Alicia V Hall, PhD

I would say that on the path to becoming an expert in neurodevelopmental disorders, Dr. Harry Wright was a mentor. He was a psychiatrist who is now deceased, but he really helped shape the way I think about neurodevelopmental disorders. He was the psychiatrist in the clinic while I was training. My other mentor from that same clinic is a psychologist, Dr. Michael, who really helped me in terms of shaping how I view the interactions when doing assessments. He taught me about maintaining your professionalism, but also not being such a stick in the mud that there's an even greater separation from you and the patient. He really taught me that you need to get on their level, particularly when you're working with folks with autism spectrum disorder. An assessment is still a social interaction, and to be able to pay attention to everything in that social interaction, even how you are interacting with that person, can be instructive for your clinical assessment and clinical decision-making. He was really important for me to understand about diagnostic overshadowing. He helped me understand that if a person comes in and they say their kid has autism or intellectual disability and they're exhibiting a behavior, that behavior should not automatically be attributed to the primary diagnosis. It's my job as the psychologist to figure out, is this behavior part of their primary diagnosis, something you typically see with individuals who share that diagnosis, or could this behavior also be hallmarks of something else that also needs attention and treatment.

The best career advice I’ve received is to maintain professionalism while still being approachable and willing to “get on their level.” Especially in assessments, paying close attention to social interaction and avoiding diagnostic overshadowing can make a meaningful difference in truly understanding the individual in front of you.

The field is wide and big in terms of forensic psychology, so I would ask her what areas does she want to pursue. Does she want to do criminal work? Does she want to do family-related work, like child custody and guardianship? There's also work-related forensic work, like readiness for returning to work. I have colleagues that do evaluations of people who have been officers or military personnel who have been removed from the field because they've experienced trauma. It's a wide field, and so I would want them to try to get as much exposure to the field as they could so that they could find something that really fits for them. I would also stress that there's the treatment side of forensics too. Do they want to provide treatment? I think the other big piece that people don't think about necessarily when they think about forensics or going into forensic psychology is that you have to be a strong clinician. Your clinical skills have to be well developed, and that takes time, which is another reason why you want to get exposure to as many different people in the field and how many different practices as you can. That's really going to help sharpen your own clinical skills and your own clinical knowledge.

One of the biggest opportunities in the field is the growing need for professionals with expertise in both neurodevelopmental disorders and forensic psychology, as relatively few practitioners have deep experience in both areas. At the same time, developing the strong clinical foundation needed to work effectively in this niche can be a significant and time-intensive challenge.

The values most important to me in both my work and personal life are professionalism, approachability, and maintaining a patient-centered perspective. I believe in taking the time to conduct careful, accurate assessments and avoiding assumptions that behaviors are solely tied to a primary diagnosis, while staying engaged with professional and community organizations that support psychology, autism research, and developmental disabilities.