“The world needs all kinds of minds.”

Temple Grandin

Meet Ms. Amy

The Boring Stuff

Hi! Thanks for stopping by! A little bit about my educational and professional background:

I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Experimental Psychology. I returned to Pittsburgh, PA, where I grew up, to attend Chatham University for graduate school. In 2012, I completed my Level II Fieldwork rotation with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) - Children’s Hospital, in a Pediatric Outpatient Clinic setting and graduated with a Master of Occupational Therapy degree.

I returned to South Carolina and, after a brief stint in Pediatric Orthopedics (not my jam), I began splitting my time between a local school district, working with Preschool through High School-aged students, and a private Early Intervention company, where I worked as a private contractor working with infants and toddlers through age 5 in both home-care and clinic settings.

I eventually went full-time with the school district and a few years later dismissed my last remaining home-care client in 2020 when COVID-19 hit. Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, I worked from home full-time providing Virtual OT services for the district’s newly founded Virtual Academy.

I returned to “in-person school” in 2021 and am currently in my tenth year as a school OT.

I live in Chapin, SC with my husband and two children, born 12 years apart.

The Good Stuff

I am a late-diagnosed Autistic/ADHD adult.  Yep… you read that correctly.  I first self-identified as Autistic at 38-years-old while seeing  a mental health counselor during COVID-19 lockdown. At 39, I was professionally assessed and diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD. (This did not happen overnight.  But the reasons it took so long are complicated and could fill an entire book, so I won’t get into them here.)  All of a sudden, everything about me and my life up to this point made sense. 

I discovered the Neurodiversity movement and found that there are LOTS of others out there like me,  and for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel broken.  I understood why some things that came so easily to other people—things I was always told should come easily to me because I was “smart”—were still so hard for me, even as an adult. My brain just works differently.

Now it has become my passion to advocate for Neurodivergent kids and educate families, so that more parents are exposed to the idea of Neurodiversity.  I want people (especially the kids themselves) to understand that Autistic and other Neurodivergent kids can not, should not, and need not be “cured” or “fixed”. What they really need is people and places that allow them to feel safe to be themselves.  Without this, no true learning or skill development can occur.

I  understand that Neurodivergent kids face different challenges than many of their peers.  (They also face the same challenges, but often in their own unique ways.) I believe it is crucial to not only recognize an individual’s challenges, but also their unique strengths.

Because “the world needs all kinds of minds.”

Amy L. Naughton, MOT, OTR/L

Occupational Therapist

Owner, All Kinds of Minds, LLC

SC License #4007