Cold Hard Truths: Four New Subtypes, the Time Supplement, and Dogs

Hosts Julianna Scott and Kelley Jensen dive into recent autism research developments and practical family considerations. They examine new findings about four distinct autism subtypes based on genetic markers, review Time magazine's autism supplement with mixed reactions, and share honest insights about service dogs versus family pets for autistic children. The conversation covers everything from the limitations of current treatment coverage in mainstream media to real-world experiences with equine therapy and the importance of choosing the right family dog breed.

Key Takeaways

• Scientists have identified four genetically-linked autism subtypes, potentially leading to more targeted interventions
• Autism is better understood as a "stovetop" rather than a linear spectrum - different symptoms can vary independently
• Current mainstream autism treatment coverage remains disappointingly superficial, focusing on basic ABA, speech, and OT
• Service dogs are specialized and expensive; well-bred family pets often provide similar benefits
• Adult autism services have years-long waiting lists - families must advocate proactively and start planning early
• Golden Retrievers and Labs are ideal family breeds for households with autistic children • Genetic testing for autism subtypes may eventually complement traditional diagnostic methods
• Parents should focus on "squeaky wheel" advocacy for adult services and help educate other families
• Animal-assisted interventions like equine therapy can be beneficial but shouldn't replace evidence-based treatments
  
  

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Creators and Guests

Guest

Julianna Scott

Guest

Kelley Jensen

What is Refrigerator Moms?

Born from 20 years of friendship, during which they navigated the trenches of autism parenting and advocacy, the Refrigerator Moms is Kelley Jensen and Julianna Scott’s way of reaching out to parents waging the same battles they were.  Their purpose with this podcast is to clear the fog, silence the noise, and find a path through neurodivergence for parents that are stuck between bad choices. They tackle parenting topics such as mom guilt, tantrums, pathological demand avoidance, siblings, medication, comorbidities, social media, and much more. 

[Kelley Jensen] (0:09 - 0:21)
Hi, I'm Kelley Jensen and I'm here with my friend Juliana Scott and we are the Refrigerator Moms. We got a cold hard truth to talk about today, a couple of them. What are they, Juliana?

[Julianna Scott] (0:21 - 0:32)
So we are going to talk about some new four distinct autism subtypes. Oh, yeah. Breaking news.

You sounded a little excited about that. I don't know if it can live up to that.

[Kelley Jensen] (0:32 - 0:33)
Yeah, probably not.

[Julianna Scott] (0:33 - 0:46)
But we're going to talk about the autism time supplement that came out. And we're going to talk about dogs. Oh, yay.

We're dog people. Yes, we are. And there's actually a relevant tie-in to autism.

[Kelley Jensen] (0:48 - 0:55)
So first about the- The four distinct type, is that the topic in the supplement? No. Oh.

[Julianna Scott] (0:55 - 0:56)
This is in addition to that.

[Kelley Jensen] (0:56 - 0:56)
Okay.

[Julianna Scott] (0:56 - 1:42)
So there was in Nature Genetics, I'm sure you read the latest edition, right? Yeah, no, I skipped it. So scientists have pinpointed four clinically and biologically distinct subtypes of autism spectrum disorder based on this study.

So they identify these autism subtypes that are linked to distinct types of genetic mutations and affected biological pathways. So I'm sure it's a gripping read. I didn't read the whole thing.

I did read some articles about it. Here are the subtypes. There's social and behavioral challenges.

There's mixed ASD with developmental delay, moderate challenges, and broadly affected. How's that different than the levels of autism? I know.

It doesn't seem... Well, because it's linked to genetics.

[Kelley Jensen] (1:42 - 1:49)
To genetics. Which is interesting. It is interesting.

And I'm glad people are doing it. And is there a genetic test that can be done? Not yet, I would say.

[Julianna Scott] (1:49 - 1:49)
No.

[Kelley Jensen] (1:49 - 1:54)
Well, obviously there's a genetic test though, because they're doing genetic testing. Yes, that's true.

[Julianna Scott] (1:54 - 2:11)
So it's a genetic test that's not widely available. No. And so this is just based on this data.

And so, yes, it's all... I was reading through it and just, again, same thing that you said. These sound familiar.

Social and behavioral challenges. So these people in this group have more difficulty with social communication and restrictive and repetitive behaviors. Okay, check.

[Kelley Jensen] (2:11 - 2:11)
Yeah.

[Julianna Scott] (2:11 - 2:50)
Then there's the mixed ASD. They reach milestones later than children without autism. They usually don't display the disruptive behaviors.

So there's the developmental delay aspect. The moderate challenges, they tend to display core autism-related behaviors, but less strongly than those in the other groups. And then the broadly affected, of course, is like the more profoundly affected.

So bottom line, like why does this matter, you know, is because these different classes represent different clinical presentations and outcomes, and the researchers connected them to this underlying biology.

[Kelley Jensen] (2:50 - 3:30)
Well, I think it matters because for a long time, people have been clamoring away for some sort of a medical test that is apart from, you know, autism is diagnosed through a series of questionnaires, parent observation, and, you know, you're going to fill it out one way, Eric's going to fill it out another way, whoever the clinician is. And we have had a rash of, frankly, unqualified people that have gotten into the business of diagnosing autism, which is accounting for some of the numbers, is going to be imperative in the future that we have a genetic test that can accompany any kind of a...

[Julianna Scott] (3:30 - 3:39)
So it's one more data point, I think, and hopefully they're thinking it will lead to more accurate diagnoses and intervention plans, which we can only hope. I'm curious to see what they come up with that.

[Kelley Jensen] (3:39 - 3:53)
And hopefully the genetic testing will lead to maybe some gene therapy, right? There's some on the horizon for one particular gene that, you know, we've touched on. So that's good.

That's great. So interesting. Good.

Yeah.

[Julianna Scott] (3:53 - 4:40)
And again, the Trientific method, you have to keep your eye on the ball because... Yeah, you always want to see what they're doing. And I remember when I was really, when my son was really little, they were doing a lot of research on the brain and all these different things that were coming out.

And I remember a lot of people asking me, well, what do you think caused his autism? And I remember I just didn't have the bandwidth for those questions. I'm just like, I don't know, but he has it.

So I'm just going to focus on that. But I was always grateful that people were out there doing the research. I'm not in a dissimilar place now.

I'm glad that they're doing it and I hope that there's going to be a benefit. I'm sure there will be, but it didn't really help me. So well, you know.

[Kelley Jensen] (4:40 - 4:44)
I mean, kudos to science. Keep going, science.

[Julianna Scott] (4:44 - 4:47)
Go, go, go, go. Go, go. Yes, we're very go, science.

[Kelley Jensen] (4:48 - 4:48)
Okay.

[Julianna Scott] (4:48 - 5:24)
So what is... So, okay. The autism, the time supplement, for those watching, here it is.

I found it at My Whole Foods. Ah, well, you know. It was not at CVS.

I'd heard about it. I'd seen it on Instagram. People were talking about it.

So I'm like, all right, I'll go check it out. And there it was. I honestly am not sure who the audience is, although I'm never quite sure what these are for because it doesn't go deep enough to give you a lot of real instruction, but it's not light enough for someone who's mildly interested in autism, I'm not sure.

[Kelley Jensen] (5:24 - 5:41)
Well, to be honest with you, I have participated in some of these journalists' stories, you know, from my work with MERT, and they're pretty lazy people. You know, with all due respect, you know, they call you, they ask you a bunch of questions. A lot of time, they have written the story already.

[Julianna Scott] (5:41 - 8:26)
Right. And actually, the same people appear in a couple articles. But to break it down, and again, it promised something here on the cover, new research, new knowledge, you know.

So I'm like, great, I want to know what's happening. And reality versus myth, I was excited to see if I could learn something. I always have this thing where if I'm going to read something, watch a webinar, anything, if I can get a nugget, it's worth it.

So I'm always looking for just the nugget. So I did find one nugget in here. Which was?

I will tell you. So there is a lot, of course, on the uptick in diagnoses. And so there's quite a few conversations about that.

And before I get to my nugget, I just did want to give a shout out about the fact that there is this, they mentioned several times in several different articles that there's growing advocacy effort led by parents to have a separate diagnostic category established called profound autism. Absolutely. And I know this is something that's important to you, so it's important to me, that this diagnosis would serve individuals who'd largely been left out of this conversation.

And so I do give them props for having that come up multiple times within this magazine. So my nugget came in one of these articles about diagnoses. And the comment was, one of the many impacts that autism awareness has had on society is this ubiquitous word of the use spectrum.

And it's an image that can lead to misunderstandings and oversimplifications. Think of the difference between an oven and a stovetop. This is my little nugget, I thought it was kind of interesting.

An oven is set on a single temperature. It can be low or high, but it can't be at 250 degrees and 500 degrees at the same time. But with a stovetop, you have four burners and you can have different combinations in which burner is off.

One is on high, one is on low, and one is in between. So autism is more like a stovetop, where some symptoms may be mild, others more severe, and yet others are in between or not present at all. And so I thought that was a kind of a good little analogy, that was my little nugget about the spectrum.

Because I think it's true, people think of it as a line. And they think, okay, the profoundly autistic is on one end, and the Sheldon Coopers are on the other end. And it's not exactly linear that way.

So I liked that. That was very good. Yeah, that was good.

So, you know, it was worth my $15 for that. I don't know. I don't know about that.

But we're always talking about treatment. And I really was interested to see how they approach treatment. I'm like, oh, am I going to learn something new about treatment?

Spoiler alert, no, I did not learn anything new.

[Kelley Jensen] (8:26 - 8:29)
Yes, you will have to tune into the Trientific method.

[Julianna Scott] (8:30 - 9:59)
We are more proactive about treatment. There was nothing like that. And so in fact, the articles that mentioned treatment, one of them said your child's intervention plan should combine multiple approaches.

This was the whole part about treatment. Behavioral therapies like ABA, developmental services like speech and OT, and educational supports. They're key to this process.

That was it. And then on a whole article in here called Treating Autism, I'm like, OK, now I'm going to get the specifics. Yeah.

I mean, this is going to be my roadmap. Yeah. For now, the most widely used therapy for autism is ABA.

Individualized approaches can take many forms, including combining ABA with other forms of intervention such as, let me guess, can you guess, OT and speech therapy. People with autism, again, this is an article about treatment. People with autism often relate better to animals than humans.

This came right after the sentence about ABA, speech therapy and OT. People with autism often relate better to animals than humans and animal assisted interventions, AAI, with rabbits, dogs, guinea pigs, llamas, and other animals. Dolphins.

They didn't mention dolphins. Have been proven successful. One widely used AAI is equine therapy.

And then they went on to talk about donkeys too. Oh, my God. And I'm just like, this is in the treating autism article that came out in 2025.

It's bad. That's bad. Yeah.

So that was very discouraging.

[Kelley Jensen] (10:01 - 11:40)
Well, I will tell you that I had this, I've had two reporters come to me for stories. One of them was from the LA Times and I spent two hours with her. I walked her through what TMS is.

There is research for autism and TMS. I walked her through the difference between TMS and MERT. And say what is TMS. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, MERT, Magnetic E-Resonance Therapy. And we get into it in our episode about the Trientific Method, off-label treatments for autism.

And I talked to her for about two hours. A year later, a year later, her autism article came out. She didn't mention one thing about anything that I had said.

She did not link MERT and TMS, which are the exact same thing, they use exact same machines. She just wrote a hit piece on MERT. And it was apparent that she had already come to that conclusion before she interviewed me.

And that's fine if that's what you're going to do, but to take a year to do it, it was apparent to me because I had her whole backstory that she just forgot about everything I said because she talked to me and then dropped the story and then maybe she had nothing else to write. So she, it's sexy to write about the Sankor oil salesman. It's not sexy to write about people that are working with autistic people every day, doing good work, about something that is just an off-label treatment.

The way that, you know, Zoloft is an off-label treatment, the way that, you know, anything you would give for anxiety is an off-label treatment. And they get lazy.

[Julianna Scott] (11:40 - 12:23)
Yes. And I just thought this was egregious because, you know, telling people, whoever may be reading this magazine, that in addition to ABA and speech and OT, get a llama? Like I just don't get it.

Or like, what if you're someone who's, again, we talk about the financial burden. But a llama's going to save you. A llama's going to cost you.

And or equine therapy, like that's not cheap either or accessible or even a guinea pig. Like really, that's where you're going to put your time and energy is into a guinea pig. I'm all about pets.

And we're going to talk about dogs. And I actually think guinea pigs are super cute. But to make that, you know, the next suggestion.

[Kelley Jensen] (12:24 - 12:26)
And avoid something that is, yeah.

[Julianna Scott] (12:26 - 12:32)
And avoid all of the other treatment options is really amazing. It's what they do. It is what they do.

[Kelley Jensen] (12:33 - 13:05)
I will tell you that Beau did equine therapy and I will say that it turned into an activity that we can do as a family. And, you know, he to this day will go horseback riding with his sister and he has the skill set to do it from years of equine therapy. And she loves to do it with him.

And I think that some of these animal assisted therapies, what will it lead to? We tried equine therapy. Yeah.

It was fun. I mean, it wasn't like, you know. And he was always relaxed after, you know, doing it.

But more than...

[Julianna Scott] (13:05 - 13:12)
Well, my son also had a really big issue with bees and OCD and so that really negated the whole equine therapy thing.

[Kelley Jensen] (13:12 - 13:21)
I mean, it's worth a try if it's covered by... Oh, and of course it wasn't. No, but I think maybe some of the county programs...

[Julianna Scott] (13:21 - 14:07)
And they have some volunteer organizations that do equine therapy. I'm not... Again, I'm not saying don't explore it.

Just don't go out and buy it. Don't go buy your llama. Before maybe you try something else.

Maybe try something, anything but a llama. Yeah, I just don't think that's practical. No, I would agree with you entirely.

Yeah. When your child is having a meltdown, like, you know, we should really go, you know, drive an hour to that llama farm. So I don't know, you know, but we'll see.

So I wanted to touch on this too, because I know this is a topic that you're particularly interested in, is especially those who will need lifetime care and this whole transition to adulthood. And what that looks like.

[Kelley Jensen] (14:07 - 14:07)
Yes.

[Julianna Scott] (14:07 - 15:31)
So there was some... They did touch on adulthood and autism in several articles, and that was good. And they did point out that there's years-long waits for adult autism housing and supports and programs.

And what, again, I thought was interesting is that in the articles, they kept saying, the best way to learn about the adult service system is to reach out to advocacy groups and other autism parents and self-advocates. So some families have opted for what is called self-direction, whereby they design their own programming and hire the staff themselves. The only way to work with the current inadequate adult service delivery system is to start long before your child reaches adulthood by having IEP goals that emphasize independence and by understanding the funding mechanisms.

Families must be prepared to make the case for supports proactively and continually. Be that squeaky wheel, get on those lists, show up on the radar screens. And the final must-do, they said, is be willing to educate those who come later to you for help.

So we're doing that one. We are. That's for better moms.

Again, I thought it was amazing that ultimately they said, you're on your own. And so find someone who's done it before you, another parent, but you know, there's really, that's your best option. Wow.

And who are they telling? Who are they telling?

[Kelley Jensen] (15:32 - 15:35)
Back to your original point is who is the audience for this?

[Julianna Scott] (15:35 - 15:52)
I'm reading this and I'm thinking, okay, I have a good analogy to explain to people about what the spectrum really looks like. But beyond that, it was kind of just like, oh, I guess things haven't progressed that much even though we've been in this for more than 20 years.

[Kelley Jensen] (15:53 - 16:09)
Well, I mean, it just goes to show you what parents go through, right? We are going to talk about housing and it is a much bigger topic than just people who need 24-7 support. It is a whole topic.

We're going to get to it.

[Julianna Scott] (16:10 - 16:13)
So I did like that they did touch on topics.

[Kelley Jensen] (16:13 - 16:14)
But big deal. Yeah.

[Julianna Scott] (16:15 - 16:16)
So, okay.

[Kelley Jensen] (16:16 - 16:19)
Nothing that we couldn't do here at the Refrigerator Moms.

[Julianna Scott] (16:19 - 18:30)
That's true. That's true. A hundred percent.

This episode of Refrigerator Moms is brought to you by Brain Performance Technologies. Brain Performance Technologies is a specialty mental health clinic that offers magnetic e-resonance therapy or MERT for autistic people age three or older. MERT is a transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol that utilizes an EEG diagnostic to deliver personalized magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain and build neural pathways effective in managing autistic symptoms.

We want to end on something, I know we both big, big dog fans. That's right. But this also comes up back to the whole animal assisted intervention.

Yes. Look, questions come up all the time. Should I get a service dog for my child with autism?

And there are service dogs, there are therapy dogs, and then of course there are pets. And so most often the advice given is, you know, your pet's good. But the other thing, I think a lot of people don't understand the distinction between what a service dog can do and what a therapy dog can do.

And a service dog is really a specifically trained dog for your child. That is extremely expensive. Yes.

And trained to perform tasks that can really impact a child's daily life and safety, like interrupting self-harming behaviors or seizures, calming with deep pressure, although I don't know if you need a dog for that, alerting to danger. Dogs should never be tethered to your child, you know, because dogs are still animals. Of course.

But alerting to danger, like if they're going to elope, or facilitating social interactions, which again, your pet can do, and reduce anxiety, also your pet can do. The therapy dog is also trained just to provide affection, comfort in therapeutic conditions like hospitals and things like that, or during procedures. So that's really the difference between a therapeutic dog and a service dog.

So really, parents of children with autism are wondering, should I go for that service dog? And that is really specialized.

[Kelley Jensen] (18:30 - 20:39)
I think the answer is if your child has seizures, absolutely. Spend the money to have a dog trained to detect seizures, because that is a horrible burden. But it's a lot more work than, you know, you have to constantly retrain the dog.

It's not like that child can help you with any of the training. I am always on the... Try a family pet, a good family breed, your labs.

Their labs are golden. Your goldens. I mean, they, you know, we always had a lab and I mean...

Tell me about your labs. Well, they're wonderful. Right now we have two, Molly and Honey, but we had, when Bo was very young, Maple.

I know. I remember Maple. And she was a naturally large lab.

So she was sort of the alpha, right? She was much bigger than they were, both of my children, but a gentle giant. And that gave her a calming effect.

But, you know, he went through this whole stage where he refused to come in the house at night. He wanted to jump on the trampoline. She just wanted to sit out there with him.

She just took it upon herself to sit out there and make sure it was okay. And she would bark so we would know if there was something wrong. But it was way better than, of course, me having to sit out there with him and then trying to argue with him to come in.

It was... He would come in more naturally on his own with the safety of having her there. It's just like he needed like, you know, half an hour to breathe in cold air, right?

And that would help. Everything would help with sleep. She'd sit on the bed with him while he, you know, sang songs or whatever he was doing.

And it was... She just got it. She didn't...

We didn't have any special... They do seem to have an intuition. Yeah.

Yeah. She just understood how to play with children. Yes.

And I think that a good family breed is like that, right? Yeah. And I know Beau often talks to me about Molly and Honey.

He's a little bit closer to Molly than Honey. But that's okay. Why is that?

Molly is a little bit more mischievous and they get into mischief together and, you know, they have a kind of a cute like, you know, back and forth together. But it's just more about interacting, right? Just the language without words.

Yes.

[Julianna Scott] (20:39 - 21:35)
Yes. Yeah. So we had...

When our kids were born, we had a lab scout. And we call her now Saint Scout because, you know, according to my kids, she could do no wrong. She was, you know, she was wonderful.

I want to state, I love Scout too. I love her very much. She was extremely patient, as most labs are.

So she was wonderful. Definitely calmed my son down. Yes.

And I definitely noticed the impact because when he was in school and things like that, and they didn't have to write projects or do projects about, you know, what they love most. It was always Scout. Scout was always, you know, primary.

And she did so much. Yeah. And the next dog we had was Phineas.

I don't know if you remember Phineas, the little Min Pin.

[Kelley Jensen] (21:35 - 21:35)
Oh, okay.

[Julianna Scott] (21:35 - 21:48)
And he, we got... My son and I, he loved dogs. So we went to the Humane Society one day just to check it out, which is a terrible idea.

That is... It's a terrible idea. I do not advise that.

[Kelley Jensen] (21:48 - 21:48)
I know.

[Julianna Scott] (21:48 - 22:17)
So of course, I saw this dog. He was a senior dog. No one wanted it.

And so of course I had to get him. And he clearly, he was at least 10, had some issues. And when Jim was melting down, he would just go hide.

So he was not the best. And that's why, you know, when I was reading about service animals and other things, you know, usually we say, you know, adopt, don't shop and that whole thing. Yeah.

I don't say that.

[Kelley Jensen] (22:17 - 22:18)
Other people say that.

[Julianna Scott] (22:18 - 22:28)
I don't say that. But getting a pure breed lab or something like that, especially when you have a child with special needs and it's a known quantity, there is an argument for that.

[Kelley Jensen] (22:29 - 22:42)
There's not an argument. You should do that. And if somebody says to you, adopt, don't shop, you say, I am a mother of an autistic child and I need a family pet.

Well, yes. Not a dog that's gone through some life trauma that I don't know anything about.

[Julianna Scott] (22:42 - 25:16)
So yeah. So Phineas P. Pickle, not a great service dog or a therapy dog.

He was terrible. And then we got Giovanni, who is our Italian Greyhound, who, you know, was not a good service dog either. He was probably needed a service dog.

He was the one with no eyeballs, so he definitely needed some help. And then, let's see, after Giovanni, we had Lucille, also sort of in the Phineas category, doesn't get along with my son. She runs and hides.

But again, back to the shop, McGruff, on the other hand, is my son's biggest fan. He's a little mini Schnauzer. He's got both eyes.

Both eyes. Yes. He can hear.

I know it's very unlike me, but he is wonderful with all the people in the house. So I think, although he doesn't love little kids, so I think if my sons were littler, he wouldn't be the best. But for adults, he's fantastic.

But our lab could not have been better for our kids. So go ahead and shop. Family breed.

Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Refrigerator Moms.

We have a free download that includes a full list of practical to-dos we shared in this episode on our website. Our refrigerator paper, our version of the white paper, includes additional what would we do's and background information on everything we talked about today. Find it on our website, RefrigeratorMoms.com, where you can also sign up for our newsletter. We'd also love to hear your questions. Send them in along with future podcast topics by connecting with us on your favorite social media. Thanks for listening.

Please note that the information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and it is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.

The opinions and views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests. Any recommendations or suggestions made are based on personal experiences and beliefs and should not be taken as definitive advice. It's important to consult with appropriate professionals for personalized guidance.

A full list of citations and sources for this episode can be found in our refrigerator paper available on our website.