Okay, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals building
accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities but provide a platform
to share their ideas so we can make a more accessible world.
Today we are joined by Joslynn Bigelow.
Joslynn is a board certified behavior analyst, BCBA, a teacher and professional coach serving
the community of persons with disabilities.
From classrooms to clinics to fields, she does not accept no as an answer.
Her approach to innovation in the adaptive sport world has impacted the sport of soccer
nationally and globally.
Joslynn recently started a business called Say How Consulting, LLC, to leverage existing
resources for the disability community and promote creative problem solving where resources
have yet to exist.
Joslynn, thanks for joining me today.
Yeah, I guess so.
I've said it a thousand times but struggled with it there.
So we'll get into all of that momentarily but I want to start with maybe how you got
into coaching in general and why you've pursued the career that you have.
So what was your first introduction to disability and adaptive sports?
So when I was 11 years old, which was, you know, way back in 2007, I was playing club
soccer for a local club in the Oregon, Portland, Gresham area.
And amidst the different experiences that I was having as a youth, which were not exactly
positive, my mom was looking for other outlets for me because I've always had a particular
passion for serving and supporting others.
And the local club was starting a program called Top Soccer.
I didn't really know what it was.
I was just an 11 year old being dropped off at a camp.
I was told I was going to be helping as opposed to just a player.
And when I got there, I was partnered with a young man who is slightly bigger than me.
He wore glasses and he had Spiderman braces on his ankles or AFOs.
He was an individual.
He used gestures for communication as opposed to verbal expression.
And for the next couple days, we worked together to play soccer.
I distinctly remember he was not particularly interested in much of the game.
So I remember he and I spent a lot of time picking up and putting away equipment and
kind of meandering around kicking a few balls in no purposeful direction.
But it was an incredible experience for myself to realize how accessible and expansive the
world of soccer is because I've had a very mixed and arguably negative experience in
my soccer career.
And the one place I always find a home, the one place I always find what I consider to
be the true value of the game is in the top soccer setting and now in the more expansive
adaptive soccer community.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point because I mean, my first introduction to Special Olympics,
I was probably 15 and I took sports seriously, but maybe put a lot of pressure on myself.
So there weren't always negative or there weren't always positive outcomes associated
with me playing the sport individually.
And I was, I don't know if I can really pinpoint it, but like obsessed with coaching and like
quickly was drawn to that.
But I'm surprised because like at 11 years old, that's a little young to have a lot of
like perspective and understanding of stereotypes.
A lot of kids at that age are more so judgmental differences.
Can you maybe speak on behalf of why you think it was different for you or why you didn't
have those same misconceptions?
I think what was different for me is multitude of factors.
Culturally, my family that I was raised around is from Oahu, Hawaii.
And while I am an Oregonian born and bred, I think the cultural aspects of family and
caring for the other are very much instilled in me.
Another factor is I experienced a lot of bullying as a youth and I'm very much a fighter for
other people.
So when I was actually younger than 11 playing rec soccer, I was on one team where there
was a girl who would likely be considered as having ADHD and maybe other intellectual
developmental disabilities on my team and definitely gotten some fights with my teammates
about treating her nicely.
And one of my longtime close friends I even played a year of college ball with when we
were little, met her on a rec team and she was wearing pink camouflage hearing aids.
And for some reason, people bullied her about that and I'm thinking those look like some
dope earrings and then life went on.
So it's always just, I think, been second nature for me and then the bullying piece
recognizing that people are treated differently for being different and that wasn't something
I wanted to perpetuate.
Yeah, sports and similar interests appears to be a great way to bring people together.
What do you think?
This might be too broad of a question, but how do you think we can create youth and adolescents
that are more receptive and understanding of disability?
I feel like it's more present now, but there's still somewhat of a disconnect.
I think current generations, it's more inherently instilled.
I'm going to use a really random comparison, but you think about accessing the internet.
Let's talk about Google search.
Our previous generations developed alongside Google, whereas our younger current generations
are really growing up with it.
So the concept of doing a Google search is very different across the generations.
This is super random, I promise I'll tie it back.
I was in school and we were taught, it was a part of a lesson, it was an assignment to
learn how to put things differently into a web browser to find the results that we needed.
Whereas you might see my family type in one thing and be frustrated they're not finding
what they want, and then you have people younger than myself.
I don't even know how the heck these little FBI investigator type people are finding the
information they are, but the CIA should be swarming with people.
It's just kind of interesting.
I consider that access to information and this idea of just pushing and trying until
you find what you need and want is a really cool cultural aspect that's coming up in modern
American generations.
So a lot of programs, the ones that you are involved in now are facilitating that by putting
both populations together to a degree and making it normalized.
You mentioned your experience at Special Olympics.
Special Olympics has this awesome program for unified sport, combining persons with
and without disabilities together, equally accessing any given sport or other kind of
program together, similar to best buddies and other things.
It's just becoming second nature.
In schools we're seeing less and less of students being segregated.
We're still seeing the specific support students who have more complex needs need, but yeah,
we're just making it a part of the new culture.
When I was 14 I was a unified partner.
My very first exposure to Special Olympics was a freshman in high school.
I joined a community service club at my school, which was the only other club that really
interested me aside from playing varsity soccer, and varsity soccer didn't give me a lot of
time.
When I joined this club our first initiative was to do the Special Olympics Polar Plunge.
I'm not a big deep water nor cold water person and we were jumping into the Columbia River
in Oregon.
That was really intimidating, but there was this group of people older than myself saying,
hey, this is fun and okay, let's do it.
As time went on I realized the leader of the movement also had a brother who accessed Special
Olympics as an athlete or a person with a disability.
Really starting to connect and it turned me into this much more focused tunnel visioned
person who just wanted to serve in support of helping people access anything that they
really wanted to do, but of course sport because I share that passion.
Was there a degree in special education?
Yeah, my bachelor's is in general education actually, in secondary education with an endorsement
in language arts.
We don't know what we don't know, so when I was looking at getting my degree I had started
in psychology and wanted to have something that I felt had more bulk to it, more direct
impact on the community I wanted to serve, but when I was looking into schools like Portland
State and Concordia I didn't know what I didn't know.
I wanted to go into special education and I was told by both schools, oh you can't do
SPED as a bachelor's, it's only a master's, but I didn't realize and what I didn't know
to ask was, oh you don't have that, but I could have done that elsewhere.
So all that to say I actually like that I have the gen ed background.
It allows me to be more versatile.
My master's is through Portland State.
It is a special education master's, however it's focused in applied behavioral analysis
as well as I have a certificate in autism spectrum disorder.
I started with special education as well and my initial vision as an 18-year-old was to
end up back in my high school teaching the athletes who were in my special Olympics program.
I wanted to continue to be a part of their lives and I found a different way to do so
that allowed me to be a little more active.
Last month you were recognized by U.S. Soccer with the annual Adapt and Thrive Disabilities
Award as well as the Carla Overbeck Leadership Award.
The first recognized as an individual is making an impact in the U.S.'s broad landscape of
disability soccer.
What did those mean to you and were they on your radar prior to receiving them?
So that's an interesting question.
The Adapt and Thrive Leadership Award was a nomination process.
There were three public nominees for that award to be voted on by the general public
and that was myself, a gentleman from top soccer elsewhere in the country, and MLS Works
which is MLS's I believe non-profit charitable foundation entity.
I actually had the opportunity to work with MLS Works when I coached the MLS Unified All-Star
Game this past summer in Washington D.C.
West Coast won.
Go West Coast first time in four years.
What?
Sorry East Coast.
Anyway, that award was on my radar because one or two years prior I was a part of helping
develop that concept of the award.
It was not my idea.
All the credit goes to our friends at U.S. Soccer's extended national teams department
but as the leader of the Adapt and Thrive Working Group that I'll talk about later and
a part of the Disability Soccer Committee through U.S. Soccer, we contribute a lot to
these different movements acknowledging adaptive progress in soccer in the American landscape.
That award was created.
This was the third annual award previously won again by top soccer coaches Sandy Castillo
and Sean Danhouser, two really good peers and mentors of mine.
It was on my radar in that regard but I had no idea I was going to be nominated.
So that was kind of surreal and I really value that it's voted on by the soccer community
because if what I'm doing isn't almost worthy of recognition then I'm clearly not representing
the public in the way I should be.
So that was a really stellar recognition of my efforts and a reminder to keep moving.
The Carla Overbeck Award I found out in January.
I was on a Zoom call with U.S. Soccer's President Cindy Parlo-Cone preparing to talk about this
next year for how we're going to be developing adaptive soccer, especially going into some
major events coming in the next few years.
And all of a sudden joining our Zoom call aside from her precious little boy was Carla
Overbeck.
Previously Carla Worden, she was the captain and a major player in the U.S. Women's National
Team in the 90s and continues to be a prominent figurehead in soccer as the coach for Duke.
This award is not female specific.
It just happens to be named after a woman.
It's a second annual award.
I'm the second annual awardee.
I sat in the ceremony last year watching the first awardee get their award and thinking
wow that is so cool.
So to get that this year was really amazing.
And I accepted that award this past weekend at the U.S. Soccer Annual General Meeting
for 2024.
And I started off my speech and I'll conclude my soapbox rant here of the awards that I've
received recently.
Focus on me, but truly I want to redirect the focus on the individuals that I collaborate
with to get the work done and the individuals that we're serving not just players but also
coaches, officials, fans and more with disabilities or serving the disability community.
Yeah that's been such a hard thing to navigate for me personally as well as like getting
recognition.
Obviously when people see inclusion and disability there's a visceral positive reaction.
They do feel moved in some way.
But like I'll share something of one of my clients at the gym accomplishing something
great and the comments will be like oh it's so great that you create that gym for them.
I'm like wait that's not that's not what I'm trying to like showcases.
I'm like that's not the idea.
So it's sometimes tough to be in this space because you do get so much praise and like
to me my initial experiences with Special Olympics helped me way more than they probably
helped the athletes and it's just kind of always felt that way to me.
Like this has been an awesome career.
It's been incredibly rewarding.
It's in many ways kept my life on a good trajectory and a good path and to be like praised for
that seems weird but that could probably be a whole another conversation.
You mentioned on that on that call that you were kind of highlighting maybe the next year
of work or what your goals are for the foreseeable future.
Anything specific that you kind of highlight or identify?
So in my niche role serving U.S. soccer and the adaptive thrive working group and the
disability soccer committee really just the adaptive soccer movement as a whole we are
going to have a shift in leadership but not a shift in progress with our volunteer groups.
The great part of being a part of these volunteer groups with U.S. soccer like the DSC or the
adaptive thrive working group is there's less bureaucratic processes.
So we really can push the envelope and try different things and get the word out there.
For example you can see some of the tangible products we've worked on in the past that
we update annually on our website united adaptive soccer dot com.
That is representative of united adaptive soccer association.
An association composed of eight of the nine formal disability soccer organizations that
are members of U.S. soccer currently.
Eight of those organizations came together to apply for a grant through U.S. soccer because
U.S. soccer doesn't just dish out money to its members there's a formal process so as
to ensure that we're holding ourselves accountable and acting in the best image of the crest.
And innovate to grow grant fund we earned as a collective group and we're using that
to further spread awareness and create more meaningful functional opportunities for athletes
and coaches so that we can start to contribute to better quality programming.
So the moral of the story is going into this next year I have a particular passion for
language which we could talk about later.
We'll be updating our modern language document housed on united adaptive soccer dot com as
well as an interactive map of where all of our disability soccer organizations are throughout
the U.S.
We will also be creating a documentation for best practices actually inspired by my colleagues
at move united best practices for how to conduct meetings and presentations for U.S. soccer
and we'll make that suggestion to U.S. soccer.
Another product we'll have in the next couple months is brief one page type materials for
other U.S. soccer member groups pertaining to how to better align with the adaptive soccer
movement whether that's intentionally adding the language of disability to their nondiscrimination
policies, advertising specifically that persons with disabilities are also welcome, saying
any abilities sometimes our persons with disabilities don't see themselves in any ability.
And then the biggest thing we're going to be contributing to is coach education alongside
the formal extended national teams department with U.S. soccer.
We'll be looking to influence getting persons with disabilities educated and educating all
of our coaches regardless of ability on how to be more inclusive minded.
Yeah, a lot of time back there.
Those are all topics that I kind of had on my radar that I wanted to talk about, the
disability language and the interactive map and all that stuff.
Extended national teams, there's currently nine, five categories, men, women and one
that's coed I think, right?
Yeah, so there's in the extended national teams department, these teams are the same
as the senior national teams, the Christian Polisics and the Alex Morgan's of the world.
Those senior national teams, there's actually in U.S. soccer 27 different national teams
because you have the senior, you have several levels of youth national teams and then you
have the extended national teams which incorporates different playing pathways such as beach soccer,
futsal, which is my personal favorite and then to play to be clear, my adaptive soccer
teams are still my favorite, favorite.
And then we have five specific to persons with disabilities national teams.
Those five are men's and women's deaf soccer, men's and women's CP soccer or cerebral palsy
soccer and coed power soccer for persons using power wheelchairs.
And hopefully we had Nico Calabria who's the captain of the U.S. Amp soccer team on the
podcast who I'm friendly with, he's come out to the gym to record some stuff with us.
He said they're in the process of hopefully maybe becoming one of those or that it's kind
of a lengthy process.
So like I said, U.S. soccer is really very much about the movement but like anywhere
else you go in the general population, some of our peers without disabilities need, kind
of need a shark tank model.
Bring the product to them, give them a clean succinct presentation and they'll absorb our
efforts.
And that's why U.S. soccer has these volunteer groups that don't have to function through
a lot of red tape so that we can explore what is best representative of the public and what's
most useful.
So as we're talking about membership, that is distinctly a U.S. soccer function.
There's three levels of membership specifically for disability service organizations, DSOs
as they're called in U.S. soccer.
Tier three is where all of our badges exist.
We have amputee soccer, American youth soccer, organization EPIC, blind soccer, CP soccer,
deaf soccer, Down syndrome, flip-sol, dwarf soccer is working on their membership, power
soccer, now Special Olympics North America, and then U.S. youth soccer's top soccer.
So that's actually ten organizations, one of which is still pending membership.
Amputee soccer, for example, as I understand it, they are hoping to achieve tier one status
as a member in the coming years.
Tier one is what CP, deaf, and power have achieved.
They still have tier three which is essentially their grassroots or developmental model.
And then tier one is just their senior national teams, and rather than the nonprofit that
started it, managing it, U.S. soccer absorbs it and manages that team.
So some of the prerequisites include having both fully inclusive gender identity pathways,
so amputee soccer is developing their women's pathway to be eligible to apply, among other
things that we're required to do to align.
But yeah, hopefully we'll be seeing Niko Calabria and Jovan Booker and my personal close friend
Alexia McKeeley gracing the men's and women's fields for U.S. soccer in the near future.
She was, she goes to Ithaca, right?
She plays soccer at Ithaca.
Yeah.
Yeah, she was playing for Ithaca.
I believe she's moved to a different school.
I don't want to speak for her.
I know that she's traveling abroad right now, learning abroad, so she's doing incredible
things, so definitely a person to watch.
When I talked to Niko, kind of the conversation was like the path to profitability and sustainability
and because he wants to transition into making it kind of his full-time career.
And we just kind of talked about what that route looks like.
So it kind of like you said, shark tank sort of thing, like it can be as well-intentioned
as possible, but there also has to be a direction to make it sustainable and kind of have standards.
So I know he's putting a lot of work into getting it there.
What was the process like for you developing the Down Syndrome football program?
Down Syndrome Sports of America approached U.S. Soccer in 2021 saying that they wanted
to build a Down Syndrome national team or national team for players with Down Syndrome.
Just to preface, I do default to person-first language as much as possible, but in our soccer
pathways where use is very commonplace because that's the title of the organization to proceed
with disability then soccer.
Anyway, DSSA came to U.S. Soccer saying, hey, we want to do this.
U.S. Soccer passed it down the chain to the volunteer organizations who can have more
of those functional conversations and help the development of that program.
So Kelly Trevor, one of the co-founders of DSSA, met with one of my mentors and colleagues,
Ashley Hammond of CP Soccer, who was and is stepping down soon as chair from the Disability
Soccer Committee, basically saying, hey, we want to do this.
We just don't, we need some help to get started and to develop.
And I have a particular vested interest in serving people with intellectual and developmental
disabilities, done so in the classroom, in clinics, in the community, and of course on
the pitch.
So it just made sense.
I joined their team as head coach and have supported the development of their soccer
slash Flixol environment.
Flixol is five-a-side street soccer, so it's played on a textured court in ideal world
with a slightly smaller weighted ball.
And it does have out-of-bounds on indoor soccer.
And it's just the best sport.
It's so great.
All about technique, footwork.
Speed is a part of it, but not the entirety of it, which is really great for athletes
with Down syndrome.
And I also want to note scheduled soccer programming.
These are just further opportunities for eligible individuals to play.
Our athletes with Down syndrome are deeply involved in top soccer, in epic, in Special
Olympics.
However, when you put athletes with varying intellectual and developmental disabilities
on the same pitch, you'll see a variation in ability.
Athletes with Down syndrome have not only cognitive impact, but also physical symptoms
of their disabilities.
So the Down syndrome sports of America just wanted to create a pathway even more geared
towards specifically the population of athletes with Down syndrome to level the playing field.
Yeah, the whole, I guess, concept of creating inclusive programs, people with and without
disability seamlessly existing versus, I don't know what a better word for it would be, other
than exclusive, so only athletes with Down syndrome on the pitch.
There's advantages from a performance standpoint for those athletes to maybe feel more successful.
What have been, why do you think DSSA was initially started instead of, because I was
reading a little bit about that it was some parents that wanted to get their children
involved, why do you think they went that path instead of just have them involved with
Special Olympics or a pre-existing program?
I'm going to speculate, so I just want to be clear that I'm not meaning to speak for
those incredible families who started DSSA.
My perspective is our athletes with Down syndrome, for example, have a unique disability category.
That is also a spectrum.
And a lot of times if you put them on the same playing field as, say, a person with
autism spectrum disorder around the same developmental level, the person with ASD is going to move
faster, potentially process faster, et cetera.
So I think the founders of DSSA truly wanted a level, fair playing field for people with
Down syndrome and with like-minded humans who understand that specific disability category.
I know that one of my athletes, Kaitlyn Trevor, she is a female on our co-ed National Foot
and Soll team, incredibly well-spoken, just a great athlete, so impressed by her constantly.
She's doing all the sports, all the things.
And it's a testament to how true advocacy can be effective because sometimes our athletes
with Down syndrome get quote unquote left in the dust.
When you talk about persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, one of my
personal frustrations is only offering them individual sports like swimming and track
and field.
They participate very well.
However, coaching a team sport with people who all learn differently is tough.
So I was just all about their mission and I align with the concept that there is an
appropriate way to have distinct pathways.
And kind of going back to all of our badges, as I call them, all of our DSOs, three of
those DSOs have recreation at their core, Top Soccer, Epic, and Special Olympics, participation,
just an opportunity to get out there.
Special Olympics and the rest of our badges also offer more development, meeting the player
where they're at but now starting to push towards the soccer model that we want to see.
And then we have those five extended national teams and our other DSOs that are developing
their national teams because it's not just about participation.
We're past that point.
We're at a point, as you know, as a disability community where we also deserve to play at
the highest levels.
Carson Pickett's a great example of an athlete who's played in the mainstream pathway, frankly,
Alexia McKeeley as well, to train amongst their peers without disabilities and be pushed
in the same way and held to the same expectation.
Yeah that last PC expectations has always been big for me.
Like we're applying for a grant due on Friday for a research project on high intensity training
for individuals with Down.
Yeah, well, it's mostly done at this point.
But high intensity training for people with Down syndrome, how well they can respond to
it, whether it's more effective than lower and moderate intensity.
And we've shared the premise of the study with a lot of Down syndrome researchers.
And frankly, some of them have really low expectations for people with Down syndrome.
We have a lot of people with Down syndrome at our gym.
So I see the spectrum.
We got some people that it's a challenge to get them consistently moving with intent and
intensity.
But there's also people with Down syndrome who are deadlifting a lot of weight, squatting
a lot of weight, and they're really strong and very eager to be active.
So to make a gross generalization, like all people with disabilities exercise at a low
intensity seems a little unfortunate to me.
So it's been interesting to talk to some people that are like only in the research space.
So they just kind of live only in the literature as opposed to in the lived experience.
So that's where I guess that's kind of where my role is.
I'm not one of the principal investigators, but I'm the one that's going to be providing
the facility and providing the training for the athletes and stuff.
So that's interesting to me.
I think on that whole premise of whether there needs to be programs for specific diagnoses,
I'm sure as you would agree, as long as there's options for them to participate in kind of
whatever environment they're most comfortable and feel most successful in, that's kind of
what inclusion is, I guess, the opportunity to choose.
Yeah.
Right.
I think a point of interest for me is all of these organizations I'd venture a guest
seat on, I started with a parent or somebody with a loved one who just deserved more and
deserved better.
And it's blossomed into a lifestyle mindset.
And I'm just, I'm grateful to all of our founders, to all the people that drive the game and
drive access because this isn't exclusive to the pitch.
We're just in a soccer based conversation right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
How do you apply your work as a BCBA to coaching?
That's a great question.
So as a BCBA, I represent the applied behavior analysis field.
And ABA has kind of a bad taste in some people's mouths, especially in the intellectual and
developmental disability community.
Some things we're guilty of as BCBAs is being incredibly pretentious, using vernacular that
isn't accessible to the different clientele and populations that we're working with.
In addition, we like to hear ourselves talk, as you can tell.
So there's some couple things.
But also, we believe that all behavior is communication.
We believe that behavior can be shaped.
But I want to be very clear that when I apply my ABA fundamental practices, that I believe
I can influence behavior, but I do not believe that I can change behavior.
Because the only thing I can control is myself.
Oh my goodness, I don't have that down.
But yeah, so as far as applying ABA to the sports field, it's really rooted in the ABCs,
antecedent behavior consequence.
What happens immediately before, during, and after a behavioral event.
And if all behavior is communication and all behavior is everything we do, kicking a ball
is a behavior.
Coach delivers a cue, kick, they kick, we say nice kick.
Sometimes we say unlucky, and I don't know how much of anything is truly luck.
But the structure and the reinforcement principles of ABA are highly valuable and highly needed
in sports training at the lowest and the highest levels of performance.
I think that our highest levels of performance in U.S. Soccer, our C license, B license,
A license coach, really get some of those principles without knowing they're doing that.
Then again, we have athletes that leave the sport because they're not feeling motivated,
engaged, and reinforced in their efforts.
And unfortunately for a lot of our staff, it's hard to hear, oh, you need to change
what you're doing.
But more or less, we all have the power to influence behavior.
So how can we influence not only how we coach, but also how they receive information and
self-manage.
As a school-based BCBA currently, I have a contract with a local, very small rural school
district.
And it's interesting.
ABA, again, doesn't have a great taste in Oregonian mouths.
I know a lot of incredible BCBAs in the school systems and in clinics where I started.
And I try to be careful not to push the scientific pieces.
It's just data-driven.
Soccer is very much data-driven nowadays.
So is education, so on and so forth.
It's really how we make those best decisions.
I know you're going to be intimately familiar with the grant that you're applying for and
the projects you're pursuing.
The basic summation is using data-driven, evidence-based practice to be effective in
the various roles is how I apply, my being a BCBA.
Yeah, absolutely.
So all behaviors have a function, whether they're positive or negative.
Maybe it's someone regulating themselves.
Or I think the issue that I've read about in the ABA space is just defining what's acceptable
for behavior or trying to fit everyone into one mold, I guess.
This idea that especially in the ABA field that we expect people to act a certain way
is a fundamental misunderstanding.
Wide behavior analysis, publishers, or like the ABA field has all these concepts and theories
of practice to implement positive change for our clients.
It's all individualized.
We have basic recommendations for best practice.
We say hello, but we don't always say the word hi to every single person.
We might change the words we use, our inflection, our delivery based on context, clearing our
supports to the individual.
An example of a stereotype in ABA is we try to train auditory, or I'm sorry, oral stereotypical
behaviors for persons with autism spectrum disorder that are prone to repetitive sound
making that we just don't do that.
No, somewhere along the line, somebody didn't communicate effectively and maybe instituted
new principles or said something that was discriminatory towards the verbal stereotypies
with people with ASD, but that's truly not the case.
More than likely for that one individual, those verbal stereotypies were really interrupting
maybe their academic environment or making it hard for them to get employed or it was
interrupting their ability to advocate for themselves with their doctor.
So a BCBA was brought in to help influence, not necessarily change that behavior.
So that being said, everything is tailored to the individual.
There are things that can be generalized across people, places, and things.
However, no matter what, we all are meant to go into it.
Each context is unique, each person.
Yeah, we can kind of apply that systems of reward and reinforcement, even informally
within the gym or with coaching.
Usually that first session with a new client is just kind of identifying those ABCs, like
what exercises were they motivated to do, which ones did they enjoy, if they responded negatively
to it, what was the antecedent before that, how can I maybe structure it in a way where
it's present the challenge to the individual, give them something they enjoy as a reward,
present the challenge, give them something they enjoy as a reward.
So you kind of informally kind of do that, but I think that's one way where working with
people with disabilities or having my special ed background made me more effective as a
coach is just like I kind of inherently adopted those things.
We were working with athletes who were nonverbal or non-speaking.
I know there's different ways to communicate that now.
When you learn to communicate with someone who does so differently, it makes you a much
better communicator for all people.
Maybe continuing on the topic of language and communication a little bit, you helped
develop U.S. Soccer's first modern language document pertaining to disability language.
The landscape of language and etiquette seems to always be evolving person first versus
identity first.
It seems to be very individualized, but maybe what were the key takeaways as you were developing
that document and how did you go about doing so?
I do want to just go back to how much I appreciate your introduction to ADAPTX in that it's meant
to represent and support the community of persons with disabilities but not to speak
for any one person.
That's essentially what the modern language document or the MLD is all about.
U.S. Soccer recognizes it.
However, it was composed and put out into the world at large by the Disability Soccer
Committee and our colleague Josh Pate, Dr. Pate, who is a researcher within disability
sports and language and all that.
So it's an evidence driven document that's meant to give suggestions for best practice
when talking to and about people with disabilities.
You'll notice I'm saying people, not athletes because I'm trying to generalize more of my
language from now on to include our coaches, officials, fans, etc.
The modern language document is reviewed annually in the summer more so by all of our disability
soccer organization member groups representing their own pathway.
So a person from Dwarf Soccer might look at the document and say it's okay to say dwarf
in this context, default to little person, small stature, however.
And then you'll have persons in the deaf hard of hearing who are blind, visually impaired
letting you know, hey, here's what's current in our space.
So there's the informal input of the DSH and some of our other colleagues to look at modern
literature and ensure that we are kind of covering our bases.
It's just suggestions.
The number one suggestion is always to default to person first.
The number two suggestion, which really should be the number one going into this next year
is is it even necessary to label disability?
I will say too regarding the word disability.
Disability isn't a bad word.
Our international federation to differentiate para from disability because para is owned
by Paralympics and we don't want to contaminate or cross over on branding.
So disability was put out by FIFA in 2022 as their official language to describe that
pathway.
However, I think there are movements within the U.S. landscape that will have us moving
more towards adaptive because the soccer itself is not disability, it's adaptive.
It's laden with different models that have accommodations or modifications to the traditional
game.
I think etiquette and communication, some of the ambiguity associated with it is one
of the things that is a big barrier for a lot of people in terms of interacting with
disability.
It's almost been ingrained since you were a younger kid to not stare at the individual
with a wheelchair, don't say something that would offend them and then it just kind of
perpetuates this narrative of don't talk to someone who looks different than you.
Well, Joslynn, I appreciate you taking the time to talk today.
Congratulations on all the success.
I know it might get recognized in a small segment of time, but it's the consolidation
of a lot of years of work.
So I hope you're proud of the accomplishments and again, thanks for sharing your expertise.
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