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Mind Dive, A Podcast for Mental Health Professionals

Welcome to Mind Dive, Menninger's podcast for mental health professionals, with Robert Boland, MD, senior vice president and chief of staff, and Kerry Horrell, PhD.

Podcast Focus

Each month, they dive into topics that fascinate them as clinical professionals and hopefully fascinate you, too. They examine dilemmas faced by professionals here at Menninger and colleagues across the nation while working with some of the most challenging cases. They explore the latest research and other trending topics on the minds of psychiatrists, psychologists and others who are interested in the treatment and study of the mind.

Drs. Boland and Horrell also make it a goal to cover information that gets little attention in formal training programs.

Most Recent Episodes

Episode 65: Teaching Independence to Neurodiverse Children with Kristin Lombardi, BCBA, and Christine Drew, PhD

Neurodiverse children face unique challenges as they enter adulthood, requiring innovative approaches to strengthen their life skills so they can achieve meaningful independence.

Kristin Lombardi, BCBA, and Christine Drew, PhD, work with families whose children are facing the hurdles of adulthood on the spectrum, often without the resources they had before turning eighteen. In their experience, the most successful outcomes come from families who help their child build life skills early on. Without those early interventions, when a neurodiverse child reaches adulthood, they can often find their world becoming smaller as their ability to move freely in their community is diminished.

“I think it’s challenging for parents to think about this huge goal of independence,” Christine noted. “Breaking the journey down into how independent reframes it into smaller, more manageable goals for the parent and the child.”

Lombardi is a certified special education teacher in New York state and a board-certified behavior analyst. She earned her master’s degree from Queens College, CUNY, and completed her behavior analysis coursework through Penn State University.

Dr. Drew is an assistant professor of special education at Auburn University. Her work has greatly expanded Auburn’s inclusive higher education program, which serves students with intellectual disabilities. She is also a board-certified behavior analyst and earned her doctorate in special education from the University of Oregon.

Their latest book, “Spectrum of Independence: How to Teach Your Neurodiverse Child Daily Life Skills,” aims to help families navigate the challenges of neurodiverse adulthood and show how they can prepare their child early on in development for a successful transition to adulthood.

Transcript

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Meet the Hosts

Dr. Boland is an educator at heart with decades of experience teaching and mentoring psychiatry residents. In addition to his roles at Menninger, he is the executive vice chair of the Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine.

A psychologist on our Compass Program for Young Adults, Dr. Horrell also loves teaching. She completed a predoctoral internship and postgraduate fellowship at Menninger and Baylor College of Medicine.

Both are well read, love canines (and have to resist rescuing too many) and are curious about many subjects.

Join Us

We hope you’ll join us on our podcast journey. And if you have a topic in mind that you would like us to dive into, drop us a note.

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