NICABM – Neurodiversity-Affirming Care For Autistic Clients
What Are We Getting Wrong About Autism?
Imagine a client coming to you after she’s just lost her job (and the truth is, this is becoming a pattern for her).
Although your client is highly intelligent, she often challenges rules she doesn’t understand. Or she frequently gets into trouble with co-workers and causes disruption in the workplace.
Getting to work on time is consistently a problem.
Now it may be that your client is actually autistic, or neurodivergent in some other way – but she’s never been diagnosed.
Often these clients start to believe that they are “less than” others. Throughout their lives they’ve experienced disadvantages because the world expects them to act in specific ways – and they just can’t do it.
And the stigma they experience can actually lead to trauma.
So it’s crucial that we become more adept at recognizing neurodivergence and adapt our interventions for those whose brains process the world differently.
That’s why we’re hosting a brand-new workshop:
Neurodiversity-Affirming Care for Autistic Clients
In this workshop, Tasha Oswald, PhD, will redefine autism through the Neurodiversity Model. She’ll walk you through neuroaffirming principles and strategies that can change the way you work with a client who has autism.
You’ll also hear about:
- Autistic trauma: how it develops and why we need to know how to recognize it
- How masking can be used to hide autism (and why that makes it hard to diagnose in some clients)
- How ableism impacts your neurodivergent clients
- Common blind spots for neurotypical therapists
- A neurodiversity-affirming framework you can apply to your practice
- How to adapt your communication style to be better understood by neurodivergent clients
- Why it’s crucial to accept neurodivergent communication styles
- How to help clients identify neuro-friendly care strategies
- How to assess for signs of autism in undiagnosed adults
- Why the words we use to describe autism matter
About Tasha Oswald, PhD
Tasha Oswald, PhD is a licensed psychologist, clinical consultant, international speaker, and advocate. As a neurodivergent individual with a late-life ADHD diagnosis, she is passionate about helping others explore and embrace their own neurodivergent identities.
Dr. Oswald founded the Neurodiversity Training Center to offer consultation and training to professionals on neuroaffirming care. She is also the founder of the Neurodiversity Wellness Center in California; a pioneering mental health practice focused on supporting neurodivergent adults.
Dr. Oswald is a Level 3 trained Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist and integrates principles of polyvagal theory into her work. Driven by a passion for research, she spent five years at the UC Davis MIND Institute studying autism and was awarded the NIH-funded Autism Research Training Program (ARTP) postdoctoral fellowship.
More courses from the same author: NICABM


