Transcript of Colleen Lamar:From Diagnosis to Hope: How One Mother's Journey Helped Change Autism Education New

Lisa, tell them about our new show.

We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Ioannou. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest.

Ooh, I scammed them.

What?

I could talk to you for an hour.

You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making you better, getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On recent episodes of The Questlove Show, I chatted with JoJo about her music and Walo 267 about his story and everything in between.

Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm gonna make it weird. Someone's gonna try to sing Leave Get Out or Too Little Too Late or Baby It's You.

Oh, no.

And then I'm gonna be like, okay, cool.

Check out my conversation with JoJo, Walo 267, and more on The Questlove Show. Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. You get your podcast.

Peace.

Hi, it's Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. This season, we've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice. Guests like Adam Scott. How does that make you feel?

That I look like Tom Cruise? First of all, do you think—

Do you think—

Do you think—

Do you think—

Do you—

I want to— I'm sorry, I started the sentence first.

I think I started this interview. Portia Williams, Sara Bareilles, Tiffany Haddish, Anna Faris, Keri Russell, Kristen Johnston, and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What if everything you thought you knew about autism and mental health wasn't the full story? Today's conversation might change the way you see it. Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide, where real conversations and lived experiences inspire understanding I'm Tony Mantour. This is where understanding begins. If this kind of conversation matters to you, then follow the show so you don't miss what comes next. One of the greatest strengths of the autism community is the willingness of parents to turn challenges into opportunities, not just for their own children, but for countless others who will follow. Joining us today is Colleen Lamar. The mother of 2 autistic sons whose journey has taken her from navigating the uncertainty of a diagnosis to helping create lasting change in her community. She helped create the Jeremiah Center in Texas, giving dozens of children the opportunity to thrive in a supportive educational environment. Today, we'll discuss the realities of raising children on the spectrum, the importance of advocacy, and how one family's determination can create hope and opportunity for countless others. Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

You have an autistic son. So tell me what you remember most about the day your sons were diagnosed.

Yes. So I have 3 children. Ray is 23, Grace is 21, and William is 19. So both of my sons have autism and then my daughter is neurotypical.

Okay.

Starting off, I mean, I had a totally normal pregnancy, you know, raised my first. So my imagination of being a mom was, you know, he's going to play Little League and join Boy Scouts. And the biggest challenge I thought he'd face was going to be whether or not he made the LSU football team. I mean, that was my biggest concern at the time, being a first-time mom.

Right.

And he was perfect. He was born perfect, met all of his milestones on time, sitting up, walking early, did everything early, but he just wasn't talking.

Okay.

But incredibly smart. We used to call him the little scientist. He was obsessed with cars.

Okay.

Bins of Matchbox cars that he would just line up by color or by style. Um, he would take flashcards, throw them in the air, line them up, you know, 1 to 100 as fast as he could, all around the time he was 18 months. He was so inquisitive.

Okay.

He couldn't talk, but that was about it. That was the only thing we really noticed. And the doctors at the time said, well, he's so bright everywhere else, something had to fail. So the speech is failing because he can do all these advanced things. He could write, read, right? All these wonderful things. He could answer our questions by writing out answers. So we didn't think too much of it. Terrible twos were not terrible. I was like, well, this is a myth. This is a wonderful child. Like, there is no such thing as terrible twos.

Okay.

And then 3 hit. And once he hit 3 years old, I was like, something is going on here.

Right.

He would wake up and be wonderful for about 30 minutes and then scream like he was on fire the entire day. He would bang his head on the wall, on the floor, on his sister. I mean, he was just incredibly frustrated. So the doctor still wasn't overly concerned, but we went ahead with testing for autism.

Okay.

And I went in confident. I was like, okay, it's expressive language delay. It's not a big deal. We're going to be okay. And we went through the testing and they called us back a few weeks later and they told us that he actually did meet the criteria for autism. And he was diagnosed autistic PDD-NOS, pervasive developmental delay, not otherwise specified.

Does he talk now?

He does.

Okay. All right. So we got past that. Okay. What information— the biggest thing that I've heard from so many different people is the lack of information. When they find out that their child is autistic, it's like they give them a pamphlet and say, there you go. So what do you wish that someone had given you during the first 6 months after finding out that your son was autistic?

I think, like you say, there was no path, there was no guidance. So it seemed like any other disease or disorder, it was like, okay, here's what we know works.

Right.

Oh, your child's diabetic? Here's some insulin. We're going to monitor and we're going to make sure that your child has this. When they tell you that your child's autistic, they're like, here's some speech therapy, some ABA therapy. We hope it works. We don't really know what's going to happen here.

Right.

It's truly, truly up to you. We had a very different experience though. When Bray was diagnosed, when we left the doctor's office, you leave thinking, oh my God, all those plans I had, you know, LSU football isn't going to happen now. He's got autism. And is he going to live in an institution? What's his life going to be like?

Right.

Within that 10-minute drive, we stopped to get him a Happy Meal, and we were in the drive-through, and there was a mother outside with an adult son in a wheelchair that was profoundly medically fragile.

Okay.

And I thought, oh my God, if she's doing that, I can handle this. Like, this is nothing. So I never really went down that path of like, how do I manage this? How— why is this happening to us? What are we gonna do?

Right.

It was just like, OK, this is what I've been given. She can handle that. I'm going to handle this. And we're going to be just fine. So it became a structure of finding the support that we needed. But like you say, nobody is going to do this for you.

Right.

You have to search and sort this out. And you've been given this little delicate soul that can't maneuver this Earth right now that you're in charge of providing that structure and support and love for. So that was my experience with it.

So moving from that point where you saw The person dealing with a situation that you thought was worse and you said, oh, I can handle that. What was your path next? What did you do to make that easier so that the journey would be better for both of you?

I think it was an absolute blessing. Shortly after Ray was diagnosed at 3, my ex-husband's company sent us to Germany for a year.

Okay.

Arrived in Germany and everything there— in America, it was all devastation. Autism, oh my gosh, that's just such a devastating diagnosis. this. We arrived in Germany and everyone thought it was wonderful. They're like, oh, these are such brilliant children, these late-talking, bright children. You're so lucky. We kept being told how lucky we were.

Okay.

Well, in America, this is a disability and they say, oh, Americans don't understand. So we had that entire year to decompress and understand that we had a child who's going to need some extra needs.

Yeah.

In a community who were just like, you won the lottery. And it didn't make any sense coming from one culture to another.

Right.

To have that setup for that entire year of like, this is going to be great for you. You should be so happy you have this child. So we came back to America after a year and the honeymoon was over. I mean, as soon as we got back to America, it was searching out services— speech therapists, occupational therapists, ABA therapists— and dealing with schools.

Right. I've talked with people all over the world and I've been asked several times, What do you find that's different? And I tell them, there's really nothing that's different other than how they approach it. Some countries approach it like it's devastation. Other countries don't have the finances, but they know they need to do something. And then other countries treat it like you got the devil. And then you got other countries that will do everything they possibly can. So it just varies from country to country. So when you move back from a country that supported you and now you're back into the US where you're all by yourself again, How did you navigate through it? What was your next steps?

We went ahead and we enrolled Ray in the public school, the local public school for kindergarten, and it went okay. He had support in the classroom through the public school because of his language impairment. The issue that I ran into was around that time I read that book Einstein Syndrome by Thomas Sowell and Dr. Camerata here at Vanderbilt, and it discussed this whole subset of children that were very bright that had a language delay. And, you know, be very wary of overdiagnosing. There's no biomarker for autism. There's no brain scan for autism. So before you start limiting their future, right, kind of take a step back and make sure you're not dealing with something else. And here I had this bright young little child who had some behavior issues. He did have behavior issues, but he also was very bright.

Sure.

So I wouldn't allow the public school to test him, and I relied on my doctors. I relied on my therapists. Privately. By the time we hit 2nd grade, the school came back, the public school came back and said, if you don't allow us to test him for autism through our diagnostician, then we're going to put him in a special education room.

Right.

His teacher did not agree with that. His teacher said he's doing fine. He has— he needs prompting, but he doesn't need to be in a special education room.

Right.

And I didn't understand any of this. This is my first son. And I thought, I went to public school. Public school is fine.

Sure.

So I went home after that meeting and I started researching and I learned all about the IDEA and least restrictive environments and the Free and Appropriate Education Acts. And I just educated myself on that. And within a few days I called another meeting and I went in and I said, you are violating his rights as an individual with a disability. This is not the least restrictive environment. And they backed down and they said, you're right. And I said, I just don't understand why we're so quick to label these children early on.

Right.

And limit their future when we don't really know what we're dealing with yet.

I read something that you created, something called the Jeremiah Center.

Yes.

Okay, tell us a little bit about that.

Well, clearly public school was going to be a continuous fight. So after I left that meeting, we went into the private school realm. I took Ray to— the doctor had said at the time, find him a school that'll allow you to bring in an ABA therapist, bring somebody in that can support him throughout the day. In a low-ratio environment. So that led me to private school. So I took Ray to 5 different private schools.

Sure.

And they all said no, they didn't want to touch it. It's nothing that they wanted to do because they're neurotypical schools. They really didn't have to deal with anything like this. So my neighbor told me about Salem Lutheran, and I went to that school, and Dr. Gertner, the principal, and Mrs. Tally, the teacher, said, bring him in for half a day. I brought him in for half a day. At the end of the day, we met. And they said, why not? Like, why not? Let's try. Why not see what he can do here?

Nice.

I brought in 2 therapists, 2 ABA therapists, and it worked. Ray had 3 years of gains within 9 months of being at Salem. We just started to see that Mrs. Talley, his teacher, had told us, you know, I'm not going to lower the standards for him. He's going to meet us where we're at. And if I have to adjust, I'll adjust. But let's see if he can meet us up here first before we move anything for him.

Right.

So it wasn't a nanny state. It was, be proud to be a Salem Saint. And it worked. She also told the children, he's going to learn from us and we're going to learn from him. So Ray was in this environment of just love, just marinated in love with a community that wanted to see him succeed. Our doctor wrote the prescription for the 40-hour-a-week ABA therapy to be supported in class, in a school setting. Our insurance company denied it. I learned about insurance law real fast then too, because we had a Texas state mandate and they should have been covering it. So at that time, we were paying $18,000 a month for Ray and William to have ABA support in the classroom. And I didn't even know if I was right. I'm like, I think I'm reading this law right. I don't know.

Yeah.

But we ended up— I found an attorney that also had an autistic son who took our case for free, didn't charge us anything.

Oh, wow.

He actually went all the way up to the Texas Insurance— the State of Texas Insurance Review Board, and they overturned it and they made it retroactive. So they forced our insurance company to pay the 40-hour-a-week ABA therapy, plus it was retroactive for those 4 months that we were paying out of pocket because absolutely nobody can do that.

Right.

But that's the position that they put you in. So once we saw that we can do this, we can get the insurance company to force payment because we have a state mandate in Texas, I ended up meeting, um, the— I was volunteering for the youth minister and his wife was a BCBA that worked with autistic children. So we met and she said, I've always wanted to build something here at Salem. So here I am with a third party when we ended up thinking, well, we can bring that here. We can build that here. So now we went to the principal again and we told her the idea. And Lauren is the one that runs the Jeremiah Center and she's just absolutely incredible. It's 10 years now that it's been in place.

Wow.

But it allows all of these children to have access to a top-tier private Christian education that have autism or other neurodivergent disabilities that can be in the classroom of support in a community that loves them, accepts them, and then also has the flip side where they support the family, they support the siblings. Because sibling also— you think about it with my daughter, she's neurotypical and she's always been left out.

Right.

So they support the sibling, the child, the family. And they have access to this community and an education that just isn't available anywhere else that I've seen.

Yeah, you brought something up that I definitely want to touch on briefly, the sibling. I interviewed a lady that had written a book and her 3 brothers were autistic. She was the only one that was neurotypical. So she was the odd man out lots of times, so to speak. So she wrote a book about the views from a neurotypical person being around and growing up with neurodivergent brothers. How did she handle it?

I think they're just used to it, honestly, because Grace is younger than Ray, so it's all that she's ever known. She's incredibly protective of Ray.

Okay.

And they're best friends. So one of the instances, we ended up in public school in Maryland, and they're in the same grade, but I never would allow them in the same classrooms because I wanted her to have that independence.

Right.

I brought them— the first time they were in public school, and I brought them to a football game, I went to pick them up and Ray wasn't there, and I panicked, and I said, Grace, where is he? What's going on? And she said, he's talking to his friends. And I was like, he's got friends? And she said, yes, you're so weird with autism. What is wrong with you? So she's like, autism's not a big deal. And what it has done for her to grow up in that empathetic environment, she's a preschool teacher and she is the fiercest advocate for autism. She was at Disability Day on the Hill here in Tennessee this past winter.

Yeah.

But she's the biggest advocate. She can pick out a kid who's struggling. She can pick out a kid that needs a little extra extra help, but she's such a strong advocate for it. Growing up, I think it was difficult for her because think about if you go to a movie with an autistic young child, right, and he's done after 15 minutes. Well, she's going home too, right? So it was whatever the temperature was of Ray, Grace kind of had to go along with. Yeah, but she never complained about it.

That's good. That's good.

Lisa, we should tell them about our new show.

Oh my God, Lexi, we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Iwanu. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisi DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

I'm not gonna get anywhere fighting.

That is wild. I learned that about you today.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is Dating is my business, and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world.

We're gonna talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are.

Obviously I would do what I think I could do to, to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Liar.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care.

I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer.

Ooh, I scammed them.

What?

I could talk to you for an hour.

You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you. And I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making you better, getting closure, then I would humbly recommend But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far. Fake a back injury. Get the spray tan. Up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns.

Kill him.

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Kill him with a gun.

Listen, it's already over.

I'm all about lying if it's something that That really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing, you look the bear in the eye, and you say, this isn't you.

Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome aboard season 6 of The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight. Which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses.

The stewardesses were so beautiful.

But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears.

It was the most sexist job I think you could have.

In this era, The airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single.

They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married.

They have to be skinny.

We were starving ourselves.

And they have to be young.

You would retire at age 32.

But one day, a group of stewardesses said—

This has gotta stop.

They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everybody, I'm Chuck Bryan of the Stuff You Should Know podcast.

And I'm Adam Pranica of The Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek.

We decided to start a golf comedy podcast because we're both big golf lovers, and we wanted to spread that joy, and it's called 3 Putt Boats.

It's coming from the perspective of golfers who are sometimes good enough to hit 2 great shots in a row, but almost never good enough to hit 3.

And a 3-putt bogey is kind of the purest expression of that.

Every golfer knows what that's like.

Obviously, we're gonna talk a lot about the game of golf, how absurd it is and how fun it is and how vexing and frustrating. But more than anything, just how much we love the greatest game in the world.

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We're putting these out every Friday morning. For your weekend golf routine.

This is a show about sharing our experiences on the golf course and how absurd and funny they can be.

And that's what 3-Put Bogey is.

It's 3-Put Bogey, everybody, out every Friday. You can listen to it now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So did you run into any real obstacles when you started trying to create this environment, you know, within the school system? And then You moved from Texas to Maryland?

Yes.

I mean, you can move 30 miles and have different approaches, let alone the distance from Texas to Maryland.

It was devastating. It was very devastating. Um, our community in Salem just loved all of us. So to leave that— Jeremiah Center kicked off Ray's 8th grade year is when it was fully formed. So Ray, William, my youngest, were the first 2 at Jeremiah Center with Lauren. And then we immediately left right after graduation, 8th grade year. We had a— Peter had already relocated up to Maryland and we joined him in Maryland.

Yeah.

So right as it was getting off the ground, we were gone.

Wow.

She's done an incredible job with it. And then we landed in Maryland and I tried to recreate it in Maryland with Catholic schools up there. It just wasn't the same thing. It wasn't the same community. It was a different environment. Like you say, you can move 30 miles and be in a completely different area.

Right.

Same held true here. Grace is the one that said she wanted to try public school. I was apprehensive, but we went ahead. I put her in public school, and it was a great school. So within 3 months, I moved Ray and William over into the public school as well, and that's where he finished out his high school career, was in the public school system.

Okay.

All right, so with all this going on, at what point did you find yourself being maybe labeled as an autism advocate?

I think it's just natural.

Yeah.

I think I really thought of myself as an advocate. When I was in Texas, I would have moms search me out and ask me to go to public school meetings with them, right? Like, oh, I think your son is autistic, could you go to an IEP meeting with me? And of course I would go.

Sure.

Because I know how scary it is to walk into a classroom with all these administrators, right? And you know what's right for your child, and you hope They do as well, but I just started going to meetings with parents and trying to help where I could.

Okay, so how has your vision of autism changed over the years?

I think it was when Ray was first diagnosed, it seemed devastating, just the word autism. I think everybody had a certain movie that they saw at some point and they thought, oh, that's what autism is, you know, with Dustin Hoffman, and that's what's going to happen in the future. You didn't realize that there was so many different outcomes.

Right, right.

I think now the change has been like grace. Just seeing my daughter, how she says, you're so weird about autism, it's not a big deal. And I understand that there's different levels of it.

Right.

So you have to have some grace there. I think my view has changed as far as now that I have young adult autistic sons, what are we doing to help? How are we helping them be independent and live fulfilling lives?

What advice would you give parents that are just starting out with autistic children now?

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. That same child that you walked into the doctor's office with is the same child you're leaving with. So whatever is going to be diagnosed and coming your way, you can absolutely handle it. I have an incredibly strong faith. I think my faith life has truly, truly helped get me through all of this. And build your community. I have had an absolute blessing of communities around me, whether it was in Texas, Maryland, down here in Nashville. Just build your community of support and that understands you and just want the best. And don't— I would say don't focus so much on the autism. It's just part of your life now.

Yeah.

There's really no separation from it. Another thing, when Ray was first diagnosed early on and I told the neuropsychiatrist, my God, I'm going to get him a helmet. He bangs his head on the wall. He bangs it on the floor. We would go to the park, he would just run as fast as he could. And the doctor gave me great advice and said, he's not doing it to hurt your feelings, he's struggling. So these behaviors that you see early on, they're not doing it to hurt your feelings. They are truly struggling just to be on earth right now. Like, you are their caretaker, their guardian. You're the one that's been blessed with this child to watch over.

Right, right. That makes sense. Now tell me a little bit about Vanderbilt. how that's affected your life.

I will tell you. Well, so reading that book Einstein Syndrome with Thomas Sowell, it was co-authored with Dr. Camerata here at Vanderbilt. So I emailed him a couple times throughout the years, and I kind of always kept my eye on what Vanderbilt was doing, if they were in the news. And I learned that they were building up this program, Next Steps, for neurodivergent, you know, college kids, right? And I thought, well, I'll keep an eye on that. So it came time, Ray was a senior, in high school, and he applied to Next Steps. They gave him an invitation for a 2-hour Zoom meeting, and then if everything went well, here's a tentative invitation to come to campus and see what it's like being a student a week later. So I went ahead, he did the 2-hour Zoom meeting, and I was listening in the other room, and he absolutely collapsed. Just collapsed. He was great for 45 minutes, with the administrators at Vanderbilt Next Steps. And within 45 minutes, he was saying, I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk anymore. I'm done with this.

Right.

And I thought, oh my God, this is the end. Like, this was the plan that I had for him, and now it's gone. So after the interview, I emailed the director. I said, hey, you know, thanks so much for your time. And yes, we will be at Preview Day next week. And she immediately called me and said, oh, no, no, no, no. Like, he is not one of our students. He's not going to come here. I can give you some resources, but he's not one of ours. And I said, no, I completely understand. We'd still like to come to Preview Day. And she said, I don't understand why you would do that. You're not coming here. And I said, I understand what you're saying, but I think it would just be good for us to come down. So she agreed. She said, okay, with the explicit understanding your son is not attending here. I said, okay.

Mm-hmm.

So we drove down from Maryland, drove down to Nashville. Everyone thought I was crazy. They're like, they said he's not going there. What are you doing? And I said, I don't know. I just, I feel like I need to get him there. That was a Zoom interview. They need to see him. So we drove down. We stayed over at the Marriott by the stadium. The next morning, I dropped him off on campus, and I went to Starbucks on West End, and I prayed the entire time and stared at my phone. And I waited for them to call and say, he's run off campus, we can't find him, or there was a behavior issue. And I waited and waited, but nobody ever called me. So I went back at 3 o'clock to pick him up, and Ray came around the corner like he was the line leader, just marching And the director came up to me and she was like, we love him, we want him, he's great, he's fantastic. And I was like, are you sure?

Yeah.

You mean it? And she was like, yes. She said, we already have our 10 students for the year, but we're gonna put him on the waitlist, but we want him. So that was it. She said we'd receive emails, the, you know, he could start next year, but he's on the waitlist until then. So we drove back to Maryland, and about a month and a half later, I received an email and it said, hey, our social media department would like you to video him opening up his acceptance package.

Wow.

And I wrote back and I said, well, he hasn't been accepted until next year. And they said, no, somebody dropped out, we want him. So we moved him to the top of the list.

Wow.

So that was it. I mean, we had just a few months to kind of understand, okay, well, now there's no dormitories, so you have to move to Nashville. Within about 2 and a half months, I had to be back down here in Nashville.

So what now? Does that I mean, when he goes there, what's the program?

It's an incredible program. It's one of the top in the country, but they have a 98% employment rate.

Okay.

So they have classes. When Ray started off, it was classes on life skills. So he would learn how to cook. They had a cooking class, they had finance class, they had, you know, dating classes, things like that. Ray's had a girlfriend all 4 years at Vanderbilt. So he's had that exposure. And at the same time, they take regular general ed Vanderbilt classes.

Okay.

They also are, as soon as you step on campus at Next Steps, you have a team of, they call them ambassadors, and they're fellow students who receive no credit for doing this, that just take them bowling, are peers with them, make sure they go to dances, take them to the football games, the basketball games.

Wow.

And they're truly ingrained in campus life here. There's nothing else like it.

That's awesome. So now my next question is, how long has he been doing this and what have you seen in changes He is in his senior year, so he will graduate in December, and he'll walk next fall or next spring.

So it's his 4th year here, but he's had internships. He's had work experiences most typical kids haven't had. So the program has them in internships. They do exploration freshman year, sophomore, junior, senior year, they're already doing multiple internships. So they can see what they're good at and where their strengths are at, which is incredibly important.

Right.

The differences that I've seen in Ray— when I moved down here, we moved from the suburbs in Maryland and we lived in the suburbs of Houston. So moving down here into a city right off campus, I mean, having him navigate where he can use Google Maps to get around— I don't do anything. He leaves every morning.

Lisa, we should tell them about our new show.

Oh my God, Lexi, we have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Iwanu. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart but so close at heart.

And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

I'm not gonna get anywhere fighting.

That is wild. I learned that about you today.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste Dating is my business, and I've always got something to say. If men were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world.

We're gonna talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are.

Obviously I would do what I think I could do to, to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Don't lie to me.

Liar.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't really care.

I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on incredible guests like Conan O'Brien, Iowa Debris, Lamorne Morris, and Nicole Byer.

Ooh, I scammed them.

What?

I could talk to you for an hour.

You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And the scams run the gamut. I'm talking about scams from the 1800s all the way up to today. I also warn you and keep you safe against scammers. Call your grandparents. Tell your parents to stop clicking on links, please. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. If there's a scam, I'm here to protect you, and I'm also here to laugh with you. So if you like fun, if you like comedy, and you like learning and protecting yourself from criminals, start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would But if you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Take a listen to some of the incredible advice we've given so far. Fake a back injury. Get the spray tan. Up your alcohol consumption. Only women should be allowed to have guns.

Kill him.

Kill him.

Kill him with a gun.

Listen, it's already over.

I'm all about lying.

If it's something that really happened. The next time a bear is running at you, you just calmly stop what you're doing. You look the bear in the eye and you say, this isn't you.

Do not preserve relationships. You don't need them. You only need one thing, and that's the Get Worse podcast. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome aboard season 6 of The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight. Which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses.

The stewardesses were so beautiful.

But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears.

It was the most sexist job I think you could have.

In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses They have to be single.

They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married.

They have to be skinny.

We were starving ourselves.

And they have to be young.

You would retire at age 32.

But one day, a group of stewardesses said—

This has gotta stop.

They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's Dramos, and I want you to meet the disruptors who are setting today's trends and discover those who are building what's next. People like Sebastian Yatra.

Life is on the other side of fear.

Introducing Global Flow, a new podcast where I sit down with disruptors across music, entertainment, business, and tech. to break down what they're building, get the blueprints of how they got there, all while trying to figure out what's coming next. They'll share their stories, including not just the wins that we all see, but the moments they had to persevere through when everyone counted them out. People like the co-founder of Buddy's Coffee, Rachel, who quickly went from being a New York Times success story to facing eviction.

Being, you know, deemed a successful business by like, you know, I mean, it's the New York Times, like as like a Puerto Rican girl from New York who didn't finish college, Like, I was like, holy crap, like, I'm finally doing something.

Like, maybe this is all working out.

And then that day when the landlord comes in, it's like he like shit all over that idea and he stepped on me.

Listen to Global Flow as a part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Goes to whatever building he needs to go to, make sure he's at the internship he needs to be at, and he navigates all through Google Maps. And that's something that Next Steps has taught him. Paying for meals. I mean, I was such a bubble of a mom, I think, with him. So at Next Steps, you know, he pays for his meals, he can take an Uber, public transport. They taught him all of those skills that probably I thought, well, I don't know if he can, but they took it like, he's ours now, we're going to show him how. And that was the biggest difference for me.

If a parent is listening right now and they've just heard the words, your child has autism, And they've heard it for the very first time, what would you want them to know before they go to sleep tonight?

It's going to be a different experience. It just is. But the highs are so incredibly high. So the moment that your son says his first word, right, you can't take that for granted. The moment that your child is standing in front of chapel addressing chapel when you knew he could— he struggled to speak for the first 6 years. Those moments No other parent gets to experience like you will.

Okay, so if you, looking back, if you could sit across from the version of yourself on the day your sons were diagnosed, what would you tell yourself about the life that was still ahead?

I think I would say it's going to be an adventure and to trust the path, trust God, because truly every step of the way I felt like we were just Loved and guided. And the lowest lows, I mean, honestly, that moment when I saw that other mother, that always stuck in my head that first time he was diagnosed. Like, she can do that, you can do this. Like, there's always somebody who's going through something worse.

Right.

There's always somebody who needs more help and more prayers than you do. You can absolutely get through this. The thing is that you have to want to do it, and you have to have that understanding. Of course you're going to have doctors, you're going to have teachers, these experts that are there to guide you, but you are the parent. You know your child.

Here's an easy statement. You just said it. You know, it's like there's other people that are worse than you. But a doctor once said to me, you know, 99.9% of all my patients wish they were as bad as you are.

Right.

But to me, it was bad. So how do you navigate through that? This is bad, even though others are going going through worse situations? Because that's a tough one to do.

You're absolutely right, and I don't mean to discount that by any means.

Sure, I know.

But I think a strong faith, a good sense of humor, and a community that you can go to— what the heck was that? Like, so I think those are the differences in getting through it.

Yeah. All right, so now in closing, what would you like to tell anyone that's listening that you think is important that they hear and know?

I would say that you are trusted with such a delicate soul that is so trying to navigate this earth, that every— I mean, for my son, it was oversensory. Everything was loud, everything touched different. It was so much. And just to have that patience and faith and pride that you were chosen to take care of this little one. So you're in charge of this. You're the one that gets to make the good days. And it's going to be hard. I am not by any means saying every day was rainbows in my household. It absolutely was not.

Right.

But when you sit at the core of it, how can I make this better? How can I help? And how can you help others? Because just like you say, on day 1, there's no guidance. There's pamphlets. So if you can get through something, help someone else get through it as well.

Yeah, that's great. Well, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you so much, Tony. So have I. This has been great.

Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. A sincere thank you to our guests for sharing their journey with us today. We appreciate their honesty, courage, and willingness to open their heart in hopes of helping others. If today's conversation helped you see the world a little If we can make the world a little differently, then we've accomplished exactly what we set out to do. Until next time, keep believing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep asking yourself, why not me?

Lisa, tell them about our new show.

We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me.

I'm Lexi Ioannou. We're 2 best friends, 22 years apart but so close at heart.

And I'm Lacey DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all.

Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robberies, Fraud and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest.

Ooh, I scammed them.

What?

I could talk to you for an hour.

You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There are thousands of podcasts that can tell you how to better yourself. Get Worse with Kyle Pru is not one of those podcasts. So if you're interested in getting thinner, going to therapy, starting peptides, setting boundaries, taking supplements, making your bed, or getting closure, then I would humbly recommend other podcasts. If you're interested in blackmail, love bombing, cloning yourself, or getting revenge, then we've got a little something something for a dastardly individual like you. Listen to Get Worse with Kyle Pru on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On recent episodes of The Questlove Show, I chatted with JoJo about her music and Walo 267 about his story and everything in between.

Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm gonna make it weird. Someone's gonna try to sing Leave Get Out or Too Little Too Late or Baby It's You.

Oh, no.

And I'm gonna be like, okay, cool.

Check out my conversation with JoJo, Walo 267, and more on The Questlove Show. Listen to The Questlove Show on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Peace.

Hi, it's Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. This season, we've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice. Guests like Adam Scott. How does that make you feel?

Did I look like Tom Cruise? First of all, do you think—

Do you think—

Do you think—

Do you think—

Do you—

I wonder— I'm sorry, I started the sentence first.

I think I started this interview. Porsha Williams, Sara Bareilles, Tiffany Haddish, Anna Faris, Keri Russell, Kristen Johnston, and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.