382 – Peter Gerhardt of Rich Hill Park, NJ ED at Epic Schools, Author, Autism Expert & Disability Advocate

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Amgen for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. Discover more about Amgen’s mission at amgen.com.

Peter Gerhardt: We talk about deficits, what people can’t do. Nobody really talks about my deficits. Nobody says, oh, Peter Gerhardt, you know, he’s really good with people with autism, but he can’t speak Russian. Like, nobody ever says that, you know. But if you’re on the spectrum, you know, that’s what you get. You get your profile that’s based on deficits and not strengths. That’s changed over the ensuing 40 years, but it still needs to change more.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Peter Gerhardt. An internationally recognized and outspoken advocate for the disability community. Peter is the Executive Director of the EPIC School in Paramus, New Jersey. Preparing individuals with autism to meet their full potential. Peter has many thoughts to share, so we’ll present this conversation in two segments this week. Segment one on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, I’m David Hirsch, host of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. One brief message. The Special Fathers Network Mastermind Group experience is the most comprehensive program the 21st Century Dads foundation offers. Dads raising children with special needs, meet virtually on a weekly basis and form meaningful relationships while sharing weekly wins, discussing books and sharing heartfelt challenges. One of the highlights of the year is attending the in-person weekend retreat scheduled this year from September 5th through the 7th. As you think about the year ahead, I invite you to join one of the existing or soon to be formed SFN Mastermind Groups and join a group of like-minded dads to become the best version of yourself. It might just transform your life as it has done for so many others. For more information, please see the show notes or simply go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: Now let’s listen to part one of this conversation between Peter Gerhardt and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Peter Gerhardt of Rich Hill Park, New Jersey, who is Executive Director at EPIC Schools located in Paramus, New Jersey. Author of dozens of publications and books, and internationally recognized and outspoken advocate for the disability community. Peter, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Peter Gerhardt: I am thrilled to be here, David. Thank you for asking me.

David Hirsch: Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Peter Gerhardt: Well, oddly enough, I was born in North Jersey in a town called Rich Hill Park. My family then moved down to Central Jersey by Trenton, in Hamilton Township when I was five, because my father, who worked for McGraw Hill, got transferred to their new facility down in Hightstown, New Jersey. So he lifted up the family and we all moved down there. Two older sisters, you know, very sort of typical nuclear family. I grew up in a very religious household, but my family was more Christian left than Christian right. I was more concerned about feeding the poor and the hungry than anything else. But I had, like, a great. You know, my neighborhood had four or five friends of mine that we all just sort of hung out together. And, you know, there was woods across the street. So I would go over. We’d all play in the woods and get lost in the woods for hours on end. And it was really a pretty cool way to grow up, I have to be honest, you know.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, the vision isn’t. But what I heard you describing your idyllic growing up is a little bit like Beaver Cleaver.

Peter Gerhardt: Yes.

David Hirsch: Nuclear family, mom and dad, you know, very connected. Right. Parents were very present. Right.

Peter Gerhardt: No, absolutely.

David Hirsch: Out of curiosity, what did your dad do for a living?

Peter Gerhardt: He was an export subscription manager from Gray Hill. Which meant when I was growing up, he was in charge of all their overseas publications. So at least four months a year, five months a year, he would be traveling for his job. He actually, at one point had been in every country in the world. And I still have, on my wall, the certificates they used to give you when you cross the equator in a plane that he got, you know, back when, like, you had to wear a suit on the plane and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, if you wanted to be in touch with my mother, she had to send airmail to him like, five days ahead to the hotel he was going to be in in five days so that they could have a conversation about stuff. But, yeah, it was. That was his gig.

David Hirsch: It’s fascinating. What comes to mind

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David Hirsch: is that his passport must have been, very large or he would have a lot of passports because they would fill up very quickly.

Peter Gerhardt: Wow. I can imagine. Yes. Yep.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. I’m sort of curious now, being the only son, how would you describe your relationship with your dad?

Peter Gerhardt: Interesting. I mean, it fluctuated, I think, like most relationships do. I mean, as a young kid, I idolized my father. He was, you know, the end all and be all. I think then as you grew up, you start to realize that, you know, everybody as an adult has their flaws. But like one thing for both my parents, like I will say my father in particular, they were depression generation. My father fought in World War II. I know they had their own prejudices and biases. That was just that generation. But never once in our household did I hear a, derogative statement about any other racial, ethnic, religious, you know, so they really instilled in the three of us that people are people, are people, are people. And then that you judge people by who they are, not what they look like. You know, that that was a real gift that both he and my mother like, gave to us. Three kids.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Very powerful. Thank you for sharing. So any important takeaways from your relationship with your dad? Lessons learned that, you know, you’ve tried to bake into your own situation.

Peter Gerhardt: You know, very much the Protestant work ethic. You know, you, you get up, you do your job, you do it well. He would say, like, I don’t care if you’re a ditch digger, just be the best damn ditch digger you could be. They never, you know, I don’t think he was thrilled when I thought I was going to be a rock and roll drummer. But after that phase passed, he was very supportive of my choice. He was a good guy.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, there’s a dad on the network. His name is Gary Rabine. He’s here in the Chicago area, far northwest suburbs. And, very successful businessman, father of five children, one with cerebral palsy, adopted some with cerebral palsy. And he hosts a podcast. And the title of the podcast which I’m sure that your dad might be able to relate to, maybe you could. Is the Ditch Digger CEO podcast, you know, that people used to say, you know, if you don’t go to school, if you don’t pay attention, what’s going on, you know, you’re going to be a ditch digger. Right, Right. And that was sort of used in a derogatory way. Right? In a threatening way that, you know, you’re going to have a blue collar job, like that wasn’t honorable or something. And I know it was used to motivate people, right, to maybe work a little bit harder or make more of their, school years. Anyway, Gary is one of these guys who didn’t go to college but know went on to have a super successful career in the, mostly in the paving industries, one of the largest paving companies in the country. And he’s like started like two dozen companies along the way. And again, he’s been very, very successful. And he sort of was a play on words, what he heard when he was growing up. You know, you don’t want to, you know, squander your situation. You don’t want to be a ditch digger for the rest of your life. So, anyway, he’s had a lot of fun with his podcast, interviewing mostly business owners and CEOs, millionaires and billionaires type of things. And there’s a lot to be learned right from people with different backgrounds. So. Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent, but, that’s what came to mind when you’re making reference to your dad. I’m wondering if there’s been any other father influencers, starting with your grandfathers. Did you know either of your grandfathers?

Peter Gerhardt: I knew my paternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather died before I was born. He was a cooper. Actually, he was a barrel maker. My grandfather on my father’s side, I knew. We used to live down the street from him before we moved down to Hamilton Township. But, he was a postal, worker and a baseball fan. Unfortunately, I missed out on, like, my two sisters who are older than me. They got to at least grow up partly in a community of family. You know, my grandparents lived down this one street. My other grandmother lived on this street. My aunt was on this street. That’s sort of a lost, like Leela to Beaver sort of, you know, father Knows Best sort of way of living, you know?

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for sharing. Sorry you didn’t have a chance to know your maternal grandfather, that he died at a much, younger age. But it’s a blessing, right, if you do get to know your grandparents at all, let alone into adulthood. Any other men that played an influential role in your life?

Peter Gerhardt: Yeah, definitely. Like George Morris, who was our youth minister at the church the family went to. He gave me this. This vision that you could be a man of devout faith but not be a pious ass at the same time. Like, you know, he was and he still is. Like, he is still

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Peter Gerhardt: a devout believer and the goodness of God, but he also could crack a joke with the best of them. I just, you know, that was a revelation to me. You know, if you were a man of God, you didn’t have to be serious all the time.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, maybe not to take yourself seriously. Right.

Peter Gerhardt: Yeah.

David Hirsch: Ah, yeah.

Peter Gerhardt: Yep.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. You know, I think of people like George Morris, even though you didn’t speak about the specifics, about the influence are being sort of the angels in our lives, right? You look back and you say, well, if it wasn’t for him, you know, I might not be doing something that I’m doing today. So thank God for the George Morris of the world.

Peter Gerhardt: I agree. I definitely agree.

David Hirsch: So my recollection was that, you have three degrees from Rutgers over 15 years. A bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree, from the School of Education in Special ed, and then, a PhD in educational psychology and Special ed as well. And it wasn’t like you went straight through. There was about a 15 year period of time that your education took over. So I was wondering what was it that you were doing, that led you into this path and then what type of work were you doing before you got your PhD?

Peter Gerhardt: Almost my entire professional career, I’ve worked with kids with autism, adolescents with autism early on in my career. So even when I had these visions of being a rock and roll drummer during the day, I was working at the Douglas Developmental Disability center in the adolescent classroom with adolescents with autism. And this was back in 1980 when I first started. So it really is the only thing I’ve ever done with my professional life. it’s not a career, it’s a life. You know, I was very lucky to have found what I wanted to do at such an early age. And, you know, the field was just starting really. So I had this opportunity to sort of make a name for myself without ever intending to make a name for myself. so that worked out well.

David Hirsch: What was the backstory? I think it was when you were a junior at Rutgers on undergrad that sort of piqued your awareness or heightened your awareness for this.

Peter Gerhardt: Right. I was a junior psychology major, as you mentioned. And, in your junior year, you were allowed to take a course called Fieldwork in something. And there was a course called Fieldwork in Psychology Developmental Disabilities and a course called Fieldwork in Psychology Developmental Learning. Developmental Learning. You worked one day a week at a non campus nursery school for typical kids. At, the end of the semester, you wrote a paper about your experience. You mentioned Piaget two or three times and you got an A. Like, you know, everybody knew it. All psychology majors signed up for it because all psychology majors signed up for it. I got closed out of the course, the Fieldwork of Psychology Developmental Disabilities, which meant I had to work one day a week at the Douglas Developmental Disability center working with kids with autism. Didn’t know what autism was. This was 1980. Nobody did. I didn’t want to be a special ed Teacher. But I needed the credits, so I took the course. And thankfully, Sandy Harris, one of my heroes, she put me in the adolescent classroom. I say thankfully because if she put me with little kids, I probably would have done the semester and left. Because I’m not good with little kids. I’m much better with, like, high five. How you doing? That’s great, man. I literally walked into the classroom and never walked out. Yes, initially I got fascinated with autism, and it was brand new field. But pretty quickly I got fascinated with what people with autism could do. You know, all we were talking about at the time and still do today, unfortunately, we talk about deficits, what people can’t do. Nobody really talks about my deficits. Nobody says, oh, Peter Gerhardt, like, you know, he’s really good with people with autism, but he can’t speak Russian. Like, nobody ever says that, you know, but if you’re on the spectrum, you know, that’s what you get. You get your profile that’s based on deficits and not strengths. That’s changed over the ensuing 40 years, but it still needs to change more.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, I love it. Thank you for sharing the, backstory, or the origin story, if you will, about what piqued your interest in the field. And that was a long time ago, right?

Peter Gerhardt: Long time ago.

David Hirsch: We’re talking 40-45 years ago now.

Peter Gerhardt: Yep.

David Hirsch: You know, autism then what certainly isn’t what it is today, grown and developed, you know, gone in a lot of different directions. Not a straight line either.

Peter Gerhardt: No.

David Hirsch: And I’m wondering, what was it that sort of directed your career path? You mentioned you started at the Douglas Developmental Disability Center. Where did your career take you from there?

Peter Gerhardt: I started at the Douglas Center. Then I left and went to work at a school called Eden in Princeton, again to

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Peter Gerhardt: work with the adolescents. I then came back to Rutgers for a couple years and Douglas. Then I worked with adults for the state for a while and eventually ended up back at Eden, where I stayed for, I think 14 years. 14-15 years. So eventually I ran their adult programs. And it was then that I went back to my academic work and I got my master’s and I got my doctorate. Going part time at night. But, yeah, I was a bit of a journeyman camper for a while.

David Hirsch: So what was it that led you to the work that you’re doing at EPIC, where you’re currently the executive director?

Peter Gerhardt: The opportunity presented itself. I really wanted to once again put my money where my mouth is and say, this isn’t theory that I’m talking About this is real, practical, useful information. And at the end of the day, what we’re talking about, are people’s lives. The one thing I think we do in our field, unfortunately, that we do very well, is we waste people’s time. We teach them the wrong things in the wrong way under the wrong conditions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a whole lot of time left to waste. I really wanted to make sure that what we were doing for these kids was teaching them the right skills in the right way, in the right place. And I could do that based upon having worked with adults for so long. You develop this ability to look at kids and go, how come nobody taught you this? Like, how did you get to be 12 and not be toilet trained yet? Dude, come on. Like, like, this should have happened, like, seven years ago. Like, all these sort of. And it’s like some oftentimes little things that people don’t think about that he or she needs to learn to be, included. Competent, adult on whatever level is possible. But that was really what drew me. And I’ve been there 10 years now, and it’s where I’m m. Ending my career, however much longer I have. Like, I’m at Epic for the rest of the ride. So.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well, from what little I know of the place, not just from you, but from Tim Kaine who introduced us, and the very, comprehensive website with the description of the services and programs that EPIC has, it seems like a glove in hand type of experience. Based on your education and the work experience that you have, you’re in the right place.

Peter Gerhardt: Yeah. And I’ve just been also very lucky to work with some really, really talented people who shared the vision that I had. You know, it’s a cliche, but it takes a village to raise a child. And, you know, I say, well, to raise a child with autism, it takes a village, two small cities, a chapter of the Hell’s Angels. It takes a lot more people home.

David Hirsch: Oh, yeah. yeah, yeah.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a great dad coin. Thank you. Now back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: Well, I put together a handful of questions, in no particular order of importance. And you mentioned that you got involved with the world of autism when it was a nascent sort of, field, if I can call it that. And I’m wondering, how has that field changed? How has your perspective evolved over the past 40 years?

Peter Gerhardt: I will tell you one thing that it’s definitely done for me is it’s solidified my adherence to the science. Autism is the need is high. Parents hopes are high, and that’s, a recipe sometimes for people to take advantage of other people. Autism is rife with fad interventions that were very popular for a year, two years, and then it was realized that they really didn’t do anything, so they kind of faded away. But I just stick to the science, and that’s what I’ve taken away from all this. The other thing is I don’t ever, ever, ever get to say somebody can’t do something. Like, they’re the person that will tell me they can’t do it. You know, I got to give them their shot. And more often than not, they prove me wrong, which is, like, incredibly cool when it happens, because you give. You give people the opportunity to do things, and now all of a sudden, you know, like, little simple stuff. Because I work with individuals with what would be called more classic

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Peter Gerhardt: autism. So going to the, 7 11, and we talk to parents and we say, you know what? He’s gone two dozen times now with us. We’re going to let him go in by himself. And parents kind of freak out. You know, you would think we were saying that we’re sending him into, like, Dante’s seven circle of hell, you know, without us this time. So we’ll see. But it’s at 7:11, and we can stand outside the windows and we can see what’s going on. And if we’ve done our job right, the guy behind the counter now knows who this person is, like, knows their name and knows them as a person, not as, like, a special ed student. And I have never had somebody fail at being able to go in on their own, you know, pick up whatever it is they want, buy whatever it is they want, you know, when I think historically, we would never think to give them a chance to do that because, oh, something might go wrong. It’s like, you know, every single day in my life, something might go wrong, but that doesn’t stop me from doing stuff.

David Hirsch: Oh, yeah, Well, I think, the now you hit on the head, a moment ago was that you don’t want to ever. You make A decision on what somebody’s capable of. Give them an opportunity. I don’t put a cap or a limit on, what somebody is capable of because I think parents that are overprotective, which I think is the issue. One of the issues is they’re further handicapping their kids.

Peter Gerhardt: Yeah.

David Hirsch: Typical or atypical kids. It’s not just autism. And, you touched a nerve with me on a phrase that you used about Thad interventions. And there was a couple of interviews that I did, not recently, but going back, you know, five or six years now. And I don’t know if you would include this concept under one of those THAD interventions, but these two dads can back up with, a high degree of conviction that this concept of facilitated communication was the be all, end all for their two sons unrelated situations. If it wasn’t for facilitated communication, they would not have been able to unlock the ability and genius of their two adult sons. And I’m wondering from your perspective, just out of my own personal curiosity, where does facilitated communication rest? Right. As far as the science is concerned.

Peter Gerhardt: Yeah, as far as the science is concerned, I would put it in the category of a fad intervention. However, having said that, I think what we’re going to find at the end of the road is that there isn’t a singular autism spectrum. There’s multiple autisms. And with this one particular autism, maybe something like that can be helpful. But I think if you’re going to try that, you still have to collect data on it. And really. And it sounds like these two fathers did, you know, and really, you know, like, do your due diligence just to make sure. Because, again, we all want what’s best for our sons and daughters and our students and our adults. And it’s easy to believe sometimes. But I’m in no position to tell any parent that they’re wrong, that it. About whether or not it worked with their son or daughter.

David Hirsch: That’s. That’s fair. Again, I just know for a fact that in these two particular situations it might be anecdotal. This was the key to the lock, the missing piece to the puzzle. Right. For them. And, I think, from what little I know, in their description of it, it was oversold. Right. with what facilitated communication would be able to do. And you know, it didn’t work for a large percentage of people that pursued it. I don’t know if it was the implementation or just very, like you said, high expectations. And it’s not, it’s not the Solution for a majority. And it’s just unfortunate that, you know, some of these things, you know, come and go. Right? They work for some people or they wouldn’t have any merit. But they’re not the answer, like blanket answer to the situation.

Peter Gerhardt: Right.

David Hirsch: So EPIC programs emphasize a lifespan approach. How does EPIC prepare students for adulthood and what distinguishes your transition planning from other models?

Peter Gerhardt: We are almost exclusively community based. Like we’re a small school right now we have 31 students. We can go up to 34, but we have a fleet of seven vans. So we can go out in the community with our students like no other school around does anything like that. You know, they go, we have students who, on Monday plan their meals and then go grocery shopping and buy everything they need for the week to make their meals. And then they come back and then they have their schedule of meals that they’re supposed to make. They can switch them around if they want. But

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Peter Gerhardt: we also have then students who order on doordash because that’s a hell of an easy way to make your lunch. You know, everything is in the community we really focus on. One of our beliefs is like, we should be successful in our classrooms. Like, we control every variable. We control lights on, lights off, music on, music off. Who’s working with you? What are you working on? What’s your reinforcers? We control everything. The only real measure of how effective we are is how well our kids do outside our classrooms. You could swing a bat in a batting cage till the cows come home, but unless you can hit a fastball, you know, out on the mound at Yankee Stadium, you know, it’s not going to be a career.

David Hirsch: Yeah, good point. Your work often highlights the importance of meaningful skill acquisition. How do you define meaningful in this context and how is that reflected in EPIC’s curriculum?

Peter Gerhardt: You know, meaningful. We highlight in fact of what is meaningful to this particular person. But then there’s also meaningful in terms of society and what they see as meaningful. But then there’s also meaningful in terms of like your future and the skills that you’re going to need beyond that. So it’s a multi level word that we use to discuss different types of meaningful for each person. For like an example. Like really we’re working with, there’s one brilliant guy, brilliant David Cox, out of Endicott of college. A lot of students that I work with get attached to like young kid music because it’s all they hear for the first five years of their life. And they get sort of patterned on them and all this stuff and it’s hard to get them to switch. But I want them to listen to music that they like, not listen to music that I like. You know, just because that’s their age, they’re supposed to do that. So he’s working on an algorithm that would take like the Baby Shark song, input it into one of the music systems and look for other songs that have the same rhythm, same tone, same rate of like that are more age normative. So we can do like the Baby Shark song, but for something, somebody that’s more like 16, like wham, wake me up before you go go is like the Baby Shark song.

David Hirsch: That’s fascinating.

Peter Gerhardt: You know, other things are just basic. We have what we call our, 12 essential skills, which goes from everything from toileting to problem solving to independent eating into, self management of your own behavior to like. Those are all those things that as an adult you’re going to need to survive out in the community. You know, think of it as like my job. Our job is to put ourselves out of a job.

David Hirsch: That’s, that’s the perfect world, right? Yeah.

Peter Gerhardt: Yep. So if we can give you a skill so that I don’t have to be there, that’s really what I want for you, you know, I love it.

David Hirsch: So, sexuality education is a topic you’ve addressed in your publications. What are the key considerations when developing sexuality education programs for individuals with autism?

Peter Gerhardt: Number one, it’s really, it’s start young. And I know that sounds weird, but we all learn about sexuality within our families. Like how you’re supposed to touch people, how you’re supposed to be touched, like who you can snuggle with, who you can’t snuggle with. So you learn all these little rules. So we want to make sure that our kids learn those rules. But at the same time, we also want to, we talk to families and what we’re talking about is safety and your changing body. That’s all I’m really talking about early on. Like, I want kids to know, males to know the word for their genitalia is penis, not babada. You know, babada is fine, but, you know, when he’s in a doctor’s office, nobody’s going to know what he’s talking about. So penis is a good word. And a lot of times parents get really nervous with teaching. Oh, he’s going to say it all the time. I’m like, no, he’s not. Trust me, there’s no value in saying it all the time. So, you know, he’s not going to. But Then also safety. And one of the things that we do that’s not good the field is we tend to teach kids with autism to be very compliant, to be very like, okay, John, come with me. John, do you need the bathroom? Let’s go to the bathroom. And that’s a bad state to be as a young adult. Adult when you look at the potential for abuse and harm. So we want safety skills. Like everybody should have a functional no starting at an early age. Like typical 2 year olds have functional nose. They have great functional nose. Difficult two year olds. We just want to make sure that our

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Peter Gerhardt: guys have it. Especially since, you know, we do a lot of the field does a lot with like stranger danger. But if you look at the research, the perpetrator abuse is more likely to be someone the person knows than a stranger, you know. So unless I’m giving you some of the skills to be safe, like I’m setting you up for the potential. And you know what, 99.999% of people out there are good people. This is one of those cases where I have to program for that .00001% unfortunately. But then as kids get older, and especially if you’re on that more able end of the spectrum, you want to know how to talk to people of the opposite sex or the same sex, if that’s who you are. There’s a lot of research showing that these individuals are interested in a relationship, just don’t know how to go about it. So it makes sense if we can actually teach you how to safely navigate that environment. And we never, we really don’t talk about like when you say the word sexuality, people think, oh, we’re teaching them how to have sex. Like that’s the farthest thing from it. Like we’re all like social skills like relationships, like safety, like language, like that kind of stuff. Like, like I never have and I never will teach someone how to have sex. You know, hell, if I had to learn it on my own, then everybody else has to learn it on their own.

David Hirsch: So what comes to mind is that not all, individuals, young children, young adults, adults for that matter, are verbal.

Peter Gerhardt: Right.

David Hirsch: And I’m wondering how does that play into the communication or education about sexuality?

Peter Gerhardt: Well, you know, if we’re talking about the functional no, we can teach a no to almost anybody, you know. And one of the things that tends to be true is that abusers are not necessarily the bravest people in the world. So if someone shows any bit of resistance, chances are they’re going to back down. Now. This is, you know, tendencies. It’s not 100% guaranteed or anything, but so if I can make you even slightly non compliant in those situations, that that’s a really good thing. I also want, you know, to keep parts of your body and private. You know, don’t pull your pants down before you go into the bathroom. Make sure that your zipper is pulled up when you come out. All those things fall under this heading. It’s, much harder when you talk about people who have less vocal verbal behavior, much less language. But it’s even more important, I think, because of it, that we look at how do we teach some of these safety skills.

David Hirsch: Quite well made.

Tom Couch: And that concludes the first part of David Hirsch’s conversation with Peter Gerhardt. Tune in next week when we’ll hear more of Peter’s thoughts about his work for people with autism. That’s all on next week’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com groups and search dad to dad. Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to david@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch. Thanks again to Amgen. Committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing, and delivering innovative human therapeutics. Discover more about Amgen’s mission at Amgen.com.

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