In my work as a Licensed Educational Psychologist, one question comes up more than almost any other. After parents share what their child is struggling with, such as difficulty focusing, staying organized, or managing big emotions, they often pause and ask, “Is this ADHD, anxiety, or both?” If you’ve ever found yourself puzzling over your child’s struggles with attention, organization, or emotional regulation, you’re not alone. When behaviors overlap, it can be hard to tell w

My favorite autism meme is a photo of a [video game] controller with a caption that reads, “Autism: Where life is a video game and you...

If you’ve ever traveled to a foreign country, you know how stressful it is to enter an unfamiliar environment. Everything is different: the customs, the language, the social norms, the mentality. You’re stressed and overwhelmed. The novelty makes your head spin. This anxiety is very familiar to me–not because I travel, but because I have autism. Social norms and cues that most people seem to grasp intuitively have never come naturally to me. I had to piece them together labor

As a 2e teenager, I was almost always anxious, but I didn’t always know  I was anxious. I felt my rapid heart rate, my thoughts racing, the fluttering in my stomach, the dizzy spells–but these perceptions never cohered into an overarching sense of emotion, and I couldn’t connect them to anything that was happening in my life. If you asked me how I felt, I probably would have just said, “Fine,” “Bad,” or simply “I don’t know.” This lack of emotional awareness wasn’t specific t

Lucy the writing tutor focuses on supporting 2e/neurodivergent students and her dog Do you have a question you’d like the column to...

One evening, I was sitting at home, in a rare moment of quiet before bed, and realized I'd been spending almost all my time, energy, and...

I am going to share some ways to support your child when they're being incredibly hard on themselves and speaking unkindly to themselves.

Dr. Kari Berquist will discuss the SPACE program, Dr. Bradley Siu will introduce DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), and Toni Ratzburg, LMFT, will share insights on integrative perspective therapy, , where therapists interweave different approaches based on the specific needs and personalities of the client.

Learn clear and useful strategies for addressing anxiety. Get advice to address high anxiety situations with your children. Hear strategies for self-regulation and co-regulation, which are so important in the parenting journey.

I have a secret to share. I often have anxious thoughts and feelings. I’m the mother of three awesome teenagers, all of whom are very...

Students who are twice-exceptional (2e) have tremendous intellectual gifts alongside a wide range of possible learning challenges — attention differences, slow processing speed, social immaturity, and/or weak executive function skills, just to name a few of the possibilities.