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My name is Rob Gorski and you're listening to The Autism Dad podcast.
This week, my guest is Amy Jacobs-Schroeder. She's the founder of Happy Ladders, a play-based skills curriculum, community, and coaching platform created to empower parents of children with developmental needs, including autism. She's also the author of the Parent-Led Revolution.
Amy spent the last two decades providing in-home autism services to families the latter half was focused solely on a parent-led model through her own agency before creating happy ladders Amy's here today to talk to us about what happy ladders is and also uh what the parent-led approach the parent-led model is why it's beneficial how it works what how is it different from like regular standard aba or other types of interventions and services they think any time you can empower parents to help their kids or you provide them with the tools they need to manage things on their own I think that's really really important.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Thank you, Amy, for taking the time to come on the show and talking to us about Happy Ladders and Parent-Led Revolution, and everything else that you're doing to help empower parents to take care of some of these things at home. Could you just take a couple of minutes or a couple of seconds or whatever, and just tell us a little bit about who you are?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: I am the creator of Happy Ladders and I also have a blog called Parent-Led Revolution. It's a culmination of my 20 plus years experience in the field of ABA and autism. I started over 20 years ago as a young tutor, working with kids at a specialized school and through the course of the last two decades, I have worked through in-home programs. I owned my own agency for almost 15 years, providing services to children in their homes, as well as working very closely with their parents.
In the last year, we've launched Happy Ladders, taking a new twist on a lot that I've learned and that I found super helpful over the years. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that I'm a mom of five and through the course of my work, I've been raising five very different, very fun kids, but I've learned a lot, not just about children, but also about parenting. You know, what can really happen in a day, what's realistic, how to give ourselves some grace and really try to marry those two things with Happy Ladders...being a parent, and also having a child on the autism spectrum.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): The giving your self grace thing is really hard to remember or you can remember it, but it's a whole other thing to like put it into practice, you know? Because parents are so hard on themselves, and autism parents specifically, are really hard on themselves. So I like that. What is it about working with kids…what draws you to doing that?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: That's a great question. I've always enjoyed working with kids. My mother was a teacher for almost 30 years and I watched her run a classroom and thought, oh, well maybe I don't want to be a teacher. And then I looked at how much she did in the evenings and on the weekends. And I was like, no way, that is way too much work. And she loves that story because, she did, she worked all the time.
I graduated college with two bachelor's degrees, one in child development and one in psychology. And went, huh,..well,..what can I do with this? And right about that time, I started to learn about ABA and I started to take coursework to become certified. I just kind of fell into this, this field of working with kids with autism and I've never left.
I have worked with some of the most amazing kids and really just enjoyed being a part of their growth, but also getting to know their parents and being a part of their lives.
I've been welcomed into hundreds of homes over the years and I'm always just amazed how, how great people are about that because having people come into your home and work with your child is extremely intrusive and still something I ask myself, "could I ever do that?" And these parents did just stay after day and we're just always so great and so eager to learn.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): That's really cool. I do agree, and you're the first person I've actually heard say that it is intrusive to have someone come into your house, especially when you have an autistic child because it disrupts the flow of the day. I remember when my kids were little, I think we had one therapist that would come into the home and it was for a relatively short period of time over the last 20 years that we talked about. But it was, it was very disruptive, and it was, it was hard on the parents, too, but it was also very beneficial in the time that we needed it. So as a parent, I appreciate that you do that. And that you've done that. That's a powerful thing. And it's appreciated.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Well, they did all the work, I had the easy part. Going into people's homes, I don't know how many times I said, don't worry about doing the dishes. I don't care. I don't. I'm not looking to see what's picked up and what's not because people would spend too much time and energy on those types of things when that's really not where, where we needed them to focus or where their time was best spent.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): So if you guys hear that, don't worry about the dishes if someone's coming over to help you with your kids, you're not there to judge.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Exactly, exactly.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): So, before we get into Happy Ladders, can we talk a little bit about why ABA is so important as far as early intervention is concerned for helping kids with autism or autistic kids to thrive?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yeah, that's a big question. That's a big loaded question, right? ABA is under so much fire in, the last handful of years and, and some of that I think rightfully so. I can only speak from my own experience and I have found some of the principles of ABA so helpful in teaching my clients over the years, but beyond the work that I do with my clients, I find it helpful in life. I mean, I use it all the time. I use it on myself. I use it with my kids. It's just embedded into the way that I think. I've written about this in a couple of blog posts on Parent-Led Revolution and one of my best, as I call them, kind of tricks in my backpack is the "first, then." First, we do this and then we can do this.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: It's super simple, right? But it's so powerful. And we find ourselves using it a lot with our toddler...first dinner, then dessert. That's the most obvious example, but I use it all the time, and in my work first do the thing that I really don't want to do. So then I can do the thing that I'm kind of looking forward to doing, setting things up in an order that sets us up for success gives us that reinforcement. So there are some principles within ABA that I've just found so helpful and continued to weave those through the Happy Ladders curriculum.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): What is the parent-led approach to ABA? How is that different? What happens with the parent-led approach?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: With a parent-led approach, the professional comes in and teaches the parent to be the child's main educator. Another way that it's described is parent-as-practitioner, and the major advantages that we've seen is that, parents are over time, definitely with time, completely empowered. They feel like they understand their child a lot better. They have some basic tools in their toolkit that they can use, they understand their child's strengths and their needs, and where they need to go with their therapy. With a parent-led approach, consistency is a lot better right, because parents see their kids every single day.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Every day, especially on the days in Ohio when it's minus 15 and the school's called off for the second time this week.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yes. Every day! There are things keeping our kids out of school out here in California, but we are grateful that weather is not...
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Weather. Isn't one of them.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: No, no. We're doing okay in that department. So but we have smoke days instead, so that's our issue. But yeah, so consistency is huge, right? With some of the more traditional programs, cancellations are a big issue, especially in this time of COVID, there might be some people that come out that are great and well trained and super motivated, but maybe not, maybe you get somebody who is new to the field and is still learning and they've been assigned to your child. And so consistency is, is much more variable. With parent-led, as we said, they are there every day and we can get to work.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): When you teach the parents, parents are really good at finding ways to apply things to everyday life, you know? So they can blend it into their daily routine without it being as disruptive. And maybe kids can learn without realizing that they're learning, you know?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: That's the whole idea...
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Because It's not as structured and black and white and rigid. It's just, let's learn as we go. And they're learning from mom or dad, right? You don't have that other person there that maybe some kids don't like to work with. Other people they want to be with mom and dad. You know, and some parents don't want their kids to work with other people. They want to work with their kids themselves. I mean, so it's, it seems like it's a really interesting approach to intervention.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: And that's a great point. I think, especially, for toddlers, that's the case for both, the child and the parent. Toddlers aren't ready to, to be exposed to a large group of people. And parents definitely aren't ready often to expose their toddler to a large group of people. If we can get a lot of work done at home, and as you mentioned, within those functional routines during bath time, during meal times at the park. As parents start to learn what they need to look for and how they can target certain skills, the idea is that that therapy quote unquote is really just embedded into everyday opportunities. And hopefully, if we're doing things right, our kids don't even know that they're doing any sort of work, they're just having fun.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): That's a good approach. That would've definitely helped my kids because they always picked up on if they were being directly taught something and it wasn't hands-on, it's kinda like hiding vegetables in the soup or something, right? You just disguise it. I will blend things up to it's like, you can't see it, but I know it's there because I put it there. The kids don't have to know it's there because they don't see it and yet they still get what they need without realizing they're getting what they need. And that got me through a lot when they were younger, I'm a little smarter now, but I guess it's sort of the point. You can disguise that learning inside of everyday activities so it just becomes a part of life and it's probably less stressful for everyone I would think, you can just incorporate it into your everyday routine and that's a positive thing.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yeah. When I'd say another benefit of parent-led is that it strengthens that bond between the child and the parent, because so many parents, especially early on in the diagnosis process don't know what to do. They're having a hard time figuring out how to connect with their child.
So many of these activities that we've, that are part of Happy Ladders are just fun. They're silly, they're goofy. I might just be kind of rolling around on the floor and working on some who can build their block tower the fastest and knock it over, and there are all sorts of skills that we can embed into an activity like that. But the more opportunities parents have to, kind of access their own kids, I think the better for everybody. Another advantage to a parent-led approach is that not all families have access to in-home programs or center-based programs.
And we're seeing, especially through COVID, that even if they do have access, say they're in an area that can provide these types of programs, the waiting lists are so long. They're so long right now. I built Happy Ladders for toddler age. And toddlers don't have a lot of time to waste. So, so when you recognize that your child is falling behind and they're 18 months old and you want to get early intervention, you can't sit on waiting lists for six or nine months. Not only is that not beneficial to the child, but I feel for all these parents who just have to be so anxious and so worried, and that's kind of a new element that I had never really dealt with in my profession until we hit COVID. And until I realized how many people are waiting. We have to give parents something that they can do in the meantime because they can't just sit and wait for the phone to ring for somebody to say, we have a spot for you.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Yeah. And a lot of times you can't even access the services until you have a diagnosis. That process has been delayed significantly as a result of COVID. So, now you're on two waiting lists. So even if you get the diagnosis, you're still on a waiting list for services. But if you can employ these things at home on your own, then you're not losing time, you're able to make progress while you're waiting. You know, it makes hurry up and wait practical or, or less frustrating. It's a lot of hurry up and waiting in this game. I've been there.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: We really hope to give parents something that they can, that they can do in the meantime, at the very least. And it's a program that they could do in lieu of having, an in-home ABA program too. Doesn't have to be just be while they're waiting. They could also continue with their Happy Ladders program concurrently once their child starts an outside program. It really can be done in a lot of different ways.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): We keep talking about Happy Ladders without really talking about Happy Ladders. So let's talk about Happy Ladders. What what is Happy Ladders?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Happy ladders is an online program for parents. They basically go in, they sign up and they take a series of short assessments to figure out exactly where they a child falls in terms of their current skills.
We look at communication, we look at play skills and we look at self-help skills. Kids with developmental needs, generally have what we call splinter skills. They're not going to be scoring at the same age, or at the same skill level across the board.
So they might be really strong in play skills and, and a little bit lower in communication skills or their communication skills might be pretty high, but their play skills need, more catch and so Happy Ladders assesses each of those air areas separately. And then parents are sent a personalized set of lessons that they can start on at any time.
And they get to work at their own pace. So they pick maybe a couple communication lessons to work on, and a few play lessons to work on and, maybe a self-help skill that they want to target.
They're all developmentally sequenced. And so their child gets to start exactly where they're at and move from that point forward. There's no expectation as far as how long a lesson should take. So some lessons parents might get through in a few days, some they might work on for a few weeks, or a few months. And that really depends too on kind of the skill itself and how difficult it is.
It's completely, self-paced, there's no expectation about you need to, work this many hours a day. A lot of this is just going to be embedded into their, their everyday activities, things that they're already doing. They're already spending time sitting at the side of the bathtub for a half an hour every night, right. How can we make that a learning opportunity? How can we help a child progress during...
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Oh, I like that. I used to do this thing on my blog. I called it Everyday Lessons. And I totally forgot about that until we were talking about this. It was just everyday things that would pop up that I could use as teaching moments to help my kids be better prepared for all the insanity that's outside of the house. So I personally like that approach and it's doable, right? You can fit it into your schedule and you can do it at home. And, that's a cool thing. Nothing like that was available every time I talk to somebody like this, all these things did not come out until I was 20 years into this process. And I wish, I wish there were things like this available when, when I was starting out because I can just see the benefits of having these services and things available to us 20 years ago, you know?
I hope that you guys are listening, and especially the people who are just starting, there's a lot of advantage to employing these things that are available now. Technology has made things so much easier, because you can do things remotely, virtually, or an app on your phone and none of that stuff was available. It was waiting in line for appointments. And so this is really cool. I think you mentioned the age group was you're targeting like toddlers with Happy Ladders?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yeah. So, we're targeting toddlers who have maybe recently been diagnosed, or even if a parent is just seeing some signs and they're suspect that maybe their child will get a diagnosis. A lot of times parents will have an older child who has been diagnosed with autism and they have a younger child that they're watching really closely and maybe they just want to make sure that they're kind of keeping up with where they need to be.
But the skills are based on skills that we would see between zero and three years of age developmentally. Essentially any child that's falling into that developmental range would find lessons in Happy Ladders that are helpful.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Does Happy Ladders offer anything in the way of support groups for parents to connect and maybe like,...Hey, I used this method to help my kids learn to tie their shoes or whatever, maybe share their experiences so they can even kind of learn from each other?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yes, definitely. And, and that's so important because Happy Ladders is an online program, right? So there's not going to be so someone that comes in and helps guide you and show you and model what things are going to look like.
And so what we've done is we've built this community of parents, a private community within the program where parents can ask questions about certain lessons or say, "Hey, I, tried this lesson at this time with these toys. And it was really successful and my kid loved it," or another parent might be able to say, "I tried this and it fell flat, give me some help." And so myself, and the parent-led professionals that are in the program, as well as other parents can chime in and say, "Hey, try it this way," or "that's a great idea. I'm gonna give that a shot tonight.
So the community of parents is really beneficial. In addition to that,
We have a level (Platinum Plan) where parents can get what we call Office Hours. And those office hours are, are group zoom classes. Right now we're holding them twice a week where parents can log on and ask those same questions, share any concerns. From time to time, we'll have a theme that we'll be talking about. And so they can, they can come on for at, and for some families, they might just want to listen and they'll be recorded, righs, so they can go back and, and listen to anything that they missed. With with our third level beyond the office hours, there's also one-to-one support. So for a family that's just starting out and maybe really wants someone to be available to them. One-On-One we have that option, as well.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): There was something very beneficial to me when I, when I started writing and people started reading it and finding what I was saying or sharing to be very helpful for them...it empowered me. It made me feel good. Like, what I was going through, even the really rough times, the difficult challenges there was something positive coming from that. And so there's something empowering just to be said about parents helping other parents. Yeah. That can help to just make you feel a little bit better about your day or feeling empowered. I just wanted to mention that, because that was one of the things that kind of caught my attention.
When you were talking about the parent groups, there's a lot of emotional support that you can get just by helping other people, you know? And when parents have the ability to do that in a safe place where there's not trolls and being judged and whatever...That can really, really be a positive thing.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: That's our hope...getting that validation that, "Hey, I do have something to offer and maybe I do kind of know what I'm talking about."
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): "Hey, that's a good idea, you know?"
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: We'll throw out different recommendations or, or tips on things and parents will go, "oh, that's a great idea!" And it still catches me off guard like, oh, really? You think I have a good idea? And I've been using a lot of these for years and years, but it still feels good to have somebody say, "oh, I hadn't thought about it that way." And it does. It makes you feel like, okay, I, I know what I'm talking about. I can do this.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): It builds confidence. You know, because a lot of parents in, in this position, you doubt yourself. And, when someone can say, "oh man, like that was such a good idea. I tried that at home. And it made all a difference in the world." You feel really good about yourself. Because you contributed to something positive and sometimes that's enough to help you get through those really bad days. It's totally kind of unrelated to all this. I just wanted to bring that up only because I think that's something that we don't focus on enough in this community is just parents helping other parents and, and having an avenue with which to do that is a very powerful tool to help, people build confidence and feel better about whatever. So I do like that.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yeah. Well there's, there's a concept called behavioral momentum and what you were saying made me think of it. Sometimes we just need a small win in order to feel like we're gonna have a good day, right? Like there's time where things are just adding up and you're just kind of in a deficit and you just need a win, like just give me a small win! And it doesn't have to be a big thing. S"ometimes it's my kids doing something really, really minor, but it makes me realize, okay, we're moving in the right direction." And that's kind of all I need to just keep moving.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): It just balances the scales, you know? It just puts a little bit of win, like a little bit of wind in your sails and you can just kind of keep going...and it doesn't have to be anything grand. You don't have to win the lottery. Although, I mean, who doesn't want to win the lottery? But just that little bit of reassurance or that little bit of validation can really make a difference. And again, not totally related to any of this, but just think you're providing an opportunity for parents to benefit and experience that, so I just wanted to point that out.
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Yeah. Thanks. We hope so.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Where do you hope to see Happy Ladders like five years from now?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: Oh my gosh. That's a great question…
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Like helping older, like older kids too? Moving from toddlers to...
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: We started with the toddler stage because obviously, starting at the beginning, we can, we can grow from there. And so our hope is to continue to add layers of curriculum for our early school age kids and then our middle school aged kids, and then there's so much that we can get into with adolescents and teens. You could go on and on and on. So yeah, the hope is that we continue to layer the curriculum as we go and as some of our early clients, hopefully that stick with us need more.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): Yeah. And they can just kind of continue on as their kid moves through the process, right?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: We want to continue to offer them resources as, as those kids need. So we'll, we plan to, to grow with them. As far as where else I see this all in five years and we see the, for something like this, definitely in the United States, but through our research definitely in Canada and the UK as well. And I've mentioned waiting lists and their waiting lists. I mean, gosh, if we think our waiting list are long here, they're really long. Some places you have to wait until a child is a certain an age even to get a diagnosis. So for parents that have to wait another year before they can even get that evaluation for a diagnosis to access services, we hope to capture and help more of those families, as well.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): I always like to ask this...is there one takeaway that you hope parents get from this conversation? If they can walk away with one piece of information that you feel is most important, what would that be for you?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: I really want parents to know that they're capable, that they don't have to leave all of it to the experts. They don't have to wait for the professionals to come in and make it better...that they can do a lot of this on their own and teaching them how to kind of best navigate that, that journey. And that's really the, the larger goal of Parent-Led Revolution as well, is just to demystify a lot of the things that the professionals, the tools that we've been using for years and to apply them to everyday activities.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): How can parents find out more information on Happy Ladders?
Amy Jacobs-Schroeder: They can go to happyladders.com. I also mentioned my blog, and that's at parent-led.com.
Rob Gorski (The Autism Dad): I really appreciate what you're doing to help empower parents to help their kids.The world that we live in right now is really chaotic and on a good day, there are a lot of waiting lists for diagnoses and services, and there's some places where services just aren't available.
It's really important that parents have the ability or have the tools necessary to help their kids on their own. There's something to be said about being able to incorporate therapy into everyday life. It's like learning without realizing that you're learning, so the kids get the benefit without the frustration, or without the more stringent approaches that may be available in other options. I just think it's a really positive thing.
Originally posted at: www..theautismdad.com
