Mother's Guide Through Autism

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode, Brigitte interviews Marcelle Ciampi, a respected autistic author of Everyday Asperger , to talk about her life as a late-age diagnosed woman on the spectrum and her work to promote workplace inclusion. Marcelle is the Senior Manager at Ultranauts Inc., a fully remote engineering firm with an Autistic hiring initiative where she is credited for architecting...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's insightful episode, Brigitte interviews Greg Burns who is a system safety engineer in Australia to talk about his recent autism diagnosis in his late 50’s and his experience of living on the spectrum. Greg shares his story of how he came to be diagnosed on the spectrum in this late 50's back in 2019.  Through his online interaction with other autistic adul...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s episode, Brigitte interviews Sandra Kwesell, a child development expert and the founder of the Pillars for Success® parenting program, to talk about the parenting principles that can bring out the positive responses in our children.  Sandra has worked with children and families in just about every setting on Earth, ranging from preschools and public schools to day t...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte interviews Patricia Lemer, an author of three books including Outsmarting Autism , to talk about transitioning kids on the spectrum into adulthood. Patricia Lemer is a Licensed Professional Counselor, and practiced as an educational diagnostician in the Washington, DC area for over 40 years. She was a co-founder and served as Executive Directo...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's wonderfully helpful episode, Brigitte interviews Madeleine Woolgar, a speaker and parent coach to talk about how parents can reduce daily battles with their children.  Madeleine began to work with families with children on the spectrum over ten years ago. Her work focuses on shifting the moms' mindset so they can go from guilt-ridden and stressed out to cr...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s insightful episode, Brigitte interviews Martin Silvertant, an award-winning graphic designer, co-founder, researcher, and blogger at Embrace Autism to talk about his personal journey of growing up with autism without knowing it and being diagnosed at 25.  Martin shares his story of how he had an inkling that he was different as a teenager. He knew he had a hard time...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s insightful and enlightening episode, Brigitte interviews Siena, an 18-year-old multi-award-winning neurodiversity advocate, bestselling author, and UN Young Leader for the SDGs , to talk about bullying and how to grow up awesome and autistic. Siena recalls being different at a young age and how she struggled to make friends. She was constantly bullied and had to cha...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's amazing episode, Brigitte interviews Dr. Stephanie Vavilala, a licensed mental health counselor, the founder of Awetism Wonderland, and a mother of a 9-year-old girl who has autism and is nonverbal. Dr. Stephanie has a mission to provide support for children on the spectrum, as well as their families.  Dr. Stephanie shares her story of struggling to conceive fo...

Send us Fan Mail In this special episode of Mother's Guide Through Autism, Brigitte's son Joseph Shipman takes the mic to share what he's learned in the last 29 years of living on the autism spectrum. This episode is for mother guides, father guides, guardians, and young people living on the autism spectrum who want to gain knowledge and insight about living an authentic, meaningful...

Send us Fan Mail In this week’s inspiring episode, Brigitte interviews Yenn Pukis, an autistic and non-binary author, advocate, public speaker, and community leader, to talk about building resilience for preteens and teens on the autism spectrum.  Yenn has published 9 books including The Parents’ Practical Guide to Resilience for Preteens and Teenagers on the Autism Spectrum and The Guide to Good...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's highly informative and inspiring episode, Brigitte interviews Dr. Robert Melillo, one of the world’s most sought after and respected experts on neurobehavioral disorders and learning disabilities, to talk about the primary issue that he says is behind many of the neurological disorders including autism and ADHD. Dr. Melillo has written 5 best-selling books incl...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte talks about having and cultivating self-compassion to be more forgiving, loving, compassionate, understanding, and kinder as a human being to ourselves and to others. Brigitte explains what self-compassion means to her and what it might look like, and talks about the 3 areas she is focusing on to cultivate self-compassion: - Paying attention t...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte shares what her son Joseph wrote on World Autism Awareness Day to bring more awareness and understanding to autism.  Brigitte says that awareness is the beginning of understanding that brings us all the ability to move forward with love and grace and that this applies in all the areas of our life that we are navigating to live authentically. ...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte talks about the fear of the future for our children that often shows up strong for mothers of children with autism. Brigitte is no stranger to fearful thoughts that weighed her down like a bag of rocks for decades. Her fearful thoughts ranged from "What if my son never talks?" to "He will never find love," to "What wou...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's insightful episode, Brigitte interviews Dr. Natalie Engelbrecht about her experience of being diagnosed with autism at 48 and her perspective of living with autism. Dr. Natalie is a late-diagnosed, registered psychotherapist practicing for over twenty-five years to help individuals with autism reach their potential. She is also a founder and blogger at Embrace...

Send us Fan Mail In this fourth and final installment of the 4-part series Self Compassion, Brigitte and Dr. Michelle Trias discuss the importance of sleep and how we can establish a solid sleep routine for our wellbeing.  Dr. Michelle explains that during sleep, your brain stores new information and get rid of toxic waste, your body repairs cells, restores energy, and releases molecules like horm...

Send us Fan Mail In this third installment of the 4-part series Self Compassion, Brigitte and Dr. Michelle Trias discuss how our use of social media is causing many of us to have anxiety and depression and what we need to do to counter that.  Research shows that frequent social media users have been shown to have worse mental health than low or no social media users. Social media users that have n...

Send us Fan Mail In this second installment of the 4-part series Self Compassion, Brigitte Shipman and Dr. Michelle Trias discuss how healing the emotional aspects of ourselves is key to healing whatever condition we may have, and how loving ourselves is an important component of that process.  Dr. Michelle explains that in order to achieve optimal health and wellbeing, we have to look at the whol...

Send us Fan Mail In this first installment of the 4-part series Self Compassion, Brigitte and Dr. Michelle Trias discuss how chronic stress can contribute to numerous illnesses and the importance of adopting practices to reduce stress in our daily lives as mothers. Dr. Michelle explains what happens physiologically when we are experiencing stress and the possible consequences that can result from...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte interviews Dr. Sarah Lane, a Developmental Optometrist who specializes in working with children who struggle with the development of their visual skills and visual processing abilities. Dr. Lane offers Vision Therapy and Rehabilitation to children and adults in her community and is a creator of Meaningful Moves which are a collection of exerci...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's insightful episode, Brigitte interviews Sarah Wayland, Parent Coach, Certified Relationship Development Intervention (RDI®) Consultant, and Special Needs Care Navigator who helps parents learn how to confidently and effectively help their children with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, and other brain-based differences at home, at school, and in the communit...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, Brigitte interviews Dr. Jeni Weis about her experience of growing up with her mother and brother both on the autism spectrum. Dr. Jeni holds her doctorate degree in Traditional Naturopathy, and she is board certified through the American Alternative Medical Association.  Her practice focuses on Autoimmune Disease, Thyroid Disorders, and finding the Roo...

Send us Fan Mail ***Please note there is some background noise in parts of the recording.*** In this week's insightful and informative episode, Brigitte interviews Mary Coyle, an autism mom and homeopath who has been working with individuals with ASD, ADHD, and SPD for over 25 years to help them stimulate the self-healing mechanism. Mary began her journey into health when her 2-year-old son w...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's highly informative and eye-opening episode, Brigitte interviews Maria Rickert Hong, Certified Holistic Health Counselor and author of Almost Autism and Brain Under Attack, who has recovered her son from Sensory Processing Disorder along with a host of other health conditions. Maria Rickert Hong is a former Wall Street equity research analyst who is now a Certif...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's information-packed episode, Brigitte interviews Teresa Badillo who is a mom of an adult son with autism and a writer for The Autism Exchange and Epidemic Answers about getting to the root of the issues in autism at the biomedical level.   Teresa embarked on a mission to find alternative non-invasive biomedical, therapeutic, sensory, and educational solutions fo...