Andrew Johnson

Bio

Andrew Johnson is a career special education teacher in the Los Angeles area with more than 25 years in public-school classrooms. He works with students who have ADHD, autism, specific learning disabilities, and other learning needs — and with the parents who are trying to help those students start, stay, switch, and check without making medicine the whole plan.

How to Focus with ADHD without Medicine (Executive Function Edition) is the field manual from that work. Train the Manager is the planned parent course on the same spine. Disability Is Awesome University is the broader catalog concept — ADHD, autism, dual nights, and self-advocates.

Teaching approach

• Child / learner as manager — you coach; they own a little more each month.
• One skill per week — Start, Stay, Switch, or Check. Practice beats lecture.
• Agree → ask why → one move → fade — parent talk pattern that lowers shame.
• Autism kitchen words when they fit — stuck / inertia, transition load, sensory charge/drain — with EF as the quiet back-label.
• Strengths first, hard parts named — awesome means dignity + usable tools, not a cure story.

Disability & autism advocacy posture

Advocate for clear tools and dignity at home and school. Listen to autistic and ADHD adults. Prefer identity language individuals choose. Stay out of medicine lanes and IEP legal warfare. Soft product: practice catalogs, scripts, and calm membership — not character prosecution and not inspiration porn.

Faith may be offered. It is never required.

Classroom & life

More than two decades across elementary, middle, and high school special education — resource, special day class, and related roles — including work with students with autism and ADHD-style days. Husband and father of three. Skis with his son, trains in martial arts, and spends as much time outside as the school year allows.