Neurodiversity Podcast

By Emily Kircher-Morris

Kids & Family

What's Neurodiversity Podcast about?

The Neurodiversity Podcast talks with leaders in the fields of psychology, education, and beyond, about positively impacting neurodivergent people. Our goal is to reframe differences that were once considered disabilities or disorders, promote awareness of this unique population, and improve the lives of neurodivergent and high-ability people.

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LAST EPISODE

Suicidal Ideation in Neurod...

09.28.2023

For many neurodivergent people, a world built for neuronormative people provides unique challenges, especially when mental health intersects with their identity. In this episode, Emily is joined by Dr. Jessica Revill, a psychologist and bereaved parent, whose autistic son Gregory ...

Neurodiversity Podcast episodes:

09.28.2023 Suicidal Ideation in Neurodivergent People For many neurodivergent people, a world built for neuronormative people provides unique challenges, especially when mental health intersects with their identity. In this episode, Emily is joined by Dr. Jessica Revill, a psychologist and bereaved parent, whose autistic son Gregory ...
09.21.2023 Interoception Is a Sense Few Understand Interoception plays a pivotal role in how all people perceive and engage with their bodies and the world around them. For neurodivergent people, the differences we experience in interoception can have a bigger effect than we might expect. How well ...
09.14.2023 Emotional Regulation: Finding Peace Among the Chaos Nurturing emotional regulation in neurodivergent kids can feel like a complex puzzle, yet it's vital for their wellbeing. Why is emotional regulation such a challenging problem for them? And how can the concept of co-regulation serve as a bridge to ...
09.07.2023 The Confluence of Neurodiversity and LGBTQ At the intersection of neurodivergence and LGBTQ identities, self-realization is both complex and personal. The stigmas are multifaceted, and navigating the intricate overlaps between autistic experiences and gender identity is challenging. How can we best support, recognize, and uplift neurodivergent ...
08.31.2023 Mixed-Neurotype Relationships What are some common issues that crop up in relationships between people of different neurotypes? Are neurodivergent people more drawn to each other than to neuro-normies? Is effective communication more challenging between neurodivergent couples? What about intimacy and affection challenges ...
08.24.2023 Learning How to Learn, Studying How to Study What does it take to be an effective learner, and how does a neurodivergent person’s experience differ from that of neurotypical people? Which study methods work better for our neurodivergent population? What role does confidence play in the learning process? ...
08.18.2023 Parenting Through the Chaos and Finding Peace Raising kids and teens who struggle with emotional regulation can be tough. Parents must navigate the complexities of societal pressures, and it can lower self-esteem and cause self-doubt. Today we talk about some essential strategies to establish a warm, connected ...
08.10.2023 Life With Synesthesia: Does This Color Smell Funny To You? With synesthesia, colors can evoke sounds, numbers can generate tastes, and the lines between senses can blur. It also occurs more often in some forms of neurodiversity. Some people have mild forms of synesthesia and don’t realize it. Emily talks ...
08.03.2023 When Procrastination Hijacks Your Executive Functioning Procrastination is something we all do, but it’s even more common among people with executive function challenges. Do they do it for the same reasons as neurotypical people? How can we help lessen the anxiety associated with task initiation? What ...
07.27.2023 It’s Not You, It’s ADHD Understanding ADHD is more than understanding its effects on learning or work. ADHD affects personal relationships and friendships too. How does ADHD impact the way we connect, communicate, and care for our loved ones? Alyssa Loman is a neurodivergent licensed ...
07.20.2023 Trauma-Informed Support for Adopted and Foster Children The intersection between neurodivergence, trauma, and adopted and foster families has a lot of overlap. There’s a difficulty supporting kids who don’t fit the status quo, either because of their unique wiring, or life experiences. Emily Kircher-Morris is joined by ...
07.13.2023 Ask Me Anything #5 with Emily Kircher-Morris What is the best kind of therapy for your child? What is DMDD? How can you support your child’s need for executive function skills? This is episode 181, and it’s another Ask Me Anything with Emily Kircher-Morris. To be part ...
07.07.2023 Understanding Behaviors and Emotional Regulation with Mona Delahooke What is top down behavior, and how does it differ from bottom up behavior? Why is emotional regulation more difficult for neurodivergent people? How impactful or traumatic can a misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis be? Dr. Mona Delahooke, author of the ...
06.29.2023 Working, Living, and Learning with ADHD What is the impact of being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, after having invested years struggling with neurotypical strategies? What are areas of ADHD that are under-recognized or misunderstood? Why are common strategies for building executive function and coping ...
06.22.2023 Comfort Zone Ahead, Construction in Progress We all know that uncomfortable feeling when we are around someone who is pushing us beyond our comfort zone. How can we understand where our own boundaries are, and effectively communicate those boundaries to others? Casey Jourdan works with neurodivergent ...
06.15.2023 Controlling and Harnessing Anxiety Neurodivergence often comes with a side of anxiety. Is it possible to harness anxiety as a strength? Can we find ways to work with our anxiety, instead of against it? Today we talk with Morra Aarons-Mele, the host of The ...
06.08.2023 ODD - Oppositional? Defiant? Or Just Misunderstood? One of the more misunderstood diagnoses in the world of neurodiversity is ODD, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder. We talk with Amelia Bowler, a behavior consultant and author of the book, The Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder, about the diagnosis, ...
06.01.2023 Reducing Anxiety Through Mindfulness Mindfulness is definitely a buzzword today, but what’s the reality of mindfulness and how can it help neurodivergent people? What are some usable techniques for kids? How does mindfulness reduce anxiety? Has the growing trend towards mindfulness caused a skeptical ...
05.25.2023 Authenticity, Unmasking, and Zest Living an authentic life is a goal we all have. In the neurodiversity world, that can be a tricky concept. Masking has often become a habit born of self-preservation, and letting go of that can be difficult, and sometimes unsafe. ...
05.19.2023 Beating Gifted Kid Burnout Burnout is something everyone occasionally deals with, but it manifests very differently in the world of neurodiversity. Today we talk about the burnout experienced by twice-exceptional and gifted kids. Emily Kircher-Morris talks with Brian Housand and Andi McNair, and it’s ...
05.11.2023 Technology, Gaming, Social Media, and Your Child There’s a pressure on parents to allow more technology into the lives of their kids. Gaming and social media have positive and negative aspects, and neurodivergent kids often have a unique relationship to technology. Emily Kircher-Morris talks about it with ...
05.04.2023 The Misunderstanding About Motivation Are kids really unmotivated, or are you just misinterpreting the signs? Dr. Ellen Braaten talks with Emily Kircher-Morris about the importance of understanding signs of a lack of motivation in neurodivergent children. They delve into the connection between motivation and ...
04.27.2023 Can We Stop Pathologizing Kids Now? Is the neurodiversity movement a social justice issue? How can we convince the world that differences aren’t deficits? Many of our widely-held beliefs are grounded in fairly obvious ableism. Dr. Bibi Pirayesh is a learning specialist and educational therapist, and ...
04.20.2023 PDA, Autism, and Parenting for Peace As Autism Acceptance Month continues, we present a visit with Casey Ehrlich. Casey talks with Emily Kircher-Morris about the relationship between autism and PDA, and about her experience raising her PDA autistic son. She has a different approach that works ...
04.13.2023 Life as an Autistic Middle-Grade Fiction Author Selah is an autistic 7th grader at a private school, and is navigating all of the expectations and social relationships of being neurodivergent. She’s the main character in a middle-grade fiction book called Good Different, by Meg Eden Kuyatt, and ...
04.10.2023 Ask Me Anything #4 with Emily Kircher-Morris Are there neurodiversity training and certification programs for medical practitioners? How can we help our kids deal with existential dread? Is there still no connection between taking Tylenol during pregnancy and autism? Plus many other questions, asked and answered, on ...
04.06.2023 Newly Diagnosed at Age Forty-Something It’s common today for people to be diagnosed as neurodivergent as an adult, having survived childhood without the recognition or support that may have come along with a diagnosis. Our guest lived that experience. Carolyn Kiel is the host of ...
03.30.2023 The World is (almost) Ready For Neurodiversity During Autism Acceptance Month, we’re reminding anyone who will listen that acting differently, speaking differently, or following different social rules, doesn’t make someone less human or deserving of respect. Dr. Barry Prizant is the author of Uniquely Human, and joins ...
03.23.2023 The Quintessential Book on Parenting Gifted Kids Many consider “A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children: A Resource for Caregivers and Advocates” to be the most comprehensive and important handbook on the subject of giftedness ever published. However, it was originally released in 2007, and since then, updated ...
03.16.2023 Preparing for a More Independent College Experience We welcome Elizabeth Hamblet, the author of Seven Steps for College Success: A Pathway for Students with Disabilities, to talk about how parents can prepare their neurodivergent kids for college. We talk about when to begin preparing, and how to ...
03.09.2023 Multipotentiality: When There’s More Than One Right Answer While career changes are possible later in life, our first choice defines much of our career so it’s important to make careful decisions. But when multipotentiality comes into play, there could be many solid options. Throw in something like perfectionism, ...
03.02.2023 What To Do When Kids Worry (encore) Parents often struggle with helping their children manage anxiety. Dr. Eli Lebowitz of Yale University joins us to talk about his research and work with children and their parents on managing anxiety and OCD. He’s also developed a program to ...
02.23.2023 Getting Verbal About Non-Verbal Intelligence Intelligence is divided into several categories, and today we’re talking about non-verbal intelligence. It’s often harder to recognize, so it can be a struggle for people with higher non-verbal intelligence to show their abilities. What are the signs of high ...
02.16.2023 Autistic Girls Are Going Undiagnosed or Misdiagnosed Often, autistic girls are called shy, introverted, perfectionistic, confused, anything BUT autistic. There is a pervasive impression, even in the medical community, that autism occurs in boys vastly more often than girls. The result is, autistic girls are missing out ...
02.09.2023 Surviving in a Digital World The technology world is changing quickly. For confirmation, look no further than ChatGPT. Parents, teachers, and mental health professionals are rushing to determine where to draw new lines, and which lines to erase, so that kids are able to safely ...
02.03.2023 When Neurodiversity Meets Existentialism (encore) We’re still in a years-long pandemic. Humanity feels like it’s crumbling. How do we deal with the inevitable feelings of existentialism? It’s common for neurodivergent people to experience it more intensely, and at an earlier age. They question life, worry ...
01.27.2023 How Much Does Biology Influence Behavior? What more do parents need to understand about their neurodivergent kids in order to reach that “aha” moment? Does it ever even really arrive? Penny Williams, author of Boy Without Instructions, host of the Beautifully Complex Podcast, and co-founder of ...
01.19.2023 Declarative Language: A New Strategy for Neurodivergent Communication Often, neurodivergent people have a completely different communication experience than neurotypicals. They respond differently to regulation, attention, and motivation, and often parents struggle when trying to improve connections with their kids. Linda Murphy is the author of The Declarative Language ...
01.12.2023 Counseling In a Neurodiversity-Affirming World What does it take to make a counseling practice neurodiversity-affirming? What do we need for the wider mental health community to understand or embrace in order to better support neurodivergent people? Dr. Andy Kahn from Understood.org is here to talk ...
01.10.2023 Ask Me Anything #3 with Emily Kircher-Morris Destigmatizing labels. Teaching mental health professionals to be neurodiversity-affirming. Reasonable expectations of your kids, and when is it enough? Plus many other questions, asked and answered, on our third Ask Me Anything. Emily Kircher-Morris dishes it out on episode 153! ...
01.05.2023 Discovering Dyscalculia Dyscalculia. What is it? Why haven’t we heard more about it? What is its relationship with dyslexia? On the first episode of 2023, Emily Kircher-Morris sits down with Laura M. Jackson, author of Discovering Dyscalculia, and they talk about Laura’s ...
12.29.2022 The Stealth Nature of Dyslexia (encore) We’re revisiting a conversation this week with Dr. Dan Peters. Dyslexia is often misunderstood, and educators and parents sometimes mistake it for a simple reading deficit. Dan joins Emily Kircher-Morris to talk about dyslexia, as well as dysgraphia, and dyscalculia; ...
12.15.2022 Talking to Your Children Talking to kids can be uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be. The basis of every conversation is trust, so once you build a comfortable and trusting rapport, healthy conversations will follow. But what is a healthy conversation? Today, Rebecca ...
12.01.2022 The Power of Positivity and Unique Thinking On episode 149 we continue moving the world toward a more positive view of neurodivergence and its impact on society. We also talk about reimagining established thought processes, and using the plasticity of the brain to move toward compassion for ...
11.23.2022 Processing Speed: Why Some Kids Are Faster Than Others Dr. Ellen Braaten joins Emily to discuss processing speed and why it’s important. They also talk about when it’s not so important, and why it varies so much from child to child. They discuss the impact it has on intelligence ...
11.17.2022 Does Personality Impact Neurodiversity? Today we talk with Dr. Alex Vuyk, a Professor of Psychology at the Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Paraguay. We discuss the Big Five Personality Model, the influence of personality on neurodiversity, and much more. Also, join ...
11.10.2022 Occupational Therapy for Neurodivergent Kids Occupational therapy. What you think it is, and what it actually is, might be completely different. Keri Wilmot joins Emily Kircher-Morris for a conversation about how occupational therapy can and does help neurodivergent kids and adults, and as the Toy ...
11.03.2022 Books For “Kids on the Fringes” There’s no doubt you remember a book from your childhood that changed your life, or at least had a profound effect on you. On episode 145 we talk with Jamie Sumner, who writes middle grade novels that feature kids on ...
10.27.2022 Adult Diagnosis ADHD Being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult brings many questions to mind: What did I miss? What would my life be like if I had been diagnosed as a child? How can I adapt to the new diagnosis, or should ...
10.20.2022 Girls and ADHD Generalizations about ADHD haven’t done girls any favors. ADHD often manifests very differently in girls than in boys. What causes parents, educators, and even doctors, to view the symptoms of ADHD differently with girls? We know that masking, and even ...

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