Shannan Palma: Easing neurodivergent mental load with AI

Episode 199 with Shannan Palma.

“Sometimes I know exactly what to do — but I just can’t make my body do it. And then comes the shame spiral, the anger, the anxiety.”

Shannan is the founder and CEO of ITI Assistive Technologies and co-leader of the Autistic Self-Reliance Support Network (ASR). Shannan is autistic and has ADHD, and she’s building the kinds of tools she wished had existed when she was struggling most. Prior to her dual diagnosis, Shannan was a professor who left academia due to severe burnout. After her diagnosis, she started looking for resources and support, but soon recognized a huge gap in support for autistic and ADHD adults — especially when it came to executive functioning and decision-making.

In this episode, Shannan and I discuss:

• Shannan’s path from academia to diagnosis and advocacy
• Her AI-powered decision support app Decide, designed specifically for neurodivergent brains by a team of autistic and ADHD developers
• How AI tools can support the mental load of neurodivergent life
• The concept of “bottom-up” processing in neurodivergent brains
• The urgent need for adult-focused research and how the tojisha-kenkyu method of self-directed research can be used among autistic adults.

Website: Autistic Self-Reliance (ASR) ; ITI Assistive Technologies

LinkedIn: Shannan Palma

Links & Resources:

Decide app

Video: Dr. Shannan Palma: #FlipThePowerDynamic in Autism Research and Funding

Annie Duke’s website

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

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Episode edited by E Podcast Productions

Find the transcript of this episode at www.womenandadhd.com/transcripts

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Order the “Hey, it’s ADHD!” course: www.womenandadhd.com/adhdcourse

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