Sheetal Parikh, Hannah Smith & Roberto Olivardia – Neurodiversity Specialist Training: Affirming Practices for Autism, ADHD, “AuDHD”, Dyslexia, OCD, and More

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Exploring the Essential Features of “Sheetal Parikh, Hannah Smith & Roberto Olivardia – Neurodiversity Specialist Training: Affirming Practices for Autism, ADHD, “AuDHD”, Dyslexia, OCD, and More”

“Will my therapist really get me?”

Your neurodivergent clients are counting on you to provide affirming care.

But, you need more than just good intentions, you need a solid plan.

One that helps address their distinctive hurdles and barriers with concrete, day-to-day strategies that affirm their unique identities.

Because reality is… Embracing neurodiversity isn’t a trend — it’s the cornerstone of providing ethical, up-to-date, and compassionate care.

That’s precisely why we’ve designed an all-inclusive course that covers the full scope of neurodivergence. Our expert faculty has specifically curated the BEST techniques so you can use targeted, strengths-based approaches to support your clients. Thousands of therapists have elevated their standard of care by learning with these outstanding mental health clinicians, speech-language pathologists, doctors, and other renowned professionals. They’ll teach you how to easily…

• Use DBT to improve sensory overload and distress tolerance
• Easily teach mindfulness exercises to address masking, social and emotional differences
• Enhance awareness and self-acceptance with ACT and cognitive therapy
• Help clients manage impulses with Exposure Response Prevention
• Assess for and understand overlaps between OCD, Tics, and Body Dysmorphia, and how they connect to Autism, ADHD, and more 

It’s time to offer more than just support — learn what it really means to have a neurodiversity-affirming therapy practice!

By the end of this comprehensive training, you’ll have the education to set yourself apart as a neurodiversity specialist who can provide the highest level of compassionate care!

How this course helps you create a neurodiversity-affirming practice…

• Move away from a disempowering “deficits” model toward strengths-based, compassionate care
• Use non-pathologizing best practices to bring out your clients’ authentic self
• Truly help your clients by understanding their unique hurdles, barriers, and challenges
• Broaden your knowledge of neuroanatomy to better understand different ways of processing and relating to the world

And, there is so much more — explore the full outline below!

Here’s What You’ll Learn
Start by learning non-pathologizing self-regulation techniques so you can help your clients make the most of therapy. Then, learn specific interventions from Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mindfulness to cultivate improved communication, self-awareness, and other crucial life-enhancing skills.

Part 1: Sensitive Self-Regulation Interventions for AuDHD, Sensory and Emotional Challenges

Learn a broad set of self-regulation interventions culled from Dr. Sheetal Parikh’s years of research and practice along with strategies for adapting them to your setting. You will leave this training with the essential skills, interventions, and strategies to help children find harmony with themselves, their families, and the world around them.

A Little Bit of Neuroanatomy

• Cerebellum: The prediction machine
• The ASD, ADHD, sensory connection
• Mapping emotions
• The vagal nerve’s job in all this 

Let’s Talk about Infants and Toddlers

• Early predictors of ASD, ADHD, and sensory challenges
• Infants, temperament, crying, and social attention
• Facial expressions and emotions in ASD
• Parent video feedback with infants makes a difference! 

Self-Regulation for All Age Groups and Behavior Types

• Calming and gradual exposure and desensitization
• Rethinking the classroom, office, and/or home environment
• Strategies for preschool and the kindergarten classroom
• Play, play, play! Inside/outside the classroom
• Classroom aerobics and other activities
• Heavy work, exercise, deep pressure, and play 

Eating and Sleeping Can Co-opt Good Effort

• Effect of poor sleep on repetitive behaviors and negative affect in ASD
• Effects of sensory processing on sleep
• Bedtime Fading with Response Cost (BFRC) Intervention
• Melatonin, elimination diets, and supplements for ASD and ADHD
• Sensory intervention at mealtime

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Techniques You Should Absolutely Be Using

• Engaging lists, stories, and transitions (Make them fun!)
• J. Shauls’s Conversation Train (and more!)
• Making consistency your modus operandi
• Play engagement, DIR, ABA, Discrete Trials and more
• Restrictive, Repetitive Behaviors (RRBs) Interventions
  • High order v. low order
  • Exercise and aquatic movement
  • Ayer’s Sensory Therapy®
  • Mixed method interventions
• Help kids with ASD handle peer rejection
• Video feedback for social scenarios: Do’s and don’ts

ADHD: Effectively Intervene with This “Moving Target”

• Innovative organization techniques
• Creating simple habits and keeping it simple
• Grounding activities: Mindfulness, karate, HIIT
• Self-management intervention and “getting to center”
• Check impulsivity meta-cognitive group games
• Revisiting feedback and timing in the cerebellum 

Special Interventions for Teens and Tweens

• Video feedback: Create appropriate expressions, reactions, and interactions
• Social skills programs to develop real-life empathy
• Regulation techniques for social situations and avoiding peer rejection
• Sensorimotor Therapy to cut through trauma

It’s a Team — Going for the Championship

• the partnership of teachers, therapists, and specialists
• Interlace the team’s self-regulation goals to make them effective
• How to include parents: Highly effective at-home interventions

Part 2: Affirming DBT Techniques for Neurodivergent Clients

Join neurodiverse speaker and DBT expert Hannah Smith, as she shows you highly effective ways to adapt this powerful treatment for this population and learn how to coach these skills in an accessible & inclusive way.

Awareness & adaptations in teaching mindfulness: finding the beacon in the storm

• The neuroscience of mindfulness
• The power of the present moment
• The mindful clinician & the neurodivergent brain 

Regulating emotions for sensory overload — riding the mighty waves

• The macro-micro of emotions
• The process of naming & taming emotions
• Clarifying places for client-lead intervention

Neuroscience-informed strategies for distress tolerance & crisis management: from tempest to tranquility

• The rules of distress tolerance/crisis management
• Two types of distress & sensory overload
• Targeting awareness & skills 

De-mystifying interpersonal effectiveness — “It’s not just social cueing”

• The 13-millisecond problem — vertical (amygdala & nervous system) blocks to interpersonal relations
• The neurodivergent brain-based need for structure, literality, logic, and more

Part 3: Compassionate Mindfulness-Based Interventions

Take an in-depth exploration of the social and emotional impacts of neurodivergence that can be addressed with mindfulness interventions. You’ll learn easy-to-implement and teach mindfulness exercises and so much more, including…

The Mindful Treatment of ASD

• Applied Behavioral Analysis & its Controversy
• Social Skills Groups
• Efficacy of alternative approaches 

Mindfulness Psychoeducation for ASD

• Why mindfulness for ASD?
• Differentiating between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness-based Tools for the Clinician Exercises to:

• Increase social reciprocity
• Calm the mind, body, and emotions
• Increase flexible thinking
• Manage stimming & other repetitive behaviors
• Increase self-compassion
• Reduce ASD-related social anxiety
• Increase emotional regulation ability

BONUS!

Dyslexia Treatment Made Easy
In this training, you’ll develop confidence and feel empowered to identify a child’s learning needs, gain strategies for dyslexia that will make a positive impact, and develop in-person or virtual treatment goals for academic success. Discover…

• Dyslexia screening tools
• How to turn avoidance into a treatment plan
• Executive cognitive function developmental
• Overview required for reading success
• Visual, Auditory, Visual motor (hands-on activities) and more strategies
• Practical in-person and virtual treatment ideas to use now
• Practical everyday activities for parents

ADHD & Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
This training shows how to navigate the challenges often present in understanding the relationship between ADHD and OCD — like, attention-shifting, flexibility, anxiety and goal-directed behaviors. Dr. Olivardia shares techniques such as cognitive therapy, ACT and more to distinguish the differences and look-a-likes of ADHD and the OCD Spectrum and how they show up. You’ll explore how to assess and treat…

• Pure-O
• Hoarding Disorder
• Tic Disorder
• Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder

PLUS, learn how Exposure Response Prevention, Cognitive Therapy, ACT, Medication, and Advocacy all play a role in treatment.

Meet Your Neurodiversity Experts

• Sheetal Parikh, OTD, OTR/L, ASDCS, CYT, has been an occupational therapist for more than 20 years working with children and adults in a variety of settings and with a variety of diagnoses. Dr. Parikh has worked in the school setting with children and adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), sensory processing disorder (SPD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental delays, genetic disorders, neurological disorders, and orthopedic disorders. She has also worked in early intervention, pediatric medical daycares, adult rehabilitation hospitals, acute care hospitals, sub-acute rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and home care. She provides evaluations, treatments, interventions, and education in the areas of sensory integration, self-regulation, autism, ADHD, and developmental delays. Dr. Parikh is a certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist (ASDCS) and a certified yoga instructor (CYT). She teaches dance, yoga, and mindfulness to children of all abilities.
• Hannah Smith, MA, LMHC, CGP, an author, business owner, and innovator, is a licensed mental health therapist and internationally board-certified group psychotherapist, consultant & clinical trainer with nearly 25 years of experience in her dual passions: helping others recover from multiple difficult life circumstances and improve their well-being and enhancing the knowledge of clinicians who work in the field of clinical care. With undergraduate degrees in hard sciences and master’s degrees in in special education and counseling psychology, she combines her knowledge in unique ways to analyze and synthesize difficult concepts into “feet-to-the-pavement,” practical applications for clinical practitioners at all levels. She has done extensive study and work in neuroscience-informed treatment of anxiety and trauma and is certified in interpersonal neurobiology through the Mindsight Institute. Her work experience, both in the US and abroad, has given her a unique perspective, cross-cultural awareness, sensitivity & respect, and a relatability that puts people at ease and makes her highly approachable. Her dynamic and thought-provoking, teaching style is invigorating, making learning fun, personal, and practical.
• Merriam Sarcia Saunders, LMFT, ADHD-CCSP, is a seasoned Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over fifteen years of diverse experience in counseling children and adults across private practice, school settings, and case management. She holds advanced training in child and adolescent treatment from UC Berkeley and is a Certified Clinical Services Provider (ADHD-CCSP) with specialized expertise in ADHD, autism, and coaching for ADHD. With certifications in divorce and special education meditation, she has served as a special education mediator for the Marin County Office of Education, advocating for children with special needs. Dedicated to promoting resilience and healing, she is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and a Certified Mindfulness Clinical Practitioner.
• Penny Stack, OTD, OTR/L, CLT, is the founding owner of the Dyslexia Center of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Penny has over 26 years of experience as an occupational therapist including working with children who have special learning needs. Penny is also a mother of a child with dyslexia who has shown great success in overcoming reading difficulties. Penny is certified in Handwriting Without Tears, received her Master’s in Occupational Therapy at Samuel Merritt College, Oakland California, and her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy at Loma Linda University. Her research on closed-head injuries and cognitive retraining has been published in Brain Injury Journal. Penny has dedicated her current research to Dyslexia and its impact on Occupation: The lived experience.
• Dr. Roberto Olivardia, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist, Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Clinical Associate at McLean Hospital. He maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he specializes in the treatment of ADHD, executive functioning issues, and issues that face students with learning differences. He also specializes in the treatment of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and in the treatment of eating disorders in boys and men. He is co-author of The Adonis Complex, a book that details the various manifestations of body image problems in males. He has appeared in publications such as TIME, GQ, and Rolling Stone and has been featured on Good Morning America, CNN, and VH1. He has spoken on numerous podcasts and webinars and presents at many talks and conferences around the country. He currently serves on the Professional Advisory Boards for Children with ADHD (CHADD) and The Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA). He sits on the Scientific Advisory Board for ADDitude and is a Featured Expert for Understood.

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