Lisa Kuntz
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Right. I agree with you.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Absolutely. They have. So it's part of their afternoon school where they're able to come in after school and then they're there until like six and then the parents are picking them up. So, yeah, we're going to be doing that probably every quarter.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know, I guess, the answer to that. I think that what we provide just as us and as humans, we provide empathy and understanding to us. They're not just a number. They're a kid who has strengths and differences, and we just want to bring those out more so that they can make it in society today.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
And, you know, why were they walking on their tippy toes? Why do they hold their ears? Why? Just a bunch of whys. I learned all those kids are unique and different and special all at the same time. But they're just like everybody else in the community. They just need a little bit more help. So I've been doing that ever since that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
That is a really good question because we offer what's called social skills group. Okay. And they do touch in that. That's a little bit of our older kids. That's like we have nine to about 14-year-olds in that group. And you're right. It wasn't at our forefront, but it's there now where we're starting to approach the subject of it and start to talk about it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
So, yes, we're implementing it into our social skills group. We just kind of talk about it. We don't probably educate too much.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yes. Exactly. I know that my whole staff is just really about compassion. So I know that we do have a couple of people who are not contemplating that, but they do get to a space where it's like, I don't understand, you know, here I have this, I'm different. You know, it's talk therapy. They talk it out with them. They help them out. They give them, you know, a lot of helpful hints.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
You know, I think that the kid is going to remember that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
I have two BCBAs and three RBTs. We work about 10-hour days. Each of my staff members is required to see eight people a day.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Two hours.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Absolutely. Absolutely. I also think that if you're looking at the all day, like a comprehensive, that might be a little too much. That's a long day. Sure. I mean, I think that two hours is great, which is something new for us. We only used to provide one hour. Two hours, we're starting to see a lot more, especially on our younger kids.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
The younger kids are little sponges, but three hours is a bit much for them. So that's why we're like the two is great. But yes, it's recognized by a lot of our insurance companies up to 40 hours a week. So that's like a job for them.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Unfortunately, yes.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Right. I think that's where you're having those parent meetings and you're making sure that those parents know, you know, like, here's some of our problem spots. We've been working on this. We're going to keep trying, you know, maybe tweaking their plans. We're going to try this. We're going to try that. But
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
And I've seen so many great success stories, seeing some of the kids even graduate from our program and, you know, move on to high school. One of our children actually loves animation. She finished high school and she had a scholarship to move on to college so that she can pursue that dream of animation.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
In the end, we might not be the best fit for you, and we'll help you find a different spot, maybe one that is an all-day establishment or maybe one that comes in to their homes.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yeah. Yes, we do. We give therapy to the parents a lot. Yes. But you know, that's okay. We are actually kind of unique in what we do. Our facility is camera. We have cameras everywhere. So we are able to give the parents an iPad and they can watch their child move throughout the center.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
So kind of going back to the last question, those parents might already know, hey, I see what you're going through every day. I understand. Also, during a parent meeting, we can bring up specific snippets of a session and let them see that and maybe talk about why this isn't working or whatever. I think that for the parents, that's really neat.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Also, we can download things on a thumb drive to show grandma and grandpa, you know, so they always have that. Interesting case on that, we had a child, he just zoned out. And so they thought he was having like a mini stroke or a seizure. We captured it on tape where he totally zoned out. And he was probably zoned out for like seven to eight seconds. We were able to
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
capture that and give it to the parent to give to the neurologist wow that's great talk about i mean one in a million but that's just something that happened and was a good find and catch for us and then how did that turn out did it turn out okay is he okay um actually he's going through testing right now oh that's good that's great that you found it
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
I would just say that we are committed to the child just to provide a great atmosphere where they don't realize that they are learning. And then someday they just kind of notice, hey, I'm doing things. So I think for us, I think it's just being compassionate, providing the best we could provide and making the parent, I guess, making the parent's journey a little less hectic.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yeah, they have a hard road.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yes, yeah. No, I think what you do is amazing. And you're very knowledgeable on it for somebody that hasn't had to take that journey.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Do you find that when you are interviewing folks from other countries on autism, are our practices the same or are our practices different?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Oh, wow.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate everything that you're doing for the autistic community.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Wow, it was really learning from the BCBAs, learning from the RBTs, taking classes on my own, going out there and listening to the parents. I think that I learned a lot from the parents' journeys. I learned quickly that there was not a lot of, in that time, the Pierce Autism Center was one of the first centers in the Las Vegas area. So I learned that the resources, there weren't a lot.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
I learned that, you know, their journey was full of paperwork and, you know, a lot of no's.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
So we started helping them, started learning about things. And then at the time, autism diagnosis wasn't covered by insurance. So we were one of the first places that got Sierra Health and Life to help us pay for the claims for these kids. That was a big plus. Then Medicaid started coming along. They paid.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
But now as the years have gone on, a lot more of the insurance companies are recognizing it from a diagnosis standpoint. As long as you have that ASD diagnosis, more than likely they're going to pay something.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Right, right. In Nevada or in the Las Vegas, Henderson area, the pediatrician must assign them that diagnosis of ASD. From that point, the insurance company kind of comes in and says, well, all right, you've been diagnosed, but we need some more information. So you need to go out to that neuropsychologist and get a formal, more formal diagnosis of
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
And that's what you're talking about where it's taking years to do that. In that respect here in our area, we have centers that are popping up. So it's becoming more, I guess, where the community has more neuropsychs in it. So we're able to send our patients out. It's taking about probably six to eight months for them to be diagnosed.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
And then once they're diagnosed, we can go ahead and start our procedures of getting them into the clinic.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
So we practice focused ABA, and ABA is the only thing that we do here. So our clients are here for two hours. Our youngest is about 18 months. Our oldest at this time is about 15, but we will go up to the age of 18 or until you graduated from high school.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Right, and that's a great question, and it's a difficult question. They do age out. There are a few places around here that go a little bit higher, but unfortunately, they're pretty much left on their own. You know, they're going to face life doing their own thing right now. That's sad.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
And I think also what's sad is that right now, a lot more people, like older folks, are figuring out that they probably have autism. But because of the timing or in our generation or whatever generation they were in, it wasn't acceptable to be tested or, you know, that was just that person in class that acted out.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Absolutely. Nowadays, that person that's acting out gets help. They get tested. They get maybe assigned a diagnosis of ASD or whatever, and then they're able to get the help where we weren't. And nowadays, I don't think that they can even be diagnosed. The older folks can be diagnosed to find out what they have and to get the help that they need.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Absolutely. When I started 11 years ago, it was one in 78, I think. And so now we're down to one in 36. So yes. And I think, you know, it's also a career choice, right? People are able to go out and practice that, be able to give more help to the child or whomever. So I think that, yeah, it's a career choice now.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
It's like, oh yeah, you guys can go into to be at RBT or you could be a BCBA where those types of jobs were never available maybe back in the 80s.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Absolutely. We are a university and we can tap in or they can tap into us as a resource for teaching their OT students, PT students. They can actually have them come down here and observe classes and observe a session and ask questions. And that's really great because you are going to encounter those folks.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Really what we do is kind of teach the difference. There's not really a lot of difference if you don't know, except for maybe they're a little harder to settle down and to calm down. And I just think that they have to remember to look at the person as a whole and then maybe try to figure out what's going on with them as a tantrum or as anything that they're doing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
I don't think that technically they would know the difference until they talk to their parents.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yeah. For Autism Awareness Month, we actually have a celebration and are able to have like a very large party, but the party is geared just to the family. There's no outside folks coming into that party. So it's just for everybody that is at the center. It's great because everybody there, if the kid is having a meltdown, if they're screaming at the top of their lungs, no one's judging them.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
It's like such a peaceful night for them because they're with folks that understand them. I think that's probably one of the best gifts we can give our parents.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
That's a current situation we have. We have several children that are nonverbal, and they have been working with the child. He now has a device, like a PEC system, that allows him to type in words, like a picture equals a word, and ask for things now. And it's great. He loves popcorn. And so he would just run into a room and try to grab the popcorn.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Well, no, they were like, no, no, back up, use your words. And his words are, you know, on a system and he would use them. But then there was one day he wanted that popcorn so badly that, and he couldn't get it down on his device fast enough that he said popcorn. And we're all like, oh my gosh, what did you just say? And he's like, popcorn. And that was phenomenal. What a day.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Thank you very much.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
That just goosebumps right now, actually. So, yeah.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
It is. It is. And you just start to see him really start to flourish. It's been great. I mean, the computer devices that they have for these kids are amazing. It just gives them that sense of a little independence because they can ask for things on their own.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
That's a great question. We actually just worked with the city of Henderson here and provided their parks and rec department with tips and tricks for dealing with kids with any behaviorals. But yeah, so we provided them with an hour and a half class and helped out, answered so many questions for them, like how would you do this if they're yelling and screaming and dishing in line and
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Totally by chance. I started here at Toro University about 11 years ago, and I was going to be the director of their health center. But the health center wasn't opened yet. So they still had a couple of things to do and the build outs. So I said, I'll just help out over here in the autism center. I, like you, knew nothing about it. And I was just fascinated by the children.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
all that other stuff. So it was such an experience that they gained a lot of knowledge to help out during their sessions with those kids.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
I totally agree with you. I think that we do need to get that out to them from an educational standpoint. And I wish there was some sort of identifier that we could say, but you know, you can't make them always wear a t-shirt that says, I have autism. Don't you know? Yeah, we have one kid that would probably go up and hug them. To me, that just, you know, because he's not going to stop.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
They're going to tell you, stop, stop, stop. And he's probably just going to be like, oh my gosh, you're a policeman. I want to hug you. Thank you. And I would be so worried for him. So worried.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Lisa Kuntz: Transforming Autism Support – From University Role to Global Advocacy and Awareness Efforts
Yeah, that's probably the least of the policeman's thoughts at that time.