Practical Access Podcast

S8 E7: Arts for Autism with Audrey Amadeo

August 30, 2022 Eric Imperiale Season 8 Episode 7
Practical Access Podcast
S8 E7: Arts for Autism with Audrey Amadeo
Show Notes Transcript

In today's episode, Drs. Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines sit down with the owner of Arts for Autism, Audrey Amadeo. Audrey was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and has always been passionate about giving back to her community by teaching and working with individuals with Autism. Audrey earned a Master’s degree in Developmental Disabilities with a specialization in Applied Behavior Analysis from Nova Southeastern University. She is now a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She paired that with her love for dancing, created Spectrum Dance Therapy, and began the Arts for Autism Foundation in 2013. She has spent the last decade conducting both virtual and in-person training for parents, teachers, therapists, and business owners on classroom management skills and how to be an inclusive teacher.

Lisa Dieker:

Welcome to practical access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines:

And I'm Rebecca Hines. And Lisa, our summer of fun continues. And you know, we have some real themes here. We really do love celebrating the arts, and this is a good time to do it. Tell us about today's guest.

Lisa Dieker:

Yes. So we're super excited to have Audrey Amadeo with us and the arts for Autism Foundation Arts for Autism Dance, I believe. So welcome, Audrey. We're so excited to have you.

Audrey Amadeo:

I am so excited to be here. Thank you, both.

Lisa Dieker:

Thanks. Well. So we'd love for you to start by just giving us a little bit of an overview of what your organization does. And maybe I think the big question, every parent in America has maybe the cost and the time involved.

Audrey Amadeo:

Awesome. So us at the Arts for Autism Foundation, we provide free spectrum dance therapy classes. And now we are launching a creative learning program, which is therapeutic based and a summer camp. So we incorporate the arts into our learning experience. And we've been doing it for nine years now.

Lisa Dieker:

So excited. And it's you said it's 10 weeks.

Audrey Amadeo:

So we do host our classes in sessions. So similarly to like college courses where you have a fall term, a spring term, a summer term, we run it just like that. So sometimes eight weeks, sometimes 10 weeks, and it is free of charge for the parents. So we fundraise in between each session in order to provide it for free.

Lisa Dieker:

And it's in it can you have two kids? 200 kids, where's the free and

Audrey Amadeo:

we cap it definitely cap it. I do call it controlled chaos, because we have all kids all across the spectrum. And we are inclusive, so we encourage their neurotypical peers, or siblings to join in the classes. But we cap it at 15 students. And if they want to bring someone we don't count that So on average, we have anywhere between 15 to 20 kids in a class, and we host three classes

Lisa Dieker:

Wow. Sounds like a blast.

Rebecca Hines:

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And that, that word free, I know will resonate with a lot of people. And I also know from you know doing these kinds of things that it just is shows the commitment on yall's end to find the volunteers and the people to come out and help in the work. So I encourage anyone in our audience to go out and look in your own community to see what people are

Audrey Amadeo:

Yes, yes. So I actually two years ago, when the pandemic first started, I knew I had to pivot. And I needed to offer these classes virtually. And it inspired me to create online content. So I developed different online courses for parents, families, teachers, community leaders, that are interested in potentially the field of both ABA, which is my field, and the field of dance therapy. So you can

Rebecca Hines:

That's a great idea. So so anyone could use your material as long as they are brave enough to organize the group and to lead it and I think that's a great way for people to get started. And sometimes it's you know, simple as in your own community and your living room and bringing a few a few kids in so that we have have some energy. That's that's a very helpful resource. You

Audrey Amadeo:

Right? So I love this question. Because I get it a lot. And I always tell even if parents come with that concern, too, even though I get most of that question from professionals in the field, I do get it from parents sometimes. And for me, it's okay. Dancing is fun, it's therapeutic in its nature, we're looking at the evidence based specific movements that come from movement classroom setting how to have a successful class. That's where the ABA comes in, for the dance therapy part.

Lisa Dieker:

So I wish our listeners could see your excitement, your face your smile, you're very proud that you don't love at all what you do. So we thank you for your passion and really starting something and again, the passion to make it free, make it accessible, we love that you added the neurotypical. So I would love a little reflection from you with all this fun experience. You know, I

Audrey Amadeo:

It is very special to see kids be who they are unapologetically. I'm not interrupting who they are. I'm more embracing who they are and celebrating that in a 45 minute session. Where they come in a lot of times it's it's overwhelming. That first session, I brace myself, because I know it's going to be a lot of behaviors. There's mirrors, there's tons of people, there's loud music,

Lisa Dieker:

Well, and, you know, I'll throw the next question to Becky, but I do think what you said is that when it's fun for everyone, it's just fun. And I just love that you, you know, the parents, the kids, everybody from start to finish in 10 weeks. I love the fact that that seems like about the route amount of right amount of time. Yeah.

Rebecca Hines:

And Audrey my my final question is a fairly basic one. And I think you answered in part by telling us that your resources are available online. And hopefully, we will be providing a link in our podcast, to your resources, because we would love our audience to have access. From a teacher standpoint, are the exercises that you've shared? Are there things that I could take from that

Audrey Amadeo:

I actually have a course that is geared towards teachers. So I have one that's for classroom management strategies. I have one that is for parents. I have one that's for someone who wants to learn a about spectrum dance therapy, anyone that's going to volunteer in that capacity, whether you're a parent or not. I really actually require them to take the volunteer course so that

Rebecca Hines:

And have you ever thought about, you know, being being being a virtual synchronous teacher where you might have kids from across the country all logging in at the same time on a weekday

Audrey Amadeo:

We did do that we did do that during the pandemic for a year and a half, we hosted virtual classes. It worked out best for the older kiddos. My teenagers, some of my adults, they they definitely appreciated it more and couldn't tolerate a 45 minutes of zoom with me, more so than my little little ones. They were like all over the place. But But yeah, we did. We did get to experience

Rebecca Hines:

Well, we appreciate all the work you've done in this field.

Audrey Amadeo:

Thank you. I appreciate you guys for all the work you're doing now with this awesome podcast.

Lisa Dieker:

Thank you. It's a lot of fun. Well, my last question actually, Becky stole so I'm going to change it from the classroom teacher. But literally, if I'm a parent at home, and I have a kid who you know has really severe challenges in what's the one dance new thing you'd recommend to start with

Audrey Amadeo:

the rocking side to side or forward and back. Because that stimulates the amygdala in our brains, which helps regulate our moods and helps us calm down like you would with a baby who's crying that you rock them on a rocking chair. It's that same notion, but you can put music on and now you're dancing so getting him to rock side to side or rocking forward and back you could do a

Lisa Dieker:

But while you are while we were listening we all started rocking our podcast listeners do the same because I think we can all use a little distressing and little conga on a daily basis. Well, we thank you again Audrey for such a great mission story and passion and helping us think about summer fun. If folks have questions you can post them on our Facebook page practical access, or