In this episode of “Autism: A New Perspective,” we continue the discussion about raising girls with autism. Kat Lee is joined by special guest Sharon Sargeant, an RDI® parent whose daughter is now an adult. Sharon talks about the difficulty of getting a diagnosis in the early 90s, trying ABA, and discovering RDI® when her daughter was 12 years old.
In the general population, there’s a spectrum of people. Not everybody is going to be a college professor, and some people are going to have jobs as an assistant at Starbucks, and other people are going to have jobs as engineers. And so when I see someone who has a job as a greeter at Starbucks and has autism and has a girlfriend, I see that as an incredible success.
I think the important thing for anybody who is either giving the diagnosis or working with a newly diagnosed family is to help parents know that there’s a beginning point, and that that beginning point is almost always the same
Dr. Sheely discusses the value of parents in developing a child’s sense of self.
Dr. Gutstein shares the devastating and pervasive myth that persons with autism do not long for relationship.
