Creating Cultures of Neuroinclusion: A Talk with Dr. Theresa Haskins

Summary

Dr. Theresa Haskins, a professor, researcher, consultant, corporate executive, mom, wife, and advocate, joins the podcast. She shares her journey as an advocate for her children and a self-advocate. Dr. Haskins discusses the diagnosis process for her children and the challenges they faced. She also talks about her experience studying educational psychology and getting her PhD in education. She emphasizes the importance of choice and autonomy in education and the need for inclusive and differentiated learning approaches. Neuroinclusion means creating environments that respect and accept differences in how individuals engage, communicate, and interact with each other. It involves allowing multiple realities and ways of being to coexist without judgment or the need to change others. To achieve neuroinclusion, it is important to start young by building cultures of inclusion in schools and teaching children to respect and value diversity. Additionally, workplaces should prioritize neuroinclusion by creating equitable opportunities for neurodivergent individuals and allowing all employees to be their authentic selves. Neuroinclusion benefits everyone by fostering authenticity and creating a more accepting and inclusive society.

Keywords

advocate, diagnosis, children, educational psychology, PhD, choice, autonomy, inclusive education, differentiated learning, neuroinclusion, differences, respect, acceptance, diversity, inclusion, communication, engagement, authenticity, workplace, education

Takeaways

Dr. Theresa Haskins is an advocate for her children and a self-advocate.

She shares her experience with the diagnosis process for her children and the challenges they faced.

Studying educational psychology and getting her PhD in education taught her the importance of choice and autonomy in education.

Dr. Haskins emphasizes the need for inclusive and differentiated learning approaches. Neuroinclusion means respecting and accepting differences in how individuals engage, communicate, and interact with each other.

Starting young by building cultures of inclusion in schools is crucial for promoting neuroinclusion.

Workplaces should prioritize neuroinclusion by creating equitable opportunities and allowing all employees to be their authentic selves.

Neuroinclusion benefits everyone by fostering authenticity and creating a more accepting and inclusive society.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

04:16 Discovering Giftedness

08:04 The Importance of Choice and Autonomy in Education

27:36 The Impact of Psychological Safety on Autistic Inclusion

32:20 Increasing Empathy for More Inclusive Classrooms and Workplaces

36:25 Corporations vs. Classrooms: The Inclusiveness Divide

41:29 The Human Nature of Dividing and the Need for Neuroinclusion

43:31 Defining Neuroinclusion: Acceptance and Respect for Differences

45:18 Unconscious Bias and the Importance of Neuroinclusion

47:58 Neuroinclusion in the Workplace: Authenticity and Equitable Opportunities

TRANSCRIPT

Lola (00:02)

Hello, welcome. Welcome to the Not Your Mama's Autism podcast. I'm Lola Dada -Olley On the podcast today, we have within our midst, Dr. Theresa Haskins, a woman who wears many, many, many hats. Professor, researcher, consultant, corporate executive, mom, wife, advocate.

Welcome. Welcome to the podcast today. Thank you.

Theresa Haskins (00:35)

Thanks for having me here. I think I'm in good company with a woman who wears many hats.

Lola (00:41)

Perhaps, perhaps. I guess it takes one to know one, and we're matching, so we're both wearing flip.

Theresa Haskins (00:46)

Yes, it does. And we matched,

and this was not planned, everyone. We just looked fabulous in blue.

Lola (00:50)

It was, it was, it wasn't, it

wasn't. You know, when you're in sync, you're, you're, you're, you're in sync. So background wise, we're kind of alluding to, we have known each other for years, in work circles, we have known ourselves for years. But I'm so interested in just learning more about the, all this multiple, this multiple side of, these multiple sides of you. So you are.

Theresa Haskins (01:03)

Mm -hmm.

Lola (01:21)

Where do we even start? You are both an advocate for your children as well as a self advocate yourself. So let's kind of start a little bit at the beginning, depending on what your answer to this is, which diagnosis came first?

Theresa Haskins (01:42)

Children.

Lola (01:43)

children. And tell us how you and your children were all ultimately diagnosed.

Theresa Haskins (01:52)

So it's an interesting thing because it actually does go back to my childhood. I have a son. I do have two sons, but that's not in my childhood. Let's go back and reframe that thought. I had a cousin with classic autism. And this is the early 80s and didn't really know what autism was.

had a lot of the stereotypical traits because he had more of a classic profile. He was a larger young man, had some intellectual difficulties, but he would end up graduating from high school. But I just remember him at holidays and family gatherings and how he was different. My mom was a kind of a special education associate. So we always had a propensity in helping,

with Special Olympics and those with IDD. And I was always exposed to the disability side of things. And so, when I was in high school, I remember helping other disabled individuals, whether they had neurodivergence or not, that wasn't really a thing. And I was part of the generation that if people did have learning differences, they went to things, we called it the van, right? So it was like,

outside

of the classroom. And so there was like a separation of things. I remember going to the van once, but then being sent back to the classroom. And it might be because I may have a profile more similar to my children, which would be twice exceptionalities. And so, you know, I would grow up and not always fit in and things got harder when I was more on my own and my parents were kind of off doing their things in high school.

And so I would get into college, I would become a note taker for people with disabilities. I've always had this need to help others and really found joy in that. I didn't know I was going to be a mom. And I thought I knew what I would know what being a parent was, because I like helped raise my cousins. I was like a nanny at the age of 10. By the way, that would never happen today, but it was most certainly a thing back then. And I would end up

really not having my first barn until I was in my late 20s and knew right away that he was different. I remember when he was just a little baby, he would just like kind of stare past me and my mom passed before I had children. So I'm a motherless mother and I'd read that book and I used to make the joke, he must be staring at mom because she's not here. She's like passed.

Lola (04:38)

Hmm...

Yeah.

Theresa Haskins (04:40)

But it would

Lola (04:41)

Yeah.

Theresa Haskins (04:41)

be when he was coming up to nine months, one year where he wasn't waving and he wasn't, he wasn't babbling like other children do. And then when we were coming towards his, I'd say one and a half second year, he wasn't talking, but he could speak. So at the age of two, and then definitely by three, he knew his alphabet. He could count to a hundred.

he could write in Wingdings. And I discovered that in the most interesting way. I was trying to teach him how to write the word frog and he was writing this alien language. And I remember calling my husband over going, my God, Brian, there's something wrong with him. And I was kind of upset and trying to work with the baby, my son, not the baby actually, but at the time he was and being like, Raiden, write it right. And he would grunt and kind of in his own way say, I am. And I'm like,

Lola (05:13)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Theresa Haskins (05:36)

husband saw it and he took it to the computer and typed the word frog in Times New Roman and then changed it to Wingdings and it said frog in Wingdings. He learned how to write and read Wingdings. So you definitely have this precocious child and I remember going to the doctor saying, you know, could he be autistic? And she's like, I don't know. So I actually kind of had to push

for him to even get the appointment to be diagnosed. They sent them for hearing checks first. They sent them for vision checks, pretty much ruling out any other physical issue before they'd even let us get near a psychiatrist. And then when we were doing the battery, a lot of the things that they're actually testing have more to do with intelligence than autism.

And so by the end of it, they're like, well, he's so smart. I know he's smart, but he doesn't say mama or hello. He just counts and says random words that have no context. And so they diagnosed him with something called PDDNOS, which is Pervasive Developmental Disorder, not otherwise specified, which means we don't really know, but there's something that we can't explain. So.

Lola (06:53)

Lower.

Theresa Haskins (07:00)

you know, we would go through the gamut of speech therapy and all these other things. And then my husband and I would decide to have another baby. And the new baby would come and he would start to grow up and Braden still did not talk, even though he could say some words. And one day when the baby was getting to the Todd, I don't want to call it the toddler age, cause they start trying to walk around a year, right? They start getting in this stuff and the baby was climbing up and getting your brain's computer.

And Braden was not happy and he was doing his grunt or whatever. And the baby was like insistent trying to pull up on that keyboard. And Braden said his first complete sentence, which was the win of the century. Mom, the baby's driving me nuts. And from that moment on, Braden's broke in complete sentences.

And braque is the best therapy money couldn't buy.

So Brock would continue to poke at his brother and they have are now like best friends. If anybody understands Braden, it's Brock and they have their own kind of inside jokes and things. So Braden is obviously he has autism, but he's also gifted. And I did a TED talk not too long ago about that experience, but

Lola (08:04)

That is awesome.

Theresa Haskins (08:31)

really long story short there, you know, his IQ is off the charts so much that in our state they stop the assessment after three days. They could have kept going. So we actually don't know how high his IQ could be because they were like, it's high enough for state standards, which was really close to 150. And wanted to put them in the kindergarten because his social skills are behind. So mom decided to go back to school, become an educational psychologist and leave homeschooled. We would learn when he

Lola (08:59)

get a PhD.

Theresa Haskins (09:02)

I got my doctorate eventually before a whole different set of reasons still related to him. I just, first it was like, I need to educate my kids. Like this is the thing that happens, parents and friends. You try to solve the problem in front of you at the time, not realizing that a whole new problem statement's going to come. So Braden is now I found out odd HD. So he has ADHD and autism and giftedness. He is that.

little Venn diagram you see. He is the trifecta. And then Brock has ADHD and he's also gifted. So both of my kids started college by the age of 13. So it's a very, very different thing. And so going through the battery with the children, because you said what came first, things that you don't think a lot about until you experience it with your children.

I have heard my entire life and I actually had a best friend that was, I think we were like eight that grabbed my face and said, what are you looking at when you're talking to people? And my husband has been saying it for years. Where are you looking? So eye contact has been a theme, meaning lack of it. And I even have job performance reviews that talk about my issues with eye contact and maintaining focus. By the way, I can hear everything you're saying without looking at you.

I've had a lot of feedback regarding my hyperverbalism. It's really great being a public speaker though. I'm never short on words. And just, I never realized, you know, I think about like my childhood and I remember having like lots of friends or at least I thought I did. And then when my parents divorced and I was kind of left on my own, which is around the time Asperger's would be diagnosed, 12, 13.

I remember they all just over, like they just all started like going away and I couldn't figure out why. And I would make new friends, but they never stayed for long. And being that I learned what I did about my children, I found out, my God.

I get it now and it's no big deal. Of course I didn't have, the good news is I was never looking for self acceptance. It was just more of the strangeness of like, where did they go? And I just didn't really worry about it. Cause I've always been so goal oriented. I always had a project or something. So I was never like overly worried about not having the social life, but it's just weird to see how different it manifests. And you know, like the little one has the

perfectionism anxiety that's the dhd that i have in. And so it's just interesting but my dad's dyslexic and so it's like a big neurodivergent family and. I think the trick is like finding where you fit and finding people that get you so i've had a i've like had bosses like people talk about masking.

wasn't familiar with that term until I got like more active in this space, but I have been told that I mirror people. So like I had a boss that said, do you realize that when you talk to people, you start to like emulate their demeanor? And I go, yeah, because it makes them comfortable because I read an FBI study that said that's how you get closer to people. So, you know, there's just what's true. So there's this interesting thing of, you know,

Lola (12:14)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Theresa Haskins (12:32)

To me, masking is like saying, I'm going to put on this face and pretend to be this person. But I find that if people start talking quieter and they lean forward, then you might want to talk quietly and lean forward. But

Lola (12:42)

I'm sorry.

Theresa Haskins (12:44)

anyways, I had a boss that noticed that. And then my husband notices that if I talk to people from London too long, I start to adopt their dialect. So it's an interesting thing. And I would find out that that's called masking. But I always thought,

When I read about it, like masking is like an intentional thing. And that's why I call it mirroring, because I don't even know I'm doing it. So I think that that's what I think is interesting about the neurodivergent population is that it doesn't like.

Even when we talk about things that sound similar, how they manifest in those individuals may be very different. And because, you know, just going to the concept of masking, Braden does not mask. Even if I, you know, like I would say masking for him is remembering to say hello and how are you and to respond to people when he's being spoken to. But that's about as masking as he's going to get, right?

And so, you know, I've read about this concept and I think it's really common in women, but I don't, I don't really.

I mean, maybe we've been privileged enough that we could be odd and still be accepted. And in places where you can't be yourself, just don't stay. That's kind of been my rule in life. I had eight years under one horrible manager where it just wasn't working out. And I never allowed that to happen again. So I think you need to choose your environments wisely.

Lola (14:25)

So based on what you just said about choosing your environment, you chose to take your children out of public school and move them into a home school environment. And then at one point, yeah, then at one point you went back to school to study educational psychology and get your PhD in education. So what did studying those areas teach you about your kids?

Theresa Haskins (14:38)

Yeah, that was scary.

Yeah.

Lola (14:55)

yourself and designing a curriculum with them in mind.

Theresa Haskins (15:01)

So what's interesting is, and so this is for all of you that aspire to be special educators. Don't do that.

I have a reason. I have a reason. If you want to be an educator, be an educator. Be an educator that learns how to differentiate and support children. Be part of the change. So one of the things I learned in educational psychology, it's not because you shouldn't go into special education, because it is a field, but we need to do better. And if you're going to talk about inclusive education, then you need to become a general educator that knows how to support.

Lola (15:19)

Yes, please.

Theresa Haskins (15:42)

differentiated needs, which is what a special educator could do. And one of the, the reason why I dropped out of the special education program is the methodologies and approaches, at least in the state of Ohio that I would have to apply. I knew didn't work and I would not apply. And so I wanted to know how these things came to be and why they were, they were that way. And they're like, well, educational psychologists come up with those ideas.

everything we do has to be evidence -based. Meaning if you have an approach, it needs to be researched, studied, validated, and replicated before it could be used in a school system, because they don't want to do any harm, even though some of these methods do harm. And so that's when I decided to become an educational psychologist. And what I learned through my education is that special education research and general education research are not intertwined. So general educators are not

about self -directed differentiated learning, universal design. It's like a special topic for them. And special educators spend all their time learning about the human brain, how we learn, motivational theory. And you've got to ask yourself, why wouldn't every teacher be taught that? So one of the things that I spent a lot of time looking at was, unless you have an intellectual deficit, which is a completely different conversation.

Autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, Tourette's, all of them have the propensity, they can learn. There's nothing wrong cognitively with their brain, okay? I don't like calling autism a cognitive difference because people, cognition, right, is in terms of how we think, but we actually find with autism, they have superior memory. So we can't say that they actually have a deficit in learning and cognition.

And I have a book on here that says learning cognition with autism. And when I was reading it, you could tell that the population set was mostly focused on IDD. Well, autism isn't IDD. And so one of my first studies was in a second grade classroom with two autistic children that were in a general education environment that were underperforming in writing. And I believed it was the construct of the classroom, not their ability that was

developing them because I got very intrigued by this concept of motivational theory. And one of the things that people don't realize about motivation is it's directional. So when people say people lack motivation, it's not true. They just lack motivation to do what you want them to do. I'm motivated to play my video game and not clean my room. Motivation only stops if activity stops. And even then I could argue that you're just motivated to stay in bed. So unless you're in a catatonic state,

motivation is always happening, right? Are you motivated to get up and get a drink or are you not motivated to get up, right? And so if motivation is directional, then the question is why aren't these kids engaging, not do they lack an ability? Because they didn't have IDD issues. And so what I did is I created a choice construct and I was finding this worked well with my kids and any of you parents out there. Know that if you give your kids choices, they're more likely to cooperate.

Everybody thinks kids love to go to the ice cream parlor because it's ice cream. But I don't think any of you actually really think about kids love to get ice cream because it's one of the few places they go and they get unlimited choices. Rarely do you take your child to get ice cream and say, you can only have chocolate in a cone. You usually say, hey, honey, what flavor would you like? Would you like that in a cup or a cone?

Lola (19:21)

Hmm.

you

Theresa Haskins (19:31)

I would want to go where I'm treated with some respect and autonomy too. So I took that same unrelated to education concept of choice and autonomy, which by the way, every toddler tries to exert and is denied. And I took it in the classroom and I told the teacher, I need consistent writing assignments. And for two weeks, you're going to deliver your writing assignments. Obviously the topics change, but the complexity of them couldn't shift.

and I want you to deliver it and that's my control. And then for two weeks, you're going to do it my way. And my way was the kids get to sit where they want and they get to pick whatever color writing instrument and type of writing instrument they want. And I remember the teacher going, this is going to be chaos and this won't work. She goes, this is a stupid thing. I go, it's a choice. And we're giving them choices. There's rules. They can't talk to their friends. They have to engage with the writing assignment. General Ed.

and autistic students all together. And you do that for two weeks. And then it's an ABA study. Two weeks, we go back to your way. So we did that. And I interviewed the teacher before and I interviewed the teacher after and she admitted at the beginning, she's like, this isn't going to work. This is a waste of time, but we'll do it. We saw motivation to write for all students increased by 49%. Latency to write decreased.

everybody was more engaged and what she came back to say, she's like, I would have never thought that worked. I go, but these are second graders. They're told where to stand. They're told where to sit. You gave them some agency. And so one of the most interesting things is when people hear that like my focus is on autism and I homeschooled my kids, everybody's looking for this disability minded autism specific construct.

But what I found is that when we think somebody has autism or a disability, the first thing we do is start to control the situation and we take away their agency and sense of autonomy. And giving people choice and autonomy doesn't mean it's a free for all, but you create the sense of cooperation at a very early age. So it's not that you're, you know, it's not that.

they're not gonna do their schoolwork or they're not gonna clean the room, but you kind of, it's a negotiation. We can clean the room with music or we can clean the room with a drum or you can clean the room in silence. Like you're cleaning the room, but you get to choose your environment. And these seemingly simple things at a very early age made a big difference. And if any of you have ever had to negotiate with like a daughter who wants to wear a tutu to a

to an event where you didn't want her to wear a tutu, right? You're usually able to come up with some sort of compromise where everybody's happy. And by the way, why can't they wear a tutu? Like really. So, you know, know your battles. The other thing that really helped with gifted students is a lot of the research shows that gifted students get bored. I can relate to this.

And so if you get bored, you start acting out or you actually disengage with learning. And one of the worst things, so most gifted programs aren't really gifted students. They're just very bright students, which is fine. Meaning IQ is between like 115 and 127. And that's good. But what happens with these bright students is that we give them extra work. And then if you get somebody over 127, they're already bored.

by years. Busy work is not brain engaging, problem solving and allowing people to explore their issues. And so there's a guy named Sagatimitra. And he did the hole in the wall experiments in India. If you've ever saw Slumdog Millionaire, that movie was kind of based on this concept of if you give children access to technology and education, they will self -direct. And so a lot of people think that that means that

Children like had the propensity to just go off and learn and do on their own. There's structure that has to happen there. But if you think of anything you've loved in your life or a problem you needed to solve, how much digging did you do before you did it? So if you were planning your trip to Barcelona or if you wanted to be a ballerina, you started reading books and you started watching videos. So if you, like I had the luxury because we homeschooled the boys,

It's not because they didn't need, well, they were already reading and writing, but if they still had to learn math and they still had to learn history and there's all these things, but if they're in love with space this week, cause you know, it changes, but if they're in love with space this way, there's a lot of history around space. There's a lot of science around space. And if you can curate learning in a way that's interesting,

Lola (24:29)

Mm -hmm.

Theresa Haskins (24:42)

you could take that hyper -focused mind that we hear about neurodivergence have all the time and allow it to be the bridge to get them to learn all the things that we try to force feed in very structured routine ways in a school system. And so that's what I learned, which is really surprising to people is that you need to be willing to break out of your school of thought. So when I was doing my research for educational psychology,

I was pulling from special ed, I was pulling from psychology, I pulled from OD and business and my professors were like, nobody does that. I'm like, I'm doing it because we're all informing each other. And what's sad is that when I got into my doctoral program, you know, there were people in my program that were like, well, this is meant for, this is, you know.

pedagogy, and this is all directed for people in education and I'm in business. And I'm like, if you can't see the correlation between managers and teachers and employees and students, you're missing the game. Because first of all, you're diminishing the autonomy of students if you think that they should have less agency. And I know plenty of managers that treat their employees like children. So if you take leadership theory and education, androgogy and pedagogy,

Lola (25:39)

Mmm. Mmm.

Theresa Haskins (25:59)

you start to see themes and those themes start to show practices that if we did like the best leadership practices are the best education practices, right? And, and you know, when we think about having workplaces with proper constructs, adequate education, relevant to application, well, if a teacher could make learning relevant and give them the right constructs and individualize the support, you see, you hearing the themes.

And so I was able to go into a second grade classroom and then I was able to go into corporate offices and employ the exact same strategies and they always work. But what is interesting about it is they don't just work for the typical set. These are strategies that will take your disengaged, apathetic and demotivated people and will flip it. And it's all because I have found, we do it to disabled people.

Lola (26:33)

and remember.

Theresa Haskins (26:55)

We also do it to underperforming employees. The first thing we do when people don't do what we want them to do or worse, we start to think they can't. We micromanage. Well, micromanage is no different than helicopter parenting. So when you start to see this, there are patterns and they will address issues in all areas of life. We use different terms, but a helicopter parent is a micromanage.

Lola (27:25)

So in these areas of research that you focus on, what do you love most about your research?

Theresa Haskins (27:36)

What I love about the research the most is the people that I, the participants that bring the hypothesis to life. So it's one thing for me to see this pattern, right? I see like, obviously I'm seeing these dissonant patterns. I'm stealing from everything and somebody's like, but you haven't validated that. So.

Lola (27:54)

Yeah.

Theresa Haskins (28:01)

There was research that was done in psychological safety in the constructs, the 10 constructs that are required out of Harvard. And I was reading my dissertation the other day and we had the same findings. So now I have a hypothesis that I think would be pretty easy to test to say psychological workplaces would result in more autistic inclusive workplaces because the constructs are the same except for one, directive leadership. Autistic people need you to say what you mean, mean what you say, like they need direct.

communication. But well, in my study group level two. So what I love, I love learning. I love testing the hypothesis. I love discovering something I didn't see. One of the things in in one of my studies is I was so convinced that education was the solution in terms of why some of these managers were so great at retaining autistic employees, because guys, you can

hire autistic people, but the research over the last 15 years showed that it wasn't not saying that hiring isn't a barrier, but the research actually shows the retention is abysmal. So even if they get a job, they're not there after a year. So if you hire them and they leave, you haven't actually solved anything. And I was pretty convinced because I'm an educator at heart that it was like

Training of these managers is what made them great to be able to help these autistic adults retain employments at like two, three, five years later. It was a great finding and also a bit of a troubling finding that training was not the factor because 50 % of the managers that were in my study had no training or coaching support.

Lola (29:47)

Mm.

Theresa Haskins (29:57)

before bringing in those autistic people. And 50 % did. The common denominator across all of them is those that had training felt it relaxed them in being prepared. And those without training had a little more anxiety going into it. So that was the only thing training did was to make some of them feel more confident than others.

But the reason why they were all successful is because they were competent, adaptive leaders. Adaptive leadership was their common trait. And one of my subjects was honest. He goes, if I had an autistic employee when I was 20, he goes, I would have been horrible at it. He goes, I would have, he goes, things had to be done my way or the highway. I was rigid and I was hard on employees.

And I go, what made you change? Cause he wasn't one of the people that had had training, but he, you know, had like five different autistic employees on his team and two had been there for over five years. And I go, what changed? He goes, I had children. Cause now he's like in his 50s. He goes, I had children. He goes, and I had three children. And what I learned in my life is that what worked for the first didn't work for the second. And as they got older, he goes, I realized I knew less and I needed to listen more.

he goes, and I found that that worked in the workplace. So, you know, people with high EQ and empathy to reflect on not what I want, but what do people need? That's what all these managers had in common. They were like, you know, so I'm like, would you make that accommodation? They're like, why not? So these are going to be the managers that are more likely to work with their employees to find the solution, which leads you to the need for psychological safety, because if you don't have safety,

Lola (31:27)

No.

Theresa Haskins (31:52)

you can't have the conversations. And if you have a rigid micromanager, you're not going to get that flexibility. So I don't want to believe it's a personality type. I want to believe people can be taught, but there did seem to be a disposition. And that surprised me. And it was exciting and scary at the same time, because if it's a disposition, then we have a lot more work to do.

Lola (32:16)

So to that point, we have a lot more work to do. If money was no object, if money was no object, you are well resourced, what would that work look like to increase empathy in order to get more inclusive classrooms and workplaces?

Theresa Haskins (32:20)

Yes.

So I think it's a multi -phased approach. I was actually talking to somebody, I think today about this, I don't know. We need to start at the beginning. And to start at the beginning, I mean, we need to work on the new generation while we work on the current generation. Because one of the things I find is that when I look at schools, especially high school,

We still have cliques and we still have bullying and we still have exclusion, right? I mean, think of the Breakfast Club. Every single one of us can watch that movie. I know it's old, so I am dating myself, but we can be like, they're the jocks and the preps. And the fact that we can categorize people so quickly means that we are not as open minded as we want to be.

And if you want to really change the future, you need to change how people think and act with each other. And that starts young. So if you want to eradicate bias and discrimination, then you increase exposure and you work on building cultures of inclusion early. You make inclusion the standard and you work as parents, as educators to get them to be

the type of people we expect our employees and managers to be when they become adults. If you have children today that are in a school where there is the in and the out crowd and the popular and the nerd crowd or whatever they're called this week because the names are always changing. What magic dust do you think is going to happen between that 17 year old and the 22 year old in the office? So if you behave that way here,

you will carry that here. And then you make the work of Lola and I that much harder, because now we have to try to educate adults, or dogs learning new tricks, start young, right? So I have children that, you know, they're accepting of everything because that's how Dr. Mom raised them. And they weren't in normal environments to learn anything outside of what I wanted them.

learn about life. And it wasn't even until the George Floyd thing that they really understood the issues with race because, well, it wasn't an issue. Because we don't make right, you know, they have aunts and they have uncles and they have all these different things. And then I had to explain to them, you know, not everybody celebrates gay marriages and they have uncles that are gay. And, you know, so there's just all these things that go on. And

My first degree is in sociology, by the way. And I didn't mean for my family to be a sociological experiment, but the truth is, is the cultures and the constructs and terms and the words you choose to use or omit, meaning my kids didn't have the words for things because they weren't taught them. Now they know what the words are, but they still don't use them because it wasn't part of their vernacular. But it's the whole idea that we create social constructs.

And I can't control every family's life, but you can control what happens in schools. And the reason why I'm picking on schools is because corporate America does this better. The reason why corporations are more inclusive and more tolerant is because they demand it. Like if you don't behave and accept that corporate culture, you're going to get written up and you're probably going to end up getting fired. So.

Lola (36:22)

So you think corporate environments are more inclusive than classrooms?

Theresa Haskins (36:24)

Corporations are more inclusive.

or absolute.

I'm not saying they're more diverse, I'm saying they're more inclusive.

If you're at work, you're not allowed to exclude somebody because of race, religion, creed, or anything. If you're in the work team, you're on the work team, but schools do it all the time, every day on the playground. So, right, what would happen if we were educating students like we do at work about creating cultures of inclusion? Where's the culture of inclusion class for young people? Cultures of respect.

So, and why do we have to teach people who are 30 to do that? They should come in with those skills. So if I had all the money in the world.

Puppies learn better than old dogs. So start with them while they're young. If we miss that boat, that's when choosing workplaces and cultures becomes really important. One of the things in the neurodiversity movement and any disability movement is human rights, right? Like everybody should be treated with dignity and respect and human rights. I'm with you.

but we don't live in the future state. So that means that you should have those rights and people should respect you. But the reason why we're advocating is because there's obviously a gap and there's a problem. And so living in the current state that doesn't always respect and doesn't always have your best intentions, you know, they're not always there. Living in transition is very hard. And, you know, as an OD change manager,

you know, that's what I can tell you is transition is the most chaotic time. And so we're there, there are people. And for those of you that are listening, well, it just was on a podcast with me not too long ago. One of the things that we were talking about is that the transition of generations and like what autism used to be thought of.

And then we were part of the person first movement. Don't get mad everybody because people didn't see people with autism as people. That's why that happened. And now we're at where we can have identity first language because we have a whole generation of people that had more support, had more acceptance. I didn't say perfect, but more than previous generations to where they feel better about that identity and can own it. And you should be able to do that.

We also have more resources, protection and knowledge. We just got out of Neurodiversity Month and Autism Acceptance Month and there was something going around where somebody said we have to get past awareness and we need to go to acceptance and enablement. Well, I don't like enablement because I feel like that's implying we have to give people power and I feel like we already have power, but I don't think we're past awareness. I think social media gives you the illusion.

that more people get it than they do. And I know this because when I start programs with faculty members and teachers who you would think would be more aware of this space, and I say, tell me what you know about neurodiversity. I cannot tell me how many of these programs, and I don't even want to share the percentage of people that say, no, that's why I'm here. I want to know what it is. So I think we as a community need to be aware that we are 15 % ish of the world's population.

Lola (39:40)

Mm -hmm.

Theresa Haskins (40:09)

which means there is 85 % that is not in this club. And they're the one, they're the majority. So that's why we have minorities, majorities, they are the majority. And the world is designed with them in mind because most people design for themselves. So if you look at Lola and Teresa, hi Lola, our lives are designed with our families in mind. And the way I operate may not work for you, but that's how I designed my life. So.

Lola (40:29)

No.

Theresa Haskins (40:39)

I think magic wand, we start young. We start young and you find the pockets where we see more adaptive, empathetic and less toxicity because they're more ready to make those changes. So those are, those are your two groups and like little ripples in the water over time, they'll grow.

Let's start.

My kids are better than me, that's how I know. Like, I just see how they interact with humans.

Lola (41:04)

Alright.

Theresa Haskins (41:12)

It's completely different.

Lola (41:12)

I think for most kids, yeah, I agree. I think for most kids, for most younger people, they don't come out of wounds not being inclusive. It's like an almost like a natural,

you see little kids and when they do start to notice differences, it doesn't tend to be in an insulting way.

until an adult introduces that to them.

Theresa Haskins (41:45)

Right. Like they can see the world's variety. No different. Like we can see a box of colored crayons. But the question is, do you have a value assigned to the orange crayon versus the blue crayon? No. So when I tried to tell it's not because, you know, I don't like that word color blind or whatever. That's not it. It's have you assigned a value to a blonde or a brunette? Some people do.

Lola (42:07)

Yeah, I don't, I, yeah.

Theresa Haskins (42:14)

Other people don't, they just see it's a different hair color, it's hair. And that's what I'm talking about, guys. Like we can physically see differences and we can see blind and that isn't the difference. The difference is does that matter? When you see that person, do you think that they're less capable than another? And that's something you can teach. Or more importantly, ensure doesn't happen to be taught. Like I think, like you said Lola, if you let kids to just

I think, I think, well, I do think kids learn some things from society, I do, but I am a little Lord of the Flies that it is a bit of human nature. You could put a bunch of women that look just like me with my hair in the same blue shirt and within six months, they'll find a way to separate themselves. Like there's something about the human condition.

Lola (42:57)

Yeah.

differentiate.

Theresa Haskins (43:16)

that we feel the need to divide. And so in some ways we have to like teach ourselves to act against our human nature of.

Lola (43:26)

Both can be true depending on the circumstances. Definitely a yes and. It's true. So with this in mind, what does neuroinclusion mean to you?

Theresa Haskins (43:30)

Yeah. Yes, and.

So neuroinclusion means that in any environment, we have the space for differences in terms of how we engage, how we communicate.

how we just interact amongst each other with acceptance and grace. Because the truth is not every person, like there's still personalities, right? Like we're not always gonna like everybody and we're not gonna always get along, but just to respect that somebody else's way of being or engaging with the world, as long as they're not harming others, is valid. And

I always like to say, and people are like, I get that. And I'm like, no, you don't. Because I just saw, you know, a Twitter thread where people were arguing whether or not pineapple should be on pizza. And if you actually have a strong position on that, then you're not inclusive minded because no one's saying you have to eat it. And why do you feel compelled to tell somebody else how to live their life? There's no harm.

for somebody putting pineapple on pizza, if that's what they should desire. And so one of the first things we talk about, when we think about unconscious bias and people always go straight to like the big things like racism and gender discrimination, easy. You need to know the grandma you're bringing to work. You need to know your grandma and you need to know the construct of what you're bringing. And there are things you care about and there's things you don't. And so, you know,

Some people don't care how towels are folded. Other people will get in a long argument that they should be folded in squares versus rectangles versus rolling. Teresa would say focus on the objective. Clean towels, put away. Don't care how they're shaped, right? So neurodiversity is there's more than one way to fold a towel. Let's focus on the objective. Clean, folded in some formation, put away. That's neuroinclusion.

We live in a society that wants to fight which way the toilet paper should be hung on a spindle. So if you are rigid minded, you're not inclusive because inclusive means that multiple realities and ways of being and preferences, and by the way, autism is not a preference, it's just a neurological difference in wiring, can coexist. And I can respect that you roll towels and...

fold towels and we can coexist together, that they're both valid ways of being. And that's how I know most people aren't ready. So people who can actually say,

I like instructions verbally and you need them written down. I can do that. That's neuro inclusion. A lot of people talk about like respecting diversity of thought. I want you to be able to respect like some pretty basic stuff. Like I need post -it notes all over my desk and you don't. This looks like a mess to you, but this is organized for me. Is it harming you?

So neuroinclusion is allowing differences to actually exist in a way that we respect them, not judging them, not trying to change people to our ways. And that I think is a lot harder. And so, you know, next time you're loading the dishwasher and you feel compelled to correct your spouse because they have the plates turned the wrong way, you, hey.

Is it really gonna matter? I believe the jet spins all the way around. My husband, I do that all the time. He doesn't like high load the dishwasher and I don't like the way he puts dishes away. So we've divided and conquered. I put them away and he, but you have to figure out how to coexist. But I just think that neuro inclusion is respect of differences, truly respecting those differences, not tolerating that they might exist, but I'm gonna try to change your way of being.

And for those of you that are very excited about like autism employment initiatives, not to go here, but I'm going here. You know, be very mindful that they're really giving you an equitable opportunity for a job that they are not asking to do any more than a neurotypical would have to do to get the same job and that they aren't trying to ask you to change who you are to fit in. That is not a neuro inclusive company. So

Those are the things that I feel very strongly about. If you ever are asked to change who you are,

they may not be as neuro -inclusive. And by the way, neurotypical friends, you're asked to change all the time too, and we see you. And neuro -inclusion helps you be your authentic self as well. Because I think sometimes, typicals don't realize that if you create a neurodivergent friendly workplace, you just created a more authentic workplace for everybody.

Lola (49:00)

Thank you. Thank you. It's a wonderful way to end. Come on in, the water's fine.

Theresa Haskins (49:03)

Come to our side.

The water's

warm and we like are quirky and or we're not. I mean, and that's just what's so great about this space.

The spectrum is amazing and it can be heartbreaking. It can be exhilarating and everything in between.

I think it's a...

I think it's healthy to get past your tiny circle and get to know the world.

Thank you.

Not Your Mama's Autism (NYMA)

Creating Cultures of Neuroinclusion: A Talk with Dr. Theresa Haskins

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