AASR Live

Please join us for “The Problem with Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports” with Rebecca Engle.

Rebecca Engle is an autistic educator, author, and speaker based in Texas. She is the founder of Stitches and Stanzas, where she blends creativity, advocacy, and education to support neurodivergent individuals and the people who teach and love them. Rebecca is an international best-selling author of four books, inspired by her own experiences navigating school as an autistic student.

As a special education teacher and speaker, she is known for challenging traditional behavior systems and advocating for regulation-first, neurodiversity-affirming practices. Rebe...

Please join us for “Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Conference: A Discussion with Tracy Leonard.”

Tracy Leonard serves as the Executive Director of the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN), bringing extensive experience in child advocacy, prevention, and trauma-informed education.

Before stepping into the Executive Director role, Tracy served as ATN’s Board President (2023–2025), helping guide strategic growth while strengthening governance, partnerships, and long-term planning. Her board service gave her a deep understanding of ATN’s mission and the communities it serves.

Tracy’s professional career has focused on equipping adults with the knowledge and tools needed to protect a...

Please join us for “Building a Trauma-Informed School: What to do When All Your Students Are Traumatized” with Kathleen Hilchey.

Kathleen Hilchey spent over 10 years in the classroom and 10 more in camping. She is a conflict specialist and a Qualified Mediator. She also founded a trauma-informed student-directed school called The Village School. Most importantly, she is the mom of 3 beautiful kids.

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Please join us for “Multi-tiered Systems of Support for Adults: A Discussion with Dr. Lori Desautels.”

Dr. Lori Desautels began teaching undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education at Butler University in 2016. She was previously an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for eight years, where she started the Educational Neuroscience Symposium, which is now in its 15th year and has reached thousands of educators. Dr. Desautels focuses on teaching her students how to apply social and relational neurosciences to education. She does this by incorporating the tier one trauma accommodating Applied Educational Neuroscience fram...

Please join us for “The Early Years Guidebook: A Discussion with Emily Read Daniels and Chrissy Dagostino.”

Emily Read Daniels is the author and creator of The Regulated Classroom™. Daniels is an internationally recognized trainer and has served thousands through in-person and virtual professional development training, workshops, conferences, webinars, and keynote addresses.

Daniels and her work have been featured in the Associated Press, Fox News, ABC News, Los Angeles Times, and NPR.

Daniels holds an M.Ed. in School Counseling, an MBA in Organizational and Environmental Sustainability, and is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC) t...

Please join us for “Understanding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A Discussion with Jenn Wisdahl and Kristen Eriksen.”

Jenn Wisdahl leads strategy and operations at FASD United, the national organization supporting people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and promoting healthy pregnancies. With FASD impacting 1 in 20 Americans, a critical part of her role involves the national legislative and policy agenda for this highly prevalent and under-recognized disability. Using a data-driven strategy that keeps people at the forefront, Jenn has supported substantial growth at FASD United, supporting the Family Navigator Program, National FASD Impact Week, and the return of the...

Please join us for “Applied Self-Reg for Education Assistants: A New Book by Susan Hopkins and Kristin Wiens.”

Susan Hopkins is Executive Director of The MEHRIT Centre, Dr. Stuart Shanker’s organization and the home of the Self-Reg framework. An international leader in Self-Reg, she co-creates online courses with Dr. Shanker that have reached thousands of educators worldwide. With more than 25 years of experience across Canada and internationally, Susan works across early childhood, K–12, and the systems that support children and youth. She has led in school administration, inclusion, and the early years, and has delivered hundreds of prese...

Please join us for “When 'Doing Well' Is a Warning Sign: The Cost of Holding It Together at School” with Courtney Hart.

Courtney Hart, LCSW-C, is the founder of Healing Hart Wellness, where she specializes in supporting ADHDers and Autistic people through evaluations, parent consultation, and therapy. Courtney also writes two newsletters on Substack: one focused on supporting parents and helping professionals understand the impacts of advancing technology and the other on high-masking neurodivergence. When Courtney isn’t working, you can find her starting random projects at home, playing fetch with her dogs, scouring the internet to resear...

Please join us for “Providing Neurodiversity-Affirming Support: A Relational Neuroscience-Informed Child and Youth Care Perspective” with Nancy Marshall. 

Nancy Marshall (she/her) (PhD, MA CYC, RSW) is a Child and Youth Care (CYC) practitioner, a registered social worker (RSW), an educational consultant, and a part-time instructor in the Faculty of Education at York University teaching Disability and Inclusion in Education. Nancy recently launched AffirmAbility in Practice - a small private practice in Toronto providing neurodiversity-affirming training to schools and organizations, and therapy services to children, youth, and families. She has over 20 years of experience supporting neurodivergent young peopl...

Please join us for “Understanding the Impact of Restraint and Seclusion: A Parent Panel Discussion.”

Chantelle Hyde
Chantelle’s advocacy began with her desire to support families after learning that her daughter was locked in a room at school. She has appeared on Global News and CTV W5, sharing her family's journey. With a background in adult education, business, and Self-Reg Foundations, she is working with politicians and top provincial advocates to bring the issues and alternatives to seclusion and restraint to public light. Chantelle hopes to bring positive change to systems across Canada.

Courtn...

Please join us for “Facing the Fantasy, Finding the Way Forward: A New Book from Doris and Rick Bowman.”

Bringing together their combined experience and expertise in the fields of both mental health and education, Rick and Doris Bowman, affectionately known by schools and agencies around the country as “Team Bowman”, provide speaking, training, consultation, and coaching services to both educational organization and mental health agencies on topics of Trauma-Informed Practices/Care, Resilience Practices, Neuro-Affirming Practices, and approaches for intervening with youth with chronic challenging behavior of any cause.

Having lived through the opposite ends of what...

Join us for “What Social Psychology Says About Behaviorism, and Five Things to Try Instead” with Dr. Arielle Silverman.

In this presentation, Dr. Silverman will share research and theory from social psychology explaining why behaviorism (rewards and punishments) so often fails to improve children's long-term behavior. She will then discuss five strategies to use in place of behaviorist methods: co-regulation, communicating clearly and reasonably about behavioral expectations, proactively solving problems, building a child's self-regulation toolbox, and intentional role modeling.

Arielle is a disabled activist and a social scientist who is passionate about improving public understanding of l...

Please join us for “Fighting Ableism and Exclusionary Practices in Schools: A Conversation with Kara Dymond.”

 Kara Dymond, Ph.D., is a late-diagnosed autistic/ADHD advocate, teacher, researcher, and award-winning teacher educator from Toronto, Canada. Her work supporting autistic students inspired her books Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom (2025) and The Autism Lens (2020). Kara researches accessibility in graduate teacher education and teaches graduate courses on Accessible Education & Classroom Neurodiversity at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, attempting to counteract the segregated and ableist ways in which education faculties teach about learner variability.

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Please join us for “Lighting Up the Learning Brain: An Interview with Jessica Sinarski.”

Jessica Sinarski, LPCMH is an award-winning author, dynamic speaker, and the founder of BraveBrains. She has spent her entire career working with children who have challenging behaviors and the caring adults in their lives. She loves spicy food, Diet Coke, and her sweet, silly family…not in that order.

Jessica has worked with thousands of teachers, counselors, and administrators to get to the root of problematic student (and staff) behavior. She translates neuroscience into action steps through comprehensive professional development, diverse books...

Please join us for “No Restraint: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America's Schools, an Interview with Dr. Charles Bell.”

Dr. Charles Bell is an award-winning associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. His research explores how out-of-school suspension, seclusion, and restraint impact families and teachers throughout the U.S. The Society for the Study of Social Problems selected Dr. Bell’s book Suspended: Punishment, Violence, and the Failure of School Safety as a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Book Award. Additionally, he has worked a subject matter expert on school...

Please join us for “Building Neuroinclusive Spaces Where Every Child Belongs” with Lauren Hough Williams.

Lauren (she/her) is a neurodiversity and inclusion specialist and an experienced special educator and is the Executive Director of the Program for Neurodiversity and Inclusion, or “PINE.” PINE educates and empowers schools and communities to embrace neurodiversity, creating inclusive, accessible, and supportive spaces for children wherever they go. Her work centers on building neuro-inclusive spaces where every child belongs.

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Please join us for “Understanding Autism in Context: A Discussion with Dr. Peter Vermeulen.”

Peter Vermeulen, PhD, has a Master's in Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Leuven, Belgium (1985) and a PhD in Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands (2002). From 1987 until 1998, he worked for the Flemish Autism Association, first as a home trainer for families with a child with autism, later as director of the home training centre, and finally as a trainer/lecturer. Then, from 1998 till 2018, he was working as a senior autism consultant/lecturer/trainer at Autisme Centraal. He i...

Please join us for “We Don't Need a 2.0 Version: Creating Neuroinclusive Schools by Rejecting Behaviorism and Neuronormativity” with Jenna Goldstein.

Jenna Goldstein, MS/CAGS, Certified School Psychologist, is an AuDHD woman, school psychologist, and parent to neurodivergent children – the '3' perspectives of her practice, 'ND3'. As such, Jenna brings a 360-degree view of children, families, and systems to her work. After 15 years as a school psychologist in public schools, Jenna launched ND3 to offer counseling to children and teens, consultations for caregivers and professionals, and trainings for organizations that are uncompromisingly neuro-affirming and neuroscience-informed. More at ND3...

Please join us for “Reducing and Eliminating Restraint and Seclusion in Your State: An Interview with Cassie Atallah.”

Cassie Atallah is a Trauma Informed Changemaker with 10 years of teaching experience and 12 years of experience parenting her gifted, autistic son, who has become her greatest teacher. She has dedicated much of her time to learning about healthy, equitable approaches to extreme behavior. She shares this knowledge in her work as the co-founder and co-leader of EndSaR-MI and EndSaR-NJ, two organizations dedicated to creating safe schools without seclusion and restraint by finding creative ways to meet student needs in orde...

Please join us for “Uncovering Cross Creek: From Survival to Screen” with Jessy Greer.

Jessy Greer is an actor, writer, and producer with over ten years of experience in entertainment. After moving from Houston to Los Angeles to study at AMDA College of the Performing Arts, she quickly established herself in the comedy scene, sharing the stage with comedians like Amy Schumer and Margaret Cho. Jessy's career spans acting credits on shows like Lessons in Chemistry and Hollywood, performing and writing sketch comedy, and co-producing her feature film 818, showcasing her range and passion for storytelling.

Supp...

Please join us for “How to Assess the Hidden Meaning Behind Behaviors” with Staci Neustadt and Susan Golubock.

Staci Neustadt, CEO of Making Sense of Autism®, is a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist with over 20 years of experience providing individual and group therapy, training, mentorship, and leadership. In 2019, Staci joined Susan in developing the Neuro Strengths Based Support for Autism framework. Staci is passionate about creating a paradigm shift for therapists to holistically support autistic clients and for autistic clients to feel seen and heard as they build on their strengths and contribute their gifts to their community.

Sus...

Please join us for “Assistive Technology: to Innovate and Integrate Your Future” with Sam Shepherd.

Sam Shepherd is the founder of 3DA, a nonprofit that advocates for individuals with developmental disabilities across the country. 3DA focuses on providing accessible resources on their website (3DA.org) as well as advocating at both the state and federal levels.

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Please join us for “Understanding Issues Impacting Black Neurodivergent Students” with Cheryl Poe.

Cheryl Poe is the founder and Executive Director of Advocating 4 Kids, Inc., a Special Education Advocacy organization that provides resources, information, and workshops to parents and professionals, with a special focus on addressing the needs of Black and Brown children with disabilities.

She is the past board president of the National Allies for Parents in Special Education NAPSE, a national parent-driven organization that works hard to increase access and quality advocacy resources for special education families from underserved populations to improve educational outc...

Please join us for “Leading with the Heart with Jase Williams.”

Jase Williams is a TEDx Speaker who has 25 years of experience working as an educator and is the former Principal of Henry Hill School who won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award - Wellbeing - the top education award in New Zealand. Jase is a certified trainer in the Neurosequential Model in Education (NME), and he is one of the leading voices in Relational Neuroscience & Trauma Informed Practice in Education and has shared his knowledge through an equity-focused, compassionate, and indigenous lens with thousands of edu...

Please join us for “Disruption in Schools: A New Book from Ben Sacco."

Ben is an education specialist and Author of ‘Disruption in Schools: Understand me before you mark me!’. He works with schools, teachers, and principals to tackle issues like teacher burnout, retention, school culture, and student behavior. Many of his strategies to improve behavior and classroom dynamics in schools are grounded in a deep understanding of neuroscience, child development, and psychology

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Please join us for “Collaborative Curiosity and the Unstuck Protocol: The Best Way to Prevent Restraint and Seclusion Is to Not Have a Reason to Even Consider It” with Jennie DunKley. 

As a special education consultant for over 25 years, Jennie has represented hundreds of families and attended over a thousand IEP meetings. She empowers Teams to focus unwaveringly on the actual and intended “I’s” in IEP – Individual and Inclusion. She offers expertise and training in navigating the culture, process, and the functional application of special education for all audiences. She is actively engaged with national and state policy...

Please join us for “Shifting the Narrative Starts with Parent Empowerment” with Stacy Badon and Torrin Kearns.

Stacy and Torrin Co-host a podcast that seeks to dispel the myths, misconceptions, and fears around Everything Autism. Stacy Badon is an Autism Education specialist, Sensory Enrichment Therapist, and Parent Coach, with previous experience as a Speech Therapist and Early Intervention teacher for public schools. She has 20+ years of professional experience supporting families in the Autism community, as well as global experience volunteering with nonprofit organizations. Torrin Kearns is an Autistic screenwriter, blogger, and neurodiversity advocate. Each episode takes a deep...

Please join us for “Your FBA Is a Fantasy: A Discussion with Doris and Rick Bowman About Their New Book.”

Bringing together their combined experience and expertise in the fields of both mental health and education, Rick and Doris Bowman, affectionately known by schools and agencies around the country as “Team Bowman”, provide speaking, training, consultation, and coaching services to both educational organization and mental health agencies on topics of Trauma-Informed Practices/Care, Resilience Practices, Neuro-Affirming Practices, and approaches for intervening with youth with chronic challenging behavior of any cause.

Having lived through the opposite ends of...

Please join us for “Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education” with Alex Shevrin Venet.

Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches graduate teacher education at Vermont State University. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school, a community college instructor, and an after-school teacher in the upper elementary grades. Alex works with educators around the country to strengthen their trauma-informed education practices, with a focus on empowering teachers to create systemic change. She is the author of the bestselling book Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, which has been integrated into...

Please join us for “Trauma, Healing, and Positive Identity with Dr. Karyn Harvey, PhD.”

Karyn Harvey has worked as a clinician in the field of intellectual disabilities for over 35 years. She has her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Maryland. She has written three books: Positive Identity Development, Trauma–Informed Behavioral Interventions, and Trauma and Healing. She has a private practice and does therapy with people with intellectual disabilities. In addition, she regularly conducts training on trauma-informed support for people with IDD, trauma-informed leadership, and trauma-informed behavioral interventions for both state and individual organi...

Please join us for “Shifting from Retribution to Repair: A Discussion with Margaret Thorsborne.”

Margaret Thorsborne is an author, trainer, and facilitator of Restorative Practice with a background in education and counselling. She is a pioneer of Restorative Practice in schools in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-to-late 1990s, and in the UK in the early 2000s. She has since trained restorative practitioners and change makers in education, workplaces, community, police, and justice sectors across Australia, Asia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, and Canada. She remains involved in this important transformation in schools, particularly around whol...

Please join us for “Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom: An Interview with Kara Dymond About Her New Book."

Kara Dymond, OCT, PhD, is a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD advocate, teacher, author, researcher, and award-winning university lecturer. Kara teaches autistic elementary students who inspired her books, Creating a Neurodiversity-Affirming Classroom (Jessica Kingsley, 2025) and The Autism Lens (Pembroke, 2020). Kara earned the 2024 Award for Excellence in Initial Teacher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, where she teaches graduate courses on neurodiversity-affirming classrooms. In 2025, she received the King Charles III Coronation Medal, a Governor General Award fo...

Please join us for “A Data-Driven Analysis of Why Black Students and Students with Disabilities are Arrested Disproportionately in Maryland Public Schools” with Tamara Ward.

Tamara Ward is a 2023 NABJ Pew Youth Justice Fellow. A MDDC Press Association award-winning multi-platform journalist, she is also an accomplished communications professional with over 20 years of experience in various communications disciplines, including journalism, media relations, crisis communications, marketing, social media, and web. However, journalism is Tamara's first love. She has experience covering environment, sports, government, politics, and community news for a variety of platforms, including print, online, and broadcast.

The...

Please join us for 5 Things Every Parent of Neurodivergent Kids Needs to Know with Polina Shkadron.

Polina is a trauma-informed speech-language pathologist, family communication and feeding expert who specializes in autism and ADHD. She uses play to engage with each child’s unique perspective of the world. She earned her Master of Arts degree in Speech-Language Pathology from CUNY Queens College, where she was an adjunct lecturer for seven years. She also has a Master of Science degree in Nutrition Education from American University, which has transformed the feeding therapy aspect of her practice, particularly in the ar...

Please join us for “Diving into the NeuroRelational Framework: An Interview with Connie Lillas.”

Connie Lillas, Founder and Executive Director of the NeuroRelational Framework (NRF) Institute Research to Resilience (www.NRFcare.org), co-authored the NeuroRelational Framework textbook and later authored the NRF 3 Steps to Resilience Foundations Manual. She oversees the NRF Institute’s ongoing research, focusing on understanding toxic stress across all ages and cultural backgrounds.

The NRF Institute is an innovative social enterprise uniting passionate practitioners worldwide. The institute champions five key paradigm shifts, challenging the limitations of viewing behavior through a compli...

Please join us for “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are Still Important in Education: An Interview with Nicole Keler.”

Nicole Keler is a passionate special education leader with nine years of experience working in the public charter school system across Washington, D.C. She is currently a Specialist on the School Equity and Effectiveness team at the D.C. Public Charter School Board. However, she started in the education system as a special education teacher, then transitioned to working as an inclusion manager to support families and students with diverse learning needs on a larger scale. She believes that...

Please join us for “A Parent’s Journey: From ABA to a Better Way” with Chantelle Hyde. 

When I think back to about five years ago now, around the time that I first learned of my daughter’s traumatic seclusion incident at school from another parent, I was in a state of shock. After running into one frustrating and upsetting experience after another with the school and district, and even in reviewing provincial education policies, the only thing that I could think to do was to search for the issue of seclusion and restraint online. This is when I fo...

Please join us for “The Journey Towards Neuroscience-Aligned Education” with Katie Pagnotta, Ellen Surprenant, and Sam Chadwick.

Katie Pagnotta is a licensed clinical mental health counselor, functional success educational consultant, parent coach, and author. She is also the creator of the Brain- and Body-Aligned Responsive Systems (BBARS) of Excellence framework. She guides educators, administrators, and school staff in strengths-based approaches that leverage the human design and empower the development of the necessary mindsets and habits that lead to re-envisioned success; success the achieves goals by rooting in wellness.

Katie authored Empowered by the Human Design: Util...

Please join us for “Lessons in Listening with Yeiter.”

Yeiter has 50 years of personal commitment to specifically supporting people who live in a status he names a “reputation for challenging behavior”. He draws on a rich personal history. His time in the company of people defined by a story of challenging behavior begins in an unreformed back ward in 1971 and continues through an attempt to reform the institution by implementing behavior analytic treatments, the move into local group homes and day programs, the implementation of integrated special education, and the development of individualized supports for work roles and esta...

Please join us for “Pathological Demand Avoidance: Born Outside the System” with Sandra McConnell. 

Sandra McConnell, who is sometimes known as the PDA Mama Bear, is an instructor, speaker, blogger, and parent coach. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology, and two graduate certificates in neurodiversity and learning differences. And her 13-year-old son is Pathologically Demand Avoidant, or PDA, an unofficial autism profile characterized by an intense and persistent anxiety-driven need to resist demands. It just so happens, Sandra is PDA, too, diagnosed in early 2024. While parenting her son and navigating the school system were cert...