Seen and Heard Episode 08 — The Autism Dad Podcast
Liz Covington's oldest son Bennett was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD when he was four. The autism diagnosis didn't come until he was ten. He's 18 now, attends college in Utah, and just spent two hours shoveling the family driveway during a snowstorm without being asked twice.
If you're new to autism parenting, that last sentence might not land for you. If you've lived this, you already know. That is the win.
Liz joined me for this week's Seen and Heard episode, the 15-minute series where real autism families share what their lives actually look like. We have over 200 listeners write in asking what level 1 autism looks like up close. This is one of those windows.
Who is Liz Covington?
Liz Covington is a mom of four based in Utah. Her oldest son Bennett, 18, is in college. Two of her other kids have or are suspected to have neurodevelopmental conditions. Her ten-year-old daughter is currently awaiting a formal autism evaluation, though Liz and her husband believe she is on the spectrum based on what they've seen over the last several years.
What did Bennett's early diagnosis path look like?
At age four, Bennett was diagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). The autism diagnosis came six years later, at age ten. This pattern is not unusual. Children whose autism presents as level 1 or what was historically called "high functioning" are frequently first labeled with ADHD, ODD, anxiety, or behavioral disorders before clinicians connect the dots. The earlier diagnoses aren't wrong. They're often comorbid. But they can delay the broader picture by years.
What is the recent win Liz celebrated?
Liz's husband was out of town when a major snowstorm hit Utah. She asked Bennett if he could shovel the driveway. He'd done it maybe once before. She didn't even know where the shovels were stored. She told him to figure it out.
He put on his jacket and tennis shoes and spent two hours shoveling. No resistance. No needing her to come outside and show him exactly how to push the shovel. No giving her a hard time.
She told me it was a total win. And I want every parent listening to this to understand what kind of win that actually is. Independence. Problem-solving. Initiative without prompting. For a kid who, at four, made every single day a battle, this is everything.
What does her ten-year-old daughter's experience look like?
Liz's daughter, age ten, presents differently. She has friends. She does well in school. From the outside she looks like a typical fourth grader.
But school takes everything she has. She can't do dance or gymnastics or horseback riding. She gets home and she's done. Her friends don't understand. Their parents don't understand. The world reads her as "why doesn't she do anything fun?" The reality is she's masking through the school day and crashing through the home hours.
And then there are the moments that don't make sense to anyone outside the household. A knot in her hair that derails the entire morning, because she can't tolerate the feeling but also can't tolerate being brushed. The kind of thing that, from across the room, looks like a tantrum and, from inside the child, feels unbearable.
Why do some autism parents feel outside the autism community?
Liz said something in this conversation that I think a lot of parents will feel in their chest. For a long time, she felt like she didn't belong in the autism community because her kids were verbal, looked typical, and didn't match other people's mental image of autism.
She heard it from other parents. "That's not what autistic kids do." "Autistic kids aren't like that." And she'd think, well, mine is, so I guess they are.
The autism community is one of the most diverse parent communities on earth. Level 1, level 2, level 3. Verbal, nonverbal. With co-occurring conditions, without. The label is the same. The lives behind it are radically different. And gatekeeping which families count damages all of us.
Why does her son laugh when he's in trouble?
Liz shared a story about a recent school call. Bennett had done something wrong. The principal was upset because Bennett was laughing about it.
Liz had to explain something most autism parents already know. The laugh isn't disrespect. It isn't lack of remorse. It's a stress response. Many autistic kids laugh when they're uncomfortable, scared, or overwhelmed. It's wiring, not character.
Treating a stress response as a moral failing means punishing a kid for being autistic. It happens constantly in schools, at family events, in public. And it's one of the things parents like Liz have to translate over and over to a world that doesn't know how to read what it's seeing.
"Every kid is good. They all want to be connected. They all want to be appreciated. And they're all trying their best." — Liz Covington
What I took from this conversation
Level 1 doesn't mean easy. Level 3 doesn't mean impossible. Both of those statements have to be true for the autism community to actually work as a community.
There's a version of this story where Liz never finds her people. Where she feels permanently outside, never seen, never validated, raising kids whose challenges don't show on the surface. That story plays out for a lot of families. It's why we make these episodes.
If you're a parent whose kid doesn't match the picture, this one is for you. You belong here.
A note about my book
If conversations like this one are helpful, my first book lands early 2027 from Quarto. It's called Your Child Was Just Diagnosed with Autism: Real Talk, Support and Next Steps from a Dad Who Has Been There. You can sign up for updates and preorder at theautismdad.com/book.
Presenting sponsor: Algonot
This episode is presented by Algonot. Algonot makes science-backed supplements developed by Dr. Theoharis Theoharides, a Yale-trained physician and one of the world's leading researchers on neuroinflammation and mast cells. Every Algonot product is third-party tested for purity, free of common irritants, and built on actual peer-reviewed science instead of marketing claims. If you want to learn more about formulations that target the underlying inflammation, folate metabolism, and oxidative stress patterns that research links to autism, visit algonot.com and use code ROB5.
About Rob
Rob Gorski is the founder of The Autism Dad, a blog and podcast dedicated to supporting parents raising kids on the autism spectrum. As a dad of three autistic sons with over 25 years of experience, Rob brings lived experience, honesty, and heart to every conversation.
You can find me at theautismdad.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at The Autism Dad, and on YouTube at The Autism Dad. New episodes drop every week at listen.theautismdad.com.
