Webinar
Virtual Conference: Consulting with Neurodivergent Athletes
1:00 - 4:00 PM EDT
5:00 - 8:00 PM UTC
Overview
Practitioners without lived experience of neurodiversity can feel frozen and under-prepared to support athletes with an ADHD diagnosis. As the number of athletes receiving an ADHD diagnosis increases and more athletes become aware they may potentially have this difference, it is imperative that those of us here to support athletes and their coaches are able to lead the way in showing compassion, understanding, and providing techniques to allow them to get the best from themselves. In this virtual conference, we will help AASP members, mental performance and mental health practitioners, and professionals in academia and research develop a much deeper understanding of ADHD. Further, we will discuss and question the deficits-based movement, and leave attendees with a strengths-based approach equipped with a variety of tools and techniques that they can use to work directly with ADHD athletes and their coaches.
Speakers & Presentations
Different Minds, Same Game
Steve Bicknell, PsyD, Founder of Practical Minds. Team Aligned/Specialist Psychologist National Rugby League, Australian Football League and Cricket Australia
The opening session looks at neurodiversity as a broad spectrum of differences in cognition, attention, emotion, and behaviour — not a single set of diagnostic symptoms or fixed profile. Further, the difficulty in identifying and assessing ADHD/ASD given its strong comorbidity with other diagnoses. It will explore how neurodivergent traits often present as both strengths and challenges simultaneously. A key focus will be how many behaviours are frequently misunderstood or mislabelled, rather than recognised as adaptive responses or neurological differences. Finally challenging common stereotypes, highlighting that athletes with ADHD and similar profiles are not always chaotic or unfocused, but are often among the most driven, detail-oriented, and perfectionistic performers in elite environments and the mental challenges this can present.
The Superpowers of Neurodiverse Athletes: Unlocking Strengths for Individual and Team Success
Jacob Yorg, PsyD, EdD, LPC, CMPC, Founder and Executive Director-Elite Within Mindset
This session equips participants with a strengths‑focused framework for understanding the unique performance advantages neurodiverse athletes bring to sport. By reframing ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, and other neurotypes as cognitive and perceptual assets rather than deficits, we highlight how these athletes often excel in creativity, resilience, hyperfocus, and pattern recognition. Participants will learn practical, evidence‑informed strategies for identifying, supporting, and amplifying these strengths within training, competition, and team culture. The goal is to shift from accommodation to optimization, empowering participants to help neurodiverse athletes thrive while elevating overall team performance.
Adapting Your Practice: Being a Brilliant Support to Neurodivergent Athletes
Josephine Perry, PhD, CPsychol, Founder and CEO Performance in Mind
In Josephine’s presentation she will offer best practices, tools, techniques and adaptations for CMPCs and other sport psychology professionals to make when working with neurodivergent athletes individually or in groups. She will explain how these tools can also be taught to coaches and parents so that athletes feel supported from all sides. The interventions Josephine teaches will not only lighten the load for athletes with ADHD but regularly offer benefits for all athletes so they can thrive within their sport.
Coaching the Coach: Neurodiversity-Affirming Consultation Strategies for Supporting Neurodivergent Athletes
Brittany L. Collins, Ph.D., LPCC-S, CMPC, BC-TMH, NCC, Founder and CEO of Developing ME! Counseling & Consulting, LLC
Neurodiversity represents an important dimension of individual difference within sport, requiring culturally responsive and ethically grounded consultation approaches. This session equips CMPCs and applied sport psychology professionals with neurodiversity-affirming frameworks for working through the coach as a key systemic agent in the athlete’s environment. Participants will examine how bias, assumptions about “normal” performance behaviors, and ableist sport norms can impact coaching practices and athlete well-being. Applied consultation strategies and case examples will highlight how CMPCs can support coaches in adapting communication, structure, feedback, and expectations to promote inclusion, psychological safety, and equitable performance opportunities for neurodivergent athletes.
Objectives
At the conclusion of the program, attendees will be able to:
- Identify neurodiversity as a dimension of diversity within sport and explain its relevance to culturally responsive and ethical sport psychology consultation.
- Shift from a deficit‑based view of neurodiversity to a strengths‑based performance lens — empowering them to identify, support, and amplify the unique superpowers neurodiverse athletes bring to both individual performance and team success.
- Examine how ableist norms, implicit bias, and performance expectations within sport systems may influence coaching behaviors and the experiences of neurodivergent athletes.
- Several tools and techniques to help scaffold and support athletes with ADHD.
- Apply neurodiversity-affirming consultation strategies when working through the coach to support communication, structure, emotional regulation, and motivation.
CE Credit
This program has been approved by the Continuing Education Committee for 3.0 CEUs in the area of diversity to partially meet the continuing education recertification requirement for Certified Mental Performance Consultants® (CMPCs). CEUs are available to both live attendees and those who watch the recording.
Program Format
You can attend an AASP webinar from your home or office. All you need is an internet connection. You can see the presentation slides on your computer or mobile device, and listen to the audio through your device, or call in with a phone. Registrants will be provided with login information the day prior to the session. The webinar will also be archived for those who wish to watch it at a later date.
About the Speakers
Steve Bicknell
Steve is a Registered Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working across adult, adolescent, and child populations in a range of clinical and performance settings. He spent 12 years working primarily within Youth Justice in correctional environments and has also practiced across education, mental health, and disability services. Since commencing in private practice in 2017, Steve has expanded into professional sport, where he now works extensively with elite athletes and high-performance systems. Steve’s key areas of expertise include trauma and PTSD, ADHD and neurodivergence, antisocial behaviour, behaviour management, parenting interventions, substance use, family separation and custody matters, alongside anxiety and depression. He has substantial experience delivering group therapy, workshops, and professional training programs. He is currently a team-aligned psychologist with the Parramatta Eels, Gold Coast Titans, and Wests Tigers, and serves as a Specialist Psychologist to the NRL in the areas of antisocial behaviour, trauma, and neurodivergence. Steve also works with the AFL and Cricket Australia, and has supported athletes across the A-League and various Olympic sports. In addition to individual athlete support, Steve has spent the past two years delivering education and training to coaches, performance staff, athletes, and partners across the NRL and AFL, with a strong focus on neurodivergence in high-performance environments. This work led to his role as a keynote speaker at the 2025 PAADS Symposium in New York, where he presented to wellbeing officers and practitioners from major global sporting organisations including the NBA, NFL, MLB, English Premier League, WTA, and Olympic bodies.
Dr. Jacob Yorg
Jacob Yorg is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC), and experienced NCAA administrator whose career bridges mental health, performance psychology, coaching, and student‑athlete development. With more than two decades in athletics, Jacob brings a rare combination of clinical training, applied sport psychology expertise, and on-the-ground coaching experience that uniquely positions him to support athletes through both performance demands and personal growth. As the Executive Director of Elite Within Mindset, a nonprofit he founded, Jacob has provided mental performance training and counseling to more than 2,000 athletes at the youth, high school, collegiate, and professional levels. In addition to performance work, he conducts diagnostic evaluations for ADHD and Autism, helping students and athletes understand their neurotype and use that knowledge to build success in both sport and academics. His strengths-based approach empowers neurodiverse performers to recognize their cognitive assets and develop individualized strategies for focus, resilience, and learning. Jacob’s background spans NCAA Division II compliance leadership and more than 25 years of women’s basketball coaching across high school, junior college, and NCAA levels, giving him a uniquely comprehensive understanding of the systems, pressures, and interpersonal dynamics that shape the athlete experience. His administrative work provided deep insight into eligibility, institutional control, and student-athlete support. At the same time, his coaching career built his reputation for creating team cultures grounded in communication, accountability, and psychological safety. This dual lens allows Jacob to bridge mental‑performance theory with real-world team environments, helping athletes, coaches, and departments develop structures and relationships that support both well-being and competitive excellence. Jacob holds doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology and Higher Education Leadership and teaches psychology, sociology, counseling, and sport-related coursework at multiple institutions. His research and applied practice center on athlete well-being, communication, and the strengths-based potential of neurodiverse performers.
Dr. Josephine Perry
Dr. Josephine Perry is a Chartered Sport Psychologist based in London, England, whose purpose is to help people accomplish more than they had previously believed possible. She integrates expertise in sport psychology and communications to support athletes, stage performers and business leaders to develop the approaches, mental skills and strategies which will help them achieve their ambitions. Josephine has worked with athletes across 29 different sports and a whole range of professions (including the Military, Police, C-Suite execs, DJs, Actors, Dancers and some of the world’s best Sommeliers) and focused on supporting those who have high levels of performance anxiety or ADHD.
Josephine has published six books including Performing under Pressure, The 10 Pillars of Success, I Can: The Teenage Athlete’s Guide to Mental Fitness and ADHD in Sport: Strategies for Success. She is also the co-host of the Be Braver podcast. Josephine wrote the world’s first book on ADHD in Sport and since publishing it in April 2025 has given speeches and workshops to dozens of organisations including The Royal Ballet School, The UK Sport Institute, Premiership Soccer teams, top UK Boarding Schools and hundreds of coaches to help them support their athletes with ADHD in a way that supports their long term development and ensures they thrive in their profession.
Dr. Brittany Collins
Dr. Brittany L. Collins is the CEO of Developing ME! Counseling and Consulting, LLC, a Consultant, Content Contributor, and Mentor for Synergistic Solutions, and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Dayton. She earned her Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision in 2022 with a Multicultural and Social Justice Cognate and was recognized as Outstanding Doctoral Student of the Year. Her additional honors include the Mizzou Made Staff of the Year (2022) and the Emerging Leader Award from the American College Counselors Association (2018–2019). Dr. Collins has held extensive leadership, teaching, and clinical roles across higher education, athletics, healthcare, and community-based mental health systems. Her experience includes serving as Program Director for the Behavioral Health Workforce Expansion Program (BHWEP) at the University of Dayton; Assistant Director of Athletics and Director of Mental Health and Wellness; and Licensed Mental Health Professional and Athletics Program Therapist with UofL Health/UofL Athletics, the University of Missouri Athletics Department, and the University of Cincinnati Sports Medicine Department. She has also supported college student-athlete development through roles focused on holistic wellness, academic success, and identity development. In addition, Dr. Collins has provided clinical services across community mental health, residential treatment, and school-based settings, including work as an in-school therapist supporting youth, families, and multidisciplinary teams. She has served as a College Counselor at the University of Dayton Counseling Center and as Adjunct Faculty at the University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and Walden University. Beyond higher education, she managed Youth and Adult Sports for the City of Dayton Recreation and Youth Services and served as a high school women’s basketball coach for more than seven years. Dr. Collins’ professional work centers on brain health, neurodivergence, high-performance environments, and culturally responsive care. Recent presentations include Stronger Everyday, Sharper Every Play: Brain Health for Athletes (Brain Health Collective Lunch and Learn, 2026, Dayton, OH) and Classroom Clinic: Coaching and Supporting Neurodivergence in Athletes (National Association for Basketball Coaches Convention, 2025). She also served as Co-Leader of the Black Professionals in Sport & Performance Psychology Affinity Group through AASP. She is licensed across multiple states and holds national certifications, including NCC, BCTMH, CYSA, and CMPC (and CMPC Mentor). A former Division I women’s basketball student-athlete at Ohio University, Dr. Collins is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Registration
Students – $49.00
Members – $75.00
Non-members – $99.00
