hello and welcome to navigate autism with jane lynn i'm your host jane lynch britain today i'm introducing you to a new format of navigate autism because i wanted to bring you more information in a fresh and fun way so creating four segments the first is did you know there's so many things happening in the world of autism that i wanted to share with you that i'm reading about learning about even staying on facebook and so i thought to be really fun to talk about that together i'm also going to bring you into my kitchen where you've done that before but i want to share with you the so many different tips that i have for not only cooking healthy meals in the recipes amusing but even ways that i'm able to encourage my son william to help me out and even clean up in the kitchen so yes you're going to be able to see him a little bit more as well i'm also going to have a special guest during each show because they are doing amazing things are so many people contributing in helping families and children with autism so i want to spread the word and we can learn from them i'm also going to ask each one like i usually do to please share one tip that they can do right now that you can do right now to help your child with autism no matter where you are in the world and then finally i'm going to do a segment called ask jane land because i want to be able to answer some of your questions you can send them in to me send me an e mail and i'll answer them on air i've been inspired to do this because often i'll get questions from parents and what i see is that we think that we are unique our challenges are unique but i see that they're not we're al similar and we face the same challenges and there are lots of things that i've learned from the last seventeen years of working with my son that i can help and share and when i do i see how that helps these parents so i want to share that with you through the segment ask jane listen so sit back and have fun and welcome to this new and improved version of navigate autism with ja welcome to my first segment of did you know in this segment i like to share information that i've been reading about learning about even seeing on facebook but my first one i want to share with you what literally has been the bible in my home which is nourishing traditions it is as you can see it's all a dog ear the pages but nourishing traditions and this by the west in price the reason it's been our bible is we noticed when my son was three years old that there was a direct connection with everything that he ate and his health his behavior his intestinal system because literally thirty minutes later he would go to the bathroom we were on a journey to figure out how to help him he had three years of collide us and from that journey and many many many years of research we've learned the direct correlation of what you eat and how you feel and how you behave and there are many resources out there you may have your favorite but i want to share with you mine and this is literally like i said our bible it's nourishing traditions so just to give you an idea of some of the things that we love to read about are the many many different minerals that you can that our children should be getting some sort of amount during the day it could be so let me in molybdenum silicon been eighty amazing now if you're a parent of a child with autism you've heard of these before but what i love about this book is tell us if you can see all the highlights it tells you exactly what they are and how they contribute and help your child's body this this whole journey of healing our children through food and through vitamins and minerals i difficult because there's so much information we don't know what to do that's why you want to have a good resource now there's also a lot of information in terms of how they use the great many rolls and foods that you are reading about into recipes there are come to choose that you can make there are beef stocks and broth and as well as those may not sound tasty here but there are lots of recipes and lots of tasty things that you can find and try for you and your family and i'll promise you you will not to be unhappy if you do decide to invest your time in reading this as well as in buying it now there are many places you can find it we went to our local bookstore you can also find it online amazon dot com if you're interested so i hope that this has been helpful for you and that you will find a way whether it's through this book or not to help nourish you and your family he doesn't get the exercise that most other kids get i don't want to help give him energy help burn calories not just eat tons of carbohydrates this is the way to do that so what i like to do i baked potato i can just sprinkle on the nutritional used but often cut no oil mix it together it literally tastes like eating a baked potato with butter if you like butter now i will tell you if you are or you may taste the difference but to me and to many other people there really is very little difference and you get so many great health that's from it so i humbly reckon that so if you're looking for a way to increase your child's protein and increase your child's health look no further one thing i forgot to mention is and now we're going to find george mcculloch is executive director of princeton t everything you've done for and for me for navigate autism because without him this whitney even be possible and so thank you oh you're more than welcome i feel like your program is one of the most important programs we produce thank you thank you i really appreciate about it but the great thing is when i first came to meet george to pitch the idea you know i was nervous but he already had a little bit of background with autism and as you heard he thinks it's a really valuable show so i was really happy to feel that i'm you so this is where george works he's like the head of the brains of the operation very flexible to work with really always supporting any idea including this idea stand out to me are the ones where you bring in holistic health to treat people with autism to come and to give folks with autism a lot more focus and i think they're very very important programs and funding to families with kids with autism what happens when the kid with autism transitions into an adult what services are available with that's a really great question and it does vary from state to state in new jersey we're really fortunate to have i think some of the better services here there's a lot that has to take place first you have to look at actually getting guardianship for this for your child which opens up the possibility of social security and medicaid and that can then support you and there's different organizations that could help you get special housing as well as look for a job but there's there's a lot of the really great question there's a lot it's all home isn't it it is it really is it may be a good topic for a future show and i think so i think so because i think that's one of the best things that we can do is to society is to take care of people who need help more sort of than a lot of the other stuff we spend money on and i agree i agree as always you have a lot of great input and support so then here you're welcome so now i'm here w mark him back and he has been one of my directors he has given me lots of great employer into designing much as well as he's great at helping me at it my show so this market in  market thank you for everything that you've done because not only have you helped me by being in the studio and giving me direction like how to sit and what to do but look at that though even that angles and how to speak to the audience but you've really been great at editing my shows and and now you're teaching me how to do that so that's really great it helps me as a producer because i know how to  creative knowing all the different things like inducing bank you for all your help oh absolutely that's the kind of our role here is to help teach people how to you know make your shows pretty much by themselves the ultimate goal is to graduate people to eventually start editing their own shows at some point or another and i'm happy to say that you are actually one of the fastest learners i've seen  a well thank you for that but the great thing is you're still here and you're very nice but i ask when i have questions because even still have lots of questions i thank you for the show because a lot of people i think sort of fall into the trap of kind of just doing the same thing over and over and over again and i think you do a really good job of implementing new segments or different types of  more of that and so i have a question for you actually love to have after helping me for a year and watching my show for a year is there anything about autism that you've learn i think it's more the support structure behind you know people that live with autism that i think surprised me and i think it's just good to know that there is this a prescription are in place because i  used to know a girl when i was a kid who had down syndrome and she you know my heart really went out to her because i was just like i have no idea how her mom was going to just live life because she was a single mom and you know it just seeing the struggles that people go through was you know pretty heartbreaking but to know that there is this support structure and hopefully this for sure will improve through your efforts partly and also through other people suffer i'll thank you what you've had the opportunity to meet so many of our guests and we've had one thousand shows so far that all of them have had multiple guests in some cases and it's that's one reason i like to do this is to share just how many people are out there doing incredible things for families and for autism and especially in general because you don't we don't realize and we want to feature them to sort of to bring people together so that those services can meet the families in need and the children in need so i love that observation and is actually i was just curious to one final question if there was any question about autism that you have the answer because we all have so many but if there's any question with that i don't really have a specific question i mean because the the funny thing is that if i did have any questions prior to your show being made here most of them most of them have actually been already been answered through a lot of your shows oh wow fantastic so i'm glad we could do that and it well i think if you ever have a question or if you hear of others i love to learn what people are thinking and wondering about  we can incorporate that but also some questions we can't answer but some we can and i love that you've been able to get a lot of that clarity from watching that get out to some so thank you thank you very much for joining me m know you were one of the first people i met when i came to even talk to george about creating a show and from from your excitement and your energy i really felt like this is something i wanted to do so thank you for your welcome and the five remember correctly my grandson was here and actually i filmed him interviewing my wife so very exciting day it was right and it gave me a chance to see it like what you want to do and how it works and you know how easy it is because i've never done it before or you're doing a great job of it oh thank you go well it really helps to have your support and everyone else who works here because you all make it so easy but it just so i want to thank you and i know that you've you have a little bit of background with autism but is there anything person to to do that ok and although we feel that perhaps we couldn't handle it i think if each and every one of us were put in that position we reach inside ourselves and do what we have to do you're absolutely ok and of course if we knew the answer to that we'd probably come up with some sort of cure you know so it's it's unfortunate but it makes me appreciate having seven grandchildren you know the possibility is always there it's can't predict it always grateful that you know the grandchildren are healthy and and we don't have these challenges that somebody people do have well that's what we're looking for i'll each of us out how we can help with her issues i'm a mother of a three and nine month old boy with autism he likes to chew on everything toys coins batteries i want to help him and stop him from doing that what can i do and this is from an elisa and elisa my heart goes out here because i know what it's like my son used to chew on everything too in fact he still does a little bit but literally he would take his pajamas that were coated with flame retardant because as a mother you think that's a protective thing to do for your child but he would chew on it and suck on it so he was sucking on all the arsenic so whether it's pajamas or coins or batteries or anything else everything that our children pick up everything and put it in their mouth and we know that's not healthy and it causes some stress within us right so i feel your pain and these are some of the things that we did first i want to understand why is he doing it and what i've learned is that our children experience life through their mouth they put everything in their mouth to get a sense of how it feels how it tastes it's a sensory need that they have and so how can we help your son continue to experience life but by putting things that are healthier in this now also maybe there is some input need so if there's a chilling going on he's mashing his teeth and i know because i've seen this for the seventeen years with william that he sometimes just craves that pushing is like a squeeze on his teeth on his mouth so again how can we help your son get that some of the things we did with with william is first and foremost and this can be the most challenging part is you just need to get totally calm and comfortable because your son is going to be ok and when you come from a place of being calm and relaxed your son is going to relax and then he's going to respond better to you more easily to whatever you ask then even though he's so young explain hey that's not healthy putting the battery in your mouth of that coin in your mouth so let's find something that's better for you and that gives you what you need start talking about things like gives you what you need that tells him you know he's doing it for a reason and he's excited he's going to trust you to help him figure that out so now you offer him things that are better for its mouth there are things that people actually make their product companies that make chew toys which are that that foamy rubber that are made specifically for chewing they have different sizes different textures so many different very different colors and you'll find one that your son really likes some or even like a bracelet or or a necklace so you don't lose that all the time if that doesn't work or if it does you may want some alternatives gum perhaps when it gets a little bit older also some healthier food items that are crunchy because that gives some of that feedback like celery or carrots even if you don't think he's going to like it he must that doesn't sit around love eating celery but he loves the crunch and the feel of the celery i'd much rather him be chewing on that than something else so first start by getting comfortable yourself knowing there's a reason you're going to figure it out you're going to help your son and when you come down he will and then look for safer options not necessarily taking things out of his mouth all the time because i thought that's not going to fix what's going on he's got this need and once you help him get that need you'll actually see that he needs it less so find an alternative that works for you and that works for him and i hope that's been helpful for you and for those of you who would like to ask me a question please send me an e mail and i would be very happy to read it on the air and give you some of my best tips and tricks that have worked for us over the years thank you for joining me for the first episode of this new and improved version of navigate autism with jane list has been a lot of fun for me and i love bringing you more information in a fresh fun way and speaking of fun i wanted to end by telling you something that i've learned that is really the secret to life the secret to happiness i've learned that if we have fun not only are we happy and everything kind of moves more easily but we notice that our children are having fun and they're learning more so for so many years i tried really hard to get things done to accomplish things to teach william to learn more to reach over his head to interact to be social whatever it was and i tried tried tried and i was successful to some extent but then i noticed when he started having fun because we did a game of an act or an activity or invited our neighbor who then became his best friend and we started doing learning type activities but in a fun way guess what the kids were having fun they were laughing they were learning they were growing and that's really what i want that's what i want from my life that's what i want for williams life that's what i want for you so i wanted to share that with you really like with my biggest tip today is the key to life to happiness and to learning is to have fun so i'm going to suggest that you build that into your day and your child's day every day thank you for joining me to look forward to seeing you next time on navigate autism with jane listen and in the meantime go have some fun