Skinner Psychological Services, PLLC

07/29/2025

Great opportunity - parents are often shocked to learn the ins and outs of legal parameters governing CSE meetings and IEP development!

07/08/2025

05/25/2025

One of the most common questions I get from parents is whether and how to explain diagnosis to a child. (The answer is yes, and this guide outlines the approach beautifully!)

07/25/2024

So common but widely misunderstood - excellent overview of Autistic Burnout

01/14/2024

This approach really captures what our neurodiverse kids need in order to thrive at school - beautiful resource!

12/08/2023

11/12/2023

Pathway we see all too often - we need to work together to do better for our neurodivergent kids at school.

This is an image from my new non-compliance-based school approach (coming soon).

This pic definitely won’t reflect everyone’s journey through school.

But I know it will be familiar to many of us.
Too many of us.

School can be so harmful.
I’m ready to change it.

Edited to add: I'll change bit that says 'school refusal' to 'school can't'. School refusal is misleading. School can't is accurate.

Em

11/11/2023

Conversation about diagnosis, explained from balanced recognition of both difficulties and STRENGTHS, enables neurodivergent children (and adults!) to embrace differences - which can be central to avoiding secondary mental health symptoms. Such an important message.

10/03/2023

I see these wonderful strengths in ADHD every day.

So often, , & other neurodivergencies are presented through a strictly deficits-based lens. This "ADHD Strengths Iceberg" highlights some of the different strengths that ADHDers might possess. Not all of these traits will apply to everyone - which ones resonate with you?

Image credit: Jesse J Anderson ( Instagram & Twitter)

09/25/2023

I'm going through and updating old infographics. This was one of the first I created. ⁠For links to all the research studies, check out the blog post with this infographic, which links to the studies. ⁠
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When people say you can't be neurodivergent-affirming without being LGBTQIA+ affirming, here is why ⬇️⁠
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💚Autistic people are more likely to identify as LGBTQIA+ than the general population (Sarris, 2020). ⁠
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❤️ While 4.5% of the general population identifies as LGB (Gallup poll), a rate of 15-35% within the Autistic community identify as LGB (Sarris, 2020) (*study didn't specify regarding pansexual). ⁠
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💙Autists are 2-3 times more likely to be LGB than the general population (Dr. Eileen Crehan quoted in Sarris 2020). ⁠
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🩵 Autistic people are more likely to be asexual and/or aromantic (Attanasio et al., 2021; George and Stokes, 2018)⁠
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💛 In a study involving approximately 630 individuals, 69.7% of Autistic individuals reported being "non-heterosexual," while only 30% of the TD group identified as being non-heterosexual (George and Stokes, 2018). ⁠
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💜 One study among Autistic children found they were 7.59 x more likely to be genderqueer, and Trans people are 3-6 times more likely to be Autistic (not this is among diagnosed Autistic people, so this number is likely much higher). (Warrier et al., 2021.)⁠
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For links to research studies, you can find the roundup here: https://neurodivergentinsights.com/autism-infographics/autism-and-sexual-diversity

09/20/2023

Wonderful synthesis of two often-under-recognized profiles (that also frequently co-occur)!

There is a lot of chatter these days about HSP = Autism, so I wanted to diagram it out.

TL/DR HSP often = Autism, but not always.

Diagram is not mutually exclusive, an Autistic person could be HSP or share traits or vice versa.
Gray: Distinctive traits of HSP
Blue: Distinctive Autistic traits
Pink: Overlap

'Highly sensitive person' (HSP) & 'highly sensitive child' were introduced by Dr. Elaine Aron in the late 1990s. HSP is an umbrella term describing a heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli, emotions, & sensory experiences. While widely known, it's not a medical condition; it's used in personality psychology, not as a diagnosis.⁠

The term has unfortunately often led to the misdiagnosis of Autistic people, making it a controversial term.

⁠I used to be among those who were 100% skeptical of this term, viewing it as a mere repackaging of Autistic traits...But, as I've learned more, I don't think it's as clear-cut as I used to think. Do a lot of Autistic traits get repackaged as HSP? Absolutely. Is that problematic-yes. But, I've met plenty of people for whom the HSP term definitely fits, but they aren't Autistic.

Complicating matters...I'm also seeing the opposite happen, where Autistic people are assuming HSP traits are core to Autism when it's not a defining trait, unfortunately this discounts the experience of Autistic people who aren't highly sensitive.
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For example, one Autistic person may have "hyper-empathy" while another may have hypo-empathy (Elon Musk, for example--but he falsely attributes hypo-empathy to Autism, which is also false, but that's for another post). ⁠
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An Autistic person may have a deep aesthetic appreciation or perhaps be more grounded in concrete facts. So while these experiences often overlap, a person doesn't need to be highly sensitive to be Autistic.
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For more on the overlap of neurodivergence and HSP children, check out the full blog post linked in bio.

https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/highly-sensitive-child-or-neurodivergent

09/09/2023

Too many kids slip through the cracks due just because they do not exhibit disruptive behaviors at school. Let’s equip ourselves to support kids who are struggling, whether on the outside or inside.