How to Support Adults with Autism: Session 140 with John Michael Guercio

Published: Dec. 9, 2020, 12:13 a.m.

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In Session 140, Dr. John Michael Guercio joins me to talk about best practices for supporting adults with Autism. He is well suited to do just this, as John has been working with adults with various developmental disabilities for decades.

He is currently the Clinical Director for\\xa0Benchmark Human Services\\xa0in St. Louis, Missouri, and is the author of the recently published book, "Assessment of Adult Core Competencies: Teaching Skills to Adults with Autism and Severe Behavioral Challenges."

As you\'ll likely tell, I really enjoyed talking with John, and I think you\'re likely to learn a lot from his knowledge and expertise in the area of serving adults.

In this episode we obviously get into John\'s formative experiences in the field of Behavior Analysis and talk about his book for a bit. But we also spend quite a bit of time discussing Behavioral Relaxation Training, escalation, crisis management, and so much more. I really think there\'s something in here for just about anyone in the field.

Also, early on in the conversation, John and I discover that we both saw the original line up of The Grateful Dead back in the day. Don\'t worry though if you\'re not interested in this because we got back on topic right away. However, after the official interview concluded, we resumed this discussion on our favorite jam bands for about 15 minutes, and this bonus footage is available to those who are signed up in the\\xa0Behavioral Observations Membership\\xa0group.

John mentioned numerous resources during our chat, and I have attempted to note them all here:

This show is brought to you with support from the following:

  • Gateway Learning Group, and their Autism Leadership Academy. Designed for new Regional Directors, the Autism Leadership Academy develops motivated BCBAs into successful leaders in the autism field. If you\\u2019re interested in running your own regional center and want to learn the skills to do so successfully, check out\\xa0gatewaylg.com/BOP.
  • Behavior University. Their mission is to provide university quality professional development for the busy Behavior Analyst. Learn about their CEU offerings, including their brand new 8-hour Supervision Course, as well as their RBT offerings over at\\xa0behavioruniversity.com/observations.
  • The Whoop Strap! I\'ve been wearing the Whoop Strap for just a few weeks and I can\'t tell you how much I\'ve enjoyed getting quantitative information on all aspects of my health, including sleep analytics, heart rate, along with heart rate variability, calorie burn, exercise intensity, and Whoop\'s proprietary "strain" score. I could extol this neat device\'s virtues indefinitely to you, but instead, you can go check it out for yourself. To get your first month free, head over to\\xa0behavioralobservations.com/whoop!
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