Autism Parenting Secrets

Welcome to Episode 329 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by Greer McGuinness, a registered dietitian with nearly 20 years of experience in nutrition and pediatric health. Greer's work is deeply personal.  When her son experienced developmental regression, severe constipation, feeding difficulties, and sleep problems, conventional lab results weren't providing the answers she...

Welcome to Episode 328 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I’m joined by Brendan Mahan, an ADHD and executive function consultant, coach, speaker, and author of Overcoming the Wall of Awful. The Wall of Awful is Brendan’s model for the emotional barrier that can build between us and the things we struggle with or have failed at. For neurodivergent kids, those barriers can become especially sig...

Welcome to Episode 327 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I’m joined by Elizabeth Horn, Executive Director of 2M Foundation and a longtime advocate, innovator, and mother to her daughter Sophia, who was diagnosed with autism in 1997. For nearly three decades, Elizabeth has been asking some of the biggest questions in autism: What is actually happening with our kids? And how can we know if wha...

Welcome to Episode 326 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I’m joined by Tyler Hudson, author of The Missing Lyrics: A Father’s Story of Autism, Grief, and a Society in Denial . Tyler’s son Lyric is 18 and has profound autism. Our sons are close in age, and while every family’s journey is unique, there are many commonalities in what we’ve experienced. Tyler has a remarkable ability to put word...

Welcome to Episode 325 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by Nadia Elkhatib, host of the Biohacking Autism podcast. Nadia holds a master's degree in computer science and spent her career in Silicon Valley tech, bringing that same engineer's mindset to more than twenty years of helping her son Jimmy. Measure. Test. Adjust. Repeat. Nadia believes parents need to become the CEO of the...

Welcome to Episode 324 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by Sarah Kernion, founder of INCHSTONES and mother of three children, including two with profound, non-speaking autism and whole body apraxia. Parents see things others simply can't. You are with your child across thousands of ordinary moments. You notice subtle changes in behavior, connection, sleep, digestion, regulation,...

Welcome to Episode 323 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This week, I'm joined by returning guest Beth Lambert, Executive Director of Documenting Hope and author of A Compromised Generation . After more than two decades immersed in children's health, Beth is more hopeful than ever. Why? The science has changed.  Our understanding of the microbiome, nervous system, metabolism, environmental stresso...

Welcome to Episode 322 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This episode is about discernment, intuition, nervous system regulation, and learning how to think independently when navigating your child’s health challenges. Dr. Cammy Benton shares the painful experience that pushed her beyond conventional medicine after one of her daughters became severely ill.  Despite being a physician herself, she fo...

Welcome to Episode 321 of Autism Parenting Secrets. Parents make high-stakes decisions for their children all the time. And those decisions become much harder when they're surrounded by conflicting opinions, uncertainty, pressure, and fear. My guest this week is Dr. Taylor Bean, a Naturopathic Doctor and MAPS Fellow who is passionate about helping parents understand their options so they can make...

Welcome to Episode 320 of Autism Parenting Secrets. Many parents are understandably cautious about technology. And for good reason. Screens are everywhere. Devices are everywhere. Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how we live. And virtual reality is becoming more accessible than ever. So where does it fit? Should it simply be avoided, or could it become another valuable tool to help chil...

Welcome to Episode 319 of Autism Parenting Secrets. For years, parents have heard about probiotics, gut health, dysbiosis, and the microbiome.  But those broad concepts don't always answer the most important question: What should we focus on first? Dr. Sabine Hazan has spent more than two decades studying the microbiome, and her research has taken an unexpected turn.  What began as an investigatio...

Welcome to Episode 318 of Autism Parenting Secrets. Many parents enter this journey searching for the next therapy, treatment, supplement, or breakthrough intervention.  While those approaches can absolutely help, Dr. Kurt Woeller believes one of the most common mistakes is pursuing advanced therapies before establishing the foundations that allow them to work. Dr. Woeller is an integrative and fu...

Welcome to Episode 317 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Many parents spend so much time focused on therapies, interventions, schools, and immediate challenges that the long-term picture gets pushed aside. And often, financial planning can feel emotionally overwhelming because parents associate it with uncertainty, fear, or even giving up hope. Ann Hynek joins us today to discuss why thoughtful financ...

Welcome to Episode 316 of Autism Parenting Secrets. Many children on the spectrum live in a chronic state of stress and dysregulation.  Their nervous systems are constantly responding to environmental stressors, making restorative sleep more difficult and leaving both children and parents depleted. Tammy Arthur believes that one of the simplest ways to support the body is by improving the sleep en...

Welcome to Episode 315 of Autism Parenting Secrets. When we think about chronic illness, it's easy to focus on the diagnosis. But what if the diagnosis is only the visible expression of a much deeper systems problem? After her husband John was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, Martha Carlin refused to settle for symptom management alone.  Instead, she spent years studying nutrition, toxic exposu...

Welcome to Episode 314 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Most parents in our community already understand the importance of reducing toxic exposures.  We think about food, water, mold, chemicals, and air quality because we know the environment our children live in matters. But what if there's another environmental stressor that most families are exposed to every day... yet few truly understand? This w...

Welcome to Episode 313 of Autism Parenting Secrets . This week I'm joined by attorney Aaron Siri, Managing Partner of Siri & Glimstad and author of the new book Vaccines, Amen . Aaron has spent more than a decade challenging government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and public health institutions on issues related to medical freedom, informed consent, and transparency. In this conversation, w...

Welcome to Episode 312 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Finding the right help for your child can take way too long. Parents are often left trying to figure out everything on their own.  The doctors, the testing, treatments, prescriptions, therapies, and endless decisions. But what if getting high-level biomedical support could become faster, easier, and more connected under one roof? John Slattery i...

Welcome to Episode 311 of Autism Parenting Secrets. This conversation with Del Bigtree is not just about vaccines, medical freedom, or government accountability. It's about what happens when parents can no longer ignore what they see with their own eyes. When the official narrative conflicts with lived experience, every parent faces a choice: stay quiet, or find the courage to speak up. Del reflec...

Welcome to Episode 310 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Many parents are working incredibly hard to help their child, yet things can still feel reactive, exhausting, and chaotic. And often, what gets labeled as bad behavior or anxiety may actually be rooted in a dysregulated nervous system. Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge joins us today to discuss why dysregulation, what it really is, why it affects so muc...

Welcome to Episode 309 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Most parents are told autism can only be identified after behavioral symptoms appear. But what if important biological clues exist much earlier? Dr. Judy Van de Water is a world-renowned immunologist at UC Davis whose research helped identify Maternal Autoantibody Related Autism, or MARA. It’s an immune-system-mediated subtype of autism connecte...

Welcome to Episode 308 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Many children experience developmental regression, inflammation, language loss, movement issues, seizures, OCD, anxiety, and other neurological symptoms that often get grouped under broad behavioral labels. But according to pediatric neurologist Dr. John Gaitanis, those labels may not fully explain what is actually happening in the brain. Dr. Ga...

Welcome to Episode 307 of Autism Parenting Secrets . Many children struggling with neurological, immune, behavioral, and developmental challenges also show signs of significant microbiome disruption. Jason Klop from Novel Biome joins the show to explain why the microbiome may play a foundational role in overall health and why restoring missing microbes is becoming an increasingly important area of...

Welcome to Episode 306 of Autism Parenting Secrets . When a child receives an autism diagnosis, it can bring relief.  Finally, there is a word that explains what parents have been seeing. But that same label can quietly narrow how people think about a child.  It can shape expectations, influence treatment decisions, and distract from deeper questions about what may actually be driving neurological...

Welcome to Episode 305 of Autism Parenting Secrets. There’s more information available to parents today than ever before. Podcasts, practitioners, protocols… It’s everywhere. And yet, so many parents are still overwhelmed. Not because there’s a lack of options, but because there’s no clear way to filter, prioritize, and act on what truly matters. In this conversation, Len, Maureen, and Taryn McCra...