After her 2.5 hour workshop on Equalizing had such rave reviews, we’ve invited Keri back for part 2 of her talk on PDA Communication – Co-Regulatory Conflict with PDA Individuals.
Join us on Jan. 22nd for another 2 hours with adult PDAer, Keri Schouten to learn all about co-regulatory conflict. More details coming soon!
Bio of Keri Schouten, PDA adult & PDA Parent Coach:
I’m late diagnosed AuDhD, and self diagnosed PDA (Autistic + ADHD with a PDA profile). I’m the parent to two neurodivergent teens, ages 17 and 20. Before having kids, I taught high school and college for 7 years, and earned a masters degree in English.
About five years before my oldest was born, when I started thinking about having children of my own, I switched my professional focus from teaching upper grades to early childhood education. Much of my early ECE experience centered around Magda Gerber’s RIE philosophy, one that focuses on treating young children with respect and dignity. I completed the RIE Foundations 80 hour course in 2001, along with 24 ECE credits, and worked in child care centers and as a nanny before having my own kids, when I shifting to being a stay at home mom (by far the hardest job I have ever had!). During that time, I maintained a steady focus on building collaborative skills within our family. I completed the P.E.T. instructor training course in 2016, when my kids were 9 and 11.
After discovering I am AuDhD in 2021, I realized the field of neurodivergent parenting has been my focus all along, specifically PDA. For the past three years, I’ve worked as a special education teacher, the past two at a private neuro-affirming therapeutic school, with a focus on working with autistic children who have a PDA profile, before transitioning to parent coaching specific to PDA this past fall. I’m currently EEC certified Lead Teacher: preschool and EEC teacher: infant/toddler. I also continue to work 1:1 with PDA’ers in a school setting as a consultant.
Though my work as a teacher clarified a lot for me about working with PDA’ers (in a nutshell, “hey, this approach works beautifully for other people’s kids, too, what do you know?!”), I found it was the challenges of parenting over the years that helped me develop and clarify the collaborative skills specific to PDA. Collaborative approaches (such as Gordon’s PET, Rosenberg’s NVC, Gerber’s RIE, and Ross Greene’s CPS) have been my own personal hyperfocus for 20+ years.
