The AuDHD Psych Podcast
Clinical psychologist, PhD student and AuDHDer, Aaron Howearth chats about Autism, ADHD and their combination in humans, framed within their lived experience, their work in clinical psychology, and the neurodiversity-affirming paradigm.Where Your Support GoesThe AuDHD Psych Podcast is part of a longer-term plan to fund and undertake independent research into early intervention programs for neurodivergent children. Our goal is to eliminate the experience of deficit and disorder by helping neurodivergent children grow to be adults understand their own characteristics simply as differences and choose “good-fit” environments that align with their goals.
Ep 13: Understanding AuDHD - Executive Functioning and Daily Life: ADHD, Autism & AuDHD (Part 2)
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🎙️ Episode 13: Understanding AuDHD – Executive Functioning and Daily Life (Part 2)
Episode Summary
In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, clinical psychologist Aaron Howearth moves from explaining executive functioning to exploring practical ways autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD people can work with their brains in daily life. He looks at how differences in working memory, processing speed, time perception, self-monitoring, and motivation interact with anxiety and self-esteem, and why our capacity to start, continue, and finish tasks can swing so dramatically from day to day.
Aaron describes how an ADHD-style “problem-solving brain” ca...
Ep 12: Understanding AuDHD - Executive Functioning and Daily Life: ADHD, Autism & AuDHD (Part 1)
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🎙️ Episode 13: Executive Functioning in Daily Life: ADHD, Autism & AuDHD
Episode Summary
In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores how executive functioning shapes everyday life for autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD individuals. Why do tasks that “should” be simple – studying, working, organising the day, or following through on plans – so often feel overwhelming or impossible, even when we know exactly what we’re meant to be doing?
Drawing from both clinical psychology and lived experience, Aaron explains executive functions as the brain’s “mental mechanics”...
Ep 11: AuDHD Psych Q&A Part 2 - (Neuro) Queries and Quandries
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🎙️ Episode 11: Q&A Part 2
Episode Summary
In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth continues the community Q&A, responding to several commonly asked questions about neurodivergent experiences and expanding on themes raised in previous episodes. The conversation covers topics including perimenopause and menopause in neurodivergent people, the relationship between neurodiversity and gender diversity, how diagnostic impairment levels can change across life circumstances, and the internal tensions often experienced by people with both autistic and ADHD traits.
Aaron explains how hormonal fluctuations during perim...
Ep 10: AuDHD Psych Q&A Part 1 - Diagnosis, Self-ID & "Different, Not Defective"
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“When I'm surrounded by people like me, I don't feel disordered. I feel understood.”
🎙️ Ep 10: Your Questions Answered – Diagnosis, Self-ID & “Different, Not Defective”
Episode Summary
In this Q&A episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron responds to questions and comments from the community about autism, ADHD, diagnosis, and what it really means to be “different, not defective.” Drawing on both clinical experience and lived AuDHD perspective, he unpacks why being autistic and having an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis are related but not ide...
Ep 9: Understanding AuDHD: Late Diagnosis and Diagnostic Levels
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🎙️ Episode 9: Understanding AuDHD: Late Diagnosis and Diagnostic Levels
Episode Summary
In this episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron Howearth explores one of the most common and emotionally loaded experiences in the neurodivergent community: late diagnosis. Why are so many autistic and ADHD individuals missed in childhood? Why do diagnoses often come after years, or even decades, of anxiety, depression, or misdiagnosis?
Drawing from both clinical psychology and lived experience, Aaron explains how traditional diagnostic frameworks were historically built around externalising presentations, often observed in young...
ARCHIVE - Old Audio - See Ep 9 for improved sound
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The 7th Circle Audio Version of Ep 9 - If Audio quality is frustrating for you, please ignore this, and listen to the re-corded version Ep 9: Understanding AuDHD: Late Diagnosis and Diagnostic Levels
Due to an equipment fault, this recording has extremely poor sound. We apologise to those who have sensory sensitivity to sound. We have identified the lapel mic in question and kindly retired it from service with full honours.
We are leaving this version published in case there is a information or a framing of some of the i...
Ep 8: The Intersection of Neurodiversity & Gender Diversity
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“If the rule doesn’t make sense, it has no value to me.”
🎙️ Ep 8: Labels, their Utility & Lack Thereof
Episode Summary
In this episode of the AuDHD Psych Podcast, Aaron and Uma explore the intersection between gender diversity and neurodiversity, unpacking how autistic and neurodivergent ways of thinking can shape experiences of gender, identity, and self-understanding.
Aaron reflects on his own gender experience and how autistic logic, detail orientation, and a rejection of arbitrary so...
Ep 7: Understanding AuDHD: Neurodiversity Affirming Paradigm
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“The same traits that create difficulty can also be the ones that help us thrive.”
🎙️ Episode 7: Understanding The Neurodiversity Affirming Paradigm - Building Balanced Beliefs
Episode Summary
Welcome to Episode 8 of The AuDHD Psych Podcast — hosted by Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist and proudly AuDHD human.
In this solo episode, Aaron explores the neurodiversity-affirming paradigm and what it truly means to view autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent experiences as differences rather than disorders. Drawing from clinical practice, lived experience, and real-world examples, A...
Ep 6: NYE Special: The Quiet Between Years: Reflecting, Resetting & Reimagining
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“The new year doesn’t need to fix you — you were already doing your best.”
In this reflective New Year’s themed episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore the quiet space between years — a time often filled with pressure to reset, improve, and reinvent. Through a neurodivergent lens, they unpack why traditional New Year’s resolutions can feel overwhelming or harmful for autistic and ADHD people, and why slow, values-aligned change is often more sustainable. The conversation reframes growth as internal, incremental, and deeply personal, highlighting quiet wins, self-com...
Ep 5: Neurospicy Holidays: Comfort, Chaos & Connection
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“The absence of a reminder doesn’t mean the love isn’t there.”
In this festive episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore how the holiday season can uniquely impact neurodivergent folk. While celebrations are often framed as joyful and meaningful, they can also bring sensory overload, disrupted routines, social pressure, emotional fatigue, and heightened expectations. Drawing on lived experience and clinical insight, the conversation unpacks masking, burnout, gift-giving stress, overthinking, and the delicate balance between connection and self-preservation. This episode offers permission to slow down, take breaks, set bound...
Ep 4: Understanding AuDHD: Traits, Truths, & Lived Experience
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🎙 Episode 4: Understanding AuDHD: Traits, Truths, & Lived Experience
“When I’m told I’m lazy or unmotivated, I start to believe it — and that belief becomes part of who I think I am.”
In this episode of AuDHD Psych, Aaron and Uma explore what AuDHD can look like beyond stereotypes and diagnostic labels. Aaron shares his lived experience as an AuDHD clinical psychologist, unpacking why ADHD and autism were historically seen as mutually exclusive, how this has shaped diagnostic practices, and why many people have had parts of their neurodiv...
Ep 3: Understanding ADHD: Traits, Truths, & Lived Experience
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🎙Episode 3: Understanding ADHD: Traits, Truths & Lived Experience
“You’re not inherently broken. Your characteristics aren’t disordered — they just don’t always match what the environment demands.”
Summary:
In this episode, Aaron takes a deep dive into ADHD through a neurodiversity-affirming lens. He explores what ADHD actually looks like in daily life, why inattentive and internalizing ADHD is so often misunderstood, and how early labels like “lazy” or “unmotivated” shape lifelong beliefs. Aaron unpacks myths, stereotypes, gendered expectations, cultural influences, and the difference between ADHD traits and ADHD disorder. Blending clini...
Ep 2: Understanding Autism: Traits, Truths & Lived Experience
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🎙 Episode 2: Understanding Autism: Traits, Truths, and Lived Experience
"When viewed through the lens of difference, rather than disorder, we often find that it's expectations that warrant changing, not humans."
Summary:
In this episode of the AuDHD Psych podcast, Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist, discusses the diagnosis of autism, its characteristics, and some of the lived experiences of some on the spectrum. The conversation delves into sensory overload, the impact of masking and unmasking, and the phenomenon of autistic burnout. Aaron shares personal insights on communication challenges and...
Ep 1: Understanding AuDHD - Lived Experience, Clinical Insight
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When viewed through the lens of difference, rather than disorder, we often find that it's expectations that warrant changing, not humans.
🎙️ Episode 1: Understanding AuDHD — The Intersection of Autism and ADHD | The AuDHD Psych Podcast
Episode Summary
Welcome to the first episode of The AuDHD Psych Podcast — hosted by Aaron Howearth, a clinical psychologist, queer, non-binary, and proudly neurodivergent (AuDHD) individual (the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD).
In this powerful introduct...
