Hello this is Anna Kennedy and we’re talking all things autism and we’re promoting mental health and well-being on women’s radio station. So before I go over to my guest I just wanted to chat to you a little bit about a book that was sent to me and also an article in a magazine just to remind you as well about the SCN Special Educational Needs magazine that comes out quarterly. It’s I’ve been receiving this magazine for quite some time now and I’ve had a few articles within the magazine so it’s special educational needs, it’s suitable for parents, it’s suitable for teachers, teaching assistants and it has lots of information on creative arts, it could be dyslexia, could be autism, the good practice, bullying or even toilet training.

There’s so many different articles, so one of them that caught my eye because as you know I’m into performing arts, so acting to challenge social exclusion. So the National Theatre has increased the number of assisted performances making specific adaptations meet the different requirements of our audiences. This includes offering sensory adapted audio described VSL interpreted captioned and chilled performances with 20 pairs of smart captioned glasses available for most productions.

Recently we’ve made adjustments for people living with dementia in our dementia friendly performances, so that’s a really interesting article. A lot of the articles are actually online as well, so if you just search for the SCN magazine you’ll be able to see this specific article and it was written by Holly Smith who’s the project manager for Public Acts and the National Theatre. So I’m pleased to hear that more and more performances are available for our families, especially now coming up to Christmas and the relaxed performances.

I love those Christmas pantomimes and performances and I love to see the families and the parents and the siblings and everyone together, no one judging them and them just enjoying the performance. So one of the book I just wanted to mention to you is called A Hidden Force. It’s Unlocking the Potential of Neurodiversity at Work and it was written by Ed Thompson.

So how can your teams meet their true collective potential? Diversity is a hot topic in the business world but it has been largely restricted to meaning a diversity of experiences based on a person’s heritage, upbringing or gender. As A Hidden Force points out however there is another type of diversity that has been overlooked until recently, Neurodiversity, the differences in how our brain processes information. So if you’re interested in that book written by Ed Thompson who’s the founder and CEO of Optimise, the leading neuro inclusion training company whose mission is to help organisations embrace and leverage every type of thinker.

So if you’re interested in this book it’s available on www.ahiddenforce.com just repeat that again to you www.ahiddenforce.com. It was sent to me over from America. So I’m pleased to say that my guest today is also from New York and his name is Samuel J. Levine and he prefers to be called Sam. So Professor of Law and Director of the Jewish Law Institute at Touro Law Center.

He has served as the Bess Nos, I hope I’ve said that correctly, distinguished professor at Michigan State University College of Law and he has taught at the law schools of Barlan, Fordham, Pepperdine and St. John’s University. Welcome Sam. Thank you so much Anna.

Oh thank you thank you for joining us today all away from the US. My son and I visited New York when he was 21 and we had an amazing time. My son’s very into natural history and paleontology and he absolutely loved the Natural History Museum.

So yeah we’ve got some lovely memories from our visit from his birthday trip. So tell me a little bit next time you’re in town I’d be happy to meet you and your son at the museum it’s a wonderful museum. Oh thank you so much.

So before we talk about autism before we talk about your work who is Sam for people listening in? Well thank you so much and before I talk about myself I’d just like to thank you. I talked about you Anna and you are first well known around the world for your work, your advocacy and your important dedication to autism acceptance and inclusion. So it’s really an honor and a pleasure for me to be on your show and to have this conversation and to contribute what I can.

Oh thank you that’s really kind of you. I really need it. So I grew up in New Jersey so you know right next to New York as you hopefully know to take a look at the math and my education was in New Jersey and New York.

My JD which is the primary law degree in the United States it’s a postgraduate degree after college. My JD was from Fordham Law School in Manhattan not far actually from the Museum of Natural History just across a few blocks on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and my graduate degree my LLM in law was from Columbia University also on the Upper West Side quite close to the museum so all within that area. I’ve taught at a number of law schools as you mentioned and my current position is Professor of Law and Director of the Jewish Law Institute at Turrell Law Center which is in Long Island New York and if you’re familiar with the geography, Long Island is just east of New York City as a whole.

It’s immediately adjacent to Queens and Brooklyn New York and as you may know Queens and Brooklyn are part of the five boroughs that comprise New York City just across the river from Manhattan. Oh thank you so we have a mutual friend Dr. Ian Hale so how did you meet Ian? So I met Ian really through the book that I wrote on autism and I understand that we’ll have a chance to talk about that book in just a bit and Ian is of course well known too for his work and his dedication both his speaking about himself and about the books and speaking that he has done over the years and I have the opportunity to connect with Ian both through my book and through some of the programs I’ve organized at Turrell. Oh that’s great yeah he’s one of my past guests too and women’s radio is so great for you know bringing together either parents, carers, professionals so it’s you know it’s so good that when I speak to people and sometimes we don’t even know that when I do actually interview someone that you know they’re friends of somebody that was interviewed in the past so you just never know who you’re talking to so let’s talk a little bit about your current position and title so tell me a little bit more about that.

So professor of law means my full-time position is to teach what are generally the core courses in the American legal education so I teach criminal law okay professional responsibility called legal ethics I prefer that title bringing out the ethical component to the practice of law I teach criminal procedure a lot of courses I was a prosecutor a number of years ago so I bring my real life experience into the classroom as well and my title an additional title at Turrell is director of the Jewish Law Institute one of my areas of scholarship and study going back decades has been comparative study of the Jewish legal system and the American legal system so as director of the Jewish Law Institute I in addition to my own scholarship I organize programs I organize conferences I present speakers who talk about comparative aspects of Jewish law and American law okay so let’s talk about autism because the program is we’re talking all things autism so when did you first hear the word autism when did you meet somebody that may be autistic a child or an adult can you remember that’s a great question and whenever I’m asked about when did you first meet someone with autism the answer has to be when I was very young okay because I am certain and I only know this in retrospect like most of us it took I’ll speak for myself it took me many many years and I think society I can certainly say took many many years to understand even to gain some sort of concept of what autism is what it can be how it manifests in various different ways and looking back at some of the children I went to school with and unfortunately and this is a story that we continue to see tragically students who might have been in my class one year and the next year they were no longer in the school and looking back at the time we just thought they were different that was clear to us so the majority of the students be more neurotypical students we realized that the teachers were having challenges with the students and the students were having challenges both with the teacher and more importantly and more tragically in some ways with their peers in the classroom and in the schoolyard and looking back it was those students that unfortunately in some ways tragically your key year we’re no longer in school the next year so I’m not a clinician I would not diagnose someone certainly not looking back decades but I am fairly certain that many or some of the students in my class some of my friends were autistic and not only the students who left the school there were also students who continued on and people who I considered very close friends of mine who I did develop a relationship with and yet in addition looking back I think it’s clear that they did have many characteristics many of their interactions many of their behaviors were very consistent with what we now understand better to be characteristics common among autistic individuals okay so I’m always interested in how long it takes for a child or an adult to be diagnosed so what’s the process like where you’re living in New York and currently in the UK it’s between two and five years and obviously because of cost-cutting and these uncertain times that we’re in at the moment the list seems to be getting longer and I find that very frustrating because obviously the earlier you start working with children the better the outcomes so what is it like in the US yeah that’s an excellent point and I do hear the stories and speak to many many individuals across the pond many individuals you know in the UK and other parts of Europe who talk about the challenges in getting a diagnosis the challenges in getting that recognition and therefore challenges in getting the appropriate supports that are necessary it turns out that in the United States for better or for worse I think you may be familiar with aspects of American society where depending on individuals resources individuals and when I say resources I mean not only monetary but their connections their ability to navigate the systems that very much correlates with the opportunities as well and that’s across the board in many areas of life and I think that’s also true when it comes to getting a diagnosis I think that when parents are aware of the system know how to navigate the system have a trusted medical professional that they can turn to I think it’s doesn’t often take it can take much less time than you know two to five year window that you’re talking about on the other hand it has to all start with awareness and that’s to me the biggest challenge that we continue to face as a society is educating parents helping parents become equipped with that awareness so they even know where to turn my experience has been working with many many parents over the years is that for a lot of parents they realize likewise as I described my own friends there’s something different about my child but they don’t know what that is and they don’t know where to turn and they are not aware of that autism label and in many ways is a label it’s a category it’s foxes that we place individuals into despite their different characteristics everyone’s different but not having that understanding that the diagnosis can make all the difference in getting the opportunity in getting those services and supports can really be an impediment I think the thing is a lot of parents as well is once they get the diagnosis they expect all the support just to fall in place and obviously in the UK it doesn’t work like that you then need to work out how to navigate to get the support that your child or your adult needs depending on you know what stage they are in their life and that’s the most frustrating part and that’s another time-consuming journey that parents are going through and learning as they’re going along you know it’s almost like as I’ve said before you need to learn a different language to navigate the system to get the support that your child or adult may need as soon as possible is that’s the same and in New York or in the US very much so you know a different language and it’s in many ways I’ve heard you know parents say it’s a full-time job it’s taking on another job and getting a new education as you said learning a different language understanding and it’s not just understanding the clinical side of things it’s understanding of course the legal side of things and that’s my background and I’m well aware I mentioned I was a prosecutor I’ve been involved in the legal system for decades and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned unfortunately this isn’t news I think too many people certainly does of us in the law that’s one thing to have the legal supports on the books but the question is how do you actually go about obtaining those supports that under the law you are required and the fight that we often see and it is a fight tragically with the school districts you’ve mentioned special education it’s a particular area of interest to me where I’ve worked in and the school districts where the lawyers are aware the school’s lawyers and the school’s personnel are aware of what they’re supposed to do under the law but it takes the parents pushing it takes the parents often retain their own lawyers at their own expense yeah just to get the supports that the law requires and there’s something really broken about that system most definitely I’m not sure if you’re aware that my husband Sean is autistic but also a barrister and he fights for many families that have children who are navigating this complicated educational system that we have in this country and it was again because of our two sons struggling you know trying to get the right education they’re now 33 and 30 but yeah it’s just as I say it’s it’s usually the parents that shout the loudest get what they want in the end and if they get the right support so how did you become interested in disability rights and inclusion you’ve touched on it briefly but do you want to go into in a little bit more detail sure thank you so I have both personal and professional connections with Austin’s autism and disability rights more generally and it really started out trying to figure out and to do work in the areas of special education you had mentioned that I taught a number of years ago at a school called Pepperdine Law School in California and Pepperdine when I was teaching there I actually had a clinic special education clinic where a professor worked with students with law students to help provide those advocacy for students within a special education and I guess you call it send special education needs system yeah and what I found speaking to those students I’m working with those students is that it’s an area of law I’m not sure if it’s quite the same in England but in the United States certainly what can be a very we might say unpleasant experience practicing law and lawyers and my students are all terrific but they have to face the reality that they’re going to be out there fighting and sometimes when you’re fighting as a lawyer you’re not even certain if you’re on the right side of things in the United States you represent your client as a represent their best interests and everything else kinds of falls by the wayside whether you think your clients right or wrong when it comes to special education advocacy the law students who work in that field and the lawyers who work in that field feel confident that they are doing the right thing they feel confident that they’re not only representing the interests of their client but that they are trying to obtain a just and appropriate result and that’s not true of every lawyer necessarily so I became very interested in special education and broader disability rights and inclusion and that’s where I decided to develop it as I came back east to New York at Touro Law School I decided to initiate the disability rights and inclusion project okay so can you tell me a little bit more about your project that you developed at the Touro Law and how long has it been going so we start the project I think was 2019 shortly before COVID actually as it turns out and the idea as it started out was to have in-person presentations for the most part focused on these important areas of disability rights and focused in part on my particular area and your particular area of interest on autism acceptance awareness inclusion and we started out with special education presentations we had lawyers we had clinicians we had therapists talking about what’s called the IEP process in the United States the individualized education program where under the law at least you know I almost call this theory unfortunately because it is the law but actually implementing the law is no simple matter under the law individuals who have a diagnosis do you have the right to a special education system that fits their needs and services and supports that fit their individualized program so we had the lawyers talking about both the challenges and ways to navigate the system and as we discussed we had parents who attended these meetings and I could just see parents who were so confused walking in and who had no idea how to figure things out and we didn’t give them all the answers but we at least gave them some sort of tools some sort of awareness so that now they understand well the law is on my side I’m not asking for a favor I’m not asking for quote-unquote special treatment that my child doesn’t deserve I’m requesting and I’m demanding that the school system that the government as a whole these are public school systems run by the principal by the government provide my child but my child deserves anything title to and needs under the law and one of these early programs actually did include as our friend in common Dr. Ian Hale that was actually before a COVID so we weren’t all that good on Skype and zoom and that kind of thing but I did manage to have him come in on video from England and we had a terrific program talking about neurodiversity when COVID hit everything changed right the world changed in so many ways and what we realized was well there’s a brother audience out there and with the challenges of zoom we have the opportunities of them so we actually ended up transitioning many of our programs to webinars and at this point we’re having webinars that often attract hundreds of audience members across the world so rather than having our programs limited to a local audience of somewhere between 20, 50, maybe 100 participants we instead have often hundreds of participants all across different countries. Okay so this is the program for parents of children or is it for adults as well because there’s a lot of parents that feel quite frustrated because it always seems to be a lot of these programs are focused on children and we need obviously the children grow up to be adults and can I also ask in this country we have what’s called the EHCP and it’s up to 25 years old and then after that parents are hoping that social care will pick up the costs but what I’ve discovered more and more recently that once their children are you know up to 25 years old after that social care and not picking up the costs and they’re ending up at home and then parents are having to give up their jobs to look after their loved ones at home if they need one-to-one support. Yeah you’re exactly right and it’s funny you actually took the words out of my mouth one of the other ways that the program the project really transformed over time was that we recognized and exactly to your point that as much as the education system remains the basic and fundamental and starting point for many of these supports and we continue to try to educate parents and we have a clinic at our law school now that also represents parents for those advocacy purposes we also recognize and we realized that as it turns out in the United States for example at the age of 21 a child would age out as they call it education system or if they graduate high school they age out of the system and then they no longer have access to those governmental supports and the next stage is of course those transitional stages so what we’ve now pivoted to in much of our programming has to do with employment and we have found that employment is an area of dire need in an area where the government is not as directly involved and possibly an area where there’s a stronger need than the educational system yeah we’re not there yet and I wouldn’t be more but the educational system still needs a lot of work but as you said when it comes to employment that’s where families are on their own that’s where the government is not directly involved and that’s where we do see this kind of parallel this this unfortunate again it’s not tragic parallel between the schoolyard and the employment setting where we have individuals who autistic individuals who don’t quite and I don’t want to stereotype but you know we certainly recognize I recognize and I always like to repeat the point that if you’ve met one person on the autism spectrum you’ve met one person definitely on the autism spectrum but I think it is fair to say as a generalization not an over generalization that when it comes to issues like social norms as they’re called social cues reading the way other people are speaking to them autistic individuals do have those challenges and that’s in my experience one of the reasons that whether it’s a schoolyard where there’s unstructured time where there are factions and there’s bullying and all the you know important issues that you alluded to well the same thing happens at the workplace certainly in the United States where there’s undermining and backed by an office politics and many autistic individuals have that challenge when it comes to office politics and that’s an area where there’s no reason that someone should gain or unfortunately lose employment because they don’t say the right thing or they don’t say things in the right way as others expect them to say when they’re doing the job that they’re supposed to do when they’re doing their job happily and when they’re not out to get anyone else and it’s one of the kind of toxic elements of the workplace that we often encounter again I’m speaking for the United States at least where one of the ways that people move up in a company is to put other people down is to know how to use that word again how to navigate the system and in this case how to navigate the system in a way that’s often unfair to other people and we see time and again that it’s autistic individuals who end up getting this short end of the stick that the numbers from what we can estimate in terms of unemployment and underemployment are so disproportionate when it comes to autistic individuals so many of our programs have actually transitioned to employment issues and we’ve really studied and presented a number of different models for autistic employment programs.

I think the thing is as well is a lot of employers still today I know we’re getting better at it because there’s more and more information out there with reference to reasonable adjustments and various things that you can do within the workplace to make life easier for autistic adults but you know say for example my son I’ve mentioned this before you know he’s been working now for five years and they’ve been fantastic with him and they give him his own area when he needs time out he’s for example on his passion is paleontology so on his work desk he has certain items that you know related to dinosaurs or whatever it is that helps him and then he also says sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming in the office for me today I just need to go for a walk so they allow him to go for about five or ten minutes he also finds because it’s an open plan office there’s a lot of chitter chatter in the background and what he calls pointless conversation so he asks if he can listen to his audible while he’s working because he can still work but then he’s blocking out the Sun there’s various things that you can do that is not going to cost the company a lot of money I think a lot of companies thinking oh we’re gonna have to make these adjustments you know for autistic adults it’s going to cost us a fortune but there’s some small things that you can do to improve the quality of life and their work and they are so loyal the autistic employees that if you just make these reasonable adjustments for them because I’ve seen it you know my husband’s seen it that it can really work well for them would you agree yeah and your point is absolutely and your point is so well taken and you know I sometimes try to explain to employers use the term you know adjustments and I think in the United States the term accommodations is more you know commonly used and I make the point to employers that if they think about it for a moment they make all kinds of accommodations for all of their employees yeah as it turns out many of those accommodations are really not appropriate many of those accommodations are things like oh this employee just took a three-hour lunch but you know what I’m gonna let that go because they’re doing a job well or this employee walks around gossiping this employee spends all the time at the water cooler this employee is backbiting other people they speak poorly of their fellow employees but you know what I’m gonna overlook that I’m going to accommodate those aspects of that employees personality of the way they are because I need them to do the job and as you said when it comes to autistic employees and once again without stereotyping or generalizing it is fair to say as you describe your son’s experience and this is the experience we see over and over he’s gonna do his job he’s gonna do his job loyally he’s gonna do his job happily without the complaining for the most part without gossiping without backbiting trying to take advantage of other people not going to be spending the time chit-chatting at the water cooler because he finds it pointless he wants to do his job that’s why he’s there in the first place and if it takes letting him put some dinosaurs on his desk or if it takes letting him take five minutes out just to take a break so that he can be refreshed and get back to work or whatever the particular adjustments or accommodations may be that’s no different and in fact that’s in many ways more appropriate than some of the other types of accommodations that employers typically provide for other employees and they also need to be clear what’s expected from him and he has like an for example like a tick box where after he’s done a job he ticks it so he knows like specifically for today he’s got to do this this this this this and then he knows what’s expected of him where Patrick doesn’t work well is where you know they expect him to do certain things but they’re not being specific specific for him is just means everything it’s just like he needs to know what do you expect from me today this is what I need to do today if I don’t quite get it finished I can run it over to tomorrow type of thing so exactly that need for direct communication that need for structure and core expectations is something that again on the one hand it might seem like it’s an adjustment it’s an accommodation but on the other hand it’s me that would actually be a good system generally wouldn’t it be great if our employees knew what they need to do and it’s those as you’re moving to is those unwritten rules as rock and described as that and this was back to school where students sometimes aren’t able to read those unwritten rules because no one’s told them them and somehow we expect them to follow them and the same thing of course applies at the workplace could you talk to me a little bit more about the programs that you are working on that’s focused purely on autumn could you go into a little bit more detail something that you think that our listeners may be interested in absolutely so we’ve got a few programs I alluded to on autism and employment and I think autism employment programs have a lot of potential for all the reasons that we just discussed but there are also a number of different models that might be considered and the need for different understandings of autism employment goes back to the for understandings of individuals and that every individual on the autism spectrum is their own person and is different so you know in the United States they’re developed this kind of cliche of the autistic computer genius you might say there’s that trope of the odds that they’re just amazing and you know to be fair there are some individuals on the autism spectrum it’s you know my I just believe we’re suspicion or speculation yeah that’s some of our great thinkers throughout history and this day has been autistic so for example Google is kind of famous for their autism employment program and we did have someone from Google on one of our webinars talking about that program but what he recognized and what he brought out in our conversation was the reality that there are of course many many individuals employed at Google who are autistic who recruited not as part of the autism recruitment or employment program they’re autistic they can do the job and Google recognized their talent and for that reason hired them and I think ideally that’s where we should be heading where there’s a more organic appreciation for each individual’s talents rather than having your requirement for a program but where we are now the current reality is I think that we do need to promote autism employment programs and so for example we had a program that focused on a company in Israel where there’s an autism employment program that was had the opportunity to visit in Jerusalem’s company called mobile by and they developed self-driving car technology and one of the things they realized was that there are autistic employees who will sit at a computer all day and for some employees this would seem very tedious to sit at the computer and to observe what it’s like to be in a car a self-driving car and to assist in the technology that would allow the car to recognize what they’re seeing they can recognize if what’s in front of them is a person or it’s another car or it’s a tree or it’s a lamppost and it’s a type of work and I observe this myself that the individuals the autistic individuals who are hired enjoy doing and they work with that type of loyalty that you describe and I can imagine and I’ve seen this in other work settings where other employees might complain they might say I need something different I’m bored at what I’m doing and the pride that I saw in the individuals who were working there was something very important because to me when we do discuss autism employment programming I think it’s important to recognize and to take the attitude that these programs are not designed as a form of charity there’s a place for charity but these programs are designed as employment and as business propositions and to me that’s the way to help promote autism employment among employers to make the case that in addition to being something that’s good to do this is also a good business sense so and I speak to a lot of parents and that they become a little bit frustrated because obviously if your son or daughter or your loved one is more articulate and able to you know go into the workplace but if you’re looking at say someone say like my son Angelo that has minimal verbal skills that they’re looking at something for them to do rather than how can I say tokenistic type jobs so are you looking at something that might be able to support parents that have adults that you know might need one-to-one support but you know that they have different challenges let’s say well one of the programs that we have presented as well is a company it’s actually one of the largest waste companies in Long Island and their headquarters not far as it turns out from Tarot Law Center where I teach and they have a center for autism where they built the building and it’s its own kind of internal programming where they do train individuals for certain jobs like folding laundry different areas of hospitality are fairly common and there’s much closer supervision there from what I’m able to observe and they work with for example local hotels and here too the hotels from what I can tell and I hope this is the case I believe it is are very pleased to have individuals who are willing to do jobs that for others would be considered kind of menial jobs kind of kind of tedious jobs and often sometimes at least jobs where you’re not in the limelight jobs where you’re kind of in your own area and the hotels appreciate as you describe the loyalty of the dedication of the employees and employees the autistic individuals appreciate that they can work in a way that’s comfortable for them a setting that’s comfortable for them where they don’t feel the need to kind of perform for others to socially engage and if they do they do as you said every person is different and there are some autistic individuals who are very articulate and very sociable among neurotypical groups but there are others who would like to be kind of left to do their work and to do their work appropriately but not continuously be bothered or bombarded with different phone calls or different comments or different interactions that they might find to be distracting okay so can you talk to me a little bit about the reactions and to some of the programs can you talk about a specific case just to give people an idea of how it’s impacted on an individual’s life so I think the reactions have been quite positive I’ve mentioned you know that we’ve had audiences from across the world and for that reason we do get you know varied reactions many of the responses we get are from parents and sometimes from individuals who say well I never realized that my child was autistic or adults who are now and we mentioned how you know years ago as a society and I’ll speak for myself but I know this is true of American society as a whole did not have the understanding and awareness of autism so we do have and I understand this is the case in England as well large numbers of adults who are now looking back at their own lives and saying wait that explains my life and getting a diagnosis at the age of 40 the age of 50 and now recognizing that without having a label that’s not the point the point is to have a better understanding and there are many individuals who have told us that they were intrigued by our programs and kind of just logged on and by the end of the program because we do in addition to the proposition of if you’ve met one of this person you’ve met one of this in person we are proponents of the proposition of nothing about this without us so in all our programs we do include at least one and often several autistic individuals to speak for themselves and when they tell their own stories there are many audience members who say that it resonates with them and whether it’s their own experiences or they look at the children or they look at the grandchildren and they come to the realization that maybe that’s what’s going on and I think you know as I mentioned I think awareness is going to be that first step we have to get past awareness we have to get to acceptance and inclusion and employment and all those very important goals but the first step really has to be awareness and understanding and I think our programs have really made a contribution to developing that awareness in many of our audience members. Thank you so people are interested in your programs where can they find them could you give me a couple of links that they could find you and obviously the information is also going to be on our charity website just to remind you www.annakennedyonline.com it will be on our latest news page but for people listening in where can they find you so it’s kind of a lengthy link itself the disability rights and inclusion the easiest way to access it and I’ll send happy to send you the link is to maybe just Google Turo T-O-U-R-O is the name of the university name of the law school where I teach and if you Google Turo disability rights and inclusion you will come to the page of the Turo disability rights and inclusion project and you’ll see on that page we’ve posted many many presentations the presentations over the years the webinars one of the great things about webinars of course is that we do record them and so even though if we have our programs you know at eight o’clock in the evening let’s say Eastern time New York time so we do have some audience members in England who managed to stay up you know sometimes the middle of the night and we appreciate that but we also I end up posting the recordings and on the website you see many of the recordings over the years in addition to a law review issue the law review is the legal journal that law schools the United States and there’s of course legal journals in all the law schools I think in the world certainly in England and elsewhere you’ll see a law review issue which I organized an event it was actually not the in-person event but where scholars from across the United States contributed articles to some of the cutting-edge matters related to disability rights and inclusion and you can find that those articles on that page as well on that website. Thank you so much once again if you haven’t managed to write that down it will be on the charity website on the latest use page so let’s talk about your book so what’s the title of your book and why did you decide to go down that route? Thank you so the name of my book is What is Yo Safe on the Spectrum? Yo Safe being the Hebrew for Joseph the biblical Joseph son of Jacob and my motivation for writing a book really grew out of what my experience is working with individuals and knowing individuals on the autism spectrum in addition to my own background I’ve mentioned my legal background and I mentioned briefly my interest in Jewish law I have a rabbinic background as well and in part for my rabbinic studies and really going back to when I was growing up reading studying briefly the story of Joseph it’s a well-known story I won’t recount the entire story if your listeners are familiar you know Joseph son of Jacob yeah they made Broadway plays out of it Joseph and a technical agreement but they made a DreamWorks animation out of the story you know Joseph it’s called Prince of Dreams or King of Dreams so Joseph does represent this fascinating story but it’s a story that if you look closely and this is something that I’ve done over the years through my rabbinic studies there are so many unusual aspects of the story and the what seems to be quite puzzling about this fascinating personality is he has difficulty challenges interacting with his brothers with his father he has those dreams that he tells his brothers and they’re gonna appreciate that you know to say the least ends up getting sold into slavery into Egypt and then it ends up of all things coming before the Pharaoh and interpreting the Pharaoh’s dreams and becoming the leader rising to great heights of power and success as were in Egypt and there’s so many aspects of the story that seems surprising that seemed puzzling that seemed difficult to understand at one point it struck me that maybe what we’re seeing here is an example of someone who is on the autism spectrum and as I further look closely at both the biblical text and some of the traditions and there’s a Jewish tradition to interpret and to expound upon the biblical text and many of the teachings over thousands of years spanning different parts of the world scholars in Spain in North Africa more contemporary times in the United States in England some of their comments to me resonated with an understanding of the Joseph story through the lens of autism Wow so I’m just looking actually at some of the reviews of the book online so I’ll just read one of them as the mother and grandmother of individuals on the autism spectrum as well as a teacher specializing in both gifted education and special needs I really enjoyed the premise behind this research I’m familiar with the story of Joseph from the Hebrew Scriptures but it was interesting to see all the extra references from scholars who have studied the account in more detail I think the combination of ideas from all sources does indicate a strong possibility that Joseph was on the spectrum I recognize several of the dilemmas from a personal experience a really interesting read that I really enjoyed but some really good reviews there so people are interested I can see that the book is available on Amazon it’s £6.55 with Kindle and hardcover is £25.76 so if you’re interested it’s called was usef on the spectrum understanding Joseph through Torah Midrash and classical Jewish resources so was it 2019 when you first wrote the book was it a little bit earlier well the research actually goes back I suppose you could say you know decades the kind of aha moment for me was I suppose a few years before that and it did take some time to continue researching you know I actually writing the book but it was something that I primarily intended to present as a way of understanding the story recognizing at least hoping that it would resonate with readers and you know I greatly appreciate that comment that you read because to me the most important response I’ve gotten that’s meaningful responsive I’ve gotten or from individuals who have family or themselves who are on the autism spectrum and have told me that they recognized their own behaviors their own experiences in the story of Joseph through the lens of autism okay can I ask you know when you finish the book and then it went to print and then obviously it was distributed how did you feel did you feel a little bit apprehensive do you think people do you think oh people are there people gonna really understand you know what I’m trying to get across here what did you feel I did I did feel I wondered you know what the response would be and some of the apprehension was well-founded and I have found I think to be fair that individuals who either themselves have some experience in particular or they themselves are autistic and if they have something familiarity with the story of Joseph the thesis itself which might seem surprising doesn’t really shock anyone that if someone has an understanding of autism and someone’s familiar with the story of Joseph it takes a couple of moments maybe and the reaction I often get is oh yeah that makes a lot of sense I have found that either individuals who aren’t made with autism and unfortunately that’s still I think represents the majority certainly of the United States and you know even more so in other parts of the world with people I’ve spoken to in different countries if someone’s not familiar with autism their first reaction is often something along the lines of oh how can that be Joseph was so successful Joseph was so brilliant Joseph rose to these great heights of power how can you say he was autistic and of course the fact that someone succeeds professionally the fact that someone and this is crucial to the story of all things Joseph is provided the supports from Pharaoh he’s provided the supports and structures he needs to be able to demonstrate his brilliance and doesn’t have to be brilliant to be able to demonstrate the skills that he has and to me that’s in understanding that’s an awareness that I hope the book can help promote that individuals when they’re young and it does start from the time that their children Joseph was having challenges or his brothers were having challenges if you want to look at it that way his interactions with his brothers with his peers were difficult were problematic he said things that maybe on reflection he shouldn’t have said and they took it the wrong way and they took it out on him and the fact that a child does have those difficulties in the schoolyard doesn’t mean that they can succeed and whatever that definition of success is again we can’t expect every autistic individual to be Joseph we can expect any of us the rest of us to be a Joseph but we can expect that society will recognize the potential in each individual and the need to look at each individual as their own person and to provide whatever supports and structures they may be and as surprising as it is as unlikely as it seems each person deserves that potential each person deserves that appropriate treatment so that they can reach whatever level of success and most of all of happiness on their own terms I just read one more review as you’re talking I’m looking at the reviews are all very very positive so this one’s from a neurodiversity advocate so a vivid and thought-provoking book highlighting contemporary ideas of cognitive diversity through a story long told professor Levine brings a unique angle to the biblical narrative of Joseph by combining deep knowledge from ancient Jewish scriptures with profound insights of life on the autism spectrum the descriptions of Joseph success through Pharaoh’s accommodations resonate with today’s DEI efforts with regards to neurodiversity lifting invisible barriers in social construct and using strength-based approaches to allow for contributions from neurodivergent talents and skills that the world needs a highly interesting and captivating read with many dimensions to explore so some really good reviews there so congratulations on that thank you thank you so much so what plans do you have for future programs are you willing to share thank you so our most recent program actually was just this past month and again this is available on the website I just posted the recording just a couple of weeks ago we have a fascinating program there is a Oscar nominated a short film called feeling through that I’d strongly recommend and this moves away from autism for the moment to brother disability rights and we do try to look at different areas of disabilities and this has to do the short film has to do with deafblind individuals and we were able to have with us the writer-director of the Oscar nominated short along with individuals at the Helen Keller Center which does serve the needs of deafblind individuals and as I mentioned we included two individuals at the Helen Keller Center who are both employees who are both actually take hold important positions at the center and who themselves identify as deafblind so that nothing about us without us our next big program that we’re organizing is actually an international conference that we are going to be hosting at Tarot Law Center in Long Island on March 7th and 8th of next year 2024 and the conference is the title of the conference is disability rights and inclusion in multidisciplinary conference and the reason that I’m so interested in a multidisciplinary conference is to the point of our webinars and in part the point of my book what I recognized and I mentioned before the limitations of the law and as much as I am a legal advocate and a law professor we have to recognize that to make real change to change people’s hearts and minds to make real societal change it’s not enough to have laws in place it’s not enough to advocate for the laws to be implemented we have to change the way society views disability rights and inclusion and the way society views autism and so at this conference we are planning to have legal scholars we’re planning to have legal advocates but we’re also trying to have individuals from a range of disciplines from a variety of disciplines who address autism and disability more generally so some of the speakers will include musicians you mentioned in your opening remarks acting we do hope to have individuals and the program that we had on that movie included the first deafblind actor to star in a major Hollywood film because of that exact point because it’s important to recognize that every aspect of life every discipline every walk of life is interrelated and has to contribute these broader efforts for disability rights inclusion so I’m really looking forward to that conference and and beyond okay good luck with that too right so because this program is about mental health and well-being what do you do for your own well-being so obviously you sound like you’re very very busy so obviously we need to recharge our battery somewhere and I know I’m not very good at doing this myself but what do you do to recharge your batteries and to help you with your own well-being so of all things the way I kind of recharge and only add to how busy I am been a good way has to do with my family so among other things this is something you may be familiar with so under you know Jewish faith we have Saturday Friday night Saturday as our Sabbath and on the Sabbath the way I drove the Sabbath is among other things you attend synagogue you are part of community and you also unplug literally you know you’re not in your cell phone you’re not you know scrolling through Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever it is that you do the rest of the week and you are spending the time you know with your family and I try to do that on a daily basis if possible but we know we all live such busy lives including my children so they’re on their own devices as you can imagine the way things go nowadays so so the Sabbath is a time for us to really recharge in that sense so how many children do you have so I have five children five Wow you’re definitely busy we’re busy and and all good and how old are they so the oldest is 24 and the youngest is eight okay so quite very dangerous then oh so it’s lovely to share thank you and I just want to say thank you so much for your presentation and our chat it’s been very very interesting and just before we finish at the end I just wanted to also thank the listeners and everybody across social media for signing my petition so as you probably know Sam that the question at every parents mind is who’s gonna look after my loved one when I’m no longer around because obviously there’s some scary stories out there that we hear so I have a petition at the moment and we’re almost at 15,000 signatures and I’m hoping to take it to number 10 down in Street before the end of the year and so many parents are so worried whether they’ve got a child or whether they’ve got an adult and I speak to adults as well but you know obviously they’re worried about when their parents are no longer around to help them navigate this complicated world that we’re living in I’ve spoken to adults as well where their parents have sadly died and one adult ended up on the street living in a tent I’m pleased to say now that is now got his own flat with his dog I did a crowd funder for him and then another gentleman was moved away 14 miles away from where he lives away from all his friends yeah and obviously that was difficult so thank you again for everybody signing the petition as I always say if you don’t try you’ll never know so I’m hoping that it will make a difference but if it doesn’t at least I know I’ve tried so I’ll keep everybody updated with how the petition is going and obviously when we take it into number 10 but yeah thank you again Sam it’s been really interesting listening to you talking about all the work that you’re doing and please you know keep us posted on anything else that you’re doing you know we’d really appreciate it and we can share it on the charity website as well thank you and you know I want to say in terms of that particular petition that you’re exactly right and that is the biggest concern that they often hear from individuals is what happens next what happens later what happens when the parents are no longer there to care for their children their adult children and to that point you know as we continue to develop our programming that’s an area I would like to explore perhaps I can return the favor and have you or you can return the favor and join us for one of our programs to those important questions oh lovely thank you so much yes I’d love to so thank you once again and everybody thank you for listening in and keep updated with everything we’re doing on the charity website just to remind you www.anna Kennedy online.com and thank you once again Sam and keep well keep safe and everybody as I always say just take it one day at a time some days good some days not so good thank you again