Autism Coaching: Managing Hurdles towards Interdependence

This image is AI generated specifically to remove 50 pounds from me.

Last week I had a coaching conversation with this brilliant client: a college sophomore diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This young man had just gotten into the top 2 universities in his home country with distinction of not only getting into the most in-demand courses respectively, but for performing exceptionally well in his exams in the top 100 among several tens of thousands who applied. 

The topic of the session seemed to be a missed deadline, which involved finding a partner to work with in a specific class he was taking. As a neurodiversity coach primarily trained in ADHD, my instinct immediately goes to the social component of his situation and so I inquire on that. “So correct me if I’m wrong, but perhaps unlike randomized assignment of groupings or pairs, perhaps the social part of this is what’s causing the difficulty – which led to the missed deadline?”

His face lit up. He answered with a definite yes. I then ask him what to do now given that information. He had enumerated his possible options but when asking help from his professor came up, his face changed. His face seemed to drop, his hands were on his face and his tone seemed a lot lower than usual. I asked him what was going on.

“Asking my professor for help because of my difficulty with my autism feels like an excuse.”

Boom. That pretty much nailed the crux of the coaching session. On the surface: a missed deadline. Underneath: a values-based conflict that needs clarity. In this article, we will break down this learning moment navigating towards what truly worked for the autistic client.

Recognize that the person isn’t wrong

First off, let’s get this out of the way: he isn’t wrong. On the surface perhaps any parent, advocate, therapist or instructor would be incredibly gracious to simply assist and “solve” the problem for him. He has autism – “we get it” that social situations are part of the impairment so let’s just help him out. This sentiment isn’t wrong either. However, it’s important to see beyond just this situation. Given what I know about this client, I will say that working with him even while he was in high school, the very same things that allowed him to perform well – things that have become part of his identity and core values go against the very act of asking help in situations like this. It may also be the reason why, despite the default accommodations accorded to him by the university, he hardly utilizes any of them. Again, nothing wrong with giving said accommodations either. In fact, I’d go as far to say that nobody is wrong in this situation. The situation goes beyond right vs wrong, but it’s about what appears on the surface vs the story underneath. 

Trust the Person 

As a coach, my job is to hold space and simply present back the situation. The very act of holding space allows them to process the situation better. Often the surface situation isn’t the real concern. “As you say that asking for help feels like an excuse, what are you learning about yourself?” He found out that he’s been frustrated with a struggle: overcoming his shyness. Specifically, he wanted the opportunity to overcome it such as this situation – but he just needed to take the leap. So the session itself shifted from how to manage a task, to possibly asking help from his professor to the real concern – overcoming shyness. He mentioned how people around him tended to “hijack” his independence with good intentions and while he couldn’t verbalize this at first, he felt perhaps this was the right time to try something out. At this instance, his body language changed: his face brightened up from looking drooped. See, none of this came from me. As a coach, my job is to hold space for this realization to come to being. It’s all him and he was able to figure it out – my role was the space. 

Facilitate movement forward

Neurodivergent individuals typically reside in either extremes of hyper-independence or hyper-dependence. From “I should be able to all this by myself” or “I’m helpless and I need someone to save me” – with nothing in between. All or nothing. The balance of course is called interdependence. The concept of interdependence was popularized by Stephen Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and is unsurprisingly, cited frequently by experts in the neurodivergent field such as Dr. Russell Barkley in his book “Taking Charge of your ADHD” and Ned Hallowell in his book “ADHD 2.0”. Coaches facilitate forward movement by allowing the client to name their own supports as opposed to simply being dictated on them.  “What type of support would you be comfortable with?” He came up with this idea: to send a message in the class group chat about his concern. If there would be no response, then he would escalate it to his instructor. My job here is done!

The situation was resolved albeit anti-climactically: apparently there were only 2 people in the group chat, my client included, who didn’t have a pair. So they paired up. As a coach, I always knew the situation would be resolved one way or another, with or without my intervention. My involvement as a coach wasn’t to fix this situation: it was facilitating movement forward from what he learned about himself and how to obtain support in ways that felt right to him – and didn’t feel like an excuse. More than the situation or “the what”, the real story was the person of my client – “the who.” 

Note: This article is NOT AI-written (I love writing too much to do that)

FIEL JOHN MERIA, PCC, A-CALC

Originally posted at neurodevcoach.com