Dr. Emily W. King: The Child Isn’t Broken
What if helping a neurodivergent child thrive begins not by changing the child, but by changing how the adults around them understand safety, motivation, learning, and success?
Child psychologist and author Dr. Emily W. King is coming to On Air with Johnny B for a thoughtful conversation inspired by her new book, The Neurodivergent Learner.
Why This Conversation Matters
Neurodivergent children are often expected to work harder inside classrooms, routines, and systems that were not designed around the way they experience the world.
When school becomes overwhelming, adults may see resistance, distraction, defiance, anxiety, or a lack of motivation. Dr. Emily W. King encourages us to look beneath the behavior. Does the child feel safe and connected? Are expectations aligned with the child’s developmental profile? Are we protecting curiosity and confidence—or measuring success only through compliance and conventional achievement?
Released August 25, 2026, The Neurodivergent Learner brings together neuroscience, practical strategies, real-life stories, and Dr. King’s experience as both a child psychologist and the mother of two neurodivergent sons.
Her upcoming On Air with Johnny B conversation will explore the deeply human shift at the center of that work: moving away from trying to fix a child and toward understanding how that child learns, regulates, connects, and grows.
The Question at the Heart of the Conversation
If a neurodivergent child is not broken, what must the adults—and the systems around that child—learn to see differently?
That question opens a larger conversation about parenting, education, mental health, identity, and the many ways children show us what they need before they have the words to explain it.
What We’ll Explore
Connect First, Then Teach
Why connection, regulation, and a sense of safety are not rewards children earn after succeeding, but conditions that help make learning possible.
When School Feels Like Too Much
What may be happening beneath homework battles, testing stress, shutdowns, anxious behavior, and moments that adults sometimes misread as laziness or defiance.
Parents and Educators on the Same Team
How curiosity, useful language, and collaboration can strengthen trust between families and schools—even after a difficult meeting, a misunderstood behavior, or a rough night at home.
Support Without Shame
How adults can distinguish productive challenge from overload while helping children build independence without prematurely removing the support they still need.
Helping Children Find Their People—and Their Thing
How interests, extracurricular activities, supportive adults, and genuine allies can create belonging, strengthen motivation, and reveal abilities that traditional classrooms may overlook.
Redefining Success
What changes when success includes self-understanding, joy, confidence, authentic relationships, and a life that fits the child—not only grades, compliance, or keeping pace with everyone else.
About The Neurodivergent Learner
The Neurodivergent Learner: A New Approach to Your Child’s Success in the Classroom and Beyond is a practical, neuro-affirming roadmap for parents and educators supporting children who are autistic, gifted, have ADHD, have learning differences, or simply learn differently.
Drawing on more than twenty years of professional experience, current neuroscience, family stories, and the lived experiences of young people, Dr. King examines the moments that often create the greatest strain: finding the right school fit, building trusted relationships with educators, managing energy, navigating homework and testing, supporting friendships, responding to anxiety, and helping children grow toward self-advocacy.
The book’s three-part journey—preparing, supporting, and empowering the learner—helps adults move beyond behavior management and build environments in which neurodivergent children can feel understood, capable, and supported as themselves.
Published by Ten Speed Press on August 25, 2026, the book is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
About Dr. Emily W. King
Emily W. King, PhD, is a Raleigh-based licensed child psychologist, speaker, and parent educator with more than twenty years of experience working with neurodivergent children and teens.
She earned her PhD in school psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and specializes in providing therapy and consultation for children living with autism, anxiety, ADHD, and learning difficulties. She is certified in DIR/Floortime® and experienced in psychoeducational evaluations and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Dr. King is the founder of Learn with Dr. Emily® and the creator of The Neurodiverse Classroom®, a professional-development curriculum for K–12 educators. As both a psychologist and the mother of two neurodivergent sons, she brings professional expertise and lived experience to a mission centered on understanding children and helping them flourish as themselves.
About On Air with Johnny B.
On Air with Johnny B. is built around The Conversation Beyond the Résumé—relaxed, carefully researched interviews about the experiences, turning points, and human stories behind a person’s public work.
Johnny B is an entertainment journalist, interviewer, author, voice artist, U.S. Army veteran, and mental-health advocate. His conversations are thoughtful rather than clinical, respectful rather than sensational, and designed to give guests room to speak in their own voice.
The goal is not a manufactured viral moment. It is a useful, memorable conversation that leaves the audience seeing the guest—and perhaps themselves—a little differently.