The Brief

While the movement to increase awareness of neurodiversity has been around since the 1990s, you might be hearing the term "neurodiverse" in conversations, news stories or even on your social media feeds more frequently in recent years. Neurodiversity diagnoses in adults has been on the rise, and more people today are self-diagnosing as neurodivergent, some because they can't get a diagnosis from a health care provider.

One of those people struggling to get the assessment and treatment they feel they need is LAist's Weekend Edition host Julia Paskin.

"Many of us (myself included) have spent years living with a core belief that we are inherently 'broken,'” she said. "So, to discover that no, we are not broken but different, and not alone, can be a tremendous relief. It’s also angering to think about how long you may have struggled personally and professionally because you lacked support."

This series from LAist's daily news show AirTalk explains the complexities of neurodiversity, our history of understanding it as a society, why awareness surrounding it has increased recently and how people who are neurodivergent interact with the world and communicate with others.

We invite you to listen to those conversations:

The spectrum, provider shortages and self-diagnosis 

Neurodiversity is a term that has become ubiquitous in the past couple of years. It was first coined in 1997 by sociologist Judy Singer to explain a span of cognitive and neurological differences in the human brain. The term encompasses everything from Tourette's syndrome and dyslexia to autism and ADHD.

While there is lots of research on these disorders, the focus tends to be on children, not adults. Many adults with neurodivergence struggle to get a diagnosis for a number of reasons. This week on AirTalk we’re covering neurodivergence for various angles.

Guests: Vanessa Bal, associate professor of applied psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Lawrence Fung, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and Karissa Burnett, licensed psychologist at Divergent Pathways.

Defining characteristics & long-lasting stigma

For most of the 20th century, neurodiverse conditions like autism were considered to be quite rare, having less to do with their prevalence but more so with their researcher characteristics. Despite books like The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders having definitions for disabilities like ADHD or autism, the 1990s saw notable increases for both once clinical diagnoses began to understand the complexities of neurodiversity.

In this conversation, we get into this century-long development of definitions and how recent decades have led to a much more nuanced look into what neurodiversity is.

Guests: Steve Silberman, science writer and author of the book "NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity," and Dr. Shulamite Green, licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA.

Advice for businesses and employees

Neurodiversity is a rising umbrella term used to describe people with variation in their mental function. It can be used to describe people with things like autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder and many other conditions. In this conversation, we focus on neurodiversity in the workplace, the various challenges neurotypical people can experience, and advice for both individuals and employers for how to improve the situation.

Guests: Devon Price, social psychologist, professor at Loyola University Chicago, and the author of the book Unmasking Autism (Harmony, 2022), and Alex Gilbert, coach, CEO and founder of Cape-Able, a consulting and coaching organization that supports individuals with learning disabilities and works with companies.

Dealing with mental health challenges

The world isn’t built for neurodivergent people. At the very least, it’s exhausting to navigate a neurotypical world, potentially leading to burnout from having to constantly mask one’s true self. But neurodivergent people can also face significant mental health challenges, like depression and anxiety. How common are mental health problems in the neurodivergent community?

How do these conditions present themselves? And how does finally receiving a diagnosis affect a patient’s mental health?

Guests: Melody Marin, clinical psychologist specializing in neurodivergence and Ryan Sultán, pediatric psychiatrist at Columbia University’s Mental Health Informatics Lab.

Navigating relationships

This week, we’ve covered the topic of neurodiversity from a variety of angles, including the challenges of getting diagnosed, the need for workplace accommodations and mental health challenges that often accompany neurodivergence. Today, we’re talking about neurodiversity in relationships. One in five people in the U.S. identify as neurodivergent; so it’s very likely you’re in a relationship of some kind with someone who is neurodiverse. What does that mean for the relationship and how conflict is approached and addressed?

Guest: Jodi Carlton, neurodivergence relationship expert and host of the podcast "Your Neurodiverse Relationship.”

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.