Amanda Morin
Author & Neurodiversity Consultant, Amanda Morin Consulting
What’s your organization’s mission, and what’s your area of focus?
My mission is to support organizations, nonprofits, educators, and companies understanding how to create and support inclusive and accessible spaces that will embrace the needs of neurodivergent people and allies. What I am focused on is producing that guidance in education and advocacy so that we know how to best support diverse learners and foster all people’s sense of belonging. Importantly, within a digital context, I really want to educate people that neurodivergent people are often using digital spaces as a place of belonging. So when we think about that and the design of these spaces, whenever possible, this is so important to consider from the beginning, instead of retrofitting spaces – how can design ensure that these spaces are accessible to all people from the inception of use, instead of people having to ask for accommodation to access something.
What led you to this work?
I started my career as a teacher and an early Intervention specialist, and the students that I loved working with were the most “difficult” students, and was really drawn to that work. I also worked in therapeutic foster care; all three of my own children are neurodivergent. Through all this experience I knew I really wanted to make a difference but couldn’t do it in a classroom and couldn’t do it all at the same time. So this evolved into parent education and training through writing, which led to books, connections with organizations, and eventually to consulting.
Importantly, along the way I realized I grew up in spaces that didn’t really include me, and I had a difficult experience in education, even as an adult in the professional spaces I inhabited. I actually recently received my own autism diagnosis. So everything in my life has really led me here and now it’s so important to me because I’m really building places for me, my children, and other people with or without a “label.” One of the things I think is hugely important is equipping people with a way to talk about a diagnosis or a label that takes some of the stigma away, which is hugely necessary to make sure that people are accessing services and spaces that can support them. I’ve loved the connections I’ve been able to make and the relationships in consulting, where people really value the lens I bring towards advising organizations and that they recognize and value my recommendations.
What have you learned in the course of doing this work about young people’s wellness while engaging with tech and interactive media?
Wellness is a really interesting component. While there’s a lot of discussion on the topic, I really don’t think there’s research that shows that digital media is inherently making children ill. It’s really about how young people use it, that’s the piece I think is really important. A lot of kids, whether they be autistic, ADHD, and/or nerdy, can build a community online and learn skills that they can bridge to the offline world. There’s also a lot of functional digital opportunities, like assistive technology, and using technology to cope in healthy ways. In online spaces, it’s also really important to consider ways that we can communicate the norms of the digital spaces we’re in, because many neurodivergent kids can struggle with knowing what are the rules for interacting in these spaces, so how can we establish the norms where, like in gaming, sometimes it is okay to be sarcastic and trash-talk, but in other spaces that’s not the norm – that can be really difficult to navigate.
What guidance or advice do you have for parents and other caregivers to help kids to build and maintain their wellness when engaging with digital media and technology?
The first piece is to know where your child is spending time online and why – we miss that piece a lot. Ask your child to show you around the spaces they enjoy being in online, whether it’s an activity, game, or social media. Secondly, do not listen to the fearmongering, make decisions based on the child in front of you. Sometimes that may mean setting time limits or context limits so they can transition out of digital spaces appropriately. You know your child and whether behaviors are becoming problematic, it’s much more important to understand their experience than to jump to conclusions that it’s bad for them. We also really need to stop shaming people for letting their children be on media. Digital media spaces are here, and they’re a huge part of how children and teens socialize. It’s great to be intentional and not allow it to become a substitute for other ways of connecting, but also be realistic, because totally removing something might make people more isolated.
How would you change or design technology and/or media to be healthier for kids across the developmental span?
The first is transparency. I would ask for transparency in algorithms and how social media platforms are making decisions about what to show to people. Transparency also extends to the explanation of age limits, what is the reasoning? If we’re thinking about something being restricted to 16 and up, is it because of what we know about brain development? Is it because 16 just seems like a good number? What are the reasons for these decisions?
I also would love it if social media platforms came with a kind of “how to” guide, like how do you get out of a rabbit hole on a topic, or what to do when you come across something that makes you uncomfortable, and how to talk to your child about these things.
And lastly, making things like privacy settings much more visible, because they can be really difficult to navigate to right now. I’ve thought a lot about where the non-profit based version of a social media site could be built as a kid-friendly space, what would that look like? I would love to see that.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I work with the AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health and Digital Promise among others. I love doing this work because it takes a whole digital village, and we are going to have to come together, to work together to make change. We can’t pretend these digital spaces are going to disappear, they are here to stay. So we can band together to really ask each other: how do we navigate these spaces? How can we learn from and work with each other, especially from young people, to make these places safe and supportive for everyone? We need to turn to each other in times of need to understand the loopholes, like we did for “analog issues” like breaking curfew – how do we learn about the loopholes kids are finding online and understand them? Ignoring them won’t work – children are smart and will find new places to be and ways to get there.
For more specific guidance on creating an inclusive environment to support neurodivergent K-12 students, please check out my new book, Neurodiversity-Affirming Schools: Transforming Practices So All Students Feel Accepted & Supported, which is now available.
We know that no one person, organization, or company can successfully address the challenge alone, so it’s imperative that we collaborate to design and maintain a healthier digital experience for all young people and their families. Our Fellow Travelers blog series features colleagues from around the world who focus on digital wellness from a different perspective than the Digital Wellness Lab, enabling us to share expertise in key areas of digital wellness that we don’t explore as deeply.
Here at the Lab, we welcome different viewpoints and perspectives. However, the opinions and ideas expressed here do not necessarily represent the views, research, or recommendations of the Digital Wellness Lab, Boston Children’s Hospital, or affiliates.