Episode 300 — AI Can Guide. YOU Decide.
Guest: Patricia Lemer • Date: March 26, 2026
Episode Overview
Patty Lemer returns to discuss how artificial intelligence can help parents navigate complex decisions without replacing their role as the leader of their child’s journey. She shares how her Total Load Theory AI companion organizes trusted insights and why discernment matters more than ever.
About Patricia Lemer
Patricia Lemer has spent nearly six decades helping families understand and address developmental challenges by focusing on root causes. She is the author of Outsmarting Autism and Total Load Theory, and host of The Autism Detective podcast. Her work emphasizes individualized care, helping parents prioritize interventions based on their child’s unique biology, environment, and lifestyle factors. Through her books and AI companion tool, she now makes her knowledge and experience accessible to parents around the world.
You’ll Discover
Why AI Should Support Your Thinking, Not Replace It (5:40)
How The Source Of AI Information Impacts The Quality Of Answers (7:12)
Why Every Decision Still Belongs To The Parent (13:10)
How Total Load Theory Helps You Prioritize What Matters Most (22:30)
Simple Ways To Use AI To Get Clearer, Faster Insights (25:20)
Referenced In This Episode
Full Transcript
Patricia Lemer 0:00
My job, and the job of this AI companion is really to educate you about options so that you can make an informed decision. And it is always your decision.
Len Arcuri 0:16
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is autism parenting secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello and welcome to autism parenting secrets. This is a very special episode, because this is episode 300 and I was thinking about who would be the best guest to help me celebrate this milestone. And honestly, the very first name that came to mind was Patricia lemer Patty, who is with me today. She has absolutely been a pioneer in helping parents understand root causes and to think differently about how to support their child for decades, and her latest book, total load theory, came out just a few months ago, and she was on the podcast then, and it's already helping parents really better understand the full picture about what's really going on with their child, and we touched on it in that episode. But Patty has a basically an AI tool connected to this book and to all of her work, and the fact that that exists now to accompany this dynamite resource, I think is worth diving into a little bit deeper. And basically the key about artificial intelligence, as we all know, it's advancing incredibly fast. It can answer questions instantly. It can organize complex information and really help parents explore options in ways that just weren't possible, even just a few years ago, and used the right way, it can be an incredibly powerful tool, but there's also a real risk, parents can start to outsource their thinking. So instead of leading, we can start following, and instead of making decisions, it's easier just to ask a machine what to do so for this episode, I wanted to focus on something that is becoming incredibly important now and will only become more important over time. And that is, how can parents use tools like AI and chatbots the right way while still remaining the leader and decision maker in chief for their child. So the secret this week is AI can guide you decide. Welcome Patty,
Patricia Lemer 2:49
thank you, Len. I am so excited to be on your podcast for the third time. And not only are you celebrating your 300th episode, I'm celebrating my 80th birthday.
Len Arcuri 3:03
Absolutely incredible. Happy birthday to two milestones. Honestly, yours is more important, and the fact that you're celebrating your 80th birthday, you know, when I mentioned at the outset how you've been supporting parents and being this light for the for these these parents who absolutely need guidance and information. You have literally been doing this for many, many decades, and so the fact that you have, I think, gives you a very unique experience or perspective looking back over the decades of what can be useful, what can be helpful. And there's a lot of traps that I think parents we were set up to fail in many ways, and we fall into these traps. And I teed up a few of them at the outset. So I love that you're here. I love that you're celebrating your personal milestone and and with that, I think, again, your perspective really, really is a unique one. So so I'm excited to dive into this topic with you.
Patricia Lemer 4:03
Well, thank you, and it's a new topic for me. When I was offered this AI companion for my book, I was like, Well, what's that? Why do I need that? For people could just use one of the ones that's out there, like chat GPT, but I was educated and about the advantages of AI, and I'm sold, and I hope we can sell your listeners, because this is the future, And we can't escape it. And in my 60, almost 60 years of working with families, things have changed so much from just being able to speak on the phone with them, for them to be able to look at an enormous array of options. Ways and how to decide what to do. I started out using the word prioritizing therapies, and I did a lot of education with parents on how to prioritize, and you have been so helpful to parents and understanding that the top priority is themselves, and it's this proverbial put your own seat belt on before you help your child, and that is just remarkably important. And so I've been surprised when I tell parents, some parents that I have an AI companion, that occasionally I get a Oh, I hate AI, and most of the time I get Wow, tell me about it and and so why Would they hate AI? Because you have to use it judiciously and know what universe that tech application is searching when it gives you the answer. And that's why mine is so valuable, because the tech guy who put it together made it search only me and my material. And we can, we can talk about what it includes and
Len Arcuri 6:32
how it works. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. It's, it's very and it's new, the whole topic of AI and use, how to use it, when to use it. It's nuanced, and that's where I think, without a doubt, it's so powerful that you can't not use it. It's about knowing when, what tool, when to use it for how to prompt it correctly. There's a lot of nuances here, but what you just ended on is a really fundamental first question to ask, if you're using any AI tool or a chat bot, is, what is the resource of information that it's pulling from? And that is where even just going to chat GPT as an example, if you're putting any search question in there, particularly about your child with challenges, or if it's medical questions, you know, the answers that come back are only as good as the data that it is tapping into. And I think even up until, like nine months ago, I think I saw a graph that showed where chat GPT was getting its information from, and at the top, the top source was Reddit. Like that, that platform was where it was getting most of its information from. Was the highest percent, and I'm only sharing that because now I know that's not as true, but again, the quality of what you get back, it's totally dependent on the resources that are used. So what resources are credible? What resources are not you confidently made a comment about how great yours is, and I'll second that in the sense that you've curated in terms of the resources, and you have a lot of podcast episodes you've recorded so you've you're sincerely putting into this tool what you believe is factual, insightful, reliable information. Of course, there's some subjectivity there, but, but, but again, I think that's where tapping your using your AI tool will give wildly different answers than if somebody put something in grok or chat GPT. So I think just that understanding that all these tools, and there's more and more coming out every day, the key question is, where are they getting that information? And is it something I find to be reliable? Because along the way, there's so much subjectivity that could get in the way of what information you're tapping into, that the results you get are going to be wildly different. And I've been
Patricia Lemer 9:05
writing, I wrote newsletter articles and an executive director's column in the 90s the 2000s for developmental delay resources, and it even goes back to some of those articles that have been updated with new information, as well as as you mentioned, the podcasts from the autism detective. And I've done about half as many of those as you've done of your podcast, but I've had parents and doctors and therapists of all kinds, and not only does it use those resources, but it brings them up into the answer to your question. So. If I've interviewed you and I, somebody asks a question about, well, what do I have to do with my lifestyle and my feelings and belief system, it could bring up my interview with you right there and with a timestamp, and it'll say Len Arcuri talks about this in Patty's interview with him on such and such a date. Would you like to listen? And then you can hit it and it'll say, it's seven minutes and 32 seconds. He says this. It's it's just amazing what the technology can do, yeah,
Len Arcuri 10:41
it brings you right to where the the information that you're looking for could reside again in your resources, might be a podcast or might be an article or something of that nature. So so it is much quicker to get to information that might be helpful. And I know your AI tool along with your books, like, whether it's outsmarting autism or total load theory, your most recent book, I am sure it was very difficult for you to have those two books written objectively, because we all have our biases, of like, maybe what practitioners we like, what approaches we like, But I thought you went to such a great length to present the information as objectively as you can, letting parents giving them the information for them to choose what make might make sense for their child. And so I think you know it's easy for us to have our bias, but I know within your tool, you're not trying to steer parents one way or another, you're just trying to help them get more information for them to discern what are the best actions. And while there's no right or wrong intervention right for a particular family, there is a right or there's a way of navigating this journey that gives you a higher chance of success and finding answers, and there's a way of navigating this journey that just produces friction, friction and leads to burnout. So I think your resources highlight so well. The concept of, hey, there's some foundational steps that need to be in place before you move into some other secondary actions. And so the idea of addressing the foundation first before other things that is very sound incredible and important. So I think your resources really strike that balance incredibly well. And the fact that the AI tool lets people tap into that, I think, is
Patricia Lemer 12:34
incredibly powerful, and that's why the books have a chapter on lifestyle. Because before you start throwing money at therapies and even at testing, it's really, really important to look at, day to day, what you're doing and why you're doing it. What is your belief system and what are your feelings that you work on with families that lead you towards something rather than something else. And you know, if you've grown up in a classical medical model, it's sometimes hard to throw out some of those beliefs. And it's, it's almost like a religion, if you grew up Catholic and you're going to marry someone who's Jewish and convert, you know, how do you how do you move and transition to that new lifestyle? And it takes a long time. And so my job, and the job of this AI companion, is really to educate you about options so that you can make an informed decision. And it is always your decision, depending on who you and your child and your family is, and everyone's different. They're as different as our fingerprints and our microbiomes. We all have that unique situation and what the books are doing, and especially the new book is with its AI companion is allowing you to have a private consult with me. I did these for years. I did diagnostic testing and looked at the child and looked at his aptitude and his achievement and then made recommendations to families. And now you can do this using a technology tool that's remarkable. It'll give you a short answer to your question. Question, and then it'll give you a more in depth answer to your question. So it's it really is quite remarkable, and it gives you the resources and the references so that you can check out how biased was Patty when she gave me this recommendation. And of course, I have my favorite directions to go to, but often they're going to be different than your doctor or even a therapist would recommend. Absolutely.
Len Arcuri 15:37
Yeah, no, I think the and when you talk about your recommendations, right? This is helping to get information from a parent in terms of what they're searching and then, yes, hey, here are some things for you to consider, right? It's easy to get recommendations from you, a chat bot, a practitioner and be like, Okay, I have to do these. And so that's where, again, the parent, every step of the way, must retain that decision making authority, where you know with you as the decision maker in chief, there's lots of advisors, lots of people suggesting and guiding, but you ultimately have that responsibility to make the best decision you can. And the reason I'm focusing on that so much is because so much is happening where slowly but surely, people are surrendering their decision making authority, or at least discounting what they think, versus AI or a chat tool or a practitioner. But in this case, it happens with me all the time. There's lots of times I use AI because I think again, everyone, there's an opportunity for you to streamline and get information faster. And so many times I'll put in there I think this, what do you think, and I'll want to get the chat bots opinion. And it's crazy how many times I'm overly influenced by what they think, and I start to discount what I think in that moment. So experiencing this firsthand, I just want to make it super clear. Parents, your intuition, your sense of what's right, trumps everything, including these amazing tools that we have now. And it's a slippery slope to just all of a sudden, over time, just basically surrender that authority without you intentionally doing so I just see it as a risk for myself, which is why I think this is an important thing for us to kind of just go deeper on so parents really understand it's a great tool, but it's only a tool. It's not the decision
Patricia Lemer 17:34
maker, right? This tool was provided to me by a father in Australia, who used outsmarting autism to heal his son without a lot of local resources, and so to provide this to people in remote areas is An amazing option. They don't have doctors. They don't have the financial resources to get advice from an expert. So this is being able to use me and my experience and my expertise and my research free, and all you have to do is buy the book, buy a total load theory, and show a proof of purchase, and then you have unlimited questions that you can ask. And the most amazing part for me is that you can do it right now in eight languages. So it's not limited to American English. You cannot do it in in French and Spanish and Arabic and Chinese. And I recorded almost six hours of my voice, and I just read chapters of the book aloud, and this AI tool takes it and puts it in little chunks of vowels and consonants, and then puts them together in another language. So if you ask me the question in French, I Paul francais. It's amazing. And I even speak Mandarin Chinese. And so the AI tech guy played it back to me in Mandarin Chinese, which is quite crazy, and it has the potential to do it in up to 77 Oh languages. So it's a universal tool that. That will allow people all over the world to have a consult with me. So, you know, I've, I've, that's my legacy. I've done what I came to do, which is help families, one by one, by one by one, be able to help their children to the extent that they want to. Yep.
Len Arcuri 20:20
No, that's absolutely incredible. And I know you've done this in the past, right? You've advised parents, you've you've counseled them, provided that type of one on one support, which is so key and and again, the fact that now they can tap into your insights, your perspective, in a super easy way. And I've test I gave the tool test drive. So, yeah, it's super easy to use. And you know, I think if you want just to see personally what it's like, and if you experience it, try the tool, you'll get the benefits. But then whatever question you put in there, also put it into a chat GPT, and you'll see how wildly different the responses are. So I guess the question you would want to ask is, who is likely to have more of a sense and a perspective on what's going to be relevant for me to tap into to make decisions? And that's where I would say your your six decades devoted to this space Trumps whatever any other tool might have which is going to be more generic information, more widely available information. And again, I think you wrote your book total load theory, and that's such a powerful concept, but that is not widely known and understood, at least to the depth in terms of, how do you take that concept and how does it impact your decision making for your child? So, so, yeah, so I think if you wanted to do a test, put the same question into your tool versus some other regular tool, and you'll you'll see how wildly different those answers are. You know, which is why for a parent, as you talked about Patty, it's really about what I would consider to be the first step of parent leadership. So I have this concept of parent leadership. There's five key steps or phases, and it starts with greater and heightened awareness, and that's where your tool is phenomenal to help a parent better understand concepts, understand their options, and that first step, awareness is super helpful any any chat box or platform can help you piece together things yours, especially but then after that awareness, there's this next challenging step, which is critical thinking, right? And that's where the slippery slope comes, because that critical thinking, the discernment, understanding what to do, and tapping your human intuition, is so essential, and it's easy to miss that step if you're using AI maybe, and over relying on
Patricia Lemer 23:00
it right? And there are so many environmental factors today that I don't think chat, GPT or one of those others are keyed into for for instance, what's happened to our food? And just there's so much in the book on quality of food, timing of food, combining foods and problematic, potentially problematic foods that are health known as healthy foods, such as as dairy and eggs and whole grains, which are all problematic for many people, and just removing them from the diet can be remarkable. Buying organic over less expensive foods is is a huge step. Sleep is another area. I could spend an hour talking about what is a good sleep sanctuary look like what needs to happen for your child to get a good night's sleep, and you can ask questions on both of those subjects, of course and more, and get a lot of good, practical suggestions that you can put to use immediately. And it doesn't require waiting for an appointment or even any big expenditures. They're just practical suggestions that aren't known by the mainstream. So I encourage parents. It's a i dot Patricia lemer, my last name spelled. L, E, M, e r.com, and you can ask a couple of questions without buying the book, but it after a couple I'm not sure how many, 234, you are, then asked to show a proof of purchase
Len Arcuri 25:18
of the book. Yeah. So great. So if you don't have Patty's book, you can get a test drive of the tool. But honestly, her book both total load theory and outsmarting autism, both phenomenal resources. These are things that you can reference and go to, you know. So they're worth investing in, absolutely, and especially for total load theory, yeah, if you have the book and then you want to start querying the knowledge that's in there, or go a little bit deeper in terms of what information may not have been in the book, that's where Patty's tool comes into play. So, so no, I love that this is available Patty, and that you can help guide many more families leveraging the insights, the knowledge and the information you've you've accumulated in such an easy way, you know? So again, I highly encourage parents to to go there, to give it a try, and at the very least, the amount of time you spend querying Patty's AI tool and using her books, the amount of time you'll spend and the return on that time in terms of you getting information that's more likely to be useful, practical and on point, goes way up. So again, you could put these questions in other tools, but again, can you get useful, actionable information quicker using your tool, I would bet Yes, and that's where I know if I was a parent who had a newly diagnosed child, there was no question I would be going there first.
Patricia Lemer 26:52
Well, thank you, Len. I really appreciate that seal of approval, and it goes beyond autism. That was one of the purposes of total load theory was to look at other populations, the learning disability population and the mental health population, those with anxiety and panic disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder. These are areas of increased diagnosis, and hopefully it'll get out to those populations too.
Len Arcuri 27:30
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because even this podcast, there's going to be a name change coming up because of the fact that everything we talk about on this show isn't specifically related to autism. So so this podcast will shift, and that, actually, that was going to be the point of the 300th episode, is that announced the name change, which will happen over the next few weeks, but it will become the all in parent podcast. And it really is just about it's for parents, still parents of children with complex challenges, and autism is only one of them, as we all know, though, and even at the recent maps conference I was at, it seems like pans and pandas is a much bigger issue now than even autism spectrum in terms of how many children seem to be affected. So So yeah, the name of the diagnosis and what it might specifically be for your child, is less important than really, just really understanding in a deeper way, what's really happening with them, and particularly what root causes are behind how they're presenting. And that's where, with a root cause focus, Patty's tool can be phenomenal for you to better discern what might be going on, as well as what you can do about it, and and so, yeah, so I appreciate you calling that out, because total load theory is a concept and how it manifests. It's there's so many ways it can manifest for both kids and adults alike
Patricia Lemer 28:55
and the mental health population, the psychiatry world is now putting their big toe into diet and mold and trauma as underlying root causes that need to be investigated, and this whole new world of metabolic psychiatry using a ketogenic diet is very exciting to me, because it's going to help so many more people than just masking symptoms with with medication.
Len Arcuri 29:35
No doubt, no doubt. Well, Patty, this is dynamite. I wanted to keep this somewhat focused episode, just almost like it's a, it's a, it's a news flash, right? Your tool is now available.
Patricia Lemer 29:46
It's available. It's a great gift. It's a gift to me. It's a gift to everybody, because I'm no longer doing these consultations. But you can access. Pass me through this AI companion, right?
Len Arcuri 30:02
Yeah, no. So I know you're no longer doing that work after decades and decades of service. This is the work that I focus on, one on one with parents. And again, it's a very different type of support, and what you're providing with your tool and your books, again, great awareness and information for parents. And again, where I focus on is helping a parent to implement, to take that information and to have a plan, have a strategy for their child, which sounds obvious, but many times, parents miss that step. And if your strategy, your plan for your child, is one that's focused on the right root causes for them, that's how you accelerate progress, amen. And that's why today we're talking about AI, because you still are the most important and will always remain the most important variable your child's trajectory, what their future looks like. You are the key, and you will determine that, and the more informed you are, the better, because your child doesn't need an algorithm or guidance from some platform. It needs a parent willing to take the lead and to make the best decisions they can, and AI will never, even though it's going to continue to become even more and more powerful and capable, it will never replace the love, the intuition and that sense of responsibility that a parent carries for the child. So that is why you are the key. And I'm just so excited that Patty, aside from your books, you've now given a very powerful tool, advanced high tech tool that will definitely help parents get that information and put into action sooner. Thank you so much for the gift of your voice on the 300th episode, and just so wishing you a wonderful happy birthday. I know you're all you're already being surrounded with so much love. No, I'm honored.
Patricia Lemer 32:01
It's just it feels wonderful.
Len Arcuri 32:04
Your child needs you running on all cylinders now, and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one on one support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com
