Parents of two boys with sensory differences discuss the experience of diagnosis and their pathway to building a sensory lifestyle for their family.
Episode Guests: Jerade and Maria Tipton
The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute.

Resources Mentioned In this episode:
STAR Institute: https://sensoryhealth.org/
Occupational Therapist trained in sensory processing through the STAR Insititute: https://sensoryhealth.org/treatment-directory

Episode transcript: 
Carrie Schmitt 
I'm joined today by Jerade and Maria Tipton. Jerade and Maria are the first couple and parents that we've had on the podcast. So I would invite you guys to tell us a little bit about yourselves, your meaningful occupations, who you are, what you do in the world and who your family is.
 
Maria Tipton 
I'm Maria Tipton, and I am a military spouse. I am a mom of two amazing boys. They're seven and nine. And I am also a corporate attorney. I also volunteer as President of the Board of Directors at STAR Institute, which is a passion of mine.
 
Jerade Tipton 
As you mentioned, my name is Jerade Tipton, but yeah, I'm a career military professional. And so you know, I guess ever since I left high school, I guess you could say in my life is a life of service, both our country as well as my family. And that's what my primary energies and devotion is to.
 
Carrie Schmitt 
Well, thank you so much for your service. So Maria, you and I connected at the star symposium, we were connecting and talking a little bit about some of the ways that the presentations had resonated with us. And your perspective as the president of our board, but also apparent, to me was such a unique perspective. And so we decided to regroup and record a conversation where you could talk about maybe your journey to connecting the star and a little bit about your family and your personal experience with sensory processing. Okay, so we started our journey. In August of 2016, when my oldest son was I had a limited verbal vocabulary, I would say, and so we were seeking speech therapy. And in the course of that, we referred to occupational therapy as well. And so that kind of opened up a whole new world I had never heard, I've heard of occupational therapy, but never experienced it, especially on a pediatric level. And so
 
Maria Tipton 
I think back in 2016, when we received diagnosis, you know, you hear it was very deficit language, you know, as development, significant developmental delay. And at that point, I saw myself as a mom and an attorney, by trade. And so to take him to therapy three times a week, we had amazing therapists, but it was an approach where I had the therapist take him and do the therapy, and then I came home, and I wasn't really involved. And we then subsequently had a military move, and had to set all that up again, and we had a lot of trouble finding a right fit for our family. And through that course, I found an amazing occupational therapist, I kind of call her like our family ot because she brought me in the sessions really empowered me as a mother. And the sales progression grew exponentially because of that, I started taking classes that were for occupational therapist, but as a mother and doing a lot of home carryover with him. And I came across the star Institute, and because of his sensory needs, and it was just always such a resource for me, because there were Facebook Lives and webinars that I could take. And so I kind of had taken those during that time. And then when we were stationed in Georgia, the symposium was there in 2018. And I was like, I really want to go, like, I want to go to the parents seminar, I want to go to the symposium and so I was able to attend. And that was really life changing for me, because it I learned so much from all of the sessions, you know, at that point, there was a session on interoception was something that I hadn't heard about before, and you