Dr. Jeremy Sharp (00:00)
Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. We’ve got a clinical episode today talking about neurodiversity affirming assessment and strengths based assessment with autistic individuals. So this is a great episode. I really enjoyed it. My guest, Dr. Sarah Woods is clinical psychologist who specializes in assessment across the lifespan at the University of Washington Autism Center and in private practice at discover psychology services. She’s been a licensed psychologist for over 10 years.
She offers continuing education and training, which you will hear about on the interview, and consultation to other psychologists, providers, and grad students to help them better understand how to complete evidence-based assessments in neurodiversity-affirming and strengths-based ways. So she’s passionate about bringing communities together to better understand autism, ADHD, bipolar, and other types of neurodivergence. So we chat about lots of different things during
this interview, but like I said, we focus really on this concept of strengths-based evaluations for autistic folks. of course we do some definitions in the beginning. ⁓ We talk about what Sarah would consider neurodiversity-affirming evaluations. We talk about ⁓ what autistic strengths actually mean. We talk about how differential diagnosis can be affirming.
Then we kind of go through a reframing of both deficits and strengths, looking through a research informed lens, which I like, know, so a lot of these conversations are maybe less research heavy and more opinion heavy, but Sarah has done quite a bit of research in this area and is well aware of even more research in this area. So that frames our discussion. We also have a talk about
how we can change up our batteries and which little discussion, which measures may be most appropriate. And what else do we do? We talk about report writing. We talk about recommendations. We talk about how to not veer into toxic positivity in a strengths-based report. So lots to take away here, as usual. And I really hope that you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Sarah Woods.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (02:29)
Sarah, hey, welcome to the podcast.
Sara Woods (02:31)
Thank you. Nice to be here.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (02:33)
Yeah, thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. Been looking forward to this for a while, so I’m glad that we are here to have our conversation. This is a topic that is really, I think, interesting for a lot of folks and really important as well. I’ll start with a question that I always start with, and that is why spend your time and energy on this? Why is this important to you?
Sara Woods (02:48)
known.
Yeah, sure. I think that’s a really good question. to me, it’s really important to think about different neuro types beyond the textbook. So I think the way that our traditional textbooks and even traditional research tends to present autism and other neuro types is often deficit focused and doesn’t give us a true picture of what the experience is really like. So I think it’s important to consider direct experience.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (03:20)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (03:23)
talk to people who actually are autistic, and also look at some of the biases in the textbooks and the research and get a more accurate understanding of what it really means to be autistic and what it means to have a different neuro type.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (03:36)
Yeah, yeah, that’s well said. I have seen a lot of that conversation over the, I don’t know, maybe five, last five or 10 years, it seems like. Just kind of pushing for this exact thing, you know, being more inclusive and kind of revisiting research methods, diagnostic methods, all kinds of things, which ultimately I think is a good thing. So I’m excited to dive into all of this with you.
Sara Woods (04:01)
Yeah,
me too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:03)
As we get started, think definitions are important, especially with this term neurodiversity affirming. All the folks I’ve had on this topic, I ask for a definition because I feel like it’s a moving target in some ways. So I would love to hear from your perspective what you would consider neurodiversity affirming.
Sara Woods (04:08)
Mm-hmm.
Sure. So I think neurodiversity itself is just an accepted reality. So we just know that it’s true that there are a lot of different types of brains. But I think what gets more controversial is thinking about applying the neurodiversity paradigm to what we do. And for the neurodiversity paradigm, I look at Nick Walker’s definition. I really like that definition, which is the idea that
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:38)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (04:46)
Having lots of different types of brains is natural and valuable, so it’s good to have different ways of thinking and different ways of being. Also, the idea that there’s one right type of brain or one good way to be or good way to think is a social construct. So it’s not a biological reality that we should all be aiming for this average, typical type of brain.
And also that the social dynamics that affect other minority groups also affect neurodivergent people, including discrimination, but also opportunities for creative potential. So I think applying that to the assessment process means that we’re willing to push back against traditional ways of looking at different types of neuro types.
and we’re willing to consider strengths, we’re willing to actually collaborate with our clients and consider their own expertise. We’re also acknowledging that within the traditional textbooks and what we’ve traditionally learned, there are biases and there is a strong focus on deficits. So willing to kind of be open to pushing back on that and considering how that might affect our tools and be willing to kind of think outside the box.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (06:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’ll pick out a few things that you said just to highlight. mean, the big one that seems like this is pretty consistent is just recognizing that there are different types of brains and nothing is right or wrong necessarily. But you also mentioned the elements, I think, of what I would call like patient-led care, you know, where patients or clients are playing a pretty big role in the process, you know, in honoring their…
Sara Woods (06:12)
Yeah.
Okay.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (06:25)
experience and opinions, which seems intuitive, but it certainly has not been the case over the years in our medical.
Sara Woods (06:33)
Right, definitely. So I think collaborating with the clients involves giving them a chance to share their point of view. It involves making our processes accessible. So instead of saying that this is how it’s going to be and this is how we’re going to do the assessment, being open to different ways of sharing information, making sure that they feel comfortable, even adjusting the physical environment so that they feel comfortable.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (06:46)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (07:00)
⁓
I think it can include things like getting their feedback on our feedback. So getting an idea of how well the information seems to suit them and considering that they might have some expertise that we might not have considered as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (07:13)
Yeah, I love these examples. Yeah, I this is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re gonna get a lot of concrete examples here as we go along of how this can come up in the assessment process. So a little more background though. You we’re gonna be talking a bit about differential diagnosis and you know, we’ll have a focus on autism as well. from your perspective, how do you think differential diagnosis can be neurodiversity affirming in general?
Sara Woods (07:39)
Yeah,
I think that’s a good question. So sometimes people think of those two things as being opposed, but I really don’t think they are. I think there’s a myth that being neurodiversity affirming means just affirming whatever the client already thinks about themselves. So if they think they’re autistic, being affirming means just kind of rubber stamping that and telling them that they’re autistic. But that’s not really what being neurodiversity affirming is supposed to be.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (07:46)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (08:05)
It’s supposed to be empowering them and using your expertise to empower them and also acknowledging that all different neuro types are valuable and natural. So it’s not that autism is superior to other types of diagnoses or neuro types. So empowering them to consider other types of neuro types and working collaboratively with them to figure out what might fit both best for them, including being willing to consider that
the diagnosis or neurotype might be a little different than what they originally thought. ⁓ I think it also includes really validating their difficulties. giving them room to talk about their distress and their impairment and the struggles that they’re experiencing and also helping them to recognize their strengths because I think strengths can actually be really valuable in figuring out what diagnosis might fit for people.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (08:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I’m really glad that you are touching on this. We wrestle with this a lot. I feel like we have this conversation in our practice during testing consultation, like at least once a quarter probably, probably more often of, yeah, like does being affirming mean you literally just affirm the client’s experience and opinion? And there’s some real friction there. So I don’t know, it’s validating to hear you say that.
Sara Woods (09:05)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (09:25)
Those are not necessarily one and the same, but you can do differential diagnosis without completely agreeing with the
Sara Woods (09:28)
Yeah, definitely. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think we can apply the neurodiversity paradigm to that differential diagnosis process. So empowering them, working collaboratively with them while considering all possibilities.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (09:47)
Yeah, yeah. So a big part of this process, you alluded to this just now, is navigating how you talk about strengths and challenges and perceive strengths and perceive challenges and maybe digging into the narratives of both of those constructs. And so maybe we start with reframing some quote unquote deficits. Something that stood out to me in our
little pre podcast chat was that you have quite a bit of research I think around like some of the stereotypical again quote deficits, know related to autism that may actually not not be a deficit. So I would love to just highlight some of those research findings if you are willing to dig into that.
Sara Woods (10:33)
Yeah, sure, that sounds great. So there’s a really interesting study by Gerard et al that we can probably link in the show notes. And I think these researchers had a lot of fun. They did some playing with preschool kids ⁓ who were autistic. And they had the kids come in and gave them all kinds of toys that a lot of autistic kids like. So things that spin, things that have lights and things like that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (10:46)
Mm.
Sara Woods (10:57)
And then they observed their repetitive behavior. So they observed for lining up toys, looking at things out of the corner of their eye, sort of traditional autistic type of play. And then they counted how many times during the play activity the children did those repetitive behaviors. And then they observed them again a couple of years later when these preschoolers were five and administered a nonverbal IQ test.
and look to see if there was any link. And what they found is that there was a statistically significant link between this autistic type of play early on and nonverbal IQ later. So I think traditionally, autistic play has been framed as problematic, it’s nonfunctional, it gets in the way of better types of play.
But this research would really suggest that that’s not actually the case. It seems to me that these kids are learning through that type of play. And that is, it is an indication of cognitive skill later on.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (11:58)
Hmm. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Do you know anything about the mechanism there? You know, like what’s what’s connecting the play with the nonverbal skills? If not
Sara Woods (12:08)
I think the children are really exploring. So when they’re looking at things out of the corner of their eye, I think they’re kind of acting like little scientists. So they’re exploring how different objects relate to each other in space. They’re kind of applying their systemizing inclination to lining things up. And so I think by exploring the objects around themselves, they’re actually further developing their cognitive skills.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (12:32)
Love it, love it. You mentioned an eye contact study as well. Love to hear about that.
Sara Woods (12:36)
Yeah,
yeah, this is an interesting study as well. This is by Granny Ari et al. And in this study, they had children participate in the ADOS and they observed as we normally do on the ADOS, how much eye contact the children use and how many facial expressions they directed to each other. And then they had the children who had never met each other before.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (12:55)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (12:59)
briefly interact with each other and then rate each other according to how much they wanted to play with each other again and how much they liked each other. And what they found is that among the autistic children, those children who used less eye contact and who directed fewer facial expressions were actually more light. So I think traditionally we’re told, if you don’t make enough eye contact,
that’s a bad thing, autistic children need to be taught to make eye contact so they’ll be better liked. Even on our traditional tools like the ADOS, using reduced eye contact is called poorly modulated eye contact. ⁓ But this research shows that among certain groups of people like autistic people, using less eye contact is actually preferred. It’s a valuable thing. So I think we can think of it in terms of a cultural difference. So just like certain cultures,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (13:37)
Right.
Sara Woods (13:52)
might use less eye contact. Autistic children may prefer less eye contact as well and that’s just a different way of being. It doesn’t mean that they’re deficient in eye contact or that there’s something wrong with them.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (14:04)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it reminds me of some of the research I’ve seen that says, maybe just more generally, that the social difficulties associated with autism kind of disappear when they get around other autistic individuals.
Sara Woods (14:18)
Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (14:20)
Something around that. Yeah. And then the last one I wanted to ask you about is fascinating to me. And that’s kind of this reputation management or integrity study. That’s what I call it, you know, when I read the description. So can you share that with us too?
Sara Woods (14:33)
Yeah, I think this study is really interesting in kind of the mental gymnastics that the researchers use to frame something that seems to be clearly a strength as a deficit. ⁓ And so basically in this research, they observed how people behave privately and in public when it comes to giving. So they set up a situation where people were able to give to a good charity or a bad charity. And the bad charity actually involved
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (14:44)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (15:01)
giving money to exterminate animals. And then they set it up so if you gave money to the bad charity, you would get more money for yourself. And then they varied whether people were being observed while they were making their choice about giving or whether they thought they were in private. And then they compared autistic to non-autistic people.
And what they found is that the non-autistic people tended to change their behavior depending on whether they were being observed or not. But the non-autistic people were more consistent across whether they were observed or not. And they were very reluctant to give to the bad charity, even if it meant making money for themselves. So essentially, the autistic people seemed to show more integrity. They were more…
consistent regardless of whether anyone was watching them and they were showing a consistent ethical compass, which I think most of us would agree is a good thing, that the researchers even framed it as a bad charity. But the researchers argued that this is evidence that autistic people are too rigid and that they don’t know how to manage their reputation. So this is evidence that they don’t engage in enough reputation management. So I thought that was…
pretty problematic, but also a really good example of how traditional research assumes that autistic behavior must be bad in some way. So we must figure out some way that it’s bad and then frame it that way. An autistic science person did a really nice write-up of that study that you can read on NeuroClastic. So I thought that was interesting.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (16:36)
Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of these things are two sides of the same coin it seems like where I mean sure you could label that as rigidity or height and that’s a care
Sara Woods (16:40)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (16:45)
sometimes. you know, it’s just a different perception to say, well, that’s actually integrity, you know, and I’ve seen some literature, literature opinion, I suppose, you know, from neurodiversity affirming folks and autistic folks that are like, you know, why would I be constantly changing my behavior, depending who I interact with that feels almost like manipulative or I mean, you can argue both sides, but it’s just
Sara Woods (16:51)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (17:14)
It’s nice to see both perspectives, I think.
Sara Woods (17:16)
Yeah, and I think the thing that stands out to me about this study is the researchers themselves said that it was a bad charity. So they were setting it up as if it was bad to give to that charity, and yet they still talked about the reduced giving to the bad charity as being some indication of a problem. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (17:33)
Right, right. Yeah, that’s interesting just in itself.
So any other, you know, common, again, like quote unquote deficits that we can perhaps reframe based on some of the research before we transition to talking about strengths.
Sara Woods (17:50)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. I have a couple other examples. One is a really interesting study that I like to call the stimming study by Stephen Capp et al. Stephen Capp is an autistic researcher who’s been cited something like over 10,000 times. He’s done a ton of research. And so traditionally, when we talk about repetitive behaviors like rocking and flapping of hands and things like that,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (17:59)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (18:15)
People have talked about that as problematic and suggested that we want to reduce that type of repetitive behavior, mostly because it looks unusual. But these researchers wanted to find out, well, is there a purpose to this behavior? Is it really non-functional or is there some type of purpose? And so they did something that shouldn’t be unusual, but actually kind of is, which is they asked autistic people.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (18:17)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Sara Woods (18:39)
Why are you doing this behavior? What is this like for you when you’re engaging in this behavior? And what they found through the themes is that overall autistic people can be overwhelmed by certain types of sensory input. And so many times they engage in that repetitive behavior because it actually serves as a way of regulating themselves. So it has a definite purpose and it’s not harming anyone else.
They did share that sometimes they’ve received negative reactions socially. But overall, there’s nothing harmful about flapping your hands or rocking back and forth or engaging in other repetitive behavior. And when we talk to people about why they’re doing that, we find out it has a purpose and it’s a very meaningful and good purpose. So it’s really not a problem. And so what I would recommend that clinicians do is don’t tell parents to try to get their kids to stop stimming.
figure out why they’re doing it, understand it, and make room for them to use the coping strategies that work for them.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (19:39)
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, again, it seems intuitive when you say it, but this is not the way that we’ve approached it historically. Right?
Sara Woods (19:44)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. And I
think it comes back to this idea that anything that’s autistic must be bad or anything that looks different must be bad in some way. You must try to make autistic people be more neurotypical because that’ll be better for them. And that’s really not the case.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (20:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I want to ask this question. I kind of wrestle with where to put it in the interview, but this seems like as good a place as any. Just how you think through what I would say are probably real societal expectations for behavior in certain settings. And I’m just curious, from your perspective, how do you reconcile
Sara Woods (20:25)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (20:31)
that with some traditionally autistic behaviors that may not fit. Stimming during a job interview traditionally may not help your case. Again, a clumsy question here, but hopefully you see what I’m getting at. I’m just curious how you think through this.
Sara Woods (20:46)
Yeah,
yeah, think that’s good question and a good point because we don’t necessarily want to send the message that you should just engage in whatever behavior you want anywhere and there’ll be no consequence for that. But I think we can examine with our clients and with parents of children what is the function of the behavior and weigh the pros and cons in different situations. And I think we can think about it like a cultural difference.
and tell children, you know, in this type of setting, you might get this type of reaction if you do this behavior. In this other setting, you might get this type of reaction and sort of guide them through making the decisions. And so if we know, for example, that at a job interview that somebody is not going to want to flap their hands a lot or that they might do a little bit better if they, you know, engage in certain types of neurotypical behavior,
we might tell them that they could choose to do that, that they might get a better response. But also sometimes it can be helpful to disclose someone’s identity. There is some research to suggest that when autistic people disclose that they’re autistic, they’re actually seen more favorably than if they don’t disclose because people have a way of framing their behavior instead of just assuming that they’re doing something unusual for no reason or that they’re creepy or something like that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (22:07)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (22:07)
So I
think it comes down to kind of thinking about cultural differences. So when you’re in this neurotypical culture, you might want to tweak things and here’s what might happen if you do. But it’s also, there’s nothing wrong with your natural way of being. And along with that, I think it’s helpful for autistic people to be around other autistic people, to be around other people who might have the same ways of interacting and having conversations as them. So I think that’s important for both children and adults.
And I can share some research about the double empathy problem if you think that would be interesting too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (22:41)
I would love to hear about that. Yeah.
Could we maybe define it first and then share the research?
Sara Woods (22:45)
Yeah.
Yeah. So the double empathy problem is the idea that autistic people and non-autistic people both have difficulty understanding each other. So traditionally we’ve thought or the textbooks have suggested that autistic people are lacking in theory of mind or that they’re lacking in empathy and they don’t know how to understand non-autistic people.
But as we’ve done more research on interactions between autistic people and non-autistic people, we figured out that there can be some misunderstandings that go both ways. So it’s not that autistic people are deficient, it’s just that there can be different ways of understanding each other. And so I think if I give you an example from research of how this plays out, it’ll make it a little bit clearer.
Catherine Crompton and her team has done a bunch of research on the double empathy problem, of in demonstrating how it plays out in experiments. And it was originally created by Damian Milton, who’s an autistic researcher. yeah, Catherine Crompton et al did a really interesting study that I like to call the telephone study, because it’s kind of like that game of telephone that you probably played when you were a kid, where you whisper a secret around, whoops, to a whole group and then…
the secret travels around the group and then you see how well the information was transmitted to the end of the group. ⁓ And so basically in this study, they gave people a really complicated story about a bear and they had the message travel down different chains of groups. So one of the chains was all autistic people. One of the chains was non-autistic and autistic people mixed together.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (24:09)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (24:27)
And one of the chains was all non-autistic people. And so what we would expect if autistic people are bad communicators is that, you know, the information would travel very poorly down the autistic chain, right? But that’s not what they found. What they found is that the information traveled just as well down the autistic chain as the non-autistic chain, but where the difficulty came up was when there was a mixed group.
So when there were non-autistic and autistic people mixed together, there was more difficulty with transmitting the information. And so that suggests that it’s not that autistic people are deficient in communicating. It’s just that there are differences between non-autistic and non-autistic people. And they may need to put forth a little bit more effort in communicating with each other. And then this has been played out in further research looking at
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (24:54)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (25:21)
interactions between non-autistic and autistic people and rating rapport and things like that. And what they found is that autistic pairs tend to be rated as having greater rapport with each other than between non-autistic and autistic.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (25:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s the research I was alluding to earlier as far as some of the difficulties kind of falling away in similar groups. With the double empathy study that you cited, with the mixed groups and the exclusive groups, was there any comment on the mechanism of breakdown in the mixed groups? More detail on what was going on that impeded the communication?
Sara Woods (25:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure exactly how, where the breakdown happened, but it seems to be something that’s showing up pretty consistently across studies. And I did also want to clarify, I mentioned that it’s not that autistic people have trouble with communication. We do know that autistic people can have trouble with communication in certain situations. But…
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (26:10)
Mm. Yeah.
Sara Woods (26:23)
It seems like it’s helpful to consider this double empathy problem in knowing that it’s not that autistic people as a whole are completely lacking in empathy. It’s just important to consider that it goes both ways. And I think the implications of that would be that families of autistic people and workplaces who hire autistic people and schools and people in the neurotypical community would benefit from taking some time to learn about autistic culture and autistic ways of being.
really as other valid ways of being.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (26:52)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, Maybe we could transition to more of an explicit discussion of strengths. I would like that. I can start with maybe a general question. I mean, I would love to hear from your perspective, like what you think we are getting wrong as clinicians about quote unquote autistic strengths.
Sara Woods (27:03)
Sure, yeah.
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think in general, a lot of people think that autistic people have strengths in spite of their autism, instead of that they have autistic strengths, so that autism itself comes along with strengths. And I think the research demonstrates that it definitely does. The other thing I think people sometimes get wrong is that they tend to assume that
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (27:28)
Mmm.
Sara Woods (27:43)
It has to be either all about strengths or all about deficits. There’s no in-between. Or it has to be just the medical model or just the social model. But we’re realizing now that there can be a balance between the two. And it’s really important, of course, to acknowledge people’s suffering and distress and difficulties. But we can still make room for acknowledging strengths as well.
A really interesting article I read about that recently is Neurodiversity 2.0 by Hari Srinivasan, who is a non-speaking autistic researcher. He’s talked about kind of balancing some of this emphasis on strengths and difficulties.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (28:16)
Mm.
Yeah, I feel like that’s super important. I’ve talked to a few folks about this. Stephanie Nelson has talked about this a little bit here over the last few months or years. But this idea, think a lot of us got really caught up in this idea of sort of like strengths-based assessment, which on the surface is great, right? I mean, that’s great. Like where the pendulum is kind of swinging back from a deficit model, and that’s awesome. And sometimes,
I don’t know, I think we maybe put too much emphasis on that and almost go like lean too much into the like blank is a superpower kind of kind of framework. ⁓ I don’t know. I again, curious how you think through this and like how we kind of strike that balance of yes, recognizing strengths and maybe not necessarily leaning into the superpower mindset. Yeah.
Sara Woods (28:57)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Yeah,
I think that’s really important. If we frame everything as a superpower, it can be really invalidating and obviously it’s not accurate either. And so it doesn’t really help anybody if we try to twist everything they do into some kind of superpower or strength. So I think it’s really important to acknowledge all of the difficulties that autistic people have, whether it’s because of the culture they’re in or because of their own difficulties.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (29:23)
Sure.
Hmm.
Sara Woods (29:40)
make room for talking about that, and then balance it out with exploring their strengths as well. So always making an effort to find out what their strengths are, but not just trying to take everything about them and turning it into a strength.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (29:52)
Yes, yes, that’s a good way to put it. Can you think or have you seen other ways that sort of a strengths-based approach maybe is not the right approach or is prone to failure, so to speak?
Sara Woods (30:04)
I would say, I think there is always room for looking for strengths because I think everybody has strengths. ⁓ But I think sometimes because we live in a capitalistic society, we can have a tendency to sort of look at everything in terms of how it can be economically valuable. And so sometimes there can be a little bit too much emphasis placed on
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:10)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Sara Woods (30:29)
suggesting that a certain strength can be something that can make money, for example, or sending a message that making money is the most important thing or that’s what we should aim for. sometimes we have clients, for example, who might have complex support needs or are non-speaking and might have difficulties in the future. Young children might be non-speaking and
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:39)
Mmm.
Sara Woods (30:54)
We might anticipate that they might have difficulties in the future. And we might be tempted to say, it’ll probably work out. They’ll probably be able to live on their own and have a job. Lots of people have, which is true. But I think at the same time, we don’t want to send the message that that’s the only positive outcome, that living on your own and having a certain type of job and making money is what everybody should do.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:18)
Mmm.
Sara Woods (31:19)
It’s
still valid and okay and people can still have satisfying lives if they grow up and need to be a little more dependent on people, but that’s an okay way to be.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:29)
Such a good point. I’ve never really thought of it through that economic lens. But just trying to think in real time through our recommendations and the way that we frame things, that does play a role, certainly. I mean, it is a theme if we’re thinking about how does this translate to work or some other capitalist medium. That’s interesting. So related, I would love to hear how you navigate the
Sara Woods (31:40)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:56)
the balance between like when to push for more accommodations or like more of a, I don’t know if you call it a disability framework versus just a difference framework, right? I mean, I think a lot of us in our evaluations and recommendations, we are walking that line between, hey, we need to ask for certain accommodations either at school or at work or wherever without making it completely pathologizing. Again, just love to hear how you think through this.
Sara Woods (32:24)
Yeah, I think it’s helpful to consider three different aspects. So one, the person’s strengths, highlighting the strengths and taking advantage of those and giving recommendations for how that can be done. So for example, if someone is really interested in a particular topic and they’re able to study it for a long period of time and share their knowledge about that, making room for them to be able to do that and setting them up in such a way that they can use that strength.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (32:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (32:52)
Another part is just to acknowledge that certain things are just difficulties and they don’t have to be strengths and asking for accommodations for what those are. And so, for example, some people might have sensitivities to sounds. And so wearing noise canceling headphones might be something that is really beneficial for them. And then there are other things that are a little more neutral. they’re neither strengths nor difficulties.
but they might need some kind of accommodation or support. So for example, some autistic people might do really well in meetings if they know ahead of time what’s going to be talked about. And then they can prepare for the meetings and do really well. But if a meeting is just thrown on them and they’re asked a bunch of questions that they weren’t expecting, they might have a little bit of a harder time. So just thinking about what works for each individual person and then not thinking of their…
disability as being purely just a list of deficits, but thinking about I’m sure they have some strengths, how can we maximize those? How can we accommodate their difficulties? And how can we take some of these characteristics that are neither strengths nor difficulties, but just that are different that need to be accommodated, making room for all three.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (34:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. I like that. It feels more balanced, certainly. That’s fair. And I should mention, know this is in the intro, but we haven’t really talked about it so far, is just your relevant experience here. mean, you have a strengths measure that is pretty directly applicable here. So I’d love to talk about that a bit as well. Can you?
Sara Woods (34:07)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (34:27)
Yeah. Just dive into this measure and what it is, what it captures.
Sara Woods (34:30)
Yeah,
Yeah, so it’s called the Survey of Autistic Strengths, Skills and Interests. And it’s a bunch of questions that look at eliciting autistic strengths, finding out a little bit more about autistic strengths and how they’re playing out. And there’s an adult version and a child version. So it can be used both with adults and children. And it can be integrated into the clinical interview along with other things.
And some people have found that it’s also helpful to just email it to people and have them fill it out at home and take some time to think it over. Some people have chosen to use specific questions if they’re low on time. It does take some time, but I think it’s really valuable. so it’s basically a set of questions that can be integrated into the clinical interview that instead of just asking about difficulties, you’re asking what are some of your strengths? it includes
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (35:02)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (35:21)
social strengths, it includes strengths related to interests. So instead of just asking, you know, what are your interests, asking questions like, how have your interests helped you in school or work? Or how have your interests helped you connect with other people? And then it also asks about sensory differences and heightened aspects of sensory awareness, things that bring you joy in the sensory domain, which I think we don’t.
quite think about enough, but that’s an important consideration. So yeah, it’s a tool. We published it in 2023 and it’s qualitative at the moment. And I think it provides a really rich, useful amount of information. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on it. And we’re thinking about exploring quantitative aspects in the future as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (35:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (36:12)
And so at the moment it’s qualitative, but we’re continuing to do research on it.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (36:17)
Hmm. love that. it open source? Is it publish pay? You know, what’s the model?
Sara Woods (36:20)
Yes.
Yes, so it’s open source and it’s available through Frontiers in Psychiatry. So everyone is welcome to access it and use it however you like. And I should also just clarify real quickly that it’s not meant to be diagnostic. So it’s meant to be used as a supplement to other diagnostic tools to really focus on strengths. But we don’t mean by putting this tool out there that
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (36:39)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (36:49)
Autism is just a bunch of strengths. Of course, we want to balance it with other things, but because there’s been so little emphasis on strengths, we think it’s important to have something that specifically looks at that as part of your overall battery.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:03)
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Do you feel like it can apply to other folks as well as just sort of a general strengths inventory or, you know, interview? Or is it pretty locked into autistic?
Sara Woods (37:14)
That’s a question. I did design it originally to apply specifically to autistic strengths, but we know that autistic characteristics are distributed in the general population as well. A lot of people have autistic traits who may not meet full criteria for autism. So I think it would be useful to use with people who might not be autistic and people who might have broader autistic phenotype. think
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:25)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (37:37)
People with ADHD would relate to lot of the strains. So I think it could definitely be used more generally. It is meant to capture autistic strengths specifically though.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:48)
Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. Just, you know, like getting into the acronyms and the naming convention. is it like the S-A-S-S-S? Do you say like Sass or how do you, what do you call it?
Sara Woods (38:01)
I call it the SASC, the Survey of Autistic Strength, Skills, and Interests.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (38:06)
yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. I missed the I. So, ⁓ okay, so there is a SASE though. Like there’s an existing SASE for substance use stuff. How do you deal with that?
Sara Woods (38:08)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. So I didn’t realize at the time that there was already an existing tool called the SASE, but it started getting cited in a bunch of places. So I didn’t want to change the name since it was already cited, but it doesn’t measure substance use at all. It has nothing to do with substance use. And so I think it’s highly unlikely that the two instruments are going to get confused since they measure very different constructs. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (38:27)
Hmm. Yeah.
Hope so. Hope so. Yeah, that sounds good.
This might be a nice segue just into the assessment process and workflow. We’re kind of, in a way, talking about battery and interviewing. maybe we start at the top with the interview. And I would love to hear specific questions you might be asking to kind of elicit strengths and other interviewing strategies that you feel are important.
Sara Woods (39:09)
Yeah. So when I start off my interview, I tend to ask about general strengths. So not just about autistic strengths, but about strengths in general. And I also tend to say something like, I have a number of questions to ask you, but you may think of other things that are also important that you want to share. So feel free to tell me other things as well. And that way people know that if they’re thinking of information that they really want to have a chance to tell me that they’re going to have a chance to tell that as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (39:34)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (39:35)
And then I integrate the SASE with other tools. So with adults, I often use the MIGDIS, for example, and I use the SASE along with that. I also use other tools like the DIVA, and then I also use diagnostic questions that are focused a little bit more on difficulties to kind of integrate that all together. And then with parents, I go through the SASE as a whole, and then sometimes I email it to people and let them.
fill it out on their own and then kind of talk about it that way, depending on the amount of time we have. And some of the questions would be, how have your interests helped you connect with other people? I think that’s an important one that we don’t touch on enough because autistic interests have typically been called restricted interests and we ask about how they interfere with other things and what problems they cause. So I think it’s helpful to go out of our way and ask.
What kind of benefits do your interests have? How have they helped you? And then I ask about heightened sensory awareness, so whether they think in certain sensory domains, they have certain heightened awareness. There is some research to show that some autistic people who are particularly sensitive to sound actually have enhanced auditory capacity. So they’re actually good at
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (40:31)
Yeah, yeah, I really like that question.
Sara Woods (40:52)
picking out multiple sounds when they’re in environments where there are many sounds at once. So I think tapping into that strength is really useful. Another piece that I think is important is social nonconformity. And I think in these political times, that’s especially important. So being willing to not go along with what everybody else is doing, being willing to stand up for what you believe in and speak out. So I asked specifically about that. And I asked for example,
and people have given me a lot of really interesting examples. I asked that of parents to tell about their kids and of adults to tell about themselves. that’s a really useful question, gets a really rich amount of information and great examples.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (41:32)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, these are good. I love these concrete and specific questions that we can just use in our practices. So maybe we talk about battery. The way I’d frame this question, I think we all have some sense of what an autism assessment battery looks like. So I’d be curious from your perspective, what would you take away or remove from a quote unquote typical autism battery that
Sara Woods (41:39)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (41:58)
you feel like adds less value.
Sara Woods (42:00)
Yeah, I think the main thing I would take away is actually not a tool, but a mindset. So the mindset that if someone is autistic, that means we have to look for a bunch of deficits and check off all the deficits and problems they have. And that’s what tells us if they’re autistic or not. And instead of thinking of autism as a bunch of deficits, I think it’s helpful to think of it as associated with difficulties, but also associated with just different ways of being and associated with strengths.
And so if we think that that’s what autism is, then it makes sense to not just use tools that look for a bunch of deficits and problems. That doesn’t make any sense. So I appreciate the ADOS. I know the ADOS has received a lot of criticism, but I think the ADOS for children and adolescents can be used in a positive way. And we actually have some ideas about how you can identify autistic strengths using the ADOS.
Myself and a team presented some information at ASHA about that. And basically looking for moments of joy during the ADOS. So for example, a lot of parents will flip their kids upside down or you might swing the kids in the air and you notice that they really enjoy that physical play. So highlighting that physical play and encouraging them to do more of that. Or looking at creativity during the ADOS. I had a client who during the frog story,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (43:04)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (43:23)
the Tuesday book described the situation as frogmageddon. And I thought that was such a creative term to come up with. So instead of seeing the ADOS as just a deficit-focused tool that needs to be thrown in the garbage, I think the activities themselves are really enjoyable for many kids. And I think we can use it in a strength-based way. We can look at autistic characteristics and still use the tool the way it was designed, but look at strengths as part of that too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (43:30)
haha
Hmm.
Sara Woods (43:52)
So
I wouldn’t throw the ADOS out. I know some people would, but I wouldn’t at this point. And then I would recommend the MIGDIS with adults. I think that it’s really useful. It gets really good breadth of information. I do think the SRS is great because it’s standardized. And so it does give us a good idea of, you know, what kind of autistic difficulties are coming up. And I like that you can have multiple raters respond to it as well.
Two things that I would definitely not use would be the theory of mind tool from the nepsi, because we know that autistic, autism isn’t really, definitely not consistently associated with problems in theory of mind, and I’ve never really found that useful. And then affect recognition on the nepsi, I don’t find particularly useful either. So yeah, I wouldn’t include those tools. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (44:24)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Could I ask about a couple of other specific tools? It’s totally okay if you’re not familiar with them, but you know, hear a lot of folks enjoy or using the SLDT as one. And then I feel like there are some other measures, like, I don’t know, I think it’s the Avabo, you know, where you’re looking at like pictures of social situations and, you know, trying to fill in the gaps and tell the story and so forth. Do you have thoughts on either of those?
Sara Woods (44:45)
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
I’ve heard really good things about the SLDT. I haven’t used that myself much yet, but I definitely want to explore that some more. And I haven’t heard about the other one that you were just discussing. But yeah, I do think it makes sense to look at social pragmatics and I do incorporate that into my interview. So asking parents about difficulties with social pragmatics, problems that kids have come up with in making and keeping friends.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (45:21)
Hmm. Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (45:38)
difficulties understanding social dynamics and things like that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (45:41)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Let me ask you about observations during testing. I feel like that falls under this whole umbrella that we’re describing. You can go kind of like deficit-based or more strengths-based or just like observational, I guess. There’s maybe a neutral option too. yeah, how does all this affect the way that you look for or write up observations?
Sara Woods (45:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, again, I think it comes down to the mindset. So instead of thinking, does this kid have a bunch of problems in how they interact or behave? Instead, if you’re doing an autism assessment, asking yourself, are these behaviors consistent with autism or not consistent with autism? And not putting kind of a value on the behavior. And so, for example, instead of describing eye contact as poorly modulated or as bad eye contact,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (46:25)
Yes.
Sara Woods (46:32)
I would say less than typical eye contact. And then just describe what I actually see. So instead of describing them as having poor facial expressions or bad, there’s that, I just describe actually what I see. So very expressive facial expression or a wide range of facial expressions or little variation in facial expressions. So just describing what you see and not putting a label on it.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (46:34)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (46:57)
And we do have a neurodiversity affirming client observation form that we can share if people are interested in that. And it just takes many of the traditional observations that we would make and just tweaks the language a little bit just to make it a little bit more neurodiversity affirming.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (47:03)
turn.
Yeah, yeah, love that. Would love to put that in the show notes if you’re willing to share it. Yeah, so maybe we move to the report and I know that we could spend hours on writing an affirming report, but maybe I’ll focus on one, you know, one section that would be the impressions or conceptualization. So again, keeping with this theme, I mean, I would love to hear how you frame
Sara Woods (47:16)
Yeah, that’d be great.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (47:37)
a diagnostic impressions without kind of veering into like toxic positivity, know, ⁓ keeping all this in mind.
Sara Woods (47:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think balance is really important in the impression section too. And so I actually make a statement sort of criticizing the DSM in the report. Some people might find that a little bold, but I think it’s appropriate. yes, sure. So I will say that in the DSM, autism is defined primarily based on its deficits, but we know that there are many positive things that go along with autism as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (47:57)
Huh. Yeah, yeah. Can you give us, what is that statement? Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (48:15)
And
then I’ll say, this person does meet DSM criteria for autism. We need to say that for the most part to help them access resources. And so I’ll go through and describe how they do meet the DSM criteria. But then I’ll say, this person also shows a number of strengths that are often associated with autism, including, and then I’ll give examples of those.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:23)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (48:37)
And then I will also talk about some more neutral language. So for example, I’ll say this particular individual may connect with well with other people who share their interests and this person may enjoy talking at length about their interests. This person may have more difficulty with small talk or prolonged group conversation and may need time to rest after a lengthy social interaction. So I’ll just give
sort of a depiction of the person’s social style and preferences, again, without describing it as a deficit.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (49:11)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. I like that. This is an interesting idea that I don’t know, I don’t know that a lot of us get into. I could be wrong, I’m just musing loud right now, but you know, I feel like there’s a theme of just sort of objectivity in a lot of the things that you’re sharing that we’re talking about, where we’re not necessarily like, yeah, veering into being overaffirming or over-pathologizing, it just sort of.
is, right? And this is.
Sara Woods (49:39)
Yeah, yeah. And,
right. And related to that, I think it’s also helpful to write in the report using first-person pronouns sometimes. So I will say, this child looked at me or this child followed my point. And the reason why I do that is I think it sends a message to the reader that, yeah, this is another person, right? They’re interacting with another person. It’s not like a bias-free robot that they’re
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (49:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Uh-huh.
Sara Woods (50:07)
interacting with. And so I think when we say the examiner of this and that, it sort of takes us out of the picture. And I think it’s empowering to acknowledge that, yeah, this is a fellow human being that they’re interacting with, with all their biases and their own weaknesses and everything else.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (50:22)
Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. We moved to first person language, I don’t know, a couple of years ago, maybe, and it feels really weird at first. But once you get over the hump, does. It just feels more personal. It feels like it equalizes the relationship a lot versus keeping us in this kind of sterile role, detached kind of role. ⁓ So I’m totally with
Sara Woods (50:28)
Yes.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, it feels kind of like breaking the rules at first, but that’s always kind of fine. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (50:49)
Yeah, it is kind of, yeah, it’s like risky and different, yeah.
So maybe let’s talk a little bit about recommendations. Again, we could dive really deep into this, but just general approach to writing recommendations that try to leverage strengths in addition to what we’ve
Sara Woods (51:03)
Yeah.
So I like to show accessibility in the report by actually using icons. So I break up the recommendations with little pictures of each thing that it represents. So for home, school, work, medical, I just have a little picture that goes with each section. And I think that kind of guides the eye and makes it easier to understand where it applies. And then I do include some recommendations that really harness strengths.
So for example, I had, I was working with a little boy who was super energetic, who loved Pokemon and tend to kind of talk on and on about Pokemon. His parents were frustrated by that and they kind of saw that as a deficit. ⁓ But what I did is I talked about how that could be used to his advantage. So I talked about how incorporating Pokemon into his curriculum could be helpful. So like coming up with math problems that involve Pokemon.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (51:41)
Yeah.
Sara Woods (51:58)
because we know that autistic children tend to do better when their interests are included. I also talked about socialization opportunities. So outschool.com has a lot of classes that incorporate special interests like Pokemon. So I recommended that they do that. I also recommended that they take advantage of his great energy level by having him pass out assignments for the teacher. So he gets a chance to get up and kind of move around and do something helpful.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:21)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (52:25)
So I try to think about what strengths were highlighted during the assessment and then think about how we can use that. And then of course include accommodations specifically for difficulties too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:35)
Nice, nice. I like that. So starting to wrap up here, I want to ask about a situation that comes up for us relatively frequently and may not be limited to autistic kiddos or adults by any means, but I’m interested to hear how you approach this strengths conversation or framework in cases where there may not be a lot of immediate strengths. So, you know, I think about
Sara Woods (52:57)
Thank
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:58)
kids, like IDD, for example, or I don’t know. There are any number of scenarios where it can just be hard to find. ⁓ So how do you approach that?
Sara Woods (53:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that everybody has strengths and we may not always find the same autistic strengths that are described in the SASE or asked about in the SASE, but we can look at character strengths. We can look at what brings this person joy. I think that’s really important that Hari Srinivasan that I was talking about earlier, he’s done some research on AWE ⁓ and talked about how different types of experiences
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (53:25)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (53:39)
can bring a lot of joy to autistic people, including those who are non-speaking or have complex support needs and seek out opportunities for experiencing that. So thinking about what makes them happy, thinking about their connections with other people, I think that that’s really an advantage. And then the other piece, as I emphasized earlier, I think that…
it’s important not to place too much emphasis on economics and figuring out, you know, how can we take these traits and turn them into something that makes money and instead just talk about, you know, different ways of being as valid. It’s okay if you have to be dependent on people. We’re all dependent on each other in one way or another. And interdependence is an important part of disability culture. So I think educating people about that is important.
And then autistic connections are really important for everybody, including non-speaking people. So connecting them to resources like the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network is really useful. And then Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is great as well. So helping them find community and other people who might be going through some of the same things, including for the individuals themselves and for their families.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (54:49)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, this is great. I want to highlight that you have expressed some version of what brings you joy several times in the interview, and I just really like that question. That’s a question that I will use in my business consulting a lot, actually. What aspects of your practice bring you joy or your work? Where do you feel most joyful? And I love the idea of carrying it into the clinical work as well.
Sara Woods (54:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
yeah.
Yeah, definitely, me too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (55:17)
This has a nice, nice feel to it. So maybe final question before we really start to wrap up. But we run into individuals or parents or adults, family, whatever, where it’s almost like they do not want to hear about the strengths, that that comes across as, I don’t know if it’s invalidating or something in that world. I can’t put my finger on it. I’m curious if you run into those situations. And again, how do you?
Sara Woods (55:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (55:42)
if so.
Sara Woods (55:44)
Yeah, occasionally I run into that. I think it comes up, think invalidating is a good word because I think it comes up when people are experiencing some type of suffering or distress or impairment that they worry is not going to be acknowledged and they really want to feel heard and they want to know that people understand that they’re going through a really hard time, whether it’s a parent or an autistic individual.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (55:59)
Yeah.
Sara Woods (56:08)
So when I see that coming up, I really make room to acknowledge the suffering that they have and how unfair that is and how hard that is and really giving space for that. And then once that’s acknowledged, I think people respond with an idea of like, okay, now you get it. Now we can think about other things. So once you take that time to acknowledge it, I think there’s a lot more room for considering other ways of thinking about things and considering strengths.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (56:18)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (56:37)
Has that been your experience too?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (56:37)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
validating the pain, so to speak, and making sure that folks feel heard, I think, goes a long way. then we can, do you, this is kind of a left field question, but I mean, are you aware of any research out there that provides a nice justification for talking about strengths? I feel like sometimes that can go a long way with folks as well. Like, hey, I’m not just doing this to,
Sara Woods (56:43)
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (57:03)
be nice and cover up the things that are painful, but there’s some literature that says, hey, this is actually helpful to be aware of what’s going well and how to support it.
Sara Woods (57:07)
Right.
Yeah, definitely.
I think a lot of the research is, I might be a little bit biased, but I think it is summarized well in our article toward a more comprehensive autism assessment. The one that I mentioned where the ASSASI is published, we go through a lot of the research and the advantages of highlighting strengths. And we know that when people’s strengths are highlighted, it improves their self-confidence, they’re able to make use of their special interests, they are able to thrive more in
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (57:25)
Mm-hmm.
Sara Woods (57:42)
in the workplace and in schools. So that would be one example where a lot of the research shows that using strengths is an advantage and it summarizes a bunch of other research as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (57:55)
Great, great. Yeah, and all these things will be in the show notes for folks to access if they’re interested. So yeah, how can people get in touch with you, find these measures, find your research? Yeah.
Sara Woods (58:08)
Yeah, good question. So my website is lacypsychology.com. I live in Lacey, Washington. So it’s L-A-C-E-Y, psychology.com. That’s my website. And I actually have an interesting training coming up on neurodiversity affirming differential diagnosis that everyone is welcome to attend. That’s through the Chicago School and that’s coming up in May. And just for podcast listeners, I actually have a special
discount code that people can use, which is…
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (58:36)
Mmm.
Sara Woods (58:38)
Testing Psych 2026. Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (58:42)
All right, all right. People love discount codes. So
that’s awesome. Thank you. And we’ll make sure to put that in the show notes as well. Testing Psych 2026. And I’ve already got it linked to, or got the training linked in there so folks can go.
Sara Woods (58:56)
Great, thank you.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (58:57)
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, this was great. This was great. I really enjoyed this conversation and there’s definitely like a osmosis factor, know, like talking with someone who’s sort of, you know, in this strengths, strengths-based mindset. I think I’m feeling more optimistic in general. So thank you.
Sara Woods (59:16)
Yeah, thank you, me too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (59:18)
Yeah. Well, take care and we will maybe talk again soon.
Sara Woods (59:23)
Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
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