Leslie S. Cook, PhD
Supporting neurodivergent learners who want to build on strengths and thrive in academic settings
Experiencing barriers in academic environments?
Teens
Young Adults
Young Adults
Struggles in school often stay masked until high school. Physical and social changes introduce new stressors and keep us from doing our best. Neurodivergent teens face challenges with planning, organization, socialization, impulse and emotional control, rigidity and flexibility, working memory, self-monitoring, and task initiation. Awareness of and addressing learning challenges we face in high school develops lifelong self-advocates.
Young Adults
Young Adults
Young Adults
Neurodivergent learners remain so. Often, our excitement for a topic makes us excellent lifelong and self-directed learners. Continuing education presents unique challenges and opportunities with each course of study. Synthesizing all that is expected of us while maintaining a social life and work can seem impossible. Ironically, academic institutions’ structures and expectations are often what cause the stress that leads us to underperform.
Educators
Young Adults
Educators
Navigating academic institutions as an adult learner, whether in K12 schools or universities, taxes our mental and physical well-being. As neurodivergent adults in the workplace, unspoken rules and norms can confuse and derail professional goals. We can lose focus easily and feel like we’ve fallen off-track. Fear of failure and perfectionism keep us from participating. We recoil from rejection or criticism, making committee feedback and year-end reports painful.
About Me
Leslie S. Cook, PhD
I am a neurodivergent former professor, now committed to helping other neurodivergent learners navigate academic settings.