Autistic Autonomy, Independence, and Flourishing with ASPIE-R

Foreign. Welcome to the Autistic Techie podcast. I'm your host, Shay Belsky, an autistic software engineer and tech lead. We're going to dive into the world of tech careers from a neurodivergent perspective, interviewing guests from all different corners of the industry and empowering you to be a better self advocate. Welcome back to Autistic Techie. I am hyped today to be joined by not one, but two incredible guests from Aspire, also known as aspr, the founder, Blake Bowman, and his incredible ally, Pickens Calhoun. The goal of ASPR as a coaching and support service is to help autistic individuals, Asperger's individuals, rise and aspire to accomplish all of their goals and dreams, become more self fulfilled and and really feel like they can find their place in the world. Their mission resonates with me as someone who has to figure out, how do I self accommodate, how do I self regulate? Before we were recording, I was talking about my own podcast recording cadence, and how I am trying to self accommodate. And what Blake and what Pickens do is all about helping autistic individuals really self identify what it means to thrive in the workplace, in their lives, with their friends and family, and feel like more complete people. Blake and Pickens, welcome to Autistic Techie.

Hey, Shea, thank you for having us. We're very excited to be a part of this.

Your story, Blake, really resonated with me. Talking about your son and your introduction to the idea of autism and Asperger's. What motivated you to change up your career and really begin on this quest with Aspire? What set that off?

Yeah, I wish I could say it was this, just this beautiful unfolding, but there really. It was kind of ugly in the beginning. And I like to share this and be honest and upfront with people. I'm a blended family. So my wife and I have kind of a his and hers collection, but, you know, I accept them all as mine. And when we first got married, my wife said, hey, our eldest, I think he's on the spectrum. And my wife has been an educator for at that point, like 20 years. And I said, no, no, he's not on the spectrum whatsoever. And she kept on year after year saying, hey, we really need to get him tested. And he was my mini. So anytime she said something, I was kind of identifying and I said, no, no way. So finally we made an agreement. I took him in to get tested and sure enough, he was diagnosed with Asperger's and a learning disability for math. And then shortly After I was diagnosed, basically almost the same day. And it kind of opened my eyes because for the longest time, Shay, I actually denied it. My wife wanted to put him on a 504, an IEP plan. And I said, no, the world's not going to treat them differently, so we can't treat them differently. And so for probably a good year, I just, I had nothing to do with it. I kind of ignored it. And then I started saying that he, he was struggling a little bit. And so then I started researching autism and I got really. I get hyper focused. When I go in a direction, the hyper focus kicks in. And Shay, the, the stats scared me. So. And I'm sure you're aware of some of these stats, and I know they change a little bit, but 85 people with autism don't have full time employment. Those that do are typically underemployed. There is stat that 87% of children with autism will live with their parents for extended into their 30s, sometimes longer. And then the stat that really stood out to me was the suicide rate. Seven times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to get on drugs. And, and so that stopped me in my tracks right there.

The stats are pretty disarming and the numbers fluctuate based on which study you look at. To be honest with you, each one of them has a different subset of evidence. But it is true that autistic individuals are grossly disproportionately employed or they are underemployed. And to your point, when I was diagnosed with autism, when my original diagnosis was also Asperger's, the doctor said, like your son may live with you for the rest of his life. He may not be able to find higher employment, own a house, find a meaningful relationship, et cetera. And I'm lucky and fortunate that those things weren't true in my case. But for the majority of people, that may not be the case, or it may be the case that they have more complex support systems, that they rely on their parents, that they might not have higher employment for a broad variety of reasons.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, and, and so once I went into that, I started looking at how can I put in the systems in place to be able to help my son achieve a independent life. And essentially we set out and I told him, we're going to go on this journey. And he told me, as long as it doesn't involve working, getting a driver's license, going to college, or moving out, I'm in. And I said, well, I appreciate your opinion, but it's going to involve those things and those are going to be the core elements of it. But we're going to take it at a pace that's right for you. And so we built the plan. It was a five year plan. He accomplished it in three and a half years and he ended up moving out. And that was at age 19. He's now 26. He has not moved back in. He has a full time job and he's being independent in his version of life. He's living a great life. He plays DND twice a week. He goes the job Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 and just does what he needs to do to, you know, recharge and re energize himself. And so he's loving it. So I know with many parents, you know, they have this idea of what they want for their kids and this ideal life and they push them towards it. But what I will tell you is that what's right for your child may not be right for you. And the sooner you can accept that and help them live their their best life, the sooner you're going to as a parent, really be able to enjoy your life as well. And so that's really what started my journey is I helped him and essentially once I helped him get launched, I had other parents reaching out to me and they basically said, hey, can you help with our son or our daughter? And I said, let me give it a try. And I went in and essentially started having a lot of success and I started getting a lot of fulfillment. And basically Shay said, I think there's a need here because I was dealing at the time 18 to 29. And as we know, many services stop after 18 or even 21. And I was hoping to fill that gap.

The 22 year old cliff is the one that I hear about most frequently. There's an organization close to me in Boston called the League School who supports students up through 22 years old. And then for many of those students, the services stop. And that's largely out of the control of the League School. It's whether it's federal or state funding or from other services and programs, 22 is just you walk off a cliff and you kind of on your own.

Yeah, I used to partner with an ABA therapy and what they would tell me is insurance really doesn't cover much after 21 for them. And so they were graduating people out of their service that still needed some kind of support and it was a struggle. And so they partnered with me to come in and try to fill that gap and we were able to do it now with coaching. Insurance doesn't cover coaching, unfortunately. I hope that's something we can change one day because I think there's a need for that. But that's a different journey and it's going to take a little bit more advocacy to get that one going. But for sure, the need of kids that, that 22, 21 range is really growing.

I'm curious to hear from Pickens and Blake on this one. How do you see the difference between coaching and therapy, especially for autistic people? I have benefited from both traditional therapy and from coaching. But can you explain what the differences between those might be for people who might not be aware?

I try to simplify. And what you're going to learn about me, Shea, is I try to make everything as simple so my brain can process it. And sometimes I oversimplify things. So when I think of therapy, what I think of is I think of a couple of things. I think of getting somebody that might be a little dysfunctional to more functional and somebody who has any kind of emotional trauma that's holding them back. That's where therapy can come in and do its work to help get them to a place of functionality where then they can move forward. And that's where coaching would. Would pick up. Is for me, coaching is about getting them from point A to point B.