Who Needs Shoes? Conversations About Autism

When Personal Pain Becomes Purpose: Kay Anderson on Autism, Cancer, and Building What's Missing

"I was literally living minute by minute, trying to survive." What happens when a breast cancer diagnosis and your child's autism diagnosis arrive at the same time — and you're averaging 30 to 40 hours a week between treatment and therapy, just trying to stay alive? For Kay Anderson, it wasn't the end. It was the preparation. In this deeply moving episode of Who Needs Shoes, host Tanya Manning-Yarde, PhD sits down with entrepreneur, advocate, and breast cancer survivor Kay Anderson. Kay spent over two decades at Eli Lilly helping launch groundbreaking treatments in neuroscience and immunology — but it was her own journey as a patient and a mother that changed everything. Kay didn't just survive. She built a sanctuary. From Prana Play, her sensory-friendly play space in Carmel, Indiana designed to give neurodiverse children a place to thrive, their siblings a place to feel seen, and parents a moment to finally exhale — to the Waves of Change Foundation for Neurodiversity, expanding access to therapy, respite care, and community for families navigating a system not built for them. In this conversation, Kay talks about: → Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis instead of a baby — and then her daughter's autism diagnosis while still in treatment → What 20+ years at Eli Lilly taught her about stigma, advocacy, and building things that change minds → Why most sensory-friendly spaces miss the mark — and what she does differently → The guilt she felt at every trampoline park, every playdate, every moment one child won and the other didn't → What she wants every parent to know who is sitting in a parking lot after their child's diagnosis, devastated and Googling → Her vision for a world where sensory tools are recognized as basic human rights — not toys Whether you are a therapy mom, a caregiver who hasn't exhaled in months, or someone wondering if your hardest chapter could become someone else's lifeline — this episode is for you. Learn more about Waves of Change Foundation: www.wavesofchangefoundation.org Find Prana Play Carmel on social media (FB & IG) Info@prana-play.com Follow Who Needs Shoes: Instagram: @whoneedsshoes Web: whoneedsshoes.com

The Camp That Was Built for Them: Reimagining Adaptive Summer Programs

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from having to explain your child to the world before the world will make room for them. This episode is about what happens when someone decides to make the room first. At the Greater Brandywine YMCA in Jennersville, Pennsylvania, Erin Lacotta— a Board Certified Behavior Analyst—and Kristen DeTaeye—a veteran educator with 14 years in the classroom — built something that many neurodiverse families have quietly longed for: a summer camp designed around the child, not in spite of them. Bumblebee Camp is structured but not rigid. Data-informed but never cold. And it is, by every account, joyful. In this conversation, we go behind the program: how it started, how it was scaled, what a full day actually looks like, how staff are chosen, and why the ratio of 1:3 is not just a number but a philosophy. We also talk about something that doesn't often make it into reports: the moment a parent drops off both of their children at the same camp for the first time and realizes they no longer have to choose. This one is personal. And it is practical. And it is, I hope, exactly what someone out there needed to hear today. 🔗 Learn more about YMCA adaptive programs: ymcagbw.org/adaptive 📧 Jennersville programs: kdetaeye@ymcagbw.org 🌐 whoneedsshoes.com 📩 askwhoneedsshoes@gmail.com 📱 Instagram: @whoneedsshoes Who Needs Shoes is a podcast about loving our children for who they are—not through the myopic lens of others. New episodes explore education, inclusion, family, advocacy, and the people doing the quiet, necessary work of building belonging.

Every Child Is Our Child: Neurodiversity, Parenting, and the Soul of a School

What happens when two veteran educators, both parents of neurodiverse children, finally sit down and tell each other the truth they have been carrying for decades? In this deeply personal episode of Who Needs Shoes, I sit down with my mentor and friend of nearly thirty years, Mike Pipa, National Board Certified ELA teacher, building administrator, and now an Instructional Design Coach with the Capital Area School Development Association. What begins as an interview becomes something I didn't fully anticipate: a mirror. Because the story Mike has been living as a parent is not so different from the one I have been living too. Mike takes us back to the early 1990s, when the word "autism" carried almost no roadmap with it, not for families, and certainly not for schools. He walks us through the moment a developmental pediatric psychologist, who understood his child's neural profile from the inside out, gave his family not just a diagnosis, but a direction. He speaks honestly about the grief that arrives when the parenting story you imagined has to be released, and about the breaking and remaking that follows, again and again, as you learn to see the world through your child's eyes. And running like a thread through all of it, through thirty-seven years in classrooms, through IEP meetings and parent conferences, through his work coaching educators today, is a conviction he has never let go of: that the soul of a school is not found in its data or its compliance, but in whether every child inside it is treated as our child. "Every child is our child. It's the system that lulls us into the falsehood that that's not true." — Mike Pipa

The Yes Space: Music Therapy, Belonging, and Meeting People Where They Are

"I'm less interested in a diagnosis than in the person sitting in front of me." For nearly 18 years, music therapist Tori Emery has been building spaces where neurodivergent children, their families, and people on the margins of community don't have to change to belong. In this episode of Who Needs Shoes, host Tanya Manning-Yarde, PhD sits down with Tori to explore what it actually means to meet someone exactly where they are — and what becomes possible when you do. What We Explore: *The Yes Space Philosophy. Tori walks us through how she designs her practice — and her life — around removing the burden of change from the child. When the environment says yes, people create, connect, and heal. *Music as a Clinical Instrument. From the NICU to pediatric wards, Tori reads heart rate, oxygen saturation, and nonverbal cues in real time — adjusting key, tempo, and volume not by instinct alone, but by science. Hear what that level of attunement actually looks like in practice. *The ISO Principle. One of music therapy's foundational techniques — and one of the most transferable lessons in this conversation. You don't pull someone toward healing. You start where they are. *What Ghana Taught Her About Community. Tori traveled to Ghana and came back changed — not because of what she offered, but because of what she witnessed: a culture where music isn't a commodity or a clinical tool. It's just life. Communal, unselfconscious, and for everyone. *LoveWorks, Maggie's Love Boxes, and the Buddy Program. How do you make love tangible? You pack a box for a child in the NICU. You create a sensory room at a church and ask families what belonging actually feels like to them — rather than assuming you already know. *Her Closing Thought — and the One Worth Sitting With: "There's a lot more we have in common than we think." Whether you're a parent searching for a space where your child is celebrated, a clinician who wants to reconnect with why you started, or someone who believes that community is a form of medicine — this conversation is for you. Find Tori: Serenade Music Therapy: serenademt.com Find the Show: whoneedshoes.com | askwhoneedshoes@gmail.com | @whoneedshoes on Instagram

The Separate Hallway: 30 Years of Inclusion, Disability Rights, and Human Value

For decades, the American public school system has operated on a binary: you are either "in" the general classroom or you are "out." But my guest today, Michele Gardner, CEO of All In for Inclusive Education, suggests that physical proximity is often mistaken for actual membership. Michele has spent her career navigating the tension between the legal machinery of special education and the human rights of the children inside it. From managing multimillion-dollar budgets to witnessing the "messy" magic of a percussion program for deaf students, she has seen firsthand how our definitions of competence can either open doors or lock them. In this episode, we sit down to discuss: *The "Indicators" of Belonging: Why the most profound shifts in a classroom can be felt before they are seen. *The Dignity of Risk: Why protecting a student from failure can sometimes be its own form of exclusion. *Adult Readiness: Moving the conversation away from whether a child is "ready" to whether the system is prepared to receive them. It is a conversation about the evolution of teacher training, the vital expertise of parents, and the slow, often painful pace of systemic change. Link:https://www.allinforinclusiveed.org/