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Episode #34 ~ A Brave New World ~ Neurodiversity-inclusion in coaching training with guest, Elaine Taylor-Klaus
In this interview, we talk with Elaine Taylor-Klaus about her article A Brave New World ~ Neurodiversity inclusion in coach training.
The brain does not discriminate; neurodiversity is a universal human phenomenon that crosses all racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic and/or religious boundaries.
Neurodiversity-inclusion in coaching invites coaches to dance with the brain’s role in a client’s self-concept and execution of behaviors. To meet all clients where they are, coach training must include information about how people process information differently so coaches can:
• help clients recognize and embrace neurodiversity;
• ethically assess whether they feel equipped to support neurodiverse clients;
• determine when to refer or collaborate with coaches and/or therapists with neurodiversity expertise.
Author, parent educator & certified coach, Elaine is the CEO of ImpactParents.com, founded in 2011 because the support she needed as a parent wasn’t there when her three complex kids were young. Elaine co-created the Sanity School® behavior therapy training program to support parents of complex kids, and has authored Parenting ADHD Now! and The Essential Guide to Raising Complex Kids with ADHD, Anxiety and More. ImpactParents provides training, coaching and support worldwide, empowering parents to guide their children, teens and young adults to become independent and successful – and to enjoy the wild ride of parenting in the process.
Join us as we learn more from Elaine about the difference between neurodiversity and neuroscience and how coach training needs to be updated so that coaches can assess whether or not they are equipped to support their neurodiverse clients.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-Elaine
Learn more about Elaine here.
Access the Free gift that Elaine spoke about here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Elaine about her article published in our September 2022 issue.
Hi, everyone. I'm Garry Schleifer, and this is Beyond the Page brought to you by choice, the magazine of professional coaching. choice is more than a magazine, it's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses and impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years. Yes, we've been little note there, published for 20 years. I know it's crazy. We're dedicated to improving the lives of coaches and of course, their clients. In today's episode, I'm speaking with author, parent educator, and certified coach Elaine Taylor-Klaus, who is the author of our Kaleidoscope article in our latest issue entitled, isn't that colorful. Elaine? Lovely. A Brave New World~ Neurodiversity Inclusion in Coach Training. Elaine Taylor-Klaus is the CEO of impactparents.com. So you kind of get where she's coming from. Founded in 2011 because the support she needed as a parent wasn't there when her three complex kids were young and she'll talk more about what complex means. Elaine co-created the Sanity School Behavior Therapy Training Program to support parents of complex kids and has authored"Parenting ADHD Now" and"The Essential Guide to Raising Complex Kids with ADHD, Anxiety and More". Impact Parents provides training, coaching, and support worldwide, empowering parents to guide their children, teens and young adults to become independent and successful and to enjoy the wild ride of parenting in the process. Welcome, Elaine. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:I am delighted to be here. Thanks for having me, Garry.
Speaker 1:I really want to thank you for writing for our Kaleidoscope column. We haven't had a lot of information about neurodiversity in that section. The Kaleidoscope column was created to keep the voice alive through choice about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and so we've had various topics but this one is relatively rare. And from reading the article, I can see that you're a champion of making it less rare. I get that this is what you do, but what had you d ecide to write for choice?
Speaker 2:You know, I think that something in the last, you know, with all of the attention on diversity, equity, inclusion in the last couple of years, what I've been increasingly aware of is exactly what you said, which is, it's so rare to have neurodiversity included in this conversation. It's a really essential part of the conversation. There's neurodiversity issues in school, in the workplace, in personal relationship dynamics. It shows up in every aspect of our life. And there's a lot of stigma around it, but not a lot of understanding. And so in this last year, I've really spent more and more energy focused on advocating for neurodiversity inclusion in coach training specifically, because what I've begun to see in my practice is a lot of people coming to us having had bad experiences with coaching with perfectly good coaches, but who didn't have the training they needed to create the kind of coaching container that clients with neurodiversity really needed. So it's kind of gotten me on a kick.
Speaker 1:You're speaking at the ICF Imagine Conference about it. You and I have talked about this before. I've struggled with having people on a DEINB committee being upset that I didn't understand neurodiversity. So I'm going to ask that question in here too. Well, you know what, let me ask it right now. What am I putting things off for? This is my podcast, it's my party and I will ask what I want to and I'm at choice. So I had a person who was neurodiverse on our committee, and he left because he said, I hadn't done my, because I said to him, well, what and correct me if I'm wrong, neurodiversity is as different as peas in a pod. Right? Like, it's everybody. You can't say, oh, that's that, you know, necessary, that's that particular, okay. There's elements of that and elements of this. It's kind of like autism has a spectrum, right, and I'm guessing neurodiversity has the same. So not knowing that going in, this was a couple years ago, I said, well, okay, so how can I work better with you? Well, he got mad at me and said, I'm not here to do your work for you and left the group. And as you can tell, I'm still stunned by that. It's like, I'm asking for your help in working with you and you're telling me to go do my own work, but inside my head, I also know I don't know exactly what your neurodiversity challenges are, abilities, challenges are. So if you don't tell me, I'll never be able to work with you or go do my work to figure out how to work with you.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, no, I think that's, that's fair. What really jumps out at me at what you're saying, a couple of things. One is that that person's neurodiversity was contributing to the conversation that was happening.
Speaker 1:I kind of figured that part.
Speaker 2:More than likely.
Speaker 1:Afterwards.
Speaker 2:So let's step back and say, what is neurodiversity?
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah. Because it's been on our radar for a long time. We did an issue like probably 10 years ago on neurodiversity. We did another one on how the brain works. But it's top of mind a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of buzzwords around it. And there's a lot happening in the coaching world around neuroscience. Let's make sure we're using neuroscience in our coaching. And sure it's all behind neuroscience, but neuroscience is not the same thing. It just explains how someone typically behaves in terms of the brain and neurodiversity is how someone may not typically behave in terms of the brain. And so when someone is dealing with a brain that's neurodiverse, neurodivergent, I like to call it neuro spicy, which I borrowed from somebody else, but I think it's a great term,
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:So tech has its advantages. When someone is neurodivergent, it means that their brain doesn't process information in the way that typical brains would process information. So they think, feel, act differently based on how their brain is wired. And that doesn't mean that the brain is defective, it means it's different. And so we need to understand how someone processes information differently, particularly as coaches, so that we can support them in exploring, in enlivening their awareness, problem solving, action planning, whatever it is we're doing with them, based on the way their brain works, not based on the way our brain works. And so in coaching, we understand, so here's the metaphor that's coming up. We know in coaching, we're not supposed to give them our solutions, right? We're supposed to let them come up with their own solutions because when they do they're going own it. It's going to be theirs. It's not going to be information, it's going be insight. hen someone has neurodiversity, we need to make sure that we as a coach aren't guiding them to process the way that we would just because that's how we would. I would first start with understanding it and then planning it and then action. Maybe I probably wouldn't. But there are a lot of people who have a very linear way of thinking. Just because a coach thinks that way, that doesn't mean that's how your client's going to think.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness, no.
Speaker 2:So if you have a client who thinks more cyclically or who really doesn't do well with lists and might need a mind map to be able to do some planning, that tells you that you may be dealing with some neuro divergence. So, we have to understand that everybody doesn't think the way that typical people think. That's the starting point of this conversation and start looking for some of those clues. There are ways that we can identify when somebody might have neurodiversity either from symptoms or experiences with them or because they self-disclose. And then we want to to coach tjem differently as a response to that.
Speaker 1:Wow. Thank you so much, first of all, because you're right, I was thinking of neuroscience, not neurodiversity. Wow. Even that right there is like so quick to go through that thinking we know what we know and it's been a topic already and it hasn't. Like I say, my first struggle was a couple years ago. Well, I mean, being part of a DEI committee at the Gay Coaches Alliance, you know, we're struggling with diversity all the time and how does that inform and direct our organization? And this one here just hit me because we haven't really gone into that because we started the whole DEI and B because we didn't have a lot of people of color. So it was a very older white male, either glasses and/or a beard, white hair, you know? And it was very stereotypical and it just wasn't reflective of the population at large. So then when I got hit with the neurodiversity, I was like, ah. So that's one of the reasons, personally, I'm very thankful that you wrote this article. And thank you for pointing out some of the things that you mentioned as well. Like how people learn, asking them, what did you write here? Find out more about motivation, variations in problem solving, like you said about the mind map and things like that. Thank you very much for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The way that we process information is very individualized and we have a tendency to assume that people process the information the same way. You know, some people don't sequence well. Think about how some people will give directions based on turn left, turn right and some will say, remember where the old Sears building used to be?
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. That explains my upbringing because it was always like, well, you know, the old Johnson farm, which hadn't been owned by Johnson's in decades, right?
Speaker 2:In 30 years.
Speaker 1:And make a left at their house and turn right at the Young Johnson's property, which by the way hadn't been run by Johnson's in about 10 years. Yeah. That's funny. That's, and you know, east, west, north, south, CN tower, the water. People use different things to describe direction and things like that.
Speaker 2:I have a young person in my life, young person meaning twenties, who is one of the brightest people I've ever met. English was not her first language, even though she's completely fluent and she really struggles with left and right. And so when you give her directions, it has to be turn driver's side turn, passenger side.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just something that simple, but it's shifting the language to meet them where they are. Right? Incoaching, we're all about meet them where they are. But when you have somebody with neurodiversity meeting them where they are, it has a different layer to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh my goodness. So are you teaching the people at these directional apps on other ways of saying things? Cause it's like in the right lane. Turn right.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Wouldn't that be great? No. I have not gotten there. But wouldn't that be great if you got a choice. Not only do I get to choose on Waze who speaks to me, but if I got to say, give me directions in terms of left and right or give me directions in terms of driver's side, passenger side.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. And you know, you do have choices. I have to tell you this, it was funny. We were out on a trip on Sunday and I switched my Waze voice command and I had one called Terminator. Yes. We're here for you to make sure you make it to your destination. Turn left here. And then I changed it to boy band and it was like at the light turn left, turn left. So we were just cut cracking up on this trip. We couldn't wait until we got to a change in direction so we could hear what this system was doing. But I will now look afterwards to see if there's a neurodiverse channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not yet. But now you got me on something. I am trying to do more and more work with executives in the corporate space and community organizations just raising education. I really want raise education in the coaching community.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. Why?
Speaker 2:Maybe I'll put those apps on my list.
Speaker 1:I think it's kinda obvious. I know we were going to talk about this, but it's like, so why? Well, why not? When you point out in the article, the indicators, if you go back to GPS, the indicators that somebody might be neurodiverse are relatively clear.
Speaker 2:Some of them. You're not going to catch all of it, but there's some obvious stuff, not to mention when someone self discloses, which happens a lot. But yeah, when you think about the kinds of things we deal with as coaches, if you're dealing with someone who i s disorganized or struggles to remember things or has trouble managing, regulating their emotions, these are issues that come to coaching all the time. If we can understand that underneath those issues could be a neurodiversity, we might problem s olve around it or raise awareness to it differently then if we don't understand the depth of what's leading to the challenge. And I think what I love about coaching is that we're always looking for the issue under the issue and then the issue under the issue. It's not like what's presenting, but it's understanding what's presenting. Because until you understand what's leading to the problem, you can't problem solve effectively. If y ou start with solution, which a lot of consultants do, you start with the, well you should just do this, you might be solving the wrong problem. Not that everything's a problem, b ut in the neurodiversity space there often tends to be a few more problems.
Speaker 1:I would like to say a few more challenges getting to the solution of a problem.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. There are more challenges and more obstacles along the journey. There's a lot more opportunities for learning. There's a lot more opportunities to fail forward. That's just the nature of it when your brain isn't wired to fit the paradigm of the dominant culture and so that's why it's a diversity and inclusion issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, and again, I can't thank you enough for presenting this for us and helping us out with it. And so other than the obvious things, what else can coaches do? Okay, so here, here's what put me on this train of thought. So you said, you know, they self-disclose. Under normal circumstances, before talking to you, I might have gone, whoa, this is out of my league. We have got to find you a neuro diverse coach. But now talking to you and being aware of it, it could be, I mean, if they chose me as their coach, it could be, so based on what you just told me, what is it about me as a coach that you feel works for you and how can I help you get coached based on what you just told me? Would that be appropriate? Am I going down the right path?
Speaker 2:It could be, it could be. Again, you know, it's so individualized. Let me pull back a second because here is, this just in as Rick Tan would say. There are people who know they have some kind of a diagnosis. I struggle with ADHA, anxiety, depression, yada, yada, whatever it is. And they've got it identified, but they don't really understand it and they haven't learned to manage it in their lives. So as a coach doing an intake of somebody who self discloses, you might get curious about, well what have you done to support that in your life? Because their level of awareness to their own neurodiversity will indicate a lot. If they've done some work around it, if they've gotten some, some therapy, coaching, training, whatever in that arena then a neurotypical coach, if you will, could be a great fit because they already know how to accommodate for their own challenge. If they self-disclose but they've never done anything about it. They've only ever taken medication and they haven't done any behavioral work around it. Maybe they took medication as a kid, but then when they became adult they just forgot about i t. Then you're dealing with somebody who may need some education about themselves that you may or may not be able and qualified to provide. Right. And so that might be someone you might want to work with them in conjunction with a colleague who does have neurodiversity information or m ay work with t hat client to get educated and informed. B ecause when you live with neurodiversity, you are living with a chronic differentiation that needs to be understood and managed akin to having diabetes. You have to understand what's going on with blood sugar and figure out what you need to do to manage it. And it's not just medication, it's lifestyle. Same thing. And so if you have a client who is self disclosing but is not well informed then you're going to deal with it differently than if you have a client who has no clue and you're listening to the clues and you're thinking this person may be really struggling with anxiety. Then you might deal with that differently in terms of having those early awareness conversations. I have absolutely had clients over the years, particularly in my early years as a coach, where the coaching was coaching to raise enough awareness for them to get themselves into therapy. Because that's really what they needed and they weren't ready for the therapy until the coaching helped them see what they needed to go into therapy for.
Speaker 1:Whoa, okay, hold on. That's a role reversal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The coaching helped the client understand and prepare to be in therapy. Wow. Yeah. We usually were trained, well, we were trained 22 years ago.
Speaker 2:Along time ago.
Speaker 1:Right. That it's the other way around that it's like, yeah let's see a therapist. I'm just making it really quick. But see a therapist, ask him if it's okay to get coaching and then go for coaching. And what you're saying is there's a possibility for the other way around. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Unquestionably. I'm thinking of a client who I worked with for many years who came to me. She had done many, many years of therapy and she had had a deeply traumatic background, like significantly trauma based life and was trying to undo what had been done to raise kids differently. And when she and I started to work together, we had probably been working together for two or three years. I mean, this was a long term client. When she finally got to the point, and she had had plenty of therapy before but it had never really helped her, when she finally got to the point that she was ready to go into trauma therapy and has made significant growth in trauma therapy because by the time she got there, she had been buoyed by the coaching to get her to the place where she could really benefit from it. I often work in tandem with therapists one way or the other in my work. I do a lot of neurodiversity informed and trauma informed coaching in my arena. And not everybody, not every coach needs to do this work. Right. Not every coach wants to be with this.
Speaker 1:Oh no, not this depth. But there's a difference between taking and being informed and the depth with which you wish to do it. Got it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But I do believe every coach needs to at least understand these surface layers of nuance around executive function and motivation and how people process information. That should be foundational knowledge for any coach.
Speaker 1:To the best of your knowledge, how many, what percentage of the population is neurodiverse?
Speaker 2:You know, the numbers have jumped around a lot since Covid.
Speaker 1:Lock somebody in a room and find out what's really going on in there.
Speaker 2:Before Covid you would've heard it is closer to 25%. Now you're hearing more like 40%. Yhere was a CDC piece that came out last week, I think, that said more than 50% of adults in the US are expected to be diagnosed with a mental health condition in their lifetime, which is a pretty significant number. I saw another stat this morning about people specifically with ADHD with a coexisting complication is more like 85%. So, so we're talking about a significant enough percentage of our population. I think the likelihood of any coach having somebody come into their practice who doesn't, who has never, let me say differently, I think it's very unlikely that any coach in this day and age would not have somebody coming into their practice with neurodiversity. Highly unlikely.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Okay. So you've told about the importance. Where do we get this training?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the million dollar question.
Speaker 1:And feel free to self promote. I f you happen to have something nudge, nudge, wink wink that is of support.
Speaker 2:We d o. We do.
Speaker 1:Oh, you do?
Speaker 2:We do. And so it's a great question and I think that before I say what we do, what I want to say is that we as consumers need to be expecting all of the coach training programs to start incorporating this and not just incorporating neuroscience, but incorporating neurodiversity. And so I believe I call on the CTIs and the IPEC and the Coach U's and the Mentor Coaching and all of those organizations need to be revisiting this and revisiting their inclusion of DEIB, not just in the realm of race and color and religion and all of those other beautiful rainbows and gender and et cetera, et cetera. But should also be looking at and need to be including neurodiversity in the training. I want to start by saying you shouldn't have to go get specialized training. You should be able to get at least a foundational introduction in your basic training.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That is a should. I get that I'm shoulding.
Speaker 1:I know, and I'm sure that in conjunction with the DEI work at ICF, it'll hit the coach training family organization, whatever they call it.
Speaker 2:In about 15 years.
Speaker 1:You think so? Cause I was on the committee, an ICF committee, that informed the DEI social justice in coaching education and I know that that information went to the schools and some of them are already incorporating it.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. No, I was being facetious. But even in the medical realm, it takes 17 years from research to get into practice.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. Oh, I wasn't expecting it to be overnight, but a little...
Speaker 2:I'm hoping it's quicker. S o I agree with you. I d o
Speaker 1:I like to say we all have the power of choice.
Speaker 2:Yes. Agreed.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you spoke about going from here forward at some point. What about the rest of us old folks?
Speaker 2:Okay, so we have a program our program is called Sanity School and in Sanity School, 2e
Speaker 1:Don't say that so fast cuz it sounds like insanity.
Speaker 2:I know, you're right.
Speaker 1:Slow it down.
Speaker 2:We have a behavior program for parents and teachers called Sanity School.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:It's been around since 2015 and in 2017, we started training professionals and certifying professionals and licensing them in providing this training in their local communities. In the last year, what we realized is that it's a great foundational training for coaches to learn about neurodiversity and for complimentary professionals like therapists and tutors and the like to learn about foundational coaching skills and neurodiversity. So we have modified that program to really meet the needs I think of where we are right now in the coach community, and the professional community in terms of what do we need to understand about neurodiversity in the coaching framework to be able to support our community better. So we do have a professional program. We'll have a gift for people listening that's going to have information about this and we'll have information about how to get info about that program.
Speaker 1:Right. Thank you.
Speaker 2:We've got a gift for your people at Impact Parents.
Speaker 1:Well, you are jumping the gun Young lady, because I was going to ask you what else you'd like our audience to do. And so let's just go right into what is it they can do? Where do they go for this free gift?
Speaker 2:Okay. So for the free gift, you can go to Impactparents.com/ beyondthepage. And that is a guide that I just created on Neurodiversity Inclusion and Awareness. It's a coach's guide to neurodiversity
Speaker 1:Awesome
Speaker 2:Just finished it literally this week.
Speaker 1:Impactparents.com/beyondthepage.
Speaker 2:Right. No spaces, no breaks. Just beyondthepage
Speaker 1:Just one little dot.
Speaker 2:So that's for your education.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Beyond that, what I really want to invite listeners to do is to make sure you get yourself some neurodiversity training, whether it's with us or someplace else, do it. ICF is starting to add some resources on their page. If you'd like resources, you can reach out to us, we can tell you what we have available and refer you as we know other places show up. But commit to yourself to get this training for yourself to understand executive function, motivation and how people process information.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm gonna start with,
Speaker 2:And the third thing I would say is go back to your school, wherever you went to school, and encourage them to start incorporating it into their training.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I jumped the gun. I didn't realize you had so many great things to say. That's perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 2:This would be my three things.
Speaker 1:They go back to the school.
Speaker 2:Ask for it, get it for yourself. Start with us, download this free gift and let us guide you through your process, whatever that is for you.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. And the best way to reach you,
Speaker 2:Well if you start with impact parents.com/ beyondthepage, that will invite you into our community. You can also reach us at impactparents.com or email the team@impactparents.com and that will get to me.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:If you want me, it'll have to go through the Brit filter, but she'll get it to me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I have my filters too. Aren't they great? But they're not gatekeepers.
Speaker 2:You know, I never thought about the fact that the woman who staffs the team at Impact, her name is Brit. So we really are doing a filter. It's like a Britta filter. Never thought about that before.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was waiting where you were going with that one. Oh man.
Speaker 2:It's like a bad, bad joke. Sorry about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know. My husband did one of those yesterday. We passed a construction site and they removed everything except the porta-potty. So he said, I guess they didn't give a_____. Yeah. Really bad but we have to have some humor in our lives.
Speaker 2:We do.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Well, and I don't want tomake light of this. This is a very important topic and you haven't made light of it, but you've shed light on it. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. Yeah. Well I have to tell you, I've recently been introduced to a mental health comedian and which I love. And, what I realized in my community, I think the reason parents are so comfortable in my community is because yes, it's serious and if we don't laugh, we're gonna make ourselves crazier. So we need to find a way to be with these heavy topics, with an appropriate balance of seriousness and levity and I make a big effort at doing that. So that's where some of the comedy comes in.
Speaker 1:I'm just picturing a standup comic who does, you know, they used to do racist and they used to do this and now they're just doing neurodiverse jokes.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, just the thought of that is like, okay,.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to meet this guy.
Speaker 1:So if there was, we'll see. Elaine, thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. Absolute delight. Thank you. Thank you for writing for us. Thank you for speaking with us and taking it beyond the page. Oh my goodness. I've learned so much again both from the article and from doing this. It's why I love doing this job. I understand it's not really a job because I never will retire. That's another topic for somebody else. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. I understand we're on all kinds these days and growing, so thank you to all our listeners and enjoy. Don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button. I'm Garry Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery.