The Interoception Curriculum Meets the Double Empathy Problem: Implicit Bias in How We Read Autistic Kids' Bodies

In this session, occupational therapist and author Kelly Mahler joins host Mick Olds to talk about interoception, the sense that tells us how our own bodies feel, and how it connects to the double empathy problem in autism.

Mahler, who helped bring interoception into the OT field and wrote The Interoception Curriculum, explains why no two bodies feel the same, and why that should make all of us slower to assume we know what another person is experiencing. Together they explore what it looks like to trade assumptions for genuine curiosity, why believing what someone tells us about their body matters so much, including for non-speakers, the trouble with leaning too hard on standard emotion words, and how motor differences in autism can lead adults to misread behavior as a deliberate choice.

Educators, therapists, and parents will come away with practical ways to get curious instead of jumping to conclusions, language that invites a child to share what their body feels, and a deeper respect for the "I don't know" that comes up so often along the way. Grounded in Mahler's research and years of clinical work, this session offers a hopeful, human path toward helping people reconnect with and trust their own bodies.