How Late ADHD And Autism Diagnoses Shape Women’s Companies And Lives

What if the label you avoided for decades is the one that finally makes your life make sense? We sit down with researcher and entrepreneur Regina Casteleijn-Osorno to unpack why so many women learn they’re neurodivergent only in adulthood, how misdiagnosis during adolescence and menopause delays care, and what happens when that long-overdue clarity meets the realities of work and caregiving.

Regina shares findings from a participatory study of late-diagnosed neurodivergent women entrepreneurs, spotlighting why autonomy, sensory control, and values alignment pull so many toward self-employment. We talk about ADHD traits like hyperfocus, rapid ideation, and an intense sense of justice—how they can power product-building and client impact, and why they can clash with rigid corporate cultures that punish candor and overlook inequity. Rather than romanticize neurodiversity, we explore lived experience through photo voice and interpretive phenomenological analysis to surface nuance: joy in flexible schedules, stress from inaccessible assessments, and the choice to disclose or not in rooms where stigma still lingers.

Beyond the office, we tackle hidden disability barriers that show up in the wild. From the sunflower lanyard to airline pre-boarding, we illustrate how policy without staff education becomes obstruction. The fix is practical: train front-line teams, diversify examples, and create predictable, quieter paths for anxious or sensory-sensitive travelers. We also press on language—why “everyone is a bit ADHD” erases real conditions—and show how leaders who speak openly about disabled family members help younger women find confidence, community, and earlier support.

If you care about neurodiversity, women’s health, inclusive entrepreneurship, and turning research into everyday access, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one change that would make your workplace or travel experience truly accessible.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:49 Late Diagnosis In Women
• 3:20 Misdiagnosis, Menopause, And Access To Assessment
• 6:02 Multiple Diagnoses And Entrepreneurial Lens
• 8:12 Research Trends Linking ADHD And Entrepreneurship
• 10:54 DEI Momentum And Workplace Accommodations
• 14:08 Keeping Neurodiversity Within Disability
• 17:15 Study Design: Photo Voice And IPA
• 20:40 Why Entrepreneurs Choose Independence
• 24:10 Justice Sensitivity And Corporate Friction
• 27:25 Avoiding Neurodiversity Hype And Stigma
• 31:15 Hidden Disabilities And Travel Barriers

Transcript

Debra Ruh: 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome AXSChat. Um, you are we have Antonio and myself here today, and Neil is not able to join us, but he is missed. Um we are excited to be speaking to Regina today, who is joining us from a very dark Norway, right? Fit health thing. Yes, yes, thank you. I get I changed your country, sorry about that. But Regina, will you and also thank you for the light so that we can see your face. I know it's so we appreciate that. But we'll I'm excited about the conversation today because I myself is a neurodivergent woman. And so we're looking forward to the conversation. But Regina, let me turn it over to you so that you can properly introduce yourself to the audience.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 0:46

Thank you so much, Deborah and Antonio. Thank you for inviting me. So my name is Regina Casteleijn-Osorno.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 0:51

I'm uh fourth year in my final year of my doctoral studies here at the University of Turku. And my topic has been on women who are entrepreneurs and caregivers to special needs children. And during the last four years, the study has changed slightly because out of the nine women that have started, we ended up finding out that over half of them are actually neurodivergent. As long, and during this process, I also found out that I was neurodivergent, although I already knew this, but I got my official diagnosis. And in doing that, it has opened these new doors for research and collaboration. And then now the study that I'm working on now, which is looking at neurodivergent entrepreneurial women who were late diagnosed. And by late diagnosed, we are using the cutoff as over 18. And most of the women in our study now were diagnosed over over 30, but we do have one that was diagnosed at just over 18. So we thought we really want to include her in there also, but definitely not diagnosed in childhood, let's say.

Debra Ruh: 1:47

Right. So when I was diagnosed in my mid-50s, that would probably count.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 1:52

Absolutely. We're gonna need you.

Debra Ruh: 1:54

Right.

Antonio Vieira Santos: 1:55

So and and Deborah, why is this diagnose happening so late? Is there a story behind it? Why?

Debra Ruh: 2:03

Deborah, do you want to take that? I will just take it and then I'll turn it over to Regina, who's an expert in this. But it it happened because we were not diagnosing girls back then. I mean, girls were, I don't know, we were looking at it in boys, but we were not looking at it in girls. We did not start looking at the possibility that women were neurodivergent or girls were neurodivergent for at least probably good 20 years after I was in school. I know this is a surprise to you, Antonio. I was sometimes disruptive in my classroom. They seem to think I talked too much, I laugh too much. But most of the boys were worse than me, right? So they just looked at the boys and they didn't really consider women. And I know, Regina, you're learning a lot more because we're all figuring this out. But um that's one reason why I wasn't not diagnosed. But it's interesting, I've got, well, actually, I've got nine siblings, which is that's a whole nother story. We recently founded a few. Anyway, that's a whole nother story too. Oh wow. I appreciate your study, Regina.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 3:09

Yeah, and just echoing what you said, Antonio, yeah, it's very, very common that women or girls are, especially adolescent girls, are more likely to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety. And they don't think of it as it being any kind of neurodivergent trait, whether it's autism or or ADHD or or anything else. So I think that's it. There's a lot of misdiagnosis, and it's not for a lot of women, it's not until they actually hit perimenopause, menopause, where they start actually thinking that it's not perimenopause or menopause. I I have friends who have been diagnosed bipolar, they've been taking antidepression medication for the last 25 years, then they hit menopause. They, the medication, the hormones for menopause are not helping. And then they start going in further into their own research and they start thinking, well, maybe I actually am neurodivergent, maybe there's something else going on here, not just perimenopause. Maybe I'm not, you know, losing my mind or where however we want to say it. So then they dive deeper into this. And also I have to say, at least here in Finland, it's very difficult to get diagnosed as a woman at an over age. I was I was diagnosed over 40, uh, 45, and it is very difficult. I started the process and halfway through the process, I ran out of assessments from from what was allowed from my work. And I had to get the approval of uh the head doctor to continue with the assessments. And he said, no, she doesn't need a diagnosis. So I had to fight that, even though I had half of the diagnosis already done. I had to have the assessment done, let's say, because he didn't feel that it was relevant to my life that I needed to have it. And that's what we're fighting against. And this is not just me, this is other women as well. I have a friend who's almost 90% done through her autism diagnosis uh process, and she won't be able to get a full diagnosis because the doctor doesn't feel that she quote unquote needs it. And this is this is a struggle because you know, not having the diagnostic really invalidates your your experiences and it invalidates all the struggles we go through. So there is there is there is validation with the with the diagnosis, even though it it might not seem necessary for some people. It validates what we've already been experiencing our whole life.

Debra Ruh: 5:13

I also think that we're probably in the United States. Some people feel we're over-diagnosing people. So I imagine in different countries it's handled different ways. Also, my own experience, and I don't I don't know if this is true across the board, but I actually have multiple diagnoses. For the longest time, I just thought I didn't understand why everybody else could do their left from their right but me. And that's called directional. Um, oh gosh, dyslexia. Sorry, I'm like a No, I don't I don't know that one. Right, right. But it was like when I learned about it, I was like, oh yay. So my brain is just different the way it works. Yeah. And I have done all these things to help, but also know you're looking at it from the lens of entrepreneurs. And so I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a late diagnosed, I have a beautiful, wonderful daughter with Down syndrome. My husband had dementia. And I I imagine with some of my life, I'm not that uncommon from a lot. I imagine you're gonna find a lot of neurodivergent entrepreneurs, uh, just my opinion. Yeah.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 6:20

It is there is there's an increase in studies about this that entrepreneurship and uh neurodivergence is is going hand in hand. So we look, we've been doing a lot of research on well-being studies and entrepreneurship in the last few years, but what's coming out more and more is that actually these traits like ADHD and and and there's an excellent scholar based in Syracuse University, Johann Wiklund. He just released another uh paper on ADHD and entrepreneurship. He's he's fantastic. He himself has ADHD, he has a child's ADHD. He's a senior scholar in Syracuse, and he's really paving the way for this type of research to get out there. And I think that we just need to speak more about it because it's not anything that's been hidden, it's just something that hasn't been discussed. And and Deborah, you and I, we talked years ago when I just started my PhD. And I remember at that point, I was still met with quite a bit of resistance about why do I need to study women with special needs children? Why is that necessary? And now in the last four years, I've been presenting my work all over, all over the world, and I've been able to speak about my research in different universities and different conferences, and now I can see the relevance because people are interested in neurodiversity now, and suddenly it's this is kind of an interesting topic. And yeah, okay, maybe we're gonna start looking at it a bit more. And it's only been four years since I've been starting the study, so it's interesting how tides have changed. Antonio, did you uh did you want to come in?

Debra Ruh: 7:43

Okay, cool. Uh and I wonder, I would say this your interesting timing when you're saying four years, and I'm I'm thinking of timing here in the United States, so it's been a long few years for some of us. But I wonder as we attack DEI, disability, equity, inclusion, and belonging, if that isn't part of the reason why people are saying, well, wait a minute, you might be talking about me and my family. I don't know if that's true. Do you have any idea, Regina, why or any ideas of why society seems to be caring about this now?

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 8:18

I'm not sure why there's a shift in it. I think it's just because times change and people are more vocal about what they need. I would say for myself, a few years ago, I worked in an open office and it was really hard for me to work in an open office. There were a lot of voices, a lot of noises, a lot of smells, and I just found myself struggling through it every day, and I never did anything about it. I didn't want to make trouble. I didn't want to, you know, complain. I didn't want to lose my job. That's always something that is uh is a stressor here in Finland as a foreigner working. You don't want to make any waves. But I got to a point now in the last year where I just couldn't take it anymore. I stopped going into the office. I started working from home more. And I realized that this is really, you know, something that has to do with my disability more than anything. So I reached out to the small EDI department. We had two people working there. And I mentioned to them, is there maybe a quieter space I can work where there's not people, you know, walking around and eating and all the cologne and all these things. And they said, Yeah, we'll find you a small space to work. And I have a great little space now. But I think it's just having that courage to talk about it. And they said, Oh, we didn't know you had any disability. And I said, Well, that's true because I I never mentioned it. I just kind of suffered in silence. And, you know, you'd hear comments and you know, that oh, you know, you've complained a little bit too much about this area and you know, but I just couldn't help it. I couldn't be there. So maybe just bravery, I guess, over time.

Debra Ruh: 9:41

I agree. I agree. And and uh that's one reason why I created we're working on Billion Strong, because yeah, we should be able to come out and own our true entire lived experiences. And and can we even maybe be proud of it? I mean, can we be proud of who we are and the way our beautiful brains work? It is a very interesting topic though, because we also see I've seen at um a couple of conferences where people were talking about pulling neurodivergence out of disability. And I remember thinking, um, let's not do that right now. Let's let's stick together, let's make sure we're included, let's focus on what we're trying to achieve here, which is really any human being should be meaningfully included in society. That's what we're doing here, by the way. We happen to be doing it from the lens of talking about people with lived experiences with disabilities, but why is society excluding any person for any reason, including other reasons? We exclude people. We exclude them because they love the wrong people, they love the wrong sex or just ridiculousness, the color of their skin, where they're just ridiculousness. When I think every single human is a beautiful, fragile, you know, entity that we should honor. But your work really spoke to me though. And when you're looking at it from the lens of entrepreneurs, and I know we've discussed it a little, but why was that important for you? And can you also tell us a little bit about the other researcher that you're working with?

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 11:14

Yeah. Uh well, she and I are both in the were in the or are in the entrepreneurship program at our universities. So that's the main reason why we have to, in principle, we have to ground all our research in entrepreneurship research. That's where that's where she was getting her funding from. So we followed the idea that we would go a little bit into both of our directions. So I do well-being of mothers with special needs children and stigma and and looking at resilience and stigma together. She did her PhD, she already graduated in June. She did it on gender and gendered pitching, and she did a great job. She got she graduated with honors and she's focusing on women and how women have to change the way they pitch and how they demonstrate pitching and how they do gender with pitching. So it's really interesting. So when we saw this call for the paper in this special issue about neurodivergent entrepreneurs, it just made sense. We just thought, you know what, let's let's go for it. Let's put our strengths together. And she was wondering, oh, do you think we're going to find enough? And she's not familiar with neurodivergent entrepreneurs at all. So that was our biggest fear is that we wouldn't have enough women for our study. And we do have quite a few. We still need a few more. We're using photo voice and IPA analysis, which is interpretive phenomenological analysis. And this is looking at the lived experiences of the people. So we are using this participatory approach, they call it, where you are actually co-constructing meaning with us. And that's done through the photos. And in order to reach enough of the lived experiences, we're not talking about, you know, statistical saturation or anything like that, because that's not what you want when we're talking about humans. I think I still stand strongly behind that. We want to really learn the deep realities and nuanced realities of people. We're aiming for 10 women in our study. And this way we will meet one time to have just a general discussion about entrepreneurship and neurodivergence and how it has affected your life. And then we'll give you the photo voice task and then we meet again to go through your photos. And that's basically all we're asking. It's not a huge amount of time, even that we're looking for.

Debra Ruh: 13:19

I know that I've seen, I've seen numbers, but I want to be honest, I have not taken the time to see where if those numbers were grounded and good research. I just to be fair, but I've seen numbers as high as 60, 70% in the United States that entrepreneurs are neurodiverse. ADHD was the one that came out the most, but I've seen studies that talk a lot about how many people that are entrepreneurs are neuro neurodivergent. And also we've talked about, I've seen studies which I agree with of why. Why am I, why did I choose to become an entrepreneur? I d I personally did not choose to do it because I wasn't figuring out how to get along in corporations, which I was working at at the time. But I always did feel like I just seemed a little different from everybody else, a little bit more wound tighter, like maybe you don't need the coffee Deborah, you know? And but when I started seeing some of the ADHD studies and articles that were coming out about how many entrepreneurs were neurodiverse, I just thought that was interesting and encouraging at the same time.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 14:34

It it definitely is, yeah. And I think that there's no one reason for it. You know, some of the women in the study, they've worked for, you know, 30 years in different organizations and high positions as well, because, you know, people with ADHD, we're talking about ADHD now, they're able to succeed and focus on tasks that other people might not find that interesting. They're able to really set things in motion. And one or two of the women in the study now, they have worked in extremely high positions and just decided over the last few years that they were tired of, you know, not being able to make their own decisions. And they've gone into things like uh coaching and consulting. And also uh for neurodivergent women, especially, they've gone into this type of field. And I think that has something to do with it. For me, I was an entrepreneur for uh four years. I had my own cupcake business when my children were small, and I felt like it was it was the happiest I'd ever been. I was able to um work in times that I felt fit around my family life, and I was able to do something that really brought me joy, and that's something that's really important. You might not find the joy in work as an ADHD or neurodivergent person. You might not enjoy the work you've been given, or even your colleagues, or the work environment, or a number of other things. I know that for me when I worked in in corporate life, that I found that the profound sense of justice was really difficult for me to see injustices in the workplace, whether this was injustices with pay discrepancies within my team or within working hours or how certain people were just being treated in general. I kept speaking up and I kept being asked to stop speaking up. And that made things really difficult for me. I had a lot of stress and anxiety thinking I can't go back to a company that's asking me to, you know, turn my back when somebody I know is getting treated badly. And I think a lot of ADHD people have this intense sense of justice. And it's it's it's I do. It's really tough. It's tough when you have to be told to stop doing that. I can't. Stop protecting people. Stop doing that. It's not nice. I could do that. Let us mistreat them. You m you must let us mistreat people. Stop it.

Antonio Vieira Santos: 16:46

We we uh talk about the the difficulty in having a diagnose on on and but uh and but that we see all over the media sometimes, even on the entrepreneur narrative, a kind of uh okay, no, this person, very successful, claims to be neurodivergent, but we know that the lives of most people is not as easy and not comes from that privilege. Uh, how do you see we you know when we talk about neurodiversity, keep a balance and keeps the reality grounded and don't create this kind of don't romanticize this, I have this condition, maybe I can aspire to be a very successful person. How we keep things on the ground?

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 17:30

Yeah, that's in that's really interesting. I think that I don't know anybody, in at least that I've studied, that romanticizes this. I think that it's a real struggle. And because I'm working with women who have struggled with this most of their adult life, I think that it's mainly a sense of relief that they can sometimes feel safe to reveal this. Not even the women in our study, not all of them talk about being neurodivergent. They may work with neurodivergent people, but they might not lead with that when they're presenting or pitching. So I think there's still some kind of stigma behind it. I don't know if that answered the question.

Antonio Vieira Santos: 18:05

Does that really want to comment?

Debra Ruh: 18:07

Well, I I remember when I first started. Once again, I'm, you know, I'm in my my late 60s, and and I I remember hearing that we were triple A personalities. Oh, you're a triple A personality. They they had A's for us. You were triple A, a double A. And um, I don't know, I it's just all always who you've been, right? But the reason why I found it very helpful when I was diagnosed was because I started understanding myself in ways that empowered me. And I think it's like, you know, interest it was an interesting point that you just made, Antonio. But I I remember it was something that I just thought I was broken. I I didn't understand why everybody else got it right and I couldn't. And I remember one time when my uh, because I everybody, a lot of people know that, yes, I have been an entrepreneur for so many years and I'm very focused on what I want to do. And I really believe that the billion people with lived experience with disabilities should come together and support each other because we are not a minority. We're not a minority if we come together. But it just was really interesting when I did understand that I was neurodiverse because some people were saying things at the time, even when I was diagnosed. People were making comments like, oh, I'm so sick of these people that are talking about disabilities, but they don't have a disability. Look, now they're making up these disabilities so they can be. And it was like, so there was that too that people thought you were, I don't know, lying about it. So it is once again, as society is shifting and moving. And once again, as we're attacking people that have lived experiences with disabilities, are you disabled enough? Or modern. I'm just saying there's one my Daughter with Down syndrome, there have been times when she wasn't included in disability parties or things because she wasn't disabled enough. And so I'm thinking it's so confusing society. Just say why don't you say that? Go ahead, Antonio.

Antonio Vieira Santos: 20:15

No, I'm because I'm I I have some friends who have uh autistic children, and they are in different levels of the spectrum. Some of them are independent, and and while others they really they will need support for life. And sometimes when we use the word autistic, it's almost like they are in the same room, you know? But in reality, they are they are in two uh there are two completely different people that are going to have completely different lives. And sometimes we end up we talk about autism and we we might talk about oh this person is ab is ab as this kind of capacity and skills, but many people would be will need support for their lives in order to in order to survive, basically.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 21:00

I mean, exactly. And we have to really destigmatize this. I mean, my son is intellectually disabled. He is nearly 18 and he is cognitively about four. So he will always need support. And he doesn't look disabled, and so this is often a challenge that he it is not until somebody tries to speak with him that uh it is a reality. But I think that one of the things I just keep like with Deborah, we we are so strong in how we are speaking about things. I just had one of the worst traveling experiences this last year traveling in France in the airports with my uh sunflower lanyard. And this is an international symbol for someone who has a hidden disability. Now, this can be anything from asthma to cancer to autism to Tourette's to any kind of menopause, any kind of hidden disability, right? And I wear this lanyard proudly and I wear it in the airports. And I remember I was so frustrated. I was in a smaller town and I to I, you know, they have an international airport and I had the lanyard and I said, Do you mind if I board first? Because I have an anxiety disorder and it is easier for me if I can board first and get everything settled in. And the response was, Well, where is your wheelchair? And I said, I don't have a wheelchair. And she said, Well, you can't board the plane unless you have a wheelchair. And I said, But I don't need a wheelchair. And I waited there, then she called someone. They then arrived with a wheelchair and said that the only way I would be able to board early is if I got in the wheelchair. And I said, There are I mean, I just went on this, you know, tirade. I don't speak French. It didn't matter. I got on the plane, and then when I arrived in Paris, which was my connecting place, I asked the same thing at Paris airport, big, big international airport. And the response was where is your wheelchair? And I said, Oh dear God, this is not happening in Paris. And so I said, Have you also not been informed what the lanyard means? But also, because I mean it's accepted, the lanyard is accepted around the world. So this is for number one thing, why adopt the lanyard in an airport if you're not going to educate your staff about it? First thing. Second of all, we have to understand the visible disabilities better, whether it's, you know, anything. I'm not even going to list them. So I sent a very strongly worded letter to Air France and explained that this was the situation. And they said, you know, we apologize and we thank you so much for this. We are now going to have like some type of educational info session for the airport staff because nobody with an invisible disability should have to fight this hard. And I keep thinking every time I go through this, if I'm strong enough to fight this, my son wouldn't be. Maybe other people's children wouldn't be. They would they themselves, neurodivergent women who have experienced stigma and shame their whole life about their disability, they wouldn't be strong enough to fight this. So that's why I fight so hard. That's why I I don't stop talking. And because I think we are speaking for the millions who are not able to do this. Billions. Billions. Actually, it just is.

Debra Ruh: 24:09

Sorry, but it's just the reality. It is billions. So yeah.

Antonio Vieira Santos: 24:13

So how important considering the fact that we we talk uh about late diagnose, how we can involve younger women in this conversation? How can have this kind of a shared experience with between Deborah, yourself, with younger women, for them to be more aware and somehow be more confident about themselves by talking with people like both of you.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 24:40

Go ahead, Regina. I just think that, you know, there are, I have a lot of opinions about social media, but one of the things I think it's really good for is to help younger people who are dealing with struggles, whether it's sexuality or neurodivergence. I think that social media is great for that. There are many platforms where there are strong people talking about this, ourselves included. So I think that that's one thing is to just keep talking and keep destigmatizing. I think that's the main thing. Wherever I go, I talk about this. And, you know, I don't need people to say, oh, I guess you can guess that I'm a bit ADHD. I'm really offended when I was at a conference a couple months ago and somebody started their speech or their lecture with, well, I want to say that I guess everyone is a bit ADHD. I calmly gathered my things and I left. And I went out to go take a breather and I talked to a professor who was there and I said, What do you think when people say this? And he said, Well, it's like somebody saying everybody is a bit gay. It's a bit frustrating, isn't it? And I said, It really is, right? Because you don't come to a university conference and say that everybody's a bit ADHD. So we have to stop this rhetoric. We have to stop saying that everybody's a bit of this or that. Oh, I'm a bit autistic today. We need to stop the phrases. We need to stop the jokes. And I think embracing, embracing what it is without, you know, the stigma behind it. That's my I'm on a soapbox here. Oh, my God.

Debra Ruh: 26:00

Well, but it is true. You know, to just I wanna before we I know that we are out of time, but I have a colleague who who is blind. Her name is Jasmine, and she lives in the Philippines, and she just got engaged, so she's in New Zealand. On her flight out of the Philippines to New Zealand, she was actually stopped because she was a woman traveling alone and she was blind. And they said, You can't board the plane. Now she had just gotten on another plane and flown there. And I believe this was in Manila, and they're like, No, you can't do it. You can't do it if you're blind. She fought and fought and fought them. She had to threaten them with legal action. Finally, they let her get on the plane. We shouldn't have to fight so hard. This woman is obviously blind. She doesn't need a wheelchair. It just the way people treat you is just really terrible. And so I think your work is very important and we really applaud it. When do you think we could when do you, when will you will you'll have some findings that you'll be sharing? Yes. Is it going to turn into a book? Is it going to be a book series? What are y'all thinking about as you gather this data?

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 27:08

That's a really good question. At the moment, we're aiming just to submit the paper before May, May, June, I think is the deadline. And um, we're hoping that this fantastic journal, it's the entrepreneurship uh region and development journal. We hope that they'll they'll accept it. If they don't accept it, we will find a place for it. That's it. I mean, research that we do is never gonna go, you know, it's not gonna go unused. That definitely not. You know, academia is like that now. We're both experiencing, we've both experienced, you know, rejections and you just have to keep going forward. I mean, there's different reasons. For every rejection that I've I've received, it's never been about the content or the topic. It's always just about the fit for the journal. So I think we have to remember that. That again, like when we think about where we fit in in the world, is that um we just have to keep going forward. And I think also, for example, one small antidote. Uh my husband, we're very open about talking about our son. Um, and my husband is a scientist and he was at some kind of work function and there were people visiting from different countries. And he mentioned that he had to go because our intellectually disabled son needs us to be home by a certain time because he comes home with a taxi and he needs us there. And one of the men at the table got very quiet and he said, Oh, we're talking about your son. And my husband said, Yeah, he's part of our life. Why wouldn't I? And he kind of broke down at the table and said that he has an intellectually disabled child, but he doesn't feel like he can talk about her in work settings, in any setting. And he really thanked my husband for talking about our child in a way that was so natural, like you would talk about any other child. And it really, I tell that story everywhere because I think, wow, to think this poor man has been having to hide his child's identity because of the fear of how other people would see him or see his child, that we need to stop.

Debra Ruh: 28:55

That we need to be we are still doing that. I have a good friend that I will not tell her name, who is a senior manager, and she has a son with Down syndrome. And she met me and heard how I talked and what I and she was like, Deborah, I I was embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed of my son, but I don't want people to decide that he's not good enough. So she said, I never had a family portrait on my desk. She said, After you talk, I proudly put it on my desk. And she said, My co-workers were so supportive. So people, it is a shame that we do that, that we make people not feel that they can talk about their brilliant, amazing children, no matter how they facilitate it. My daughter isn't broken because she has Down syndrome. She's not. She just happens to have Down syndrome and also she has autism as well. She's on the spectrum, which is not uncommon with Down syndrome. But I think the work is very, very important. And I want to say to you, Regina, if for some reason they do not accept the paper, please the research come to me. I promise you I can find journals that would love to do it. And I know billions of them would love to publish it. So as you said, you focus on the research, you get the data. And if for some reason somebody's gonna be silly on the other end, we'll help you. We'll help make sure that so. But in the meantime, Regina, I will first of all let me thank Amazon for keeping us on air. We are so blessed by them and thankful for them. And also, Regina, do you mind letting the audience know how they can follow you? I mean, how they could find out about the work and track what you're doing. And also, I'm hoping whenever it does publish that you'll come back on and talk about it so that knows how to get it and everything. So, but let me give you the last words.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 30:44

Yes, thank you so much, both of you, for having me. I think it's so important. I love to speak about my work. I love, I think this is really important. Like you said, there's nothing for us to be ashamed of about our us or our children. I'm going to keep advocating about this until my last breath. So you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm not sure. I'll give you the link. I'll give you guys the link so you can find me. That's the easiest way to do it. Um, I know that my work email, uh the school email has quite a bit of uh filter, so I don't want to give the email address because it might not, I might not even get the emails.

Debra Ruh: 31:14

And you'll I just realized it's please don't say your email or your phone number. No, you can give it to LinkedIn. I'll give the LinkedIn. Yeah, that's easy. We are a lot of people watch the show, so we would prefer you not do it.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 31:26

No, that's perfect. No, and and and definitely uh I will come to you and we'll we'll talk about the paper. When it gets published, it will be published. That's how I see it. It will be, just don't know when, but it will be. It will be published.

Debra Ruh: 31:37

It'll just be interesting to see where it is published. But I know billions on publishing it. If the first one doesn't come through, come to me and I will make sure that it is published. So all right, Regina, thank you so much for the work you're doing. It's such an important conversation. It's sort of a shame that we're still having these conversations, but we obviously need to, and uh we need to do it. We need to look at the lenses also from females because often research is only done on men. And we see this over and over and over and over again. There are women in the world. We're also not minorities. We are, yeah, but you know, but yes, but thank you, thank you, Regina. Thanks again to Amazon, Antonio, and Neil, and we'll see everyone later.

Regina Casteleijn-Osorno: 32:20

Thank you, bye.