Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World

Kate and Missy: Empowering Neurodiverse Individuals – Navigating Social Dynamics, Mental Health, and Inclusive Employment Strategies

• Tony Mantor

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Unlock the secrets to navigating the neurotypical world as we sit down with Kate and Missy from Social Connections, a pioneering Nashville-based organization. Discover how their journey, which began in 1993 at Vanderbilt's psychiatric hospital, has evolved to support the unique social and dating needs of young autistic adults. 
Kate and Missy share invaluable insights on helping neurodiverse individuals thrive without altering their inherent traits, offering a fresh perspective on integrating mental health support with autism.

Our discussion dives deep into the importance of individualized support strategies for autistic individuals, whether it's enhancing social skills, dating, or vocational training. 
We explore the often-overlooked gender differences in symptom masking and how this impacts the mental health of autistic females. 
Learn about the essential role of self-advocacy in the workplace and why educating employers about autism can lead to more inclusive environments.
Kate and Missy provide practical advice on managing anxiety, depression, and the stressors that come with navigating a neurotypical world.

Finally, hear about the ambitions and achievements of Social Connections, including their vision for growth and the inspiring success stories that keep them motivated. 
From overcoming family dynamics to the importance of vocational assessments, this episode is a treasure trove of guidance for anyone interested in supporting the autistic community. 
Tune in to understand how genuine communication and shared interests can make a significant difference, and see how Social Connections is expanding beyond Nashville to touch lives through telehealth services. 
Join us for an episode filled with hope, expertise, and actionable advice.

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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)

Speaker 1:

Welcome to why Not Me the World? Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, usa, nashville, tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Their stories Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real-life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to why Not Me? The World. Normally I have a guest on, but today I have two. I have Kate and Missy from Social Connections. Founded right here in Nashville, tennessee, social Connections was founded with the aim of facilitating the dating process for young autistic adults. However, it soon became clear that a more comprehensive approach was necessary to address the diverse needs of this population. As a result, the platform has evolved to provide a wide range support for its users as they navigate various aspects of their life. So thanks for coming on.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, Absolutely no. We thank you for the opportunity Now. We've listened to some of your previous podcasts and we're just very excited about what you do and your work and to be able to be part of it. We're really very honored.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the pleasure is all mine. So first, how did you meet, and then how did you develop this?

Speaker 3:

Okay, well, missy and I met back in 1993, actually, and that's how long we have been friends and colleagues. I was the principal of the psychiatric hospital, the school in the psychiatric hospital at Vanderbilt, and I hired Missy to be a teacher in a children's classroom. So she worked there for a brief period of time and then she moved on to Metro School System to work as a special education teacher in a behavior disorder class. I continued to work at Vanderbilt Psych Hospital and while Missy was working in Metro as a middle school teacher, she began her graduate studies at Trevecca. As a middle school teacher, she began her graduate studies at Trevecca, pursuing a degree in mental health. So then I left Vanderbilt and I became. I worked at the State Department of Education as a transition consultant for two years.

Speaker 3:

Okay then, what was next? So, while Missy was establishing her time and Metro, then I also left the State Department and then I wanted to work for Metro Schools as a compliance consultant first and then as a transition consultant, working with young adults with autism, ages 18 to 22. Then Missy was establishing her practice and I was beginning my tenure with Metro. We, you know, continued to be very close friends and we would discuss the issues that surrounded young adults with autism, particularly at the dating scene and sex education, because the schools really did not address those issues very well. They taught social skills but not really the dating and the sex education they would feel fearful of touching that.

Speaker 3:

Her practice also found that some of her clients were really in need of discussion and education around sex and dating. So probably about two years ago we came up with the idea and we put together a curriculum and a market at a program I want to date. Now what Is what we titled? The program and the curriculum we pulled from various curriculum sources. So we had about six or seven young men in this dating group and we found that it was fairly successful. But for various and sundry reasons we did not continue, including COVID.

Speaker 1:

Yes, COVID stopped a lot of things. So what happened after that?

Speaker 3:

So then, about a year ago, we were again revisiting this idea to coach young adults with autism, and so hence Social Connections was conceived. We both have completed a 40-hour online training certifying us as baptism specialists, in addition to our other degrees that we hold.

Speaker 2:

So when we designed the social connections, we designed it to help, support and coach these young adults on the spectrum or really anybody neurodivergent or with a learning disability, intellectual disability as well and these adults navigate the adult world. So neurodiversity makes navigating the adult world very hard. Our philosophy is that we don't want to attempt to change the neurodiverse individual. We want to help them navigate the neurotypical world in a little more comfortable and assured independent way, because we find that they don't necessarily understand a lot of the social nuances that somebody else that's neurotypical would understand. We often say that when you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.

Speaker 1:

Yes, over the last year. In doing these podcasts that statement comes up many times and is very true. So I'm wondering I found that sometimes you have parents that are really trying to help their kids but they're really pushing them more into the neurotypical world than the world that they are as autistic. Sometimes that can create a more confusing world for them rather than a clearer one. Do you find that the case at all?

Speaker 2:

Yes, you're exactly right. We've discovered that a lot of our young adults that we work with some of them way smarter than us academically don't understand the nuances of their work world or their peers' interactions. We'll give them scenarios or say things to them. Like example, we have a young man that works at a local hospital here in Nashville and we asked him what would you do if Mr Hank comes to pick up your trash at your office? What would you say? And he was like why would I talk to Mr Hank? He had no understanding of tell Mr Hank thanks. Hope you have a great day. Have a good weekend. Interaction, no understanding. And so not only do we help them navigate the neurotypical world, we also want to help bosses, management and staff in a workplace understand the neurodiverse individual that they're working with, so they don't expect them to do all the changing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's great, because the main thing I think needs to happen now is to bridge that gap between the employer and autistic employee, because the employer has that perception and it's lots of times wrong because autistic people can get out there and work just as good as anyone and create a lot of good things and help that bottom line for that employer. So that's a benefit for everybody.

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. We actually toured a facility today that works with a lot of people. They're neurodivergent and the ability for them to manage finding them jobs within their company, have a mentor at the location and at the task that they're doing the entire time they are adjusting to that has worked so beautifully and it's just made life and the adjustment for the neurodiverse person to have a neurotypical person that's kind of their mentor and help guide them through the process of adjusting to starting a job.

Speaker 1:

Sure. So since you've started this, you've worked in a couple of different areas. So, for lack of a better word, which do you find more rewarding? Helping them with their dating and getting that part of their life in order, or helping them get their job structure going so they can feel better about themselves because they're actually working?

Speaker 3:

I think both of them are very important, like with this young man that Missy was talking about his first goal. He was unemployed and 30 years old and has a master's degree, so of course his first goal was to become employed. After we helped support that process and he is now gainfully employed. Now the next thing we're going to be working on with him are those social skills, are the dating skills, because if you look at it, progressively, you want to be able to get a job so that then you can take a woman or a guy out and then have money to pay for that. So we're going sort of step by step. So I think they're all sort of intertwined. Tony, I don't know if they're independent of each other, but actually Missy and I enjoy all of those aspects of working with the individual.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I get that for sure. The sad part is the numbers are just terrible. For autistic people they're either between 70 to 90% either underemployed or unemployed, and that definitely has to change.

Speaker 3:

Correct, exactly Correct.

Speaker 2:

It's super frustrating for us because we understand like their skillset and understand that they would be really good at X task. And if we could just get their foot in the door and help somebody understand what they're really good at and let them just navigate that task, they would flourish. Then we could work on the social skills and the coworker peer interaction piece of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We could just get the foot in the door.

Speaker 1:

You opened the doors about a year ago, is that right?

Speaker 3:

I think it was about a year ago that we conceived this whole concept, right.

Speaker 1:

You've been working on it for a couple, three years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then we've both been working in the field.

Speaker 1:

So how have you seen this first year of doing what you're doing? Have you seen it grow the way you anticipated, or has it grown slower or faster? What's the results been? How have you dealt with that?

Speaker 3:

no-transcript couldn't really help Missy that much during the day, but now I just recently retired I can devote much more time solely to our social connections practice. So we're looking forward to grow forth and move ahead and help individuals that want our services and we can help.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then currently with my counseling practice. I see about 27 to 30 people a week in my counseling practice and a lot of those individuals are neurodiverse in multiple different ways either ADHD or autism or a combination of both. So I deal with it on a daily basis as well as a lot of other mental health. So I'm also a trauma trained therapist as well. So we find that a lot of our clients with autism have experienced some sort of trauma, so we're using a lot of that to help them manage the emotions that come along with their trauma as well.

Speaker 1:

So, as a company, do you have a set amount of people that you work with at one time, or do you have people just kind of come and go as needed, so that way you can work with at one time? Or do you have people just kind of come and go as needed, so that way you can work with them until they get to the point that they don't need that much attention anymore? How does that work for you now?

Speaker 2:

I think it's kind of the rotating door like you're just talking about. Like we just got the one gentleman started in his job. We've got him settled and kind of stable there. We actually got to see him today working. He was kind of shocked that we showed up not intending to see just him but to see the program that he's working with, and it was really cool to see him in working. And then he will start coming back again in July to work on the other social skills pieces and the dating skills pieces. So it's kind of a rotating door. It's their life, it's their existence and we want to make sure that we're addressing the issues in the order that they find the most importance. So if they want to work on the social skills and the dating stuff first, we'll do that and then get that kind of ball rolling and then we'll kind of lean into the vocational piece of it.

Speaker 1:

So what's your demographic? Do you have more males than females, more females than males? How does that work? Or is it pretty, even I?

Speaker 3:

think it's pretty split in the middle. I think it's pretty split. Yeah, I think it's pretty split. Yeah, we have some females and we have some males, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I'm a little interested in finding how this works for you. It's very well known throughout the world that females tend to mask their symptoms.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

They try to fit in differently than boys do, very differently. So how do you handle it when you're dealing with a female, so that she can drop her guard, not have to mask it and then just ultimately be herself?

Speaker 3:

That's exactly it. It's an excellent question because the one young lady that we're currently working with, she was recently diagnosed with autism, at 35, 36, something of that sort, and she said that she has been socialized through her other, like girlfriends, growing up and following their lead and that's how she's been able to mask that. But now, working with her and talking about the fact that she does not have to maintain that pressure which has caused great anxiety within her so you know that they're sort of comorbid in that sense that she has this anxiety and then, consequently, maybe some depression that goes with that. So she seemed very relieved that we're giving her the permission, so to speak, with her diagnosis and what that diagnosis really entails and how that's defined, that she could really more or less be herself and be real and true to herself.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so now you say that you do a lot of therapy with autistic people, correct?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you just spoke about depression, and it's well known, again, that females tend to mask it, and then, when the masking does not work the way they anticipated, they get depressed and ultimately consider suicide Exactly. So have you ran into this situation and been able to help someone tend to get away from those thoughts.

Speaker 2:

You know, I think getting away from the thoughts are really hard. I think it's helping them learn how to regulate their emotions. We spend a ton of time with feeling identification and a ton of identifying not just the feeling but the body sensations that go with that feeling, so that then they learn to regulate their emotions. And if we can get them to regulate the emotions, the suicide, suicidal ideations kind of start to dissipate on their own. Instead of us continuing to kind of hone in on okay, let's not, let's not. Let's work on not wanting to kill yourself today. Instead we kind of work on let's identify what the feelings are.

Speaker 2:

If you take anger, for example, anger is what in the therapeutic world I consider to be a secondary emotion. It always has a buddy, so it's always got something else, another emotion, attached to it. If we can get them to identify that and then the body sensations that go along with that other secondary emotion, then you will watch the emotion regulation start to occur and then their nervous system kicks back online, their vagal nerve starts to work again and then everything starts to calm down.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I've talked with a few different people that have attempted suicide or thought about it. One attempted it and thank goodness he failed. Yeah, the common thread amongst all of them is a daily challenge Right, right, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And to be honest with you, if you look at hospitalization in a psych facility for someone like that, it's really not equipped a lot of times because they address just the mental illness piece of it and the mental health piece of it and they don't necessarily look real closely at how does the autism affect that. It's really hard to determine which comes first. I mean, more than likely it's the autism that creates all these other mental illnesses and mental health issues, and so getting a psych facility to get on board and understand that completely is sometimes difficult.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Now. I was speaking with a guy the other day and we was talking about how people have meltdowns and how that it can affect their job situations.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

He had a great concept in that he said name one person that you know or you don't know throughout the world that hasn't had a situation at their job to where they say you know, I've got to take a break, right, so there's really no difference between the autistic world and the neurotypical world in that the autistic will call it a meltdown but the neurotypical just has to take a break because they're upset.

Speaker 3:

Right, exactly, tony, and that's one of the things that I did in my previous job as a transition coach.

Speaker 3:

Or of this program for young adults with autism, exactly that Missy was saying.

Speaker 3:

We do a lot of self-advocacy work, so in this program we would either work with the employers and then the individuals, for the individual to be able to go to the employer and say, hey look, I just need five minutes of a break, and maybe even upfront, you know, before they're employed or asked they're going through the interview process and say you know, I do have autism, so I may need to have you be a bit more patient with me. Have you give me my assignments more in a checklist? Because they're very visual learners and they can check off the tasks that they have to do that day, or then, when they're having this meltdown or it's coming on, they can just ask for sort of a time out, so to speak, and most employers that I've worked with have been very amenable to that, because, you know, the young adults with autism can be excellent workers. It's just that they've got to make some accommodations here, and most employers for the most part are willing to do that if they know they've got a good employee.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I had Temple Grandin on my podcast earlier. She said that if you was to put her in Walmart and have her cash out, that she would need a pilot's checklist so that she could go down through the checklist and get everything the way it's supposed to be.

Speaker 2:

I heard her say that that's a great way to look at that.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. If the employer would understand that he's hired an autistic person they need a little bit of time just to work that out within themselves, but yet they can be a great employee for them Then he gives them the time they work it out and everything just keeps moving forward the way it should.

Speaker 2:

Right, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, that's a great way to look at it, and the self-advocacy is helping them learn to ask for those things as instead of expecting their employer just to know that they're supposed to do that.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, it's a two way street and they both have to work together on that. So what are some of the challenges that you've seen in this first year of being in business? Have you had people open their arms and say you know, I really like this, let's see what we can do, let's dig together and make this happen. How's it all worked out for you for that first year?

Speaker 3:

No, I think that we have been. Everyone we speak to they'll say, oh, there's such a need for this. So I think the community and the people that we're sort of marketing this to, everyone's on board with the idea that, yes, this is a very needed service. In regards to our clients, I think they have been very, so to speak, relieved that they have a safe place to come. You know, like the young man that we were working with yesterday, we've been working with him for close to about a year, maybe nine months, something of that sort. He just seemed very genuinely appreciative. He's like now that you guys have been working with me, I have been able to do thus and so and see some market progress in himself.

Speaker 3:

When you ask about a hurdle, what the hurdle actually has been either with parental support sometimes or the family dynamics that either undermine the individual or they're not on board with the individual's needs. So we've done parent groups. In fact we have another parent meeting on Monday with a family. So we're willing and able to do whole parent groups, like maybe four, you know, three or four couples or whatever, so that again parents can support each other because, like with this young lady that's just recently diagnosed. Her mom is trying to deal with this, in addition to some of her other mental health issues. The mom is very overwhelmed and so, consequently, we've worked with her, but it could benefit her from being maybe like in a parent group of sorts, and we're able to do that as well. We haven't established that yet, but we are certainly quite able to do that, interested in doing that and marketing that as one of our services.

Speaker 2:

I think the other piece of parent support is sometimes they're too supportive. They do more than they need to.

Speaker 2:

So you get to age 21, 22, 23, 24, and the parent is still filling out job applications or picking jobs. We're like whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Or we had one young man that went to college and the parent picked their major for them and I was like no, no, no, that's not how this works. He needs to be on board to pick that himself, as well as not picking the jobs that he needs to pick the jobs he wants to apply for, and then he needs to fill out the application and he needs to prepare for those interviews, not me doing all of that work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's another thing Temple brought up is that the parents need to let the kids do more for themselves and that helps them in the long run. Exactly. And I had another lady and this isn't her fault she was speaking with a gentleman about, I think, rents for her son. The guy knew that her son was autistic, yet he didn't talk to her son. He kept talking to her and she would say why don't you ask my son? He definitely can answer anything that you're asking him Exactly. So it does go both ways. Sometimes the parents need to step back and let their kids take over, but then sometimes the parents need to step up and support their kids, just like that.

Speaker 2:

Get parents on board with that would be really helpful.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people do not understand autism, so if they hear the word or they hear that someone is autistic, they look at it as it's a death sentence. And it's really not. They're very capable of doing anything, just like you and just like me.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

And we use Temple Grandin's word all the time that it's not that they can't do it, they just need to find their workaround Right. She uses that word all the time, and so we are always trying to help our clients find the workaround. Yes, you can accomplish this. Now let's figure out how you're going to do that.

Speaker 1:

Then you've got the different levels of autism, where some can do some things where some can't. Some are great with hands on, some are great thinkers. There are just so many different variations that people have to learn. That's not going to stop them from keeping working the way they can.

Speaker 3:

Yeah right. That's why it's so critical, like at the high school level or the post-secondary level, that we did a lot of vocational assessments to see what individuals are interested in, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. Do they like to work with people, Do they like to work alone? Do they like to work outside? Do they want to be inside in an office area or in a store with a lot of hustle bustle? So those things are critical to ascertain prior to their employment, so that that leads to success in the employment world rather than just oh, I think you'd be great at McDonald's, go for it. And they have no desire in fast food, you know.

Speaker 1:

Right right Now on the dating side. I'm curious to how you approach that. I was talking with a public speaker. He told me that you'd be really surprised that after he spoke about his family and his kids, he actually had people coming up to him and they were quite surprised because they didn't think that autistic people could actually have kids.

Speaker 3:

Right, exactly. Yeah, I'm not surprised.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is surprising.

Speaker 1:

So how do you handle this? You've got people out there thinking that autistic people can't handle it, but yet all it is is just human nature and kids being kids. Yeah, how do you work with the male or the female so they can get an understanding on what the process is? Because they don't want to move too fast, they don't want to move too slow, but it's a real fine line on making it happen correctly.

Speaker 3:

We did that in our dating group and that's, I mean, it's critical. So we do a lot of role playing and we did an awful lot of role playing and different presenting different scenarios. Like you know, been dating Johnny for only one week and Johnny wants to do thus, and so is that moving the relationship too quickly? You have the ability to say no, but you've been dating now Johnny for two years and he wants to really start putting his arm around you. What do you think about that? We started talking about the various consequences. So we got very graphic, in a sense of very specific terms of graphic around body parts and what those body parts do, because the young adult didn't really know. And when we had one mom call us and say, well, why do you have to teach that? We said, well, your son's 24. And would you like for him to learn that from a friend or from the internet, or would you like to teach him? She's like no, go right ahead. You go right ahead and do it, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Just like everybody else and they want that, those intimate relationships, just like everybody else does, and so teaching them how to do that in the healthiest way possible is something that we find very important, because if you don't, they're out there we have. You know, they're out there trying to do things. What they see on television or in movies, that's not realistic, and then it's very unhealthy, and so it becomes more of an for them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. You just brought up an interesting point. A lot of autistic people have texture issues. So they're sensitive to taste, they're sensitive to clothes. There's another part of that texture that is not clothes or food, it's touching. It's that ability to embrace, feel that hug, feel that warmth. So what do you do to break that down for the person that might have those kind of issues?

Speaker 3:

Right. Well, through sort of a desensitization process and then also working with the client and asking permission, like the one young man that we were working with that we just recently got the job at Vanderbilt. When we were all excited and we heard that he got the job, we said, may we hug you? And yes, it was very sort of stiffened by that, but yet we asked the permission and he allowed that. Very sort of stiffened by that, but yet we asked the permission and he allowed that.

Speaker 3:

Because we working on you know when you're dating, like do you hold a young lady's hand, or those different things but through a desensitization kind of process, we've done that with there's, with one of our clients that couldn't get past swallowing different things, so taking the whole foods and going up and down the salad bar and the hut bar and having to pick out one or two things and then talking about the food item and how that might feel and touching it and, like I said, through a whole desensitization process. So, no matter what the affinity is, it's like, okay, we'll take it step by step to work on making that individual feel comfortable with whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that makes sense. So you've been open for a year. Things are going good. Where do you see yourself three to five years from now? What do you anticipate that's coming down the road for you?

Speaker 3:

I'd love to see it blown wide open and have more clients that we can handle. I think because the need is there yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think the big goal would be that we could help, you know, train some other people to do what we're doing, so that we don't have to do it by ourself Kind of spread the word that this is so needed and then that it can be done, so that other people can get on board and start maybe not working for social connections necessarily, but begin to build their own type of business in the same sense, because the goal is not for us to make millions and millions of dollars. The goal is to really help the community and to help them be able to navigate the neurotypical world in a way that's so much more comfortable than it is currently.

Speaker 1:

Yeah right. So in today's world we have a lot more exposure on TV radio news about autism, exposure on TV radio news about autism, and that's a great thing because people are starting to understand a little bit about what it is. They're not understanding a lot, but it is still a step in the right direction. So how do you move forward with people and how do you know that they're doing it for the right reason and they're not just trying to take advantage of a particular situation?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the important thing for us is that we really practice and we help our other people in the community practice communicating, like you and I are communicating now. Find something you're interested in, find something that they like to do, and then find a connection in an arena that both of you have something similar in and then spend time either doing that together or communicating about that, or talking about that or sharing experiences about that and helping people just start connecting in ways that are just the way everybody else connects.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. So have you had someone come to you? You sat down, you talked with them, you looked at each other In the back of your minds. You just thought this could be a total disaster. Then, all of a sudden, it turned out to be a success story.

Speaker 3:

Well, actually, this one young man that we got the job at Vanderbilt at first, his autism was such that he would not look at us and make eye contact and all of that Autism was such that, you know, he would not look at us and make eye contact and all of that, right, he was so brilliant, as Missy said previously.

Speaker 3:

His education level was, I mean, far superior to ours in the sense that he would be in sessions and just going off on tangents, talking about all these scientists and these you know experiments that Missy and I had no idea what he was talking about and we thought, oh God, we're never going to get this young man a job, he's never going to sort of come down to reality, so to speak, because at times we would just like pull him in, like, ok, come on back down to earth here. You know you're way out there, buddy, but he really did turn around and it's just gratifying to see him being able to make eye contact with us and witness and understand his own progress and now to be gainfully employed. So we were very proud of that.

Speaker 2:

We were excited to see that actually happen and I think the other piece to that for us is that when we would notice something like that that's going on, that they would go off on a tangent somewhere that had nothing to do with what we were talking about.

Speaker 2:

We are pretty blunt and pretty direct and be like okay, tell us how we got there, tell us how we got to that part of the conversation, and if they couldn't tie it back to what we were talking about, we would use that as a perfect example as to okay, that's not something we do when we're in communication with other people.

Speaker 2:

We learn to navigate this neurotypical world by staying on topic or by connecting with the person you're with and if you can connect the two things together, by all means continue to have that part of the conversation. But if somebody starts looking at you with a blank stare on their face and starts looking at their phone or their watch or trying to get away from the conversation, you know you've gone too far. So, helping them pick up on those social cues and the way that we do that is we she and I will break into a role play in the middle of the middle of session, acting, you know, talking through a conversation If they can see it happening in front of them. It's like it clicks Right, and so it's something that makes something very abstract, very concrete for them.

Speaker 3:

Right, Really applying, bringing it to what is important to them, Like, again, this young man. His next thing is that he wanted to date. So we would use that and say, okay, imagine yourself out on a date and you start talking about some scientist, you know law of relativity or some kind of theory or experiment, and the poor woman sitting there, like Missy said, looking at her watch, playing, you know, tapping her fingers, bored to death. That would be the cue that that young lady is not interested in hearing that. So again, Missy and I would role play something like. That lady is not interested in hearing that. So again, Missy and I would role play something like that.

Speaker 1:

but we would bring it down to very practical, applicable goals that they wanted to work on Right. So now are you just working in Metro Nashville or are you working outside of Nashville?

Speaker 3:

Outside of Nashville as well, we do telehealth. We have one young man in Chattanooga and another man in a surrounding county, so we are capable and are interested in doing telehealth anywhere. You know that we need to be, that we can help.

Speaker 1:

Okay, good.

Speaker 2:

Counseling license doesn't allow me to do telehealth unless I'm in the same state as the person that they're in. So I'm licensed in the state of Tennessee. So for me to do therapy with them mental health therapy they have to be in the state of Tennessee. So the coaching piece of our business does not.

Speaker 1:

We're not bound by the same laws. Yeah, okay, good. So how do people contact you?

Speaker 3:

We have a website. We're on Facebook.

Speaker 2:

Socialconnectionscom. Or they can reach us on Facebook, on Social Connections on Facebook as well, or they can reach us KMsocialconnectionsatyahoocom.

Speaker 1:

Okay, great, so we've covered a lot. I think it's been a great conversation. Is there anything that we missed or anything that you feel like you want to tell that I haven't?

Speaker 2:

asked Gosh, I don't know. I think we've covered a lot of ground. I hope it's been helpful.

Speaker 1:

Oh, absolutely, it's been great.

Speaker 3:

No, you've asked all the right questions and, you know, really helped draw out all the information. It's just getting that information out to the public in regards to how they can get in touch with us. And take a look at our website, take a look at our Facebook page. We're always updating the Facebook page with different pieces of information sort of helpful hints, little tidbits of information so we keep that current every couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. And this week we posted kind of a comparison between how autism presents in children versus how it presents in adults.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it looks like Nashville has embraced you and you're definitely headed in the right direction with your business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we were asked to speak at the library and then the Breckwood Library here, and then, once we spoke there, they've asked us to come back and do two more presentations for them, and so that's been really helpful. And then we've connected with some book rehab services here in the area and some community-based programs that they have, and so that's been really really good for them and for us as well.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's been great and I really do appreciate you coming on to the show.

Speaker 3:

I feel very honored. We appreciate getting in touch with you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantorcom Contact then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask tell everyone everywhere about why Not Me, the World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.