Ep37 Navigating Systems and Intersectionality with Nyetta Abernathy (Ethics)

Atypical Behavior Analyst

During this year, we are trying to talk less and listen more. In this LIVE talk, we meet with Nyetta to learn from her experiences as an African American woman, behavior analyst, and mother as she navigates the many, layered complexities of the educational and medical system for herself and family. Nyetta is a self-diagnosed Autistic and during the talk she unpacks the barriers she has faced while trying to receive her own diagnosis while also seeking a diagnosis and services for her son. Her ongoing story provides a chance for others to reflect on some of the unspoken or unaddressed biases and judgements one may not be aware of, when collaborating and working with people who come from different backgrounds and experiences than what they are most familiar with. She also describes the many competing contingencies that families can face when trying to do what is best for their child, career, themselves. Nyetta encourages others to remain persistent and never stop learning.

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe how intersectionality plays a role in navigating the educational and medical systems and the potential effects it has on services, treatment, placement.

2. Discuss the multiple competing contingencies that can impact education, diagnoses, and placement and what practitioners can do to improve the systems for the individuals we work.

3. Explain how diversity in culture and backgrounds should function as an MO to seek out resources and improve cultural competence.

Take Aways- your bite-sized educational noms

- The families we work with, and support don’t always have an easy pathway to navigate, especially if they are African American, Persons of Color, Indigenous. There are covert and overt biases that the medical and educational systems still act upon. Sometimes the family’s concerns aren’t taken seriously, invalidating their voice, values, and humanness.

- Nyetta provided the example that she was told to “read and talk more” with her son while she sought out a diagnosis instead of listening to her concerns.

- Listen to your clients. Listen to their families. Be aware and incorporate their values into programs and recommendations.

- We all come from different histories, backgrounds. Too often we stop at the linear contingency (ABC) and forgot that these are people with complex histories and potential trauma, their own values, motivation, reinforcement. It is imperative that we consider the interlocking and competing contingencies.

- Sometimes the impeding contingencies are due to wait lists, availability of services, resources, accessibility

- IT’s okay to not know everything about everything!

- It is inevitable that you will come in contact with something that is foreign, unknown to you. There will be a time that you have a client whose culture is different than yours, doesn’t have matching values, or a different understanding of disabilities. When this happens, it should motivate you to seek out additional information! Ask questions, seek out collaboration.

- Check your biases. Always. It’s a continuous practice.

Worth 1.5 Learning, 1.5 Ethics CEUs

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Music by: www.purple-planet.com