Chris welcomes Dr. Eric Beaudoin. Dr. Beaudoin is a licensed psychologist, the Executive Director at Cornerstones of Maine, and co-founuder of Rubedo Young Adult Transitions. With over 10 years of experience working with neurodivergent young adults, Dr. Beaudoin shares how his program, Rubedo, is truly meeting ASD individuals where they’re at. Through a self-proclaimed “kitchen sink " approach, there are opportunities aplenty for their clients, but that doesn’t mean it's one-size fits all; as Chris and Dr. Beaudoin explain, every individual is unique and requires a tailored approach, something Rubedo’s team is happy to provide. Full of hope, this conversation is brimming with insight on how best to serve those we love in the neurodivergent space.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

Cornerstones of Maine Website: https://cornerstonesofmaine.com/young-adult-treatment-team

Rubedo: Neurodivergent-Affirming Transitional Living: https://cornerstonesofmaine.com/neurodivergent-living-asd-autism

Quotes:

[16:35 - 7:04] Dr. Beaudoin: I empathize with the plight that we as parents have - there’s a dialectic, I suppose, between protecting our children from all of the expected failures and perceived failures and tragedies of their life experience, and giving them the balance of the opportunity of healthy risk-taking and allowing them to do dangerous things carefully - is easier said than done, so yeah, it’s a, such an integral part of learning is doing and failing upward, as they say.

[8:10 - 9:03] Dr. Beaudoin: I think what we are trying to do is, we are trying not to treat Autism, definitively. We are trying to treat depression that is subsequent through the struggles that Autistic people will have, we’re trying to treat anxiety, we’re trying to treat trauma, OCD, and any number of other symptoms that are clinical. We don’t need to treat the way someone perceives another person, we don’t need to treat the way someone expresses verbally to a friend or engages in parallel process or is quirky with their sense of humor - we don’t want to fix that. Rather, we want to celebrate that, in fact.

[16:48 - 17:38] Dr. Beaudoin: …what we evolve into is like, ‘Hey, let’s start from the end. What do you want? What’s your goal? Paint me a picture of the life that you want a month from now, a year from now, 5 years from now?’ - that’s not always an easy practice, so we scaffold it accordingly, but, ‘ do you want financial independence, do you want to travel, do you want to have a big house and two lamborghinis, do you want to just have a life that’s relatively simple where you go out to eat once a week and otherwise cook your Annie’s macaroni and cheese for every other meal? Great! Let’s understand what the goal is. And once we do that, we can have some creative conversations and problem solving about what you will need to do to get that.’ And there is an existential acceptance that I think is probably exclusive to no demographic, which is, probably gonna have to work.

[24:02 - 24:21] Dr. Beaudoin: …so when we’re being neuro-affirming we’re being accepting, we’re being celebratory, we’re saying, ‘Great! Use your strengths, you don’t need to change a darn thing’ when we’re being neuro-informed we’re saying, ‘And, over here in this domain, it might not work super well, so let’s see what we can tweak’ and I’ve found that language to be really helpful for me.