Who Am I?

​​Back in 2006, while at UC San Diego and pursuing a minor in psychology, I stumbled upon the Autism Lab when trying to fulfill my requirements. For 1 semester, I was assigned to the lab and was thrusted into the middle of a study to see what type of  therapy would produce better language outcomes, Pivotal Response Therapy (or Play therapy) or Picture Exchange Communication System. To do this, I was trained and instructed to go into a home of a 19 months old and her mom. As a team, we were able to teach this little girl to grab a picture of a cookie and hand it to her mom to request that cookie on the counter, instead of throwing a tantrum like she was known to do previously. When this happened, the mother burst into tears and was so filled with joy that her little girl was able to communicate, even if not through words. Little did I know this introduction to autism and ABA would lead to a passion for the rest of my life. 
 

19 years later, my devotion and passion to helping the autism population has not wavered. I have been fortunate to work with a wide variety of other disabilities or delays as well, which has consistently allowed the application of ABA in different ways. This includes individuals diagnosed with ADHD, OCD, GDD, ODD, and Schizophrenia, among others. I have learned just because one method was successful for one child does not mean it will be successful for another and that flexibility is crucial. I have also been fortunate enough to work with a variety ages, across a wide variety of environments, and with all types of family dynamics.. My experience includes working with 18 month old babies and doing Early Intervention, to working with individuals 21 years old and helping them transition into adulthood. I have worked in homes, schools, education centers, residential centers, clinics, and in the community.  

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Throughout all of this experience, I have also encountered an incredibly wide range of skills and deficits across the individuals I have worked with. Using a variety of techniques and devices, people have developed extensive verbal language when before they had limited functional communication. When working with 2-5 years old children, toilet training is usually a priority, a skill in which I have had success teaching for a majority of these children, despite some individuals taking 6 months or longer to become fully potty trained. Other priorities for these individuals typically focus on increasing social skills, increasing play skills, increasing independence with their daily routine activities, and decreasing challenging behaviors. Speaking of behaviors, I have worked with all sorts of them, ranging from verbal (cursing, screaming) to physical (punching/kicking) to property destruction (ripping paper/Breaking windows) to sexual (inappropriate touching/topic of consent) to psychological (lying/deception).