Autism Empowerment Academy

BUILD CONNECTION AND FEEL MORE CONFIDENT SUPPORTING YOUR AUTISTIC CHILD OR THE INDIVIDUALS YOU SERVE

Autism Empowerment Academy is a six-month course for parents and professionals who want to understand autistic individuals more deeply and bring a thoughtful, relationship-first approach into everyday life.

Join Brooke Wagner to explore co-regulation, connected communication, flexible thinking, and meaningful participation, with practical learning and opportunities to apply what you discover.

Start Your Journey With Brooke

Six months • Online learning • Weekly group coaching • Community • For parents & professionals

You care deeply and you want a clearer path forward

You may have plenty of strategies available and still wonder how to use them in the moments that matter.

How much support should I offer?

When should I pause?

How can I invite participation while respecting my child’s or client’s communication, pace, and needs?

Autism Empowerment Academy gives you a framework for exploring these questions.

You will learn to observe more closely, recognize strengths, and adjust your own approach so everyday experiences offer more opportunities for connection and growth.

A relationship-first approach to everyday growth

At the heart of the Academy is a belief that autistic individuals deserve to feel understood, acknowledged, respected, and capable. Their interests, preferences, and ways of communicating belong at the center of the process. Together we will take a journey on genuinely understanding and applying the mindset of presuming competence.

Over six months, you will explore how to build a guiding relationship:

One in which you offer support that promotes problem-solving and internal motivation
Share experiences that foster a trusting relationship built on engagement
Create manageable opportunities to think and participate together that promote competency and a desire to go toward invitations to participate

You will practice applying these ideas during planned moments and to real life, whether you are preparing a meal with your child, sharing an activity with a student, or collaborating with a family in your professional work.

At the end of the 6 months, you will feel equipped and empowered to effectively support your child or student with autism through carefully guided opportunities.

Who this course is for

Parents & Caregivers

This course is for you if you want to better understand your autistic child, feel more confident in your responses, and create meaningful opportunities for connection within your family's routines. You are willing to slow down, notice what your child communicates, and explore how your own participation can support the relationship.

Professionals

This course is for educators, therapists, consultants, and other professionals who want to bring a relationship-first and neuro affirming perspective to their work with autistic individuals. You want practical ways to adapt support, collaborate with families, and make space for agency, shared thinking, and meaningful participation.

Connect With Brooke to Learn More

What you will learn

Understanding autism and the individual

Explore developmental areas such as communication, self-awareness, flexible thinking and problem solving, episodic memories, and interoception, while recognizing each person's strengths and support needs. Practice observing with curiosity, looking beyond the behavior and noticing subtle cues the individual is communicating, and presuming competence.

Creating a meaningful vision for the future

Clarify what matters to your family or professional practice. Consider the autistic individual's own interests, preferences, and aspirations as you identify priorities for connection, participation, and quality of life. Reflecting on and understanding the power of co-regulation and understanding your own nervous system as a guide and how to approach each day with a mindfulness lens.

Co-regulation and self-awareness

Learn to notice your intentions, pace, emotional state, and responses alongside the other person's cues. Explore how to adjust interactions, offer pauses, and create patterns of shared participation that feel manageable. Consider how to invite your child or client into a shared experience while clarifying roles and ensuring the experience is meaningful and dynamic.

Building a guiding relationship

Practice offering enough support for your child or client to participate while leaving room for their ideas, decisions and thinking. Explore how to individually scaffold, provide meaningful and specific feedback that promotes clarity and memory retention, and introduce meaningful challenges into the interaction that invite thinking and problem solving and competence.

Connected communication

Explore invitational, declarative, and affirming communication. Practice sharing observations, allowing processing time, and recognizing communication through words, facial expressions, eye gaze, gestures, intonation, AAC, and other forms of expression. Learn how to offer communication that supports growth opportunities while encouraging the child to reflect and initiate.

Dynamic intelligence and flexible thinking

Learn how to introduce experiences that are “same but different.” Explore small variations, shared problem-solving, gray-area thinking, and good-enough decisions. Practice offering specific feedback to support the child to encode a positive episode memory and identify as someone who can successfully respond to the unpredictable experiences of life.

Meaningful participation in daily life

Discover ways to plan for and create authentic roles in everyday routines. Learn how to make experiences meaningful and authentic leading to internal motivation and active participation. Explore various role types, how to ensure activities are varied and interesting, and adjust support as participation develops.

What is included

Six months of course participation: Time to learn, practice, reflect, and revisit concepts as you apply them to everyday experiences.

Online training videos: Lessons covering the Academy's relationship-first framework and core curriculum.

Weekly group coaching calls (one hour): Bring questions and reflect on how the concepts apply to your family or professional setting.

Community support: Connect with other participants as you explore the course, support one another, and celebrate wins. Find “your people” and enjoy cheering on like-minded friends on your journey.

An onboarding call: Discuss your starting point, priorities, and what you hope to gain from the program.

A closing call: Reflect on your learning and identify priorities for continued practice.

E-books and reflection resources: Revisit key concepts and use prompts to plan, observe, and reflect on your experiences through the E-books that accompany each course and supplemental resources.

Take the Next Step With Brooke

What you will be working toward

The Academy is designed to help you:

Identify meaningful priorities grounded in the individual's strengths and preferences.
Make more intentional decisions about pacing, communication, and support.
Create shared experiences with room for choice and contribution.
Introduce manageable variations that invite flexible thinking.
Recognize and reflect on moments of connection, initiative, and problem-solving.
Develop a practical approach you can keep adapting over time.

Every person and relationship is different. Your learning and progress will reflect your circumstances, priorities, and opportunities to practice.

I'm Brooke Wagner

Founder of Therapeutic Approach to Growth and host of
Finding Hope on the Spectrum

Since 2001, Brooke has supported autistic individuals and their families throughout the United States and internationally. As an RDI® Program Certified Consultant and supervisor, her work centers on relationships, thoughtful guidance, meaningful participation in everyday life, and presuming competence.

Brooke believes that all autistic individuals have the right and ability to have a meaningful and purpose-driven life, one that is rooted in authentic relationships, feelings of being valued and part of a community, and receiving opportunities to develop self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-advocacy.

I created Autism Empowerment Academy to help parents and professionals understand the thinking behind a relationship-first approach and put it to practice with greater confidence.

My hope is that you leave with a clearer and deeper understanding of the person with autism that you support and feel empowered to grow and develop a guided relationship that is built on trust and shared experiences together.