Autism Parenting Secrets

Welcome to Episode 330 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

Dr. Sheila Kilbane is back, and this conversation focuses on something that affects many children with autism and other developmental challenges: constipation.

Sheila explains that constipation isn’t limited to a child simply not going regularly. Straining, discomfort, hard stools, or a history of skipped days can all matter.

And addressing it isn’t just about getting things moving.

Healthy elimination plays an important role in digestion, nutrient absorption, the microbiome, detoxification, comfort, sleep, and even behavior.

Sheila walks through the method she...

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 needed.

Determined to understand what was happening, she began exploring increasingly sophisticated testing. But she eventually realized that gathering more information wasn't necessarily bringing her closer to the answers she was looking for.

Today, Greer is t...

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 significant.

And what looks like laziness, defiance, or a lack of motivation from the outside may have something very different underneath it.

Brendan expl...

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 what we’re doing is actually helping?

Now, advances in artificial intelligence may make it possible to explore those questions in entirely new ways.

Elizabeth is help...

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 words around complicated and emotionally charged experiences that many parents have felt but struggled to articulate.

We talk about the grief that...

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 their child's health. That doesn't mean doing everything yourself. It means owning the strategy, understanding the data, recognizing patterns, asking better questions, and building the right team...

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, communication, and development.

Those observations aren't insignificant.

They're clues.

Yet it's easy to discount what you see when you're sitting across from a doctor, therapist, teacher, or other professional...

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 stressors, and other contributors to chronic childhood conditions has exploded. 

More practitioners are applying this knowledge clinically. 

And more parents are sharing stories of children making remarkable progress.

B...

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 found herself dismissed, gaslit, and pressured to ignore her own instincts while her child continued deteriorating.

What followed completely transformed how she views medicine, parenting, and healing.

You’ll hear why curiosity, humility, and c...

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 more informed decisions for their unique child.

Her own journey into informed consent began when she became a mother, and that principle now runs throughout her work with families.

...

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 children learn and grow?

Vijay Ravindran is the founder and CEO of Floreo, a virtual reality-based therapeutic platform designed to help autistic and neurodivergent individuals build social...

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 investigation into COVID immunity led her to a much larger discovery. 

Across autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer, Lyme disease, long COVID, inflammatory bowel disease, and man...

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 functional medicine physician, biomedical autism specialist, educator, author, and Chief Medical Officer of Mosaic Diagnostics. 

For nearly 30 years, he has helped families and practitioners better understand the underlying factors influencing health, development, communication, behavior, an...

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 financial planning is really about gaining clarity, creating a roadmap, and making decisions that align with your family’s goals and values.

Ann is the founder of Hestia Wealth and Wellness and specializes in he...

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 environment. 

She explains the fascinating origin of The Wellness Blanket, the concept behind its design, and why she believes helping the body settle into a more regulated state may improve sleep an...

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 exposures, and the gut microbiome, eventually uncovering important connections between Parkinson's, autism, and many other chronic conditions.

Our conversation explores why so many families may be missing beneficial microbes, how m...

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 week, I sit down with materials scientist and inventor Joaquín Machado to explore a different way of thinking about electromagnetic pollution.

You'll discover how it may be affecting sl...

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, we explore why vaccines are treated differently under the law than almost any other product, what Aaron discovered through years of litigation and public records requests, and why parents should understand the difference between scientific consensus...

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 is the Co-Founder and CEO of Meadow Health. 

He is a clinical research leader who played a key role in the first positive placebo-controlled study of Leucovorin Ca...

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 reflects on the movement built by parents, the impact of Vaxxed, the responsibility that comes with freedom, and the deeper conviction that each of us is here for a...

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 much of a child’s behavior and emotional health, and why traditional parenting approaches often fail with overwhelmed kids.

Dr. Roseann is a licensed therapist and school psychologist, fo...

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 connected to specific maternal autoantibodies that may impact fetal brain development during pregnancy.

Dr. Michael Paul is the CEO of MARAbio and has spent decades helping advance autism-related diagnostics and emerging technologies designed to improve ou...

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. Gaitanis is a board-certified pediatric neurologist, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Meadow Health, and part of the leadership team at MAPS - the Medical Academy of Pediatrics & Special Needs.

In this conversation, we discuss why the...

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 research and clinical care.

As the CEO and Founder of Novel Biome, Jason has spent years focused on fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), donor screening, microbial diversity, and the emerging science behind rebuilding the microbiome.

...

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 differences.

Ryan Sumner has spent years exploring those deeper questions. 

As the host of the From the Spectrum podcast and a graduate student pursuing a doc...

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 McCracken unpack a critical shift that’s happening right now. Parents are becoming more aware of root causes - things like gut health, immune dysregulation, toxins, and nervous...

Welcome to Episode 304 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

This week, we’re going deeper into something that shapes nearly every decision you make for your child - how you interpret science.

There’s more information than ever before, with studies, headlines, and expert opinions everywhere, yet many parents still feel confused or stuck.

Why?

Because even credible research can miss the real signal, and without knowing how to evaluate it, it’s easy to draw the wrong conclusions.

My guest this week is Dr. William Parker, returning to the show with d...

Welcome to Episode 303 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

Today we’re diving into an important and timely topic… aluminum exposure.

My guest is Dr. Brian Hooker, a friend of the show and Chief Scientific Officer at Children’s Health Defense. He’s spent decades researching environmental factors that impact neurodevelopment and helping translate complex science into practical insight for parents.

Aluminum isn’t something most parents think much about… and when they do, they’re often told it’s not a concern.

But there’s more to understand.

Because this isn’t just about w...

Welcome to Episode 302 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

In this episode, we’re exploring a tool that many parents have heard about, but few fully understand - laser-based photobiomodulation.

Today, I’m joined again by Alex Zaharakis, a medical physicist and researcher who has spent years studying the microbiome and is now focused on how specific wavelengths of light influence cellular function.

This conversation is about understanding what’s actually happening beneath the surface, including how light interacts with the mitochondria and how that may influence inflammation, blood flow, and nervous system regulation.

We a...

Welcome to Episode 301 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

In this episode, we're diving into something that gives parents more control, more confidence and more capability to actually help their child.

Today, I'm joined by Dr Michelle Perro, a seasoned clinician with over 45 years of experience in pediatrics and integrative medicine, and she's been on the show before, but she's been on the front line seeing what's reacting with our kids, and more importantly, what actually helps them to heal and to thrive.

And she's also the author of a powerful new book that was...

Welcome to Episode 300 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

Artificial intelligence is changing how parents access information.

Answers are faster. Options are clearer. But the risk is real.

It’s easy to start relying on a tool instead of trusting your own judgment.

In this episode, Patty Lemer and I explore how to use AI as a powerful support system without giving up your role as the decision maker.

We also discuss her Total Load Theory AI companion and how it helps parents better understand root causes, prioritize options, and move fo...

Welcome to Episode 299 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

This week we're talking about PANS and PANDAS. 

These are conditions that can appear suddenly, create intense symptoms, and leave parents feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what's really going on. 

And to help bring some clarity, I'm joined this week by Erin Page. 

She's a homeopath, educator, and host of the Remedy Revolution podcast. 

Her journey began in 2012 when her own son became ill. 

Leading her into deep study and training through Angelica Lemke's School of Intuitive Homeopathy and her work...

Welcome to Episode 298 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

If your child has tried supplements that were supposed to help the brain but didn’t move the needle, this episode may explain why. 

This week, I’m excited to welcome back Dr. Theoharis Theoharides, known to many as Dr. Theo. 

He is a physician-scientist with five advanced degrees and decades of pioneering research. 

Long before neuroinflammation and immune-driven brain dysfunction became widely discussed, Dr. Theo was connecting mast cells, metabolism, and brain health. 

In this conversation, we explore why some children can’t pr...

Welcome to Episode 297 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

Leah Wilson is an attorney, a mother, a foster parent, and the co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom.

She has been on the front lines advocating for informed consent, parental rights, and health freedom, and she has lived this work personally through her own family and foster care experience.

Leah is the co-author of Reclaim Vitality, a book that challenges the idea that health is something to manage or outsource. 

Instead, it invites parents to step off the conventional path and reclaim the body’s G...

Welcome to Episode 296 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

Today I’m joined once again by Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America. 

Zen has been on the podcast multiple times over the years, and every conversation has helped parents think more clearly, ask better questions, and step more fully into their role as advocates for their children. 

Since we last spoke, Zen has been deeply involved in federal-level advocacy and continues to lead important work around food safety, toxins, and transparency. 

The secret this week is… 

Demand TOXIN Transparency

You'll...

Welcome to Episode 295 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

This week, we shine a light on one of the most misunderstood and often controversial therapies in the autism world: medical cannabis.

My guest is Dr. David Berger, known to many simply as Dr. David.

He’s a board-certified pediatrician with over 25 years of clinical experience.

He’s the founder of Wholistic Pediatrics & Family Care in Tampa, Florida, where he helps children and adults address root causes behind challenges like autism, ADHD, and immune dysfunction.

He’s also the founder of Wholistic ReLeaf...

Welcome to Episode 294 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

This week’s episode is about one of the most overlooked but absolutely critical truths for parents.

The reality is this: no two children are exactly alike. 

And when it comes to helping your child thrive, the key lies in understanding and honoring their unique differences.

Joining me is Dr. Erica Peirson, a Naturopathic Physician who has spent the last 17 years helping children with neurodevelopmental and genetic conditions reach their full potential.

Inspired by her own son’s journey with mosaic Down syndr...

Parents Need ACCESS to the Right Doctors

Welcome to Episode 293 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

If you’re raising a child with complex medical or neurological challenges, you’ve likely discovered that not all doctors are equipped to help - especially when symptoms don’t fit neatly into one diagnosis.

This week, we talk about why that gap exists and what’s starting to change.

My guest, Honey Rinicella, is the Executive Director of the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs, also known as MAPS.

MAPS is the leading organiza...

Welcome to Episode 292 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

If you’re raising a child with complex challenges, you’ve probably tried supplements, therapies, and protocols—sometimes with limited or inconsistent results.

This week, we explore a very different approach: sound frequency.

My guest, Linda Bamber-Olsen, is the founder of WAVwatch, a wearable sound-frequency device designed to gently support the body through acoustic frequencies.

Linda’s journey into sound-based healing is deeply personal. 

Born deaf in one ear, she became fascinated by how the body responds to sound even when it isn’t con...

Welcome to Episode 291 of Autism Parenting Secrets.

You already know the critical role the gut plays in your child’s overall well-being. 

But this week, we’re going to take it to a deeper level—into the science, the data, and the real-world results of microbiome balancing.

My guest, Alex Zaharakis, is a radiation oncology physicist turned microbiome researcher who’s developed a groundbreaking, data-backed approach to restoring gut health. 

His system has already helped hundreds of families identify and correct microbial imbalances that drive inflammation, behavior issues, and dysregulation.

You’ll l...