Books · Research · People · Ideas

Resources I Come Back To

There are so many voices in the neurodivergent community now, which I think is a really good thing. It can also make it hard to know where to start.

These are some of the researchers, clinicians, writers, and ideas I find myself returning to in my own work.

I don't agree with every idea from every person here, and I don't think we should have to. The way we understand autism, ADHD, AuDHD, relationships, sensory processing, and burnout is still changing. I tend to be drawn to people who stay curious, take lived experience seriously, and help us understand neurodivergence without reducing people to a list of deficits.

A translucent skeletonized leaf backlit with warm light, showing its intricate vein structure.

Autism · ADHD · AuDHD

Megan Anna Neff, PsyD

Neurodivergent Insights

Dr. Neff is probably one of the resources I recommend most often. I appreciate the way she brings together research, clinical experience, and lived experience without losing the actual person underneath all of it.

Her work around autism, ADHD, AuDHD, alexithymia, masking, sensory differences, and burnout is especially helpful for adults who may have spent a long time understanding themselves through a lens that never quite fit.

I also appreciate that her work tends to leave room for complexity. Neurodivergence rarely fits neatly into a checklist.

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Neurodiversity

Nick Walker

The Neurodiversity Paradigm

I return to Walker's writing when I'm thinking about the difference between neurodivergence itself and the way our culture interprets it.

His work helped articulate the neurodiversity paradigm, the idea that differences in human minds are part of natural human variation, while still leaving room to recognize disability and the very real support people may need.

I especially appreciate the distinction between understanding difference and automatically treating difference as defect.

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Communication · Relationships

Damian Milton

The Double Empathy Problem

Damian Milton's work changed the way I think about communication.

One of the ideas I return to often is the Double Empathy Problem. Rather than viewing misunderstanding as something that exists only within the autistic person, Milton invites us to consider what happens between people whose ways of experiencing and making sense of the world are different.

I find this especially helpful in my work with couples. Sometimes neither person is communicating "wrong." They are interpreting the same interaction through different experiences, expectations, sensory worlds, and communication styles.

That doesn't make conflict disappear, but it often changes where we begin. Instead of asking, "Who is doing this incorrectly?" we can become curious about what each person is experiencing and how those different experiences shape the interaction.

Burnout · Lived Experience

Dora Raymaker

Autistic Burnout Research

One of the things I appreciate most about Dora Raymaker's work isn't just the research itself, it's the way the research is done.

Through AASPIRE, autistic people are involved throughout the research process, helping shape the questions, interpret the findings, and identify what feels most important to study. I think that matters.

Interoception · Sensory Processing

Kelly Mahler, OTD, OTR/L, FAOTA

Interoception & Sensory Processing

Some of the most helpful ideas I've brought into my work haven't come from psychotherapy at all. They've come from occupational therapy, and Kelly Mahler's work has been one of the biggest influences.

Her writing and teaching on interoception helped me think differently about what it means to understand ourselves from the inside. Rather than focusing only on thoughts or behaviors, she encourages us to become curious about the body signals that shape our emotions, regulation, and everyday experiences.

That perspective has changed the way I think about sensory processing. Sometimes what looks like avoidance is overload. Sometimes what looks like irritability is sensory pain. Sometimes someone doesn't need another coping skill. They need less input, a different environment, more movement, more processing time, or permission to do something in a way that actually works for their nervous system.

I think psychotherapy becomes richer when we remember that people don't just have minds. We have bodies, too.

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Attention · AuDHD

Monotropism

Dinah Murray, Fergus Murray & other autistic researchers and writers

Monotropism is one of the areas I find especially interesting.

It offers another way of thinking about autistic attention, not simply as an inability to shift or as cognitive rigidity, but as a nervous system that may allocate attention very deeply and intensely.

I find this particularly interesting when thinking about AuDHD.

The combination of intense attentional capture, curiosity, novelty seeking, difficulty shifting, sensory input, and executive-function demands can create internal experiences that are much more complicated than either an autism or ADHD checklist can describe.

This is also an area where the research is still developing, which makes it particularly interesting to follow.

ADHD · Couples

ADHD & Us

A more collaborative relationship lens

There are many relationship resources about ADHD. Some feel much more deficit-focused than others.

I appreciate ADHD & Us because the emphasis feels more collaborative.

I am much more interested in helping couples understand the system they create together than deciding which person is the problem.

ADHD absolutely affects relationships. So do autism, sensory processing, attachment history, trauma, expectations, environment, and the nervous systems of both people in the room.

I want room for all of that.

Clinician Resource

NeuroPebble

Warm, accessible neurodivergent education

I love resources that can explain something complicated without making it feel clinical, infantilizing, or overly simplified.

NeuroPebble does that beautifully.

I especially appreciate the warm, neuroaffirming way ideas are communicated. The language feels human. There is room for difference without immediately turning difference into pathology.

That matters to me.

Clinical Curiosity

What I Learn in the Therapy Room

Research matters tremendously to me. I spent many years working in science before becoming a therapist, and I still tend to want to understand why something happens, not just what to do about it.

At the same time, some of the most important questions in my work have started by listening carefully to what clients are describing.

Sometimes I hear a similar experience again and again and realize the language we already have doesn't quite explain it.

That's usually when I get curious.

I start reading. I look at research from different areas. I try to understand whether someone has already described the pattern, whether several different bodies of research each explain part of it, or whether there is still something we don't understand very well.

I think that space between research, lived experience, and what actually happens in the therapy room is where I am most interested.

It is also one of the reasons I continue learning. Neurodivergent people have often understood aspects of their own experience long before psychology had good language for them.

I think clinicians should be willing to listen when our existing theories don't quite fit.

A Note About Resources

This isn't meant to be a definitive list of the "best" neurodivergent resources, and inclusion here doesn't mean I agree with every idea someone has written or taught.

These are simply people and perspectives that have made me think, helped me understand something differently, or influenced the way I work.

I'll continue changing this page as I learn.

I hope you do too.

— Lisa Sledd, LMFT