How to support parents of children with autism | Quentin Mezetin

0:00You have the vision for your business. You have the plan. And you just got handed a huge opportunity. But is your business connectivity reliable enough to make a move? Spectrum Business delivers fast, reliable internet, phone, TV, and mobile services. So you're always connected when it matters most. Get connectivity packages built for your business with savings that keep your budget in check. And with fast, reliable internet and 100 % U.S.-based customer support, you'll stay connected and ready to bring your vision to life. Learn more at spectrum.com slash business. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

0:36This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

1:08This episode is sponsored by Kohler Smart Toilets. The objects we interact with most are often the ones we notice least. Kohler Smart Toilet challenges that assumption. What if the most overlooked space in your home could become the most considered? Their Veil Smart Toilet is a sculptural silhouette that isn't just intentional, it's a philosophy. That design changes everything. The Kohler Veil Smart Toilet is sleek, with a rounded shape that's more like architecture than just plumbing. And it goes beyond looks. The touchscreen controls and customizable cleansing features offer a level of comfort and cleanliness that exceed expectations.

1:44It's all about elevating those ordinary daily rituals into something extraordinary through thoughtful design. Kohler has been pushing these boundaries for over 150 years, mastering that balance of stunning form and high-performance function. That's a long time to get it right, and it shows in every detail. Experience the difference of Kohler Smart Toilets. Find out more at Kohler.com. This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. I'm a board-certified practicing internal medicine physician. Sensational, attention-grabbing health claims are nearly as old as humanity itself.

2:25And throughout history, including today, these claims say a lot about how we handle uncertainty. Health is much more than what happens in a lab or a clinic. It's often extremely emotional. When we see reports talking about potential miracle cures or medical mistakes, it's less about weighing evidence than it is about navigating responsibility. or guilt, and that very human fear of getting it wrong. And our deep, deep desire for answers can often overlook logic, rationality, and the actual science. And it brings me back to the same question. When a headline warns us about risk, what does that actually mean?

3:06What alleged dangers is it measuring? What apparent remedy is it promoting? And what does the bigger picture look like once you move past that first wave of alarm. And this brings me to my what caught my attention segment this week. The topic of autism has been especially visible recently, thanks to a health claim made last fall that got a lot of media attention. In September 2025, President Trump held a press conference in which he repeatedly told pregnant women not to take Tylenol, claiming medication was linked to autism in children. Messages like this one traveled fast. Pregnancy already comes with a quiet hum of worry, and a headline suggesting that a common pain reliever might impact your child can feel like an alarm.

3:55What makes this conversation even more important is that words from public officials can quickly change behavior. In fact, an analysis of national health record data found that after the briefing, acetaminophen use among pregnant patients in the emergency department dropped by about 10 percent, almost immediately. After this claim was reported, researchers in Europe undertook a large scientific review in The Lancet, which was published in March 2026. Their work examined the impacts of taking Tylenol during pregnancy, and whether it can be linked to autism or other developmental differences in kids.

4:31For reference, in a review like this, researchers are not collecting brand new data. Instead, they systematically gather results from many earlier studies and then evaluate the whole body of evidence to see what patterns actually hold up. In this case, the authors analyzed more than 40 studies and applied stricter methods to separate correlation from causation. They also stepped back and added some nuance to the central question by accounting for environmental factors that can blur the picture. So instead of simply comparing children whose mothers took Tylenol while pregnant to children whose mothers did not, they looked more closely at families.

5:09In several of the strongest studies, they compared siblings. Same parent, same home, same general environment. In one pregnancy, the mother used acetaminophen. In another, she did not. When researchers accounted for those shared family factors, they found that the supposed link between Tylenol and autism largely faded away. That does not make for the same dramatic headline, but it does make for a more accurate one. The newfound attention to this topic is related to earlier studies that found associations between acetaminophen and autism. But association is not the same as cause. If you only look at the surface, you might notice that people wearing hiking boots often have muddy shoes.

5:54That doesn't mean that the boots created the mud, or that the boots are always muddy. It just means you're observing people in the middle of a hike. In this case, the newer analysis suggests that earlier research may have been picking up something else. Not the effect of the medication itself, but perhaps the broader context in which it was used. So yes, there are still questions left to be asked and explored. But what I find most interesting about this new review is that it doesn't close the book on the issue. Science rarely works that way. There are still open questions about dose and timing and long-term follow-up.

6:30But the best available evidence right now does not support the claim of a large causal link between typical Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism in children. None of this means medication in pregnancy should be taken casually. The general advice remains steady. Use the lowest effective dose for the shortest necessary time and talk with your clinician about ongoing symptoms. But it does mean that we should be careful about jumping from uncertainty to alarm. For example, fever during pregnancy is not harmless. It has been linked to real complications. And for many situations, Tylenol remains the safest available option.

7:10So if researchers see a health outcome later in a child whose mother took Tylenol during pregnancy, they have to ask a difficult question. Are they seeing the effect of the medicine? Or are they seeing the effect of the fever, infection, or pain that led someone to take the medication in the first place? Those aren't always easy things to separate. And as I mentioned earlier, nuance matters. And there's also another piece of this conversation that deserves care. When public figures frame autism primarily as something to be feared or prevented at all costs, it can unintentionally send a message about how we see autistic individuals in our communities.

7:50Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference. It shapes how someone experiences communication, sensory input, and social interaction. It can come with challenges. It can also come with strengths. It is part of the fabric of our society. And good science helps us separate evidence from assumption. Ideally, it reduces panic rather than amplifying it. And that shift matters. Because once we quiet the noise around a misleading narrative, we can redirect our attention to what truly helps families. In the case of autism, that looks like early identification, supportive therapies, inclusive schools, and a deeper understanding of neurodiversity.

8:32Which brings us to today's TEDx talk. Behind every statistic is a family trying to make sense of their own child's world and their own. Autism and ableism advocate Quentin Mezzotin's sons were diagnosed with autism at a young age. In his talk, he shares what it was like to move from denial and fear to advocacy and connection in the months and years that followed. If this week's research reminds us to be careful with the stories we tell about risk, Quentin's talk reminds us to be thoughtful about the stories we tell about people. Here's Quentin Mezzettin on the TEDx stage.

9:09Quentin Mezetin: Why me? Seriously, why me? 19 years old, my high school girlfriend tells me that she's pregnant. And that year we have our first daughter, Brianna. Everybody's giving up on me at this point. I'm a statistic. I failed. But I proved them wrong, because next year we had our second child. Bianca, another daughter. Yay. And okay, so now we're adulting. We're moving a little, we're getting careers, we're looking at our life and saying, okay, this is not as hard as it seemed. Girls are smarter faster. That's a fact. But to prove that fact, at 23 years old, I had my third child, Quentin Jr. Now we're kids, and now we're raising kids.

10:06Quentin Mezetin: However, our kids are raising us as well. They're teaching us patience. They're teaching us discipline, boundaries. things that we didn't have time to learn on our own. And for some reason, whatever we were doing was working. These kids were on the honor roll all through elementary school. My youngest son, Quentin Jr., was valedictorian of his class. He didn't get that from mommy and daddy. Nothing. But we were so proud and we were so happy. and over the years they just grew and just made us so much more proud of them and all their accomplishments, the things that they could learn and do, the possibilities were endless.

10:49Quentin Mezetin: And then my wife had that little baby fever again. So at age 30 I have my fourth child, Quintus. And then right before we could even think about what's going on, we have our fifth child, Quinn. Now, what you see there is a beautiful family. You see love, you see empathy, you see patience, you see boundaries. What you don't see is that we are suffering in quiet desperation. Every day when I go to work, I get a call from my wife telling me something's up with Quintus. He's not trying to use the bathroom. Okay, that's normal. He's just taking his time. Maybe he's scared of the toilet. Quinn isn't responding to his name.

11:47Quentin Mezetin: These were things that they used to do, and now they're not doing. I'm getting texts from my kids. Dad, Quinn broke my toy. Quintus is having a tantrum because he wants to watch Trolls for the 10th time today. Hey, my wife is getting really sad because Quintus stopped eating her food. From eating hard foods, he started only eating puree food, yogurt, pudding, applesauce. Quintus ate everything, but unfortunately, everything meant soap, lotion, toothpaste, and what turned into even pieces of glass. I went to the doctor with my concerns. Doctor, can something be wrong with my sons? And the doctor reassured me.

12:37It's okay, nothing's wrong, they're just a little delayed, but they'll be okay.

12:41Quentin Mezetin: Come back in six months. This is my family doctor, I've been going to him for all my children. He knows best. Okay, cool. Now, one day we're cleaning up, and Quinn sees a cup of bleach and decides to drink it, thinking it's water. When he started to drink that water, I rushed to him, and before I even got to Quinn, he starts throwing up like a zombie movie. I take him, and I rush into the ER. The doctors do all these tests. Quinn's going to be okay because bleach was so watered down that the vomiting really just got rid of everything. But that doctor there started examining Quinn. What's your name?

13:29Quentin Mezetin: No response from Quinn, just a blank stare. He's three years old. He's still in the diaper. The doctor starts asking me questions, and I reassure him, hey, my doctor said there's nothing wrong. Now, after a while, this doctor assumes that my child has autism. I didn't take that lightly. There's nothing wrong with my kid. Like, he's a little behind, but he does not have autism. I've seen kids when I was growing up in school. He's not that. He just needs some time. That same week, I found a daycare for Quintus. And they told me after his first day of daycare that they think he's on the spectrum.

14:18Quentin Mezetin: The first day, why is a four-year-old in diapers? Why is he not talking? Why doesn't he eat? I got upset again, and I took him out of that school. I will not let people disrespect my children, putting this limitation on them. I know what people go through, I've seen it, and I don't even know what autism really is.

14:40Quentin Mezetin: This made me start to really wonder, what if somebody's right? I took my kids to a doctor outside of my neighborhood, one I'd never been to, a neurologist. and within five minutes he asked me a couple questions he looked at my sons and he told me that my sons have autism time stood still for me not because of the diagnosis but because I was worried about the world that I was about to be going into the uncertainties I knew the world that my three kids were thinking about. We're talking about where they're going to go to school, get married, work. And now I'm thinking about, are these kids, my sons, ever going to talk?

15:32Quentin Mezetin: Are they going to ever be independent, eat, dress themselves?

15:39Quentin Mezetin: Now, this is a heavy load for me to carry. But this story is not about my weight. I want to make sure you guys know about your weight. Sometimes we all have a world on our shoulders. It might be our health, our majors, our careers. And today, I just want to let you know that to ease that weight on yourself, we can lift and carry this weight together. After Quintus and Quinn got diagnosed, my whole life changed. Picture Atlas holding up this beautiful world. Think of hopes, dreams, triumphs, and struggles. Now, think of Atlas as a parent. Yes, good old parents. Same world, but that's your child's world that you're holding up.

16:42Quentin Mezetin: It's a little heavier. Yes. But now, when I think about my sons, I'm not just holding up the same world. Because there's this thing called ableism. Ableism is the discrimination against people with special needs or disabilities as being less than. So now Atlas turns to that guy, overbearing a load that he doesn't know the mysteries and the darkness that comes with it. I started to do research. Once I accepted the diagnosis, I needed to know more about autism. What is autism? A lifelong cognitive delay. All I saw was lifelong. So this is something that people experience forever. Okay, took me a long time, but I had to accept that.

17:37Quentin Mezetin: But now, ableism. How does ableism show up? Ableism shows up when I'm at the grocery store and my son is having a meltdown, the stares that I get. The assumptions that parents get when they see other people with children in the stores running around or having an episode, and they think that the parent is either not disciplining them enough or just not setting the right boundaries. The world doesn't know the reality that parents have with their children. One in 36 children are diagnosed with autism. Since the year 2000, it was one in 150, and now it's one in 36. That's over 300 % increase in 20 years.

18:32Quentin Mezetin: I don't know about you, but I could use that in my crypto wallet right now. When I saw these statistics, I went back to my doctor. And I said, how could you do this? You could have known. He said, there's nothing wrong. You need to just keep following me. Everything you're looking up is all just nonsense. Okay. I left that doctor. and I started joining autism groups and looking into other solutions that parents were finding. These groups were amazing. I noticed four things. One, I'm not alone. Out of all these children diagnosed, there are families out there just like me, suffering in silence, but we started to show up in community groups and meetings.

19:14Quentin Mezetin: And when I got there, I noticed that, one, I'm not alone, and two, parents of children with special needs have a fight that I've never seen. If you touch one of our kids, you're touching all of our kids, and we're coming after you. That could be on social media, that could be in person, we're fighting. I've looked to fight people in other states when I saw what was happening to their children, because I could see my child in them. Next, I saw the fear that we all had. And it wasn't the fear of the diagnosis, it was the shared fear of what the world is going to do to our children. There's a post that goes viral online that parents of children with autism want their kids to die before them so they don't have to worry about them in this world.

20:00Quentin Mezetin: I never thought about it like that, but I understand where that comes from. And then fourth was the accepting of the limitations that the world already put on our children. I resonated with the first three, but I couldn't accept the accepting the limitations. I didn't come this far as a teenage father, raising up three kids and now five kids to just accept the limitations that easy. So I started doing research. I actually, if anybody knows this, I look for a sense of me. I wanted something that could take my kids from just not knowing to just knowing. Just somebody help me get my kids to talk, get them to use the bathroom, get them to just be independent.

20:47Quentin Mezetin: so I don't have to worry about them when they get older. I found behaviorless. I found so many innovative strategies from different parents all over the world, moms and dads finding different solutions and different studies, that things started to help. My sons started to use the bathroom. They started their therapies with joy. My son, Quinn, who was not responding to his name, knows his name. Not only does he know it, he knows how it's spelt and he can read. My sons have defied the odds in many ways that I was told I would never, ever get to. And these were by teachers and professionals. Now, my success is not as normal as some people would say because I started to do things a lot.

21:45Quentin Mezetin: I'm not an autism expert, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a therapist. I'm just a dad. And because I'm a dad, I actually started my own group, I Am Dad, which is I am defining autism differently, and I am defeating ableism daily. Because I just wanted to be a voice to all the other parents suffering in silence to know that they could have a place to come to just to not suffer alone, and let's see how we can carry this weight together. How do we unintentionally contribute to the weight of parents of children with autism? It could be on how we define what's normal, or how we set up events, how we don't remember to include accessible ways for people with disabilities to attend.

22:38Quentin Mezetin: We all have a role to play. There was a speech therapist, Dr. Erica, who saw something in my sons. And she did not give up on my sons when they couldn't speak because she believed that they could speak. And years later, they started speaking uncontrollably. Her small act of kindness helped my confidence, my faith, but it helped build so much confidence in my own sons. What can we do as a society? What if we stopped looking at autism as an individual problem and started looking at it as a shared responsibility? How much better would life be for parents like me, but for families like mine? This is my family now.

23:33Quentin Mezetin: We're not suffering as much as we were. Quintess and Quinn are thriving, and they're getting the support from not just us, but the community that we've looked into, that we've joined. And this picture is interesting because, you know what we like doing, right? Having babies. We found out that my wife is pregnant. And the first thing that came to mind from a friend was, are you worried that your child would have autism? Many families who have children who have autism don't have more kids because of that fear. We were worried, but we thought about all the possibilities, all the people that we become, the patience, the love, the empathy, who we became as parents now.

24:15Quentin Mezetin: And we welcomed our daughter, Brielle. I got three boys, three girls. Yay.

24:24Quentin Mezetin: So this became a moment where I realized that we're more than just our family. We're speaking for all families. Now, here today, what can we do to make the world just accept the shared responsibility for families like mine? My vision isn't that we're going to create the world overnight that was built for my family. However, by every step that we take, that we understand and choose to learn that these parents are in our society, it doesn't just help parents and families like mine, it helps build our entire society. And when we carry together, we thrive together. Thank you.

25:24That was Quentin Mezzotin at TEDxTAMU in 2025. And that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. TED Health is a podcast from TED. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Send me a message on Instagram at ShoshanaMD. This episode was produced by me, Shoshana Ungerleiter, and Jess Shane. Edited by Alejandra Salazar and fact-checked by Vanessa Garcia-Woodworth. Special thanks to Maria Lagis, Farah Degrange, Daniela Balarezo, Constanza Gallardo, Tansika Sangmarniwang, and Roxanne Hylash.

26:22It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.