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Biography
Dr. Jackie Shinall is a clinical psychologist with over 14 years of experience working with the autism population, and over eight years of experience conducting diagnostic assessments and completing reports. She supervised doctoral students through diagnostic assessments and reviewed reports. At Prosper Health, Dr. Shinall focuses on ensuring clients feel heard and understood, and she aims to provide thorough and accurate diagnostic clarity for adults seeking an autism diagnosis.
Education
Doctorate of Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) Rutgers University Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
Masters of Clinical Psychology (Psy.M.) Rutgers University Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology
Masters of Science (M.S.) in Neuroscience and Education – Columbia University’s Teacher’s College
Bachelor’s degree (BA) in Psychology
Certifications
She is a licensed clinical psychologist in Florida.
Area of Expertise
- Autism in adults - particularly diagnosis and assessing - I have used a wide range of tools and techniques to best understand the adults presenting for a diagnostic assessment.
- Differential diagnoses and co-occurring diagnoses with ASD. Many adults and adolescents with ASD have prior or co-occurring diagnoses, and I help clients to understand the different symptoms to help them best learn to manage those symptoms.
- Psychoeducation – Helping clients learn about the different mental health conditions, traits/symptoms, and how those have impacted them across their lifespan.
Modalities
Affiliations
Research and Publications
Bal, V. H., Mournet, A. M., Glascock, T., Shinall, J., Gunin, G., Jadav, N., ... & Kleiman, E. M. (2024). The emotional support plan: Feasibility trials of a brief, telehealth-based mobile intervention to support coping for autistic adults. Autism, 28(4), 932-944.
Mournet, A. M., Gunin, G., Shinall, J., Brennan, E., Jadav, N., Istvan, E., ... & Bal, V. H. (2024). The impact of measurement on clinical trials: Comparison of preliminary outcomes of a brief mobile intervention for autistic adults using multiple measurement approaches. Autism Research, 17(2), 432-442.
Albright, J., Shinall, J. A., Tomczuk, L., Stewart, R. E., Mandell, D. S., Stahmer, A. C., ... & Pellecchia, M. (2024). A multi-constituent qualitative examination of facilitators and barriers to caregiver coaching for autistic children in publicly funded early intervention. Autism, 13623613241272993.
Bal, V. H., Mournet, A., Gunin, G., Shinall, J., Glascock, V., Zhang, D., ... & Chu, B. (2023). Transdiagnostic Approaches to Supporting Mental Health of Autistic Adults. INSAR 2023.
Mournet, AM, Shinall, J, Gravino A, etal. Mental health guide for autistic college students. Organization for Autism Research. 2022. https://researchautism.org/resources/mentalhealth-guide/
Ferretti, C.J., Taylor, B.P., Shinall, J., & Hollander, E. Psychiatric Assessment and Pharmacological Treatment. In Hollander, E., Hagerman, R., & Fein, D., (2018), Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Luo, S. X., Shinall, J. A., Peterson, B. S., & Gerber, A. J. (2016). Semantic mapping reveals distinct patterns in descriptions of social relations in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 9(8), 846-853.
Pathological Demand Avoidance: Understanding PDA and its Relationship to Autism
Do you feel frozen whenever you feel like you should be doing something? Do the demands of day-to-day tasks make you feel like the walls are closing in? If demands cause you severe anxiety that gets in the way of completing daily activities, you might be experiencing demand avoidance. Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) is most commonly connected to autism, contributing to the great diversity of the autism spectrum. However, allistic (non-autistic) individuals can also align with a PDA profile. PDA can have significant impacts on a person’s life, but broader social awareness of PDA is still limited. Many support strategies, including neurodiversity-affirming therapy, can help PDA individuals manage demands and move through life with less anxiety.
How to Deal with Autism Anger in Adults: Effective Strategies and Techniques
Everyone experiences anger from time to time. For autistic individuals, anger can be more complex than for their neurotypical peers. Autism anger is often misunderstood or pathologized, which can lead to increased frustration for both the autistic person and those around them. Feeling misunderstood or judged makes anger management even more difficult than it already is.
To ease the added difficulties around autistic anger, it’s important to understand its causes, employ effective coping strategies and improve communication skills. Autistic individuals and their support networks can work together to build a toolkit for anger management.
Autism and Empathy: Bridging the Gap in Understanding Neurodivergent Perspectives
We often make assumptions about others’ internal states based on their external behaviors. For example, if I see that you’re shivering, I might make a good guess that you’re cold. I might be correct most of the time, but these assumptions are not always accurate. It’s also possible that someone can be shivering but not cold, or cold but not shivering.
Autistic behaviors are commonly misunderstood because autistic people have social and communication differences. This means that when someone guesses an autistic person's internal state based on what they see externally, they are less likely to guess correctly because the state may differ from what they expect. An autistic person may feel one way but appear differently to another person. One clear example of this is the assumption that some have made that autistic people must lack empathy.
The question “Do autistic people have empathy?” prevails in blog posts and articles online––and the persistence of this question exemplifies the harmful myth that autistic people lack empathy. Autistic people do have empathy––and in fact, many have heightened empathy––even if the expression of this empathy appears differently.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder marked by social and communication differences and a preference for sameness and repetition. In the past, some researchers pursued the idea that a lack of empathy is a defining feature of the autism spectrum ––but this view has been challenged by other researchers who point out the flaws in these assumptions.
While autistic traits undoubtedly include social and communication differences compared to allistic (non-autistic) people, these differences do not equate autism to a lack of empathy.
Read on to learn more about different types of empathy, factors influencing autistic empathy and more.