You tell me the problem, I advise you/train you in the related strategies.  Whether its advice about behavioural or emotional issues, learning disabilities, sensory perceptual disorders, communication disorders, friendships, relationships, sexuality, independence skills or helping people transition to new experiences, accommodation or employment or build and market their own skills, even building home based programs.  

This is for those who want more than a hit and miss 'one size fits all approach' but also to help them better work out which programs and services may best fit them or the person in their care.  What presents as one condition is often actually made up of a range of separate conditions which combine to give the misleading impression of being 'one thing'.  I help people extensively explore those things and include resources to further research and the management strategies that can be used for each piece of 'fruit salad'.  These extensive 'reviews' may explore:

• information processing
• personality, identity and motivation/distress patterns
• mental/emotional/physical health issues
• advocacy/inclusion issues
• social/occupational/life skills or goals and the maps with which to reach them

I am the author of Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage, a book outlining an Indirectly Confrontational Approach.  An Indirectly Confrontational Approach may help reduce:

• Compulsive avoidance, diversion and retaliation responses of Exposure Anxiety
• Social phobia
• Social-emotional complications of severe face blindness
• Selective Mutism
• Learned helplessness
• Social and communication challenges in those with Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Oppositional Defiance Disorder and Pathological Demand Avoidance
• Turn down the volume on some forms of Personality Disorder (Schizoid, Schizotypal, Dependent, Avoidant, Passive-Aggressive personality disorders)

Whilst I am very aware that gut, immune, metabolic disorders or nutrient deficiencies do NOT effect or underpin autism 'fruit salad' in all people diagnosed on the autism spectrum, I am, nevertheless, someone who lives with diagnosed gut, immune and metabolic disorders.  Unaddressed, symptoms of food/chemical allergies and/or Salicylate intolerance, can include asthma, sinusitis, congestion, eczema, hives, brain fog, headache, migraine, bowel problems, stomach aches, bedwetting, seizures.  Allergies can surpress immunity as well as co-occur in those with poor immunity or immune deficiencies.  

Those with immune issues may experience ongoing fungal infections, impaired digestion, inflammation.  Infections an/or undigested foods can impact on brain chemistry.  This happens when these pass through the 'blood brain barrier' that would normally protect the brain.  When infection or undigested food particles cross into the brain, it can trigger chemistry processes in the brain.  This can cause imbalances in usual brain chemistry.  Brain chemistry helps us manage emotions and thought processes.  So when this becomes imbalanced we can experience problems with learning, attention, focus, organisation, balancing emotions, self regulation, impulse control, distractability.  In other words, those with unaddressed gut, immune, metabolic disorders may commonly experience mood, anxiety, compulsive disorders, attention deficit and learning problems.  Overwhelmed by these things, those with them may tend to cut off, tune out and the most obvious presentations of something being 'wrong' is when the person has problems development, learning and behavior.  I can:

• help people clarify when health disorders are NOT underpinning someone's issues
• provide some info on types of reliable, preferably minimally invasive medical testing for these issues
• talk people through what's involved in a 30 day trial, a rotation diet, etc
• provide guidance, counseling and emotional support for people transitioning to new foods/diets
• provide shopping and cooking ideas for people on special diets and extended family who are supporting them
• explore the foods, nutritional supplements and lifestyle changes that may help benefit attention, mood, anxiety, information processing.

Gestural signing is generally called 'home sign' and one part of deaf signing.  It is a way of using movement to track the meaning of both written and spoken speech (one's own and that of others).  It is not Makaton, not 'waving your hands about'.  Gestural signing may be most useful for those with:

• 'Meaning deafness' (Verbal Agnosias/Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder)
• 'Meaning blindness' (Visual agnosias)
• Difficulty gaining or holding meaning when reading (Visual Verbal Agnosia)
• Severe difficulty with the brain-speech relationship (Oral Dyspraxia/Speech Apraxia or Speech Aphasia )
• Severe difficulty daring to speak (Selective Mutism)

Kinesthetic learning is about using touch, texture, acoustics (sounds), to explore the progression and connections between the parts of objects or their wider context.   Kinesthetic learning is hands on learning for those who can't think then do and much learn through doing.  It is especially important for meaning deaf/meaning blind children who struggle to learn just from visuals or watching.  This can help those with:

• Object blindness (who see the part, lose the whole)
• Context blindness (inability to use context to understand objects or actions or meaning of objects)
• Severe face blindness to recognise and connect with others

Some people struggle to follow instructions, make mental comparisons, conclusions or choices.  This can be because they struggle to keep track of or consciously juggle complex thoughts.  External mentalising involves using representational objects and 'mapping' to keep track of multiple concepts, to build up insight and self awareness, to understand cause and effect/consequences.  Gestural signing is also one of the tools used for external mentalising.  External mentalising may help people to:

• Measure and assess which feelings and relative strengths of feelings someone may be having
• Track a simultaneous sense of self and other they might otherwise never process
• Keep track of the meaning and sequencing of their own speech

Discovery learning is the opportunity to directly explore the wider community, public transport, encounter others, exchange money, handle objects and generally get access to real life experiences.  Discovery learning allows a person to kinesthetically (hand over hand) explore a world they may not have the communication to ask about or the experience to yet visually understand. 

It is also process in which tantrums and meltdowns are managed in a neutral way, without judgement and the person is navigated through self calming processes in learning emotional self regulation.  The guide negotiates and advocates directly with those in the community in the discovery learning process.  Family members are encouraged to be present and take an active part in training to take over as the guide.  Discovery learning may:

• Turn around learned helpless
• Build confidence
• Directly educate the community about it's own role in the lives of those with disabilities

I counsel older children, teens and adults including:

• Any person wishing to gain more insight into their particular 'developmental fruit salad'.
• Those with developmental disabilities (including autism, Asperger's, PDD Nos etc) and their families.
• Couples where one or both partners are on the spectrum.
• Those with or without formal diagnosis on the spectrum who feel affected by related issues.
• Those whose primary communication is typing.
• Those working with people with developmental disabilities or DID.
• Those studying developmental disabilities or DID.

I help families work out which interventions are most relevant and useful at a given time based on the family's unique structure.  Where possible I may also suggest, demonstrate or train the family in alternative approaches which are ultimately low or no cost.  This is because:

• No interventions work for all people with a shared label.
• Some interventions bring out the worst in a personality yet this may be blamed on 'the autism'.
• Some interventions do not train or empower the carers or the person with the disability.
• Some health interventions are assigned to those with disabilities who do not have health issues.
• Some products are targeted at those with sensory perceptual or cognitive differences these products don't fit.
• Financial burden can be put on families to adhere to approaches and products which may not be required long term, may have outgrown their usefulness, simply don't best suit their child or greatly disturb the sense of home or family life