Description
Join Dr. Regan for the third episode of a four part series on regulation and dysregulation on the autism spectrum. This episode focuses on strategies for recovering from dysregulated states.
As referenced in the podcast:
Exhaustion in Autism: Balancing Momentum for Daily Activities
Gaining Momentum for Activities: Shifting from Sluggish to Active
Keeping Momentum for Activities on the Autism Spectrum
Dr. Regan's Resources
Book: Understanding Autism in Adults and Aging Adults, 2nd ed
Audiobook
Book: Understanding Autistic Behaviors
Autism in the Adult website
Resources for Clinicians
Transcript of Episode
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Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the podcast,
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autism in the adult,
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I am your host,
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Dr Theresa Regan.
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I am a neuropsychologist,
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which means that I specialize in understanding how the brain impacts things like thinking,
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skills,
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emotions,
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behavior and personality.
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I'm the founder and director of an adult diagnostic autism clinic in central Illinois.
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And today we have the third episode in a series of four on the topic of regulation and dysregulation on the autism spectrum.
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In the first episode,
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we defined these terms where regulation is feeling just right in the area of alertness,
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attention and calm, and dysegulation is feeling too high or too low in these areas and when someone is not feeling centered with their emotions,
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they might have a fight, flight, or freeze reaction, and the freeze reactions might include shutting down,
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they might include physical expressions of stress, or what we call dissociation.
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Dissociation could include things like forgetting periods of time or feeling disconnected from the body or feeling that things around us are not real.
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In the first episode,
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we also reviewed that within the autism spectrum,
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dysregulation is more common than for those with different neurology.
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In the second episode of this series,
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we talked about how to reduce the number and intensity of dysregulation episodes by taking care of the nervous system on a daily basis using things like sensory inputs and other strategies and also watching how intense a life schedule the person is diving into.
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For our third episode,
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our focus will be on what to do when dysregulation hits.
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We all have dysregulated states... for the person on the spectrum,
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they may be more likely to have these and, even when we do all that we can do to support the nervous system,
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we're going to have periods where we're really not just right with regard to alertness or attention or emotional status.
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So when someone is dysregulated,
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they might appear to be sluggish or have difficulty getting going or unmotivated.
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That would be when their motor is running too low in the area of alertness and activation.
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This type of dysregulation is covered in previous episodes about exhaustion and autism, and momentum within autism.
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And I will