Episode 95: Supporting Neurodivergent Kids and Adults with Emily Kircher-Morris

Introduction

0:00Welcome to the Learning Scientist podcast, a podcast for teachers, students, and parents about evidence-based practice and learning. Welcome back to the Learning Scientist podcast. I am so excited to be joined today by Emily Kircher-Morris. So Emily is dedicated to destigmatizing neurodiversity and supporting neurodivergent people of all ages.

0:30She started her career in education and now has a private practice as a licensed professional counselor where she specializes in supporting neurodivergent kids, adults, and their families. She's the host of the Neurodiversity Podcast, which explores the psychological, educational, and social needs of neurodivergent people, and is also the author of several books, including her most recent book, Neurodiversity Affirming Schools, Transforming Practices So All Students Feel Accepted and Supported. And then as a personal note, Emily and I went to the same high school.

1:04So I'm so happy that you're here, Emily. Thank you for joining me today. Yeah, no, thank you for having me. It is always fun to kind of like have that connection. I know. And I just saw that like recently you gave a talk at our old high school. I got to do that a couple of years ago, too. And it was like, this is weird. I know. It was very weird. It was very weird, but also very cool. And so, you know, and still some familiar faces and some teachers who kind of were still around. But anyway, yeah, it was cool. Yeah. Good times. Well, our paths have sort of crossed again in several different ways, which has been really

1:36fun.

Defining Neurodivergence

1:37Um, but in particular today on the podcast, we are going to have a conversation about neurodiversity. Um, and particularly for the educators listening, Emily is an expert in this area and has done a lot of thinking and a lot of research in, um, the, the school environment for neurodivergent kiddos. And so, um, Emily, I think just to get us started, let's talk about learning. Let's talk about learning differences. And, um, it's kind of a tough thing when we're just saying neurodivergence, maybe we should

2:10start with defining our terms here and how we want to have this conversation for the educators in the room. When, when we're talking about neurodivergence, what all does that include? Yeah, well, I think maybe the foundational piece here is just to realize that, um, the concept of neurodiversity, um, is a really broad idea and it is not, it is not part of the typical, um, kind of medical paradigm. That's kind of part of it. It's really more, really a social movement.

2:43And so there's not a super clear defined, like these labels are part of neurodivergence and these labels are not. And depending on who you ask, you will get different definitions. So when Amanda, my coauthor and I wrote neurodiversity affirming schools, we had to kind of define that for how we meant it as far as the context that we were using it. Um, so first of all, I will just say, um, the term neurodiversity or neurodiverse refers to spaces or groups of people.

3:15So you can have a neurodiverse school or a neurodiverse classroom. Neurodivergent refers to one individual person whose, whose neurotype kind of diverges from the norm. And so when we talk about neurodivergent students, the way that we really define it, we are talking about individuals who, the way their brain is structured, the way that they process information, the way that they learn, the way that they communicate, all of these things are impacted by, by some type of, um, neurotype that, that varies from the norm.

3:47So basically, um, these are things that are pervasive. They are impact all areas of life. They are lifelong, even though somebody might develop coping strategies. And so we're really talking about things like, um, autism, also formerly known as Asperger's. Those diagnoses have been rolled together, um, since the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was released over 10 years ago. Um, but ADHD, learning disabilities like dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, um, intellectual disabilities,

4:18as well as cognitive giftedness. Um, and there's also a term that some people might be familiar with, um, twice exceptional learners, which is when you have that cognitive giftedness layered with another, um, another disability on top of it. So those are just a few. It is not an exhaustive list, but in general, though, when we were writing this book, um, we did kind of separate out a little bit what we considered a neurodivergent label as far as being neurodiversity affirming and what we would consider more of like a psychological or a mental

4:49health label, because the way that we support people who have like an anxiety or depression diagnosis looks much different than how we support somebody who, who is ADHD or has an, you know, who is autistic. So that was kind of how we defined it. There are some people who would put all of those psychological and mental health diagnoses under that same neurodivergent umbrella. Um, that, that's fine. I just feel like it needs to be defined, but there's no real clear, hard and fast. This is what it is. This is what it isn't.

5:19And so sometimes you might have to ask people when they say that, what they really mean, because they may be coming at it from different points of view.

Neurodivergent Students

5:26That's really helpful. Um, in a lot of the talks and workshops that we give, we are asked this question that, um, I, I kind of skirt around, give a little bit of an answer to you, but I'm not an expert in this space. Um, so I'm, I'm wondering how you would respond. Um, one of the questions that we're often given, you know, we've, you know, given a talk about learning strategies for the neurotypical population. And then we're asked, how did these things apply to the special education population or

5:57to, to neurodivergent students? And first, I feel like that is an extremely broad question. So, um, the way that, um, one person might experience learning might be different than someone else in that population. Y'all can't see it, but she's nodding. And I feel very upfront. But then also, um, sort of on top of that, though, I usually end up kind of trying to argue that in a lot of the individuals that they are referring to, we might have difficulties

6:30with working memory in particular. Does that ring true to you? It can. But again, like you said, it varies. I think actually maybe the one thing that might help people conceptualize what we really mean when we're talking about this learner variability, which is really what we're talking about. Let's use autism as a, as, as an idea, as a starting point, because we often think about autism as a spectrum and we think about it as this, this line, right? And so you've got like less autistic on one side, which is like Sheldon, right? From Big Bang Theory. And then like on the other end, you have more autistic, which is somebody who is really significantly

7:03disabled, primarily non, non-speaking, um, and needs has very high support needs. The problem with that is it is, it is too basic of a conceptualization of what we're really talking about, because there are so many facets of, of autism specifically. So when I do trainings with educators about this, I really, um, encourage them to think about the spectrum, not as a line, but as a web. And so when you think about a web, you can think about, um, like imagine, uh, uh, say

7:36a circle that has, you know, um, four different spokes. So you've kind of got like a pie that has eight pieces on it. Right. And, but each one of those kind of each line there has its own, um, characteristic. So you might talk about communication. You might talk about social abilities. You might talk about the need for routine, you know, those types of things. And you could map out what somebody's level of support needs are on any one of those little spokes. And it would look very unique for each individual person. So for example, you, you talked about working memory.

8:07Well, working memory definitely is, um, something that is difficult for a lot of ADHD-ers. However, when you have somebody who is twice exceptional, like they are gifted and, um, ADHD, they often can do great on working memory tasks when you're measuring it from, you know, a psychological assessment point of view in that structured environment, but applying it in other situations is more difficult. You know, processing speed, I would say probably is a, is an easier one to, um, say like many

8:37autistic people really struggle with processing speed. That is a big, big factor. Um, I would say that that's probably the most consistent trait that I see. Um, but, but I would say working memory processing speed, those are actually two good examples because of those two, whether you're talking about learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, they do show up frequently in a lot of different ways. But again, how does that manifest? And then how do we support it? It, it, it's, it's hard to give blankets, like, this is the thing to do for all of the kids

9:10that's going to solve all the problems because you do have to. Be unique. And then it's hard because then you're like, well, I have 30 kids in my class or whatever. How do I, how do I do that? And so then you get into some ideas like universal design and how do you set up the systems in place that make it accessible for a lot of different people? Yeah. So I want to get into all of that here in a second. Um, coming back just to that, that main question. Um, I still think it's probably true. Um, and what my usual answer is, is that, you know, the learning strategies that, that we talk

9:41about these evidence-based learning strategies, um, do tend to be very effective for all of these individuals, um, that the types of accommodations that you need are not necessarily based on learning strategies. I mean, yes, you might need to scaffold things. You might need to adjust things slightly, but the, the, the general principles of like using retrieval practice and space to practice and, um, concrete examples for folks, those are things that really work for most everyone, but how you implement it might vary across people.

10:15Yes, I totally agree. And I think the key word that you hit there was scaffolding. And, and when I think about accommodations, like accommodations are a type of scaffold that we are using to help people reach whatever that particular skill might be or whatever it is that we're, we're asking them to do. Um, and so I think that it goes both ways strategies that are, that are good for kind of the neuronormative population are, you know, really helpful. And again, you might need to scaffold those for neurodivergent kids, but the other flip side of that is strategies that are good for neurodivergent kids are good for all kids.

10:48Like you can have things, that's the key. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you can have systems and things in place. Like if it's a good learning strategy, it, it, it's going to be good for, for people to learn. And so I think the hard part of this is, I think what you're sometimes maybe hearing when people are asking that question as well, though, is, well, I have a kid who's struggling with organization and I've tried to help them use planners and they can't, use a planner and they insist that they can't use a planner and it will never work for them. It's like, that's not the same, like, that's not about working.

11:20That's about like, we have to be more flexible. And again, where's the scaffolding? Maybe it's more frequent check-ins. Maybe the, the organizational system is too complex and we need to simplify it. Like those are the types of questions, but I feel like sometimes because there's some nice pushback from students and sometimes the teachers just don't always have, they don't have enough tools or tweaks in their repertoire to know how to adapt those things. And that's where they kind of get stuck. Yeah, absolutely.

Processes and Procedures

11:48I want to talk for a second about sort of some, some like processes and procedures things. So, um, when you and I kind of first met, and so for, for context, for the folks who are listening, um, I have two neurodivergent kiddos who have, they are very different across the, the eight pie, uh, slice spectrum that you're referring to, right? Um, so it's not just a line here. It's definitely, uh, two very different characterizations of who they are, but I don't

12:21always know as a parent coming into the educational situation. And, and I, I don't always know that, that all, um, general education, um, teachers are fully aware of everything that's happening on the back end to create the supports that we do for students. Can you talk just a little bit about the sort of process? So my kiddos, you know, we, we received a medical diagnosis for something and then we're coming into the educational situation. What does that mean? What do we do? Like what, what are the options for creating accommodations for students?

12:54Those kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah. This is really interesting. And I will even say, you know, so I spent over a decade in the schools. I worked in the classroom and I also worked as a school counselor before I, before I kind of entered more that psychological kind of medical side of things as a mental health clinician. And there are so many things that I didn't know or understand, um, even in the school setting because, because of the way that it was trained or that we were talking about things. So the first thing to know is that a medical diagnosis comes through a psychological evaluation,

13:25comes through a doctor, comes through, and is based, is based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM that we often reference. Um, in the schools, you have the, the IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And that is the law that provides the parameters for how we provide special education services. So a student, regardless of whether or not they have a medical diagnosis, has to go through a process to be identified with it.

13:56So we call it an educational identification of a disability. Um, and that is, that is what leads to an IEP, an Individualized Education Program, and specifically that means special education services. So this is where it gets a little bit tricky though. So there are a lot of kids who are neurodivergent, who have a medical diagnosis, but do not qualify for an IEP. This is because the way that the law is written for an IEP is that you have to show educational

14:26impact. It has to be impacting how somebody is learning and how we are measuring that learning. And so that gets really tricky because a lot of ADHDers, a lot of autistic individuals, it's like a lot of kids who are really pretty bright, but are still dyslexic, but they're kind of flying under the radar and getting by. They don't meet that criteria for educational impact. So therefore they don't qualify for special education services. So what ends up happening is quite often, those are kids who do qualify for a Section 504 plan.

14:57So whereas, well, I'm going to say this, but things are so up in the air. Whereas IDEA monitored by the Office of Special Education and the Department of Education, or at least it was- We are recording this in October of 2020. Yes, so we'll see where this lands, but the Section 504 is actually enforced by the Office of Civil Rights. And so it's kind of separate from this, but it really is about accommodations and access. And it has to do with, you know, disability access is kind of where this falls.

15:29So you can have somebody who is autistic who then also needs accommodation. So they can get a 504 plan, meaning, for example, like the teacher might have a plan for them where if they need a break, they can just use a signal. They don't necessarily need to ask verbally if they're feeling dysregulated, if they have some place they can go in the school, or there might be an accommodation for giving explicit instruction and having those instructions written down on a piece of paper that that student can have like at their desk. Like those are accommodations, but they're put into place in the classroom.

16:01They are not, they don't require a different educational service. It's just provided within the general education classroom setting. One quick note about that that I will say is that there's kind of an idea that you have to have a medical diagnosis in order to qualify for a Section 504 plan. That is not true. You have to have a suspected medical diagnosis. And the other piece of it is you have to eliminate all what they call mitigating factors to determine

16:35if someone qualifies for a 504. So what that specifically means is if you have an ADHD student and they are taking medication and they're doing okay in the classroom, they might say, well, they're doing okay. We don't really need to provide accommodations. You actually have to pretend as if that student does not have that medication because that medication is a mitigating factor. So what would the impact of that disability be on a student who does not have that medication and base the accommodations on that specifically, which sometimes people don't know and they

17:05don't know to advocate for that specifically. And so it gets a little tricky. But what I often see is there are quite a few kids who end up with a 504 plan because they don't qualify for an IEP. And often that's okay. It just, but it, I remember even as a school counselor, though, not necessarily understanding those differences, not understanding, you know, all of those different things. It's like you just learn as you go.

17:32But that information, if you are a teacher who is not directly involved in that qualification process, you may not know the nuance of that. Yeah. And I think one, another example of this that might be useful for folks is thinking about sensory processing. So, right. So I, my daughter has very high sensory sensitivities. And right now she's kind of twice exceptional, I think, right? In that she, she is excelling in school. But I do know it's true that a lot of folks who have those sensory sensitivities don't do

18:07as well in school. And it is due to that issue. Yes? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, so a lot of these identifications come along with sensory sensitivities. So as far as autism goes specifically, you can, as there's two different criteria, I'm not going to get into all of it, but one of the criteria that an individual may experience is either hypo or hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli. But also ADHDers have increased sensory sensitivity. That's part of like not being able to tune certain things out, right?

18:41They're very, experience all of the things and they don't have the discrimination ability to like ignore some things and pay attention to others. And there's also research that shows that gifted individuals tend to have mild to moderate sensory hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli. And so, you know, it's interesting to think about how this kind of overlaps in a lot of different ways. So when we are thinking about accommodations, though, especially in the general education

19:11classroom, sensory needs are a huge one. If you have a kid who's like leaning back on the back two legs of their chair, we need to really move away from viewing that as a disciplinary issue and recognize that that is a sensory need that they are having. Most of these sensory things that are happening really are ways that somebody is trying to, attempting to regulate their emotions, regulate their focus, their executive functioning. And sometimes people like, I don't know, I'm sitting here, I'm ADHD, by the way, I didn't

19:43mention that earlier, but it's like, I've got this little rubber band that I'm sitting here playing with. I usually have a couple of actual fidgets. I ended up with a rubber band, which is actually probably better because otherwise I would get a piece of paper and I would just be ripping up a piece of paper because that is just how my body processes as I'm doing things. Like I can try to stop that, but it's not going to work. So in the classroom setting, that's often viewed as like, this is an issue. You're not paying attention. You're not focusing. You're being distracted. You're doing all these things. And so we try to rein kids in when really we need an accommodation. What's an appropriate way to meet that sensory need?

20:16And we know that this is associated with academic performance. And so again, there's research out there that shows that individuals who have heightened sensory sensitivities and lower avoidance strategies perform more poorly academically. So what that basically means is like, if they don't have a way to escape that uncomfortable sensory stimuli, they do worse in academics. So how do we help them be in a sensory environment that leverages their ability, that protects them

20:48from those things so that they can actually accomplish the purpose of learning in that environment? I'm thinking about all of the general education teachers who are listening right now. And, you know, you just mentioned like the kid is leaning back in their chair. I would imagine that as a general education teacher, I've probably got 30 students in my class. And some of them are doing things like that that are disruptive in some way. And some of them have IEPs or 504s.

21:20Some of them don't and are probably, you know, either they didn't have someone who was advocating for them to have that, or they have perceived that behavior as just disruptive behavior. This sounds completely overwhelming to me as a general education instructor.

Accommodations and Support

21:37Um, it's part of why I think you're all superheroes, but I'm trying to think of like what advice you might have for those individuals to, first of all, differentiate between what are quote unquote behaviors versus what is something that is, um, a need that a student is displaying that could be accommodated for. Or as a general education instructor, how much of that is like my responsibility, right? That feels like a lot to try to identify what someone's needs are, or do I refer out for

22:11that? Like, hey, I was suspecting this person has some sensory needs. Like, can you assess them? And then like, how do we just try to accommodate all of that simultaneously? It just seems like a, a huge overwhelming. Can you provide some advice to, to sort of empower the general education teachers that are listening for how they can navigate this? Yeah. So, so let's say for example, it's the student who's leading back in the chair, just because that's the kind of the example that we're using.

22:43It doesn't take any real time to sit there and have a conversation with that student and say like, what do you think might help? Would it help you to stand? Would it help you to like many classrooms now have some flexible seating options? Um, you know, it might be that, um, I mean, they have things like they have the little wobble seats that you can put on the, on the, um, seat of the chair that kind of gives some of that, um, that vestibular input and that appropriate, you know, all of those different kind of sensory components.

23:14Um, they have the little tea chairs that are, it's like a little stool, right? But that you can, you can sit on that as well. Um, there are lots of tools like that, but there are also things that you could do that wouldn't necessarily need those types of specific tools. Um, and so it might just be like that student just needs a break to be able to walk and maybe they just need a place where they can pace for a couple of minutes. Okay. So take some tape and make, mark out a space. It's like, this is your space to pace when you need to get up and move in the classroom. That way you're not disrupting other students.

23:46You're not causing other problems, but this is where you can go if you need to move. Um, I would recommend that if, if somebody is trying to figure out what some of those things are going to, hopefully you have an occupational therapist that is in the building. They are a great resource for trying to come up with those things. Sometimes it comes to like fidgets and things and people are like, well, I can't give them fidgets. They're just going to use them as toys. First of all, you can teach kids and help them understand like, um, how do you know if a fidget is actually working versus when is it a tool and when is it a toy?

24:17How do we make sure that it's a tool that it's not just a distraction, but also if you have those types of sensory tools in your classroom and just available for everybody, there might be some kids who want to use them at first a little bit, just because it kind of seems kind of cool or kind of neat. They are not going to continue to use those on a regular basis if they don't need them because they just don't need them. The kids who need them will use them and you can set that expectation, but you can have little, little conversations with kids. It really doesn't take a whole lot of time, but it does take a mind shift from us that not

24:48every kid in your classroom is going to be looking exactly the same as they're learning. And so how do we help them meet that need? I have, this is maybe an aside, maybe we include this one of the school counselors at my kiddo school recently encouraged me to participate in this parent education course. Um, and I don't know if you've heard of this, Emily, um, but it's called space. It's supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions. And the, the program was really talking about the fact that a lot of times parents, what

25:27I will call over accommodate, right? And so they don't allow kiddos to, you know, deal with like their own anxiety. So those kiddos never really learned to cope with their own anxiety. It makes the anxiety worse over time. And the whole time I'm in this program, I, I kind of struggled with like the fact that as, as a parent with neurodivergent kiddos, I do a lot of accommodating for their sensory needs and for their, um, you know, cognitive inflexibility and need for routine and things

26:01that, um, cause them anxiety, right? Like they get anxious if, um, we diverge too much from their normal routines or whatever. Um, and then in this class, they're telling me, you've got to stop accommodating. They need to deal with that anxiety. And I'm just kind of, um, curious how you can reconcile those things, um, both for, for me, but also for the educators who are listening, right? Like to what degree do, when do we decide that an accommodation is, is good and necessary

26:32for learning versus when should we not accommodate? Because like at some point they're going to have, they're not going to be in school with somebody who's providing all kinds of accommodations for them.

Reconciling Accommodations

26:41Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. So this is a great question. So, um, Dr. Ellie Leibovitz is the creator of the space program. He's been a guest on our podcast. I don't know what number it is, but if anyone wants to go and listen to that episode, it's a great episode. I'll, I'll find it and I'll include it in the show notes. Yeah, that'd be great. And so, but, but what I will, so here's the thing, space treatment is, was really created for OCD specifically, that is really the thing that it was created for. The thing about OCD specifically is that if you, this actually gets back to my point that I was talking about, um, earlier in the, in the episode where we were talking about

27:15like a neurodivergent diagnosis versus a mental health or psychological diagnosis. Okay. So for OCD, if you accommodate OCD, let's say the OCD is, um, I am, um, feeling anxious about germs. And so I'm going to go and wash my hands. And every time I touch something, I'm going to wash my hands. Accommodating that might look like quote unquote, um, that you allow them to go and do that because it makes them anxious. If you don't, that is what is going to make that worse. So when I work my clients at just about anxiety in general, I will tell them the number one

27:48thing that anxiety wants you to do is avoid the thing that's causing anxiety. And so the more you avoid that anxiety, the bigger that anxiety gets, which gets really overwhelming. However, for neurodivergent kids, and you're talking about the, the space treatment is not always a great fit for neurodivergent kids, because what you're talking about here, let's specifically with the sensory aspect of it, you are not going to, there, there's, there

28:20is, you're not going to just help somebody get over their anxiety of a sensory sensitivity and make that sensory sensitivity go away. Now there are some strategies through occupational therapy where you can minimize some of the, like, um, you know, if there's tactile defensiveness, they can do some things that can kind of minimize that a little bit, but in general, that is not going to solve that problem. Um, you can use it for say, like, um, you know, if there's experiencing a lot of social anxiety, you know, it's like, yeah, you need to expose to that a little by little.

28:54Um, but, but it's really, um, you have to really be intentional about which, which things you try to approach with that space model, um, because many of the traits of neurodivergence that look like OCD types of things are not, it's not the same function. It's not coming from the same place, even though on the surface, it might look the same. Does that help? Yeah, that helps. I mean, and I think, um, part of what you're saying is things like approaching little by

29:26little. So there's maybe some scaffolding that needs to happen, but that is, that's not something that a general education teacher would be expected to do all of that scaffolding in the short amount of time that they have with a student. And I think one of the critical things that you're saying is that this is not a like pull up by your bootstraps kind of situation for somebody who has neurodivergence, like somebody who, who is a neurodivergent student, that it's not just something that they can get over, right? That they, they are going to need that accommodation and probably need it lifelong, as you were saying,

30:02like somebody with, at the very beginning, the way that you defined this is something that is a lifelong kind of pervasive thing. It's part of who they are. Yeah. And what I would mention also is like, when I think about accommodations for neurodivergent kids, my goal always is to help them be independent with those accommodations. So there is a shift from the, and you know, this from the K-12 system to the university system, there is a shift in accommodations. The K-12 system offers accommodations to ensure success. The university system offers accommodations to ensure access.

30:32And those are two entirely different paradigms for what really is, is in place there. And when we think about this, our neurodivergent kids need to graduate and they need to be able to self-advocate and recognize what are the accommodations that work for me? How can I access those accommodations on my own? How do I self-advocate independently? Like these are the tools that we need them to, to have, because you know what? An accommodation might be setting 12 different alarms on your phone to remember to take your medication. Like that is an accommodation, but nobody is doing that accommodation for somebody else.

31:05So that's my thought is like the gradual release of accommodations from somebody who's kind of in the, in a position of power, like, oh, you get this, you don't get this to how do we collaborate with students and, and gradually have that gradual release where they are then recognizing what their needs are and how to access them. Right. So it's not a gradual release of accommodations. It's a gradual release of who's providing them on the student. I love that. Um, okay.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

31:30We are just about out of time. So is there anything else, you know, in all of your time that you have spent with educators, is there anything else that we have not talked about today that you are like, I just really want to make sure that they know this? Even though it can seem overwhelming, I want you to know that it's not. You're already doing a lot of these things in your classroom. It's just a matter of being intentional about it and choosing like one or two things that you're going to start to integrate.

32:01Maybe you're, you start to put, um, visual cues on up in the corner of your slides when you're doing a presentation to indicate like where students should take notes or where there'll be a discussion piece. So it's like a visual icon that they can look at, or maybe it is, um, having a system in place where students are able to leave the classroom without necessarily getting a verbal response from you. Like there's some, something you can put in place where they can do this. Like these are small things and you can build them in gradually. It doesn't have to happen overnight, but even little small things can make a big difference

32:33for some kids. And so I just encourage people to talk to the kids in your classroom, even if they're really little and, you know, get their feedback and see, see what they think might work and give it a try. Because the worst thing that's going to happen is it's not going to work. And so you're going to go back to what you were doing already. And I like the two examples that you just gave in particular, because what you didn't say is figure out what works for Sally and how that's different than what works for Joey and how that's different than what works for Emily and what, how that's different than

33:03what works for Cindy. No, instead it is do things that can benefit everyone, right? That universal design that a visual cue can be helpful for every, it might not matter that much for some of the students, but it might matter a whole lot for other ones. And it's easier as an educator to do it for everyone so that then those folks who need it, get it. So there's no reason why everyone couldn't have a cue for, hey, I need to go sit in the calm down corner for a minute and that that calm down corner is available for everyone or

33:36whatever the case might be, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much for being here today, Emily. I have learned a lot in this conversation and I really think that our listeners are going to get a lot out of this. For everyone listening, I will also include in the show notes, some of the research that we referenced today, as well as links to Emily's website and podcast and it's specifically that episode that we discussed.

34:07So we'll make sure that you guys have access to that and you can always reach out to Emily as well if you are interested in speaking engagements and then maybe pick up a copy of her book too. Thank you so much, Emily. Thanks so much, Cindy.

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