Chris welcomes Dr. Ingrid Boveda, Founder of The Hive Psychological Services and co-owner of Cogenuity. As a testing psychologist, Dr. Boveda works with neurodivergent children, adolescents, and adults across the country. Through her work with Cogenuity, she partners with schools and treatment programs nationwide to offer low-cost brain mapping and neurofeedback services. In this episode, Chris and Dr. Boveda discuss the power of self-awareness and self-advocacy—two traits often lost in the push to conform to neurotypical expectations. They explore how behaviors frequently seen as “problems,” like rigidity or hyper-focus, can actually be incredible strengths when embraced and understood in context. This conversation is full of compassion, perspective, and practical wisdom on how to truly support autistic individuals—not by changing who they are, but by helping them thrive as they are.

Links:
Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/
Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com
The Hive Psychological Services: https://hivepsychological.com/
Cogenuity: https://cogenuity.net/

Quotes:

[21:00-21:28] Dr. Ingrid Boveda: “It's not how close to normal when I think about it. It's not how close to normal or neurotypical that person can become. Because again, there are certain benefits to being able to mask when needed, right? So it's not all bad. But if therapy or treatment or coaching, whatever modality. Like if the goal is let's make them indistinguishable from a neurotypical person, you've just done them a great disservice.”

[28:39-29:07] Dr. Ingrid Boveda: “I tell people sometimes, we’ve got to hack your brain. And take the things that you have been told are the sum of your weaknesses and we have to realize how we can use them as strengths. But then also, you know, thinking about, you know, when we talk about weaknesses or struggles or a disability, right? Like, how much of that is based on the standards of society versus how much is a genuine, you know, disability or genuine struggle, right?”

[30:32-31:15] Dr. Ingrid Boveda: “I want to help as many people as I can and I recognize that as helping professionals, we're looked to as the decision makers or the experts or whatever. And I just, I don't know about any of labels but but what I do know is that you know these are these are people's lives and and I certainly know what it's like to to be misunderstood or to have my behaviors or what I say or do you know be misconstrued usually for the you know for the negative and and I just I want to help in understanding what this really is beyond what society has told us it is.”

Chris welcomes Lauren Franklin, a 15-year veteran teacher. Lauren has taught Resource Special Education in middle and elementary schools and is currently teaching a self-contained classroom to students with disabilities ranging from Autism to Down Syndrome to Cerebral Palsy. Together, Lauren and Chris discuss classrooms, including accommodations, special education classrooms, IEPs, 504s, and more. If you’re just beginning to navigate school with your ASD child or you’re halfway through and wondering what support is available to you, make sure you save this one.

Quotes:
[2:22 - 3:14] Lauren: Some students with Autism have these sensory challenges. On an IEP, accommodations could be lowering the lighting, providing noise-cancelling headphones, frequent breaks built throughout the day…Autism challenges with behaviors, we accommodate a lot with like, a token reward system where a student meets 5 prompts and then immediately is given praise or that tangible reward or a break that they prefer. Work is highly modified, assignments are shortened, the curriculum can also be completely modified and completely different. Some students may need a different math curriculum while others can still work from the gen ed curriculum with the modifications made.

[3:32 - 4:26] Lauren: So, an IEP is an Individualized Education Plan. So, when you have a student that is diagnosed with a disability, there’s testing that goes on and eligibility is determined in a certain area, and that IEP is then written by a team; teacher, special education teacher, sometimes a process coordinator or someone who represents the district, and then your related services like OT and PT, speech and language - so, all these people come together at the table and they discuss the students present levels of how they’re functioning currently and then they develop goals based on what the evaluations kind of, the data from the evaluations, based on teacher and team recommendations as well - so the IEP is very goal driven and extremely data-driven.

[18:43 - 19:30] Lauren: I think teachers are really special people. At the end of the day, teachers want nothing but student success. Some of us get a bad reputation but ultimately, everything we do and every decision we make is for students and what’s in their best interest. And what I think is helpful is if parents can assume positive intent and make the relationship with their child’s case manager, special education teacher, gen ed teacher, whoever it may be - assume positive intent and really work to strengthen that relationship because when we can work together in support of one another, that is the most beneficial for students.

Chris welcomes Dr. Eric Beaudoin. Dr. Beaudoin is a licensed psychologist, the Executive Director at Cornerstones of Maine, and co-founuder of Rubedo Young Adult Transitions. With over 10 years of experience working with neurodivergent young adults, Dr. Beaudoin shares how his program, Rubedo, is truly meeting ASD individuals where they’re at. Through a self-proclaimed “kitchen sink " approach, there are opportunities aplenty for their clients, but that doesn’t mean it's one-size fits all; as Chris and Dr. Beaudoin explain, every individual is unique and requires a tailored approach, something Rubedo’s team is happy to provide. Full of hope, this conversation is brimming with insight on how best to serve those we love in the neurodivergent space.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

Cornerstones of Maine Website: https://cornerstonesofmaine.com/young-adult-treatment-team

Rubedo: Neurodivergent-Affirming Transitional Living: https://cornerstonesofmaine.com/neurodivergent-living-asd-autism

Quotes:

[16:35 - 7:04] Dr. Beaudoin: I empathize with the plight that we as parents have - there’s a dialectic, I suppose, between protecting our children from all of the expected failures and perceived failures and tragedies of their life experience, and giving them the balance of the opportunity of healthy risk-taking and allowing them to do dangerous things carefully - is easier said than done, so yeah, it’s a, such an integral part of learning is doing and failing upward, as they say.

[8:10 - 9:03] Dr. Beaudoin: I think what we are trying to do is, we are trying not to treat Autism, definitively. We are trying to treat depression that is subsequent through the struggles that Autistic people will have, we’re trying to treat anxiety, we’re trying to treat trauma, OCD, and any number of other symptoms that are clinical. We don’t need to treat the way someone perceives another person, we don’t need to treat the way someone expresses verbally to a friend or engages in parallel process or is quirky with their sense of humor - we don’t want to fix that. Rather, we want to celebrate that, in fact.

[16:48 - 17:38] Dr. Beaudoin: …what we evolve into is like, ‘Hey, let’s start from the end. What do you want? What’s your goal? Paint me a picture of the life that you want a month from now, a year from now, 5 years from now?’ - that’s not always an easy practice, so we scaffold it accordingly, but, ‘ do you want financial independence, do you want to travel, do you want to have a big house and two lamborghinis, do you want to just have a life that’s relatively simple where you go out to eat once a week and otherwise cook your Annie’s macaroni and cheese for every other meal? Great! Let’s understand what the goal is. And once we do that, we can have some creative conversations and problem solving about what you will need to do to get that.’ And there is an existential acceptance that I think is probably exclusive to no demographic, which is, probably gonna have to work.

[24:02 - 24:21] Dr. Beaudoin: …so when we’re being neuro-affirming we’re being accepting, we’re being celebratory, we’re saying, ‘Great! Use your strengths, you don’t need to change a darn thing’ when we’re being neuro-informed we’re saying, ‘And, over here in this domain, it might not work super well, so let’s see what we can tweak’ and I’ve found that language to be really helpful for me.

Chris welcomes Dr. Neal Christensen, a licensed psychologist who has been working with neurodivergent youth with a focus in Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare for over 20 years. In this episode, Chris and Dr. Christensen discuss a little-known behavioral profile called Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA). PDA is an extreme avoidance of everyday, age-based demands (think of brushing your teeth as a young child). They explore the characteristics of this profile, and different treatment approaches that are effective. This is an insightful conversation full of knowledge for clinicians and laypeople alike.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

About Dr. Neal Christensen: https://elementsprograms.com/our-story/our-team/neal-christensen/

Eclipse by Elements Program: https://elementsprograms.com/programs/neurodivergent-program/

Quotes:

[5:57 - 6:23] Dr. Neal: Because there’s so little awareness of PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), I think of it as like an invisibility, an invisible disability. And so a lot of professionals you know, will overlook it and say it is something else, it’s a different condition, a different diagnosis, and so, yeah, that’s where I think, unfortunately, like, a lot of these families and individuals suffer because they’re just misunderstood.

[13:41 - 14:25] Dr. Neal: When you’re working with kids, in particular, you know, you’re oftentimes setting up, kinda, I’ll just say, you know behavioral schedules, and you know, some form of behavioral modification which would be you know, punishments and rewards right? We do that as, as parents at home with our children, ‘if you unload the dishwasher, you get some game play’ or whatever. But these are, these patterns of what I’d say these kinda more typical behavioral consequencing plans don’t really work because the demand itself is so stressful, that their consequence, whether it be a reward or punishment, isn’t more motivating than the, than the motivation to avoid the stressor.

[17:04 - 18:03] Dr. Neal: I will say that we have to look at these individuals from a person standpoint rather than a behavior standpoint. Recognizing that these individuals have difficulty, genuine difficulty, right, it’s not, they’re not, I would say when we’re talking about PDA it’s not willful, they don’t want to make their lives and everybody else’s lives hard, it’s that they don’t believe they’re capable or that it’s possible and they’re just trying to help themselves feel better - all of us are. You know, we just, I’ll say maybe you and I, maybe have a better ability to cope with you know, challenge and stress. We’ve internalized those things and our nervous systems are better regulated and so, remembering we’ve got to start with the individual and then remembering, right, that we’ve gotta work on helping them feel safe in their own bodies…

Chris welcomes Ranpreet Anthony, a transmasculine Two-Spirit and neurodivergent Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) with over twenty years of experience in the mental health field. Together, Chris and Ranpreet explore SE, Ranpreet’s own journey to self-discovery, and how his late-in-life diagnosis came at the perfect time. This conversation is a beautiful reminder that while growing into yourself takes time, stepping confidently into who you’re meant to be is worth the wait.

Links:
Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/
Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com
More about Ranpreet Anthony: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/about-ranpreet
Somatic Experiencing: https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/somatic-experiencing

Quotes:
[4:51 - 5:08] Ranpreet: Somatic Experiencing is Peter Levine’s life’s work and it’s based on the idea that trauma isn’t in the event but it’s what becomes stuck in the nervous system as a result of not having the chance to go through a completion.

[7:21 - 7:58] Ranpreet: So, we’re kind of like, piecing it apart and then getting curious about what happens when they begin to feel the first signs of dysregulation. So, what tightens? Is it the jaw, is it the legs, where do you, where do you brace? And then that’s generally when I would recommend, that’s when you might be able to do a Somatic Experiencing technique to see if you can come back into your window a little bit, right? And then that way it’s not getting so big and it’s, ideally, reducing shutdown states.

[9:15 - 9:55] Ranpreet: I think it wasn’t until I started transitioning and I started to feel more comfortable in my body, in who I was, that the stimming behaviors came to the surface a little bit more. But I had a turbulent childhood and so, if somebody had asked me years before, are you Autistic? I would have said, oh, no, I think it’s just probably nervous system dysregulation from complex trauma. And so it, it had to get to a place where I could differentiate between nervous system dysregulation from trauma and just Autistic stimming behaviors.

Chris welcomes back licensed professional counselor Maura Nolan, who is pursuing her passions in nature-based and wilderness therapy and working towards licensure as a psychedelic-assisted therapist and facilitator in Colorado. This conversation centers on the many facets of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: What exactly is it? How does it work? What are the pros and cons? How do you find a provider? and more. This is an incredibly fascinating discussion that helps shed light on this new form of therapy and the overwhelmingly positive results following its recent research and implementation.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

Connect with Maura: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/maura-r-nolan-durango-co/369024

Resources Mentioned:

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies – MAPS – Psychedelic Research for Psychological Healing

Integrative Psychiatry Institute

Board of Psychedelic Medicine & Therapies

American Psychedelic Practitioners Association

Quotes:

[8:27 - 9:08] Maura: You know, something that I, I do want to say in going into this question and something I’m really passionate about when it comes to psychedelic-assisted therapy, is that the brain does all of the healing. So, in that way, it can be so incredibly self-empowering to know that the individual is going into the experience and honestly the facilitator isn’t, isn’t really hands-on. So, the individual, their brain is unlocking the trauma, doing the healing - so that I think is one of the most profound things about the experience as a whole, is that it just, it falls back on the individual's brain to do the healing.

[14:43 - 15:22] Maura: While the research specifically to Autism and psilocybin and ketamine is fairly new, there is a lot of research already around ketamine and psilocybin for co-occurring mental health issues, right, that a lot of folks with individual, or, that a lot of folks with Autism, right, may have. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, CPTSD, trauma, right? So, an individual with Autism might also really benefit from having a psychedelic experience and being able to process some of the trauma, right, that is at the root, right, and core of some of their experiences.

[28:00 - 29:13] Maura: Clinical trials with psilocybin, two sessions: significant reduction in depressive and anxiety symptoms - this is actually a study done out of John Hopkins that found with two doses of psilocybin, significant decrease in depressive symptoms. MDMA, three sessions: 98% reduction in symptoms of depression and PTSD, okay? So you look at three MDMA sessions, two psilocybin sessions compared to, that’s something that might take 3 months when I do EMDR with somebody and like, 3-5 years in talk therapy. So, this works and it’s also new and edgy and I encourage people to like, do your own research. Be skeptical about it, question it all, see what you come up with. But the results can be astounding and healing - like truly healing. Getting to the root of symptoms and trauma and it changes people’s lives and it totally relies on you, your brain to do the healing.

Chris welcomes Brenna, an autistic 28-year-old math teacher for middle schoolers in Boulder, CO, and one of his clients. Brenna shares her story of receiving her ASD diagnosis late in life, what the diagnosis meant for how she now understands and loves herself, how she navigates the beauty and complexity of relationships, and how she engages with the children she teaches. This is a beautiful interview of Brenna’s journey to self-discovery.


Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/

Email: info@autismlearninglab.com

Quotes:

[4:25 - 5:16] Brenna: I felt like I was finally able to stop wondering what to do with all the other things in my head and all the guesses, and I was able to start focusing more so on, now that I have this information, what can I do with it? How can I learn some social skills, figure out how to do something like small talk, getting off of my couch and going and seeing the world because I know how to talk to people now, and maybe it doesn’t have to be so scary. So I, I know that for sure I was stuck for a long, long time and I think this diagnosis helped me embrace myself more, love myself more, and be able to learn more, to be able to interact with others.

[10:04 - 10:56] Brenna: I think the big thing is, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Schools and working in the classroom and working with young people in general can get overwhelming and it can get really loud and when I learned that some of my overwhelm and overstimulated symptoms from ASD, were, well, when I learned they were from ASD, that was when I was able to feel more comfortable asking for help. And sometimes that looks like having another person just step in for a minute so I’m not the only adult in the room, sometimes that looks like me being able to, like take a step out, just take a breath for a second, and also knowing that I feel more comfortable in my own skin to know what’s going on for me helps me to be able to get through the day…

[24:45 - 25:10] Brenna: I would say that it’s okay to be yourself. Don't be afraid to be yourself with the diagnosis or without the diagnosis. I spent so much of my life not knowing how to be me, and if I could get any of those years back, I’d definitely spend it accepting who I was and who I am - so don’t be afraid to be yourself.

Chris welcomes Maura Nolan, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in working with young adults, families, and adults with PTSD, neurodivergence, and psychosis spectrum disorders. She is currently pursuing her passions in nature-based and wilderness therapy and is working towards licensure as a psychedelic-assisted therapist and facilitator in Colorado. Together, Chris and Maura discuss Autism Learning Lab’s family retreat model and the specific benefits that parents and other family members can expect to experience through their unique program structure.

Links:

Autism Learning Lab Website: https://www.autismlearninglab.com/
Email: chris@autismlearninglab.com

Quotes:

[3:45 - 4:26] Maura: The other piece to this, beyond diagnosis, is that I’ve found psychological testing can be a lot about empowerment. So, when individuals and families are understanding more of the why behind certain struggles or behaviors, they can start to make more informed decisions, right? So it can shift this narrative from, what’s wrong, to how do we support this moving forward, right? And ultimately, individuals becoming the experts on their brain and it can also really help with individuals feeling seen and understood, right? So with this knowledge, they can advocate for themselves, develop new strategies that truly work for their unique experience and their brains.


[5:25 - 5:49] Maura: That’s why these retreats are designed not just around psycho-education but a lot of experiential learning as well, right? So, we want to be able to address family dynamics as they’re happening in the moment, give parents and families opportunity to practice new skills to better communicate - so they feel like they’re walking away with knowledge of how to handle maybe difficult situations moving forward.


[19:05 -19:57] Maura: It’s really, really important for parents to explore their own emotions, parenting styles, the ways that they communicate when navigating their child’s Autism diagnosis. This self-awareness will directly impact how they support their child, right, and foster that stronger parent-child connection. So Autism shapes, right, how an individual experiences the world. Whether it’s through communication, social interaction, sensory processing - so for parents, there’s such an importance of them understanding how Autism influences their child's functioning, right? Because that is key to how they respond from an understanding, empathic, and also an effective, and productive place. So, the retreat will support parents in a couple of different ways.