if you've never listened to the podcast with Dr. Michael Murray, whether it was years ago, if you haven't listened for a while, if your child or clients are on meds or people are suggesting meds, it really is a life changing episode. I've been told by a few people that they have actually gone to visit Dr. Murray after hearing the podcast. He's at the Hershey Medical Center. I was on an 18 month wait list to get in to see Lucas, be seen, not sure what the waitlist is or if it's even a possibility for you. But even if you are never going to reach out to see if you can schedule a. Dr. Murray It's a really great episode. It's also great if you're a medical professional or if you're Dr. Willis and after you listen, there's just a lot of gold in there.

7. Episode 185: How to Stop a Toddler from Throwing Things and Hitting Me - Solving Problem Behaviors

Mary: Okay, the next podcast on our list is 185. And this podcast, you know, I talked about how we don't recommend time out and we don't recommend bribes and threats and punishment. And Rachel Smith, who is a big part of my team, is my only full time employee at this point. Rachel, I've known Rachel half her life and she was on the podcast before, but she was bringing her little boy, who was newly three and typically developing, to my house a couple of times. She brought him in this spring and summer and we were trying to get some videos for Tik Tok, which I joined this year and we were trying to get some pictures because Rachel is great with, you know, allowing us to use her kids for, you know, showing different. Seizures. And now that I don't see kids 1 to 1 on a daily basis or anything like that, it really is hard for me to demonstrate or to show videos or pictures that are newer. So anyway, Rachel was bringing Everett down and she came down twice in the span of a month or two and I hadn't seen Everett for way over a year. And so, you know, he's newly three and he didn't want to sit and he didn't want to. He was just not that flexible. And we were kind of on a time crunch and it just didn't go well. And the second time he came, he actually threw things and hit his mom. And Rachel was, you know, embarrassed and she was almost in tears herself. He took a train as they were leaving and threw it at their car, which didn't damage the car, but just he was really having a hard time. And Rachel had helped me create the no more timeout course which now turned tantrums around. She had help, you know, she had watched every piece of content I ever gave. But as those of you that follow me closely, I don't give a lot of what to do at the moment because we want to spend 95% of our time preventing things. It's actually dangerous. If I give you advice, like, okay, if he throws the car, do this because there's a whole lot more factors going on than I can give so I don't give a lot of reactive strategies. Rachel was pleading with me to tell her what to do. And so while she drove Everett home, I wrote up an email and sent it to her, she was asking me what to do. So I was like, You're a great mom. I would do X, Y and Z. And within literally days he went from throwing things every single day, multiple times a day to zero throws in months. She now is able to take both her boys as well as her niece to amusement parks because she totally trusts that Everett is not going to have any kind of tantrums. So that's a great episode. Episode 185 was a great one to listen to. If you are having any kind of tantrums, throwing or hitting any, any child, especially a toddler, and even without a diagnosis, I mean, all of these techniques work great for all kids, regardless of age or if they have a disability or not. And you will find some reactive strategies there. I don't want to summarize it too much because you have to be careful, like everything I produce is for informational purposes only. But I know with Rachel having all the background of the courses, having a masters in special education, I know that she's going to apply the information in a very positive, child friendly way. She's going to report her results. So I consider 185 to be a reverse hotseat. Like if I would have had a camera going, it was kind of a mess because here we are. He's melting down. I'm Rachel's boss. Like, it's just uncomfortable. Like, I don't want to interfere. He's not my client. He's not. He does not have autism. So we really work out all those kinds of, you know, conflicts of interest and issues in the middle of solving the problem quickly within days. Okay. Next podcast I want to highlight and we are getting towards the end, we have a few more to go.

8. Episode 189: ABA Courses Online for Autism Therapists with Will Overfelt

Mary: I don't know what number this is, is, this is podcast 189 with professional BCB season BCBA for decades Will Overfelt and Will took the verbal behavior bundle course, which I talk a lot more about the Tiger course lately but the verbal behavior bundle he needed his 32 BACB learning CEU's every two years behavior analysts like me and will need a certain amount of credits he took the course didn't join the community which I always recommend you join the community. So I didn't know he was even in the course and he got through the whole course, which the verbal behavior bundle is lengthy. It's basically 32 hours long for 32 learning CEUs. And then he wrote an excellent testimonial and posted it on his Facebook page, where we have been Facebook friends. I've never met him in person. I don't know him. I didn't really know him at all. And he wrote a glowing review called The Verbal Behavior Bundle Accessible, Functional and Rigorous. He said it was super practical for parents and professionals. He needed the CEUs. He kind of needed them in a hurry, which the course is all on demand. So if you want to binge watch it, you can do that. And it really is great, especially if you want to get better or more fluent at teaching basic and advanced language skills. Self-care skills. Social skills. We have so much. The Verbal Behavior bundle is based on the VB-MAPP. So if you want to know how to program better from the VB MAPP, I assure you the verbal behavior bundle would be the answer. So that's podcast 189. In that, I have been really marketing more to parents, especially since my book Turn Autism Around came out in 2021. And now every single day we get emails and we get posts on our Facebook communities saying, Where can I find somebody that knows Mary's approach, that knows the Turn Autism Around approach? And up until now, I haven't really wanted to tackle a train, the train or model or something like that. But in Will's episode, I did kind of commit to looking at that in 2023 to really begin to pull together, to create, probably with your help, if you're out there listening and this sounds good, it will most likely be for BCBAs, early intervention professionals, and probably some advanced parents to come in that know my approach. Maybe you've taken the course, maybe you've read the book, maybe you're a BCBA that uses the VB-MAPP. I am not sure if I'm going to just start with the people who've completed the probable behavior bundle or not. But if I were you, if this sounds interesting, I definitely would get on board and you can go to MaryBarbera.com for such courses. Take the verbal behavior bundle course for professionals and earn your BCBA CEUs. Earn your early intervention contact hours and email us and let us know that the train the trainer really sounds like something you might be interested in, even if you're quote unquote, just a parent, a gung ho parent who's taken my courses and really feels called to help me spread the word. We're probably going to have some of the advanced parents in there. So we don't have a survey. We don't really have a plan for how this is going to look. It's going to be very organic. You're going to help me create it in the new year. So email us at [email protected] and you know make the subject train the trainer and let us know you might be interested no commitment but just let me know and I'll start that in the new year in early in the new year like about is going to be one of the things I work on.

9. Episode 198:Turn Autism Around, Online Autism Assessment: Try It Now!

Mary: So that was podcast 189 and we only have two more podcasts to highlight, number nine is podcast 198 where I talk all about my brand new digital assessment that took me months working with a software company and a lot of financial investment to work with them to produce the one page assessment into a digital version with scoring in three separate categories. Self-care. Eating. Sleeping. Potty Training. Grooming. Dressing. Second area is language and learning skills receptive and expressive language as well as imitation matching and social skills. And the third area is problem behavior and. The scoring is imperfect. It's for informational purposes only. Right now, the assessment is still free. Freeautismassesment.com. We're going to link that in the show notes with 198. And in this episode I talk about why I created it. Part of why I created it was way back when I highlighted the first episode when Michelle C's Daughter made really almost miraculous gains. And the case study that Dr. Rick Kubina and I wrote up was rejected not just by one journal, but by a few. And I really have a vision that I want to see which programs which intervention work for, which kids. I want parents and professionals to be able to in 10 minutes find their starting point. So only with this assessment. Now again, it's only been launched and functional since the fall of 2022 in October. We still have a lot to work on. The scoring, like I said, is not perfect. But this isn't just if you are in the online course, this assessment is free right now. You can get your three scores and then an overall score in one of the podcasts that I just did recently with Katty. I'm not sure the number of the problems I have we can look at in the show notes here. Her son Santiago started roughly with a score of 20% in language, although his scores in self care and problem behavior were not that bad. Never got a diagnosis of autism. And we're estimating it's kind of retroactive where we're estimating he went from 20% to 85% on language, just from the courses from the toddler course and then the verbal behavior bundle. It's just I feel like going forward, this assessment is going to really be a gold standard. I'm hoping to get it validated at some point, reliable. You know, this is way down the line, probably not even in 2023. We're going to have a lot of work to do. I have interviewed several researchers on the podcast. I hope to be working with other researchers to actually do quantitative research. I do have a Ph.D. in leadership. I do have big visions to get my work out into the world and make it easier for parents and professionals to assess kids, to put the right intervention in place, and then to do post testing and to really show major progress as easily as possible. So super excited about Podcast 198 and my brand new digital assessment.

10. Episode 200: Revisiting My Autism Journey: From Overwhelmed Parent to Autism Leader and Advocate – Vikram Panchal Interviews Dr. Mary Barbera

Mary: And the final episode, one of my top ten for 2022 is episode number 200. I always like when we get round numbers here and so I wanted to do something different for episode 200. I had Vikram who is an autism dad who's taken my courses and he has his own podcast so I thought he could interview me. Worked out great. So Vikram interviewed me for podcast 200 and we turned the tables and so I answered all the questions that I usually ask. And I did give advice for my insights for parents of young children with or without a diagnosis. I also gave separate advice and different advice for parents of older kids, and then also different advice for professionals listening. So Episode 200 is my 10th favorite and it really, I think completes the 2020 to year well.

Closing out 2022

Mary: So I am really looking forward to 2023. We should be reaching 1 million audio downloads by the new year and then we'll be celebrating 4 years of the weekly shows on January 22nd. And I plan to fully continue the weekly shows with interviews with professionals like Will, hot seats like we featured with Elissa and little Lexi, Success stories like we featured with Michelle C, rebroadcasts like Dr. Michael Murray, and the top five questions with Kelsey. If you haven't subscribed to my podcast, I would love it if you would do that on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you're listening. Make sure you subscribe and I would love a five star rating and review. If you've listened this whole time, I would love it to see what you liked and if you'd like something really like one of these really resonates with you. One type of podcast resonates over another. If you have any critical feedback, I'd rather you not post that. We're trying to get the word out and you know. It's hard when people that don't like ABA just put one star reviews on, haven't listened to anything, haven't read the book, you know. So if you are listening till the bitter end of this, I would love a rating and review and I also love it if you would email us at [email protected] And give me feedback about the podcast. Let me know what you like if you don't like something, if whatever. Give us feedback and we'll do more or less or if there's a topic I haven't covered that you'd like to see. Definitely. Email us at [email protected]. In the new year, I do plan to expand the assessment and really my goal after the assessment as people are like, okay, I got my scores, what do I do? Really your best path forward if you have delays. Low scores in one, two or three areas for any child, whether you're a parent or a professional, is to join one of my two online courses. And you may be listening to me. I don't want to join the course. I want to just piece together that free information. And this is great. You know, I just talked to somebody who just joined the online course. She's listened to every single podcast over 200 episodes. She needs to take action. And I told her, Get out of the sea of free. The sea of free. Yes, you can learn anything online, but it's too much. And you will get step by step guidance. You'll get a course that goes in order with just curated content, with just videos to show you exactly what to do. And you also get a community when things don't work. Michelle C even had all kinds of roadblocks. She got her daughter talking. Then all of a sudden she refused to back down. So then our community helped her. So stay with the community. If you're in it, come back. We just are doing one last push to have people come back to our membership before the price goes up to come back in the new year. And then if you are out there and you do the free assessment and your child or clients are struggling in one, two or three areas, your best path forward is to join our online course in community that's MaryBarbera.com/courses. I also as I talked about earlier I also hope to start a train the trainer program to get more professionals and knowledgeable advanced parents to become fluent with the four step Turn Autism Around approach so that they can help others locally, online, maybe even as an employee or contractor with with our small team, who knows what that's going to look like. But I do think that in the new year, it makes sense for me to create something that resembles helping others learn my step by step approach. So I wish all of you a very special, happy and healthy New Year, and I hope to continue on this journey with you starting in January. So I will see you then. Bye.

Mary: If you're a parent or an autism professional and enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out my online course and community where we take all of this material and we apply it. You'll learn life changing strategies to get. Your child or clients to reach their fullest potential. Join me for a free online workshop at MaryBarbera.com/Workshop where you can learn how to avoid common mistakes. You can see videos of me working with kids with and without autism, and you can. Learn more about joining my online course and community at a very special discount. Once again, go to MaryBarbera.com/Workshop for all the details. I hope to see you there.