STAR Institute for Sensory Processing

The Pediatric Burnout Factory How Corporate ABA Clinics Are Destroying Children's Nervous Systems (And what to do instead) A provider called The Perfect Child billed a New Jersey family more than $900,000 for a few months of in-home autism therapy. The family had been told they would not have to pay anything out of pocket. [wsj....

When a child falls asleep during therapy, that should be information.

Their nervous system is telling you something important.

The New York Times recently reported that an ABA clinic chain had a policy of waking children after 7 minutes of sleep to resume therapy. Almost at the same time The Wall Street Journal found another provider billing a single family $900,000 for a few months of in-home autism therapy.

These findings point to something structural, what happens when care delivery gets organized around billable hours rather than what a developing nervous system actually needs.

Dr. Virginia Spielmann breaks down the neuroscience of what high-intensity behavioral programs cost children physiologically, and what the evidence supports instead.

Worth reading, worth sharing.

The Pediatric Burnout Factory How Corporate ABA Clinics Are Destroying Children's Nervous Systems (And what to do instead) A provider called The Perfect Child billed a New Jersey family more than $900,000 for a few months of in-home autism therapy. The family had been told they would not have to pay anything out of pocket. [wsj....

🔥 COUNTDOWN TO NEXT WEEK. You don't want to miss Day 3.
The final day of Differently Wired Thriving is where insight becomes action. The Ecological Context zooms out beyond the individual and the clinic to ask the bigger question: What does a truly neuroinclusive world look like — in education, healthcare, workplaces, and culture — and how do we actually build it?

Leading that conversation in the Accountability, Culture & Sustainability panel:
🎙 Dr. Alicia A. Broderick — Professor of Education at Montclair State University and author of The Autism Industrial Complex, Dr. Broderick has spent 20+ years in Critical Autism and Critical Neurodiversity Studies. Her work exposes how neuronormativity operates in institutions — and what it takes to dismantle it.

🎙 Dr. Morénike Giwa Onaiwu — A global human rights, neurodiversity, and disability justice leader, Dr. Giwa Onaiwu has presented at the White House and the United Nations. She is a Research Fellow at Drexel University's AJ Drexel Autism Institute and Founder of Advocacy Without Borders, bringing lived and learned expertise to intersectional, participatory scholarship.

🎙 Warda Farah — Neurodivergent Speech and Language Therapist, social entrepreneur, and founder of Language Waves (UK). Her work sits at the intersection of race, language, and disability, directly confronting the barriers Black and minoritised families face in accessing culturally affirming therapy services.

Together, they'll push past idealism into the real work: rooting advocacy in intersectional ethics, holding systems accountable, and building professional cultures that allow neurodivergent people to not just survive — but fully participate and flourish.

⏰ This is happening NEXT WEEK — June 10–12, 2026 | 8am–1:30pm MT | Live Virtual
Can't join live? 60-day on-demand access is included with registration.
Full 3-day access + replay: $179 | CEU add-on available
👉 Register now: https://bit.ly/star-thriving2026

What does it take to design a space — physical, digital, or institutional — where everyone genuinely belongs?

At Differently Wired Thriving, Vesper Moore (he/they) will challenge us to reconsider who gets a seat at the design table.

Drawing from Inclusive Design, Universal Design, trauma-informed frameworks, and the principles in Restorative Cities, Vesper's session explores how sensory environments, cultural assumptions, and power structures shape dignity and participation — and why neurodivergent and disabled leadership isn't optional if we want systems that actually work.

Join us next week. Link in comments.

Want a special discount? 💬 Comment "THRIVING" and we'll send the offer straight to your DMs

🗓 June 10–12 | 8:00am-1:30pm MT
📍 Virtual | 3 days live + 60-day on-demand
✅ CEU add-on available (AOTA/ASHA 15 contact hours)

-Design

🌑 The gnome went missing on a Tuesday.
By Wednesday, the crops were moving.
By Thursday, the creatures stopped acting like animals.
By Friday… something knew they were coming.

This summer, your teen joins a team of adventurers to uncover a growing darkness — and learns real skills along the way.

🎲 Roll, Play, Grow summer groups are now enrolling.
Online | Ages 13–21 | June through September

They won't just play a character. They'll become one.
🔗 https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/roll-play-grow

⏰ One week out. And the question worth asking before you arrive:

What does neuroaffirming practice actually require of you — not in theory, but in the room, in the relationship, in the system you work inside every day?

That's not a rhetorical question at Differently Wired Thriving. It's the dialogue. Researchers, neurodivergent professionals, and clinicians working through it together, out loud, in real time — because the honest answer is more complex than any single framework has acknowledged.

Want a special discount? 💬 Comment "THRIVING" and we'll send the offer straight to your DMs
🗓 June 10–12 | 8:00am-1:30pm MT
📍 Virtual | 3 days live + 60-day on-demand
🔗 https://bit.ly/star-thriving2026
✅ CEU add-on available (AOTA/ASHA 15 contact hours)

Sessions you won't want to miss:
→ Movement Differences in a Nonspeaking, Autistic Body — Damon Kirsebom
→ Fluid Embodiment — Dr. Nick Walker
→ Re-writing Negative Narratives — Dr. Toni Solaru
→ Understanding Non-belonging in a Changing World — Dr. Karen Gravett
→ Environment Matters: Those Most Impacted Leading Inclusive Design — Vesper Moore
→ Becoming a Neurodivergent-Serving Institution of Higher Education (IHE) — Dr. Alicia Broderick
→ Energy Accounting for Neurodivergent Thriving: The Smart Phone Analogy — Jodie Clark

🔹 Facilitated dialogues — not lectures
🔹 Application Labs — strategies you can use immediately

Most clinicians enter this field with a clear sense of what they believe about human potential and dignity. Then the real world arrives. You adapt. You compromise. You tell yourself it's temporary.

That drift is the predictable result of environments that reward compliance over conviction. The gap between what you believe and what you do is real, and it is costly. That gap is where burnout lives.

Differently Wired Thriving is for practitioners ready to close the gap - finding your footing in today's reality with the frameworks, evidence, and community that make principled practice sustainable. Your early idealism was telling you something true. This is how you build a practice around it.

These practitioners made the move. They stopped fixing. They started supporting. And they won't go back.

Join us for a live community event where you'll connect with OTs and neurodiversity professionals who've walked this path, deepen your practice with peers who get it, and reclaim the work you love. Register now.