Hyperfocus with Rae Jacobson

We’re dropping into your feed a week early to announce a new investigative podcast from Understood.org. It’s called Zero Reject: The Uncertain Future of Special Education. This is episode 1. If you like it, follow Zero Reject wherever you get your podcasts.

Beth Gellman-Beer spent her whole career fighting for kids with disabilities — first as a student written off as “lazy,” then as a federal civil rights attorney who found her dream job protecting students like her younger self. 

Then her entire office was eliminated.

Reporter Anya Kamenetz traces Beth’s journey from an unfair fourth-grade classroom to the front lines of a sweeping overhaul at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and what it means for the 25,000 families still waiting for a response to their complaints. With fewer people to enforce the law, what happens to the students the system was built to protect?

For more on this topic

• Listen: Zero Reject
• Read: What is HHS, and what does it have to do with special education? 
• Read: What is the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), and what’s its role in special education? 

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

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Podcaster PJ Vogt has talked about his ADHD for years. Casually. Almost cheerfully. Then things changed. He decided to go off his ADHD medication, and he found the neuropsych report from when he was 13. It didn’t say what he thought.

On this episode of Hyperfocus, PJ, who’s spent his entire career making some of the most popular podcasts around – like Reply All and Search Engine — talks about his journey to understand his own brain. And how when he reread that old assessment, he found something messier than the story he’d been telling himself. 

Host Rae Jacobson follows him through that reckoning and the big question: What happens when the label that shaped your identity turns out to be blurrier than you imagined?

They talk through the trade-offs he’s still sorting out now that he’s stopped taking medication, and the advice he’d give younger people with a brain like his.

For more on this topic

• Search Engine: Why’d I take speed for twenty years? - Part 1
• Search Engine:  Why’d I take speed for twenty years? (Part 2)
• Watch: The brain is the last frontier of privacy. And you’re the target | Hyperfocus

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How does ADHD collide with femininity and gender expression? This has been a big question on Rae’s mind. So recently, she sat down with her friend and colleague Cate Osborn for a chat on her podcast, Sorry I Missed This. We’re sharing that episode with you today.

Cate and Rae dig into what it felt like to watch other girls “get it.” The tidiness. The calm. The effortlessness. All things that executive dysfunction made feel out of reach. 

They talk about the pressure to be nurturing, organized, and endlessly available — and what happens when your brain doesn’t cooperate with any of it. And they look at the research on outcomes for women and girls with ADHD.

For more on this topic

• Watch: The “devastating” findings of a decades-long ADHD study
• Watch: Head, heart, hormones: Why women’s ADHD care should treat the whole person

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your smartwatch tracks your steps and your pulse. Soon, devices like it could track your brainwaves, and even tell if the wearer is neurodivergent.

Brain-monitoring wearables that purport to help with focus, sleep, and even ADHD are already being sold online. This is called “neurotechnology,” and it’s a fast-moving market with almost zero regulation. Stephen Damianos of the Neurorights Foundation joins us to unpack the potential promise — and dangers — of this emerging technology. We discuss the unique risks it poses for neurodivergent people, and why your brain data might be the most valuable, and least protected, information you own.

For more on this topic

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Many people with inattentive ADHD feel like something is missing from their diagnosis. That missing piece might be cognitive disengagement syndrome, or CDS: a cluster of symptoms including daydreaming, confusion, daytime sleepiness, and more.

CDS isn’t officially its own disorder. But scientists and clinicians are beginning to recognize it as something distinct from ADHD — though it often overlaps.

Pediatric psychologist Melissa Miller explains how CDS differs from ADHD, what it looks like, and why it’s linked to anxiety and depression. She also shares early research on treatment, plus the strengths that may come with it.

For more on this topic

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

ADHD can create all kinds of challenges in the workplace. Like a list of infinite things to do and to remember. A busy, ever-changing schedule. And co-workers who don’t always know what’s going on in your mind. 

There’s a lot to figure out. But recently, Rae Jacobson found herself wondering what it's like on the other side — to manage someone who’s neurodivergent and still figuring it out. 

So, Rae called her former boss, Caroline Miller, the editorial director of the Child Mind Institute. 

On this episode of Hyperfocus, Rae and Caroline go over this question and Caroline shares some advice on ADHD at work — for employees and managers alike. 

To get a transcript of this show and check out more episodes, visit the Hyperfocus podcast page at Understood.org

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at [email protected].

Note: This episode originally aired on November 7, 2024.

Related resources

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Fidget toys, like NeeDohs, are sold out and  banned in classrooms. Journalist Anna North joins us to unpack how fidget toys went from gag gifts to a generational obsession, and what that shift reveals about neurodivergence, attention, and play. Plus, fidget toys are not just for kids. We look at how they are destigmatizing fidgeting for neurodivergent adults. And we dig into the science behind fidgeting, the history of the fidget spinner, and whether this wave of acceptance for sensory needs will survive. 

For more on this topic:  

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Finding a therapist is hard. Finding one who actually understands ADHD? That’s a different problem entirely. Clinical psychologist Dr. Michelle Frank, who has ADHD herself, breaks down why people with ADHD struggle to stick with therapy. She looks at everything from the executive function demands of just getting there, to sensory issues, to the rejection sensitivity that makes you think “Does my therapist hate me?!” Plus: How to advocate for yourself in the room, even when your provider doesn’t specialize in ADHD.

For more on this topic

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last year, Hyperfocus took a field trip to San Diego for an ADHD conference called APSARD, which stands for the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (quite a mouthful).

A conference of ADHD professionals might not sound fascinating, but it was — and we learned a ton. But there was one person and one talk I really wanted to find: A keynote speech about how ADHD affects women’s bodies by Dr. Sandra Kooij. 

What Sandra is doing is something so sensible and radical: Looking at ADHD as a whole-body issue. Digging into how it can affect women’s hormones, our health, and especially our hearts. 

I find Sandra’s research fascinating and was thrilled when she agreed to sit down for a conversation with me. We didn’t waste any time and quickly set up a makeshift studio for this week’s episode of Hyperfocus. 

Also, a quick note on the audio this week: We had to record this episode outside the conference hotel, on a bustling patio full of ADHD professionals and some noisy birds. So, please forgive the extraneous sounds. 

Note: We originally published this episode on March 6, 2025.

Related resources

For a transcript of this episode and more resources, visit the Hyperfocus page on Understood.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you have ADHD, you’re probably exhausted — and there’s a real neurological reason for it. Sleep expert Marlee Boyle, co-founder of Sleep Works, joins us to explain why ADHD brains are wired against a good night’s rest. Plus how perimenopause can make it worse. She walks us through CBT-I techniques, the truth about melatonin, and some surprisingly low-tech tools that can fix your circadian rhythm. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, this one is for you.

For more on this topic

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected]

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Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/podcast-donate.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.