About Me
My passion is working with individuals with Autism and helping them achieve their full potential. I love getting inside the mind of a learner and figuring out what they need and how to help them get it.
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My background is in cognitive science, having co-founded a company dedicated to applying the science of learning in Bethesda, Maryland in 2011. By 2019, we had expanded partnerships to schools and clinics across 15 cities in the US and abroad, including New York, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Houston, Dubai, Amman, and Doha. In facilitating these partnerships, I trained teams of educators and professions in how to effectively teach, train, and transfer cognitive skills and learning strategies.
Over the course of 9 years, I designed and delivered individualized learning programs to struggling and gifted learners, those with acquired brain injuries, and those simply seeking to optimize their ability to learn. I co-developed the proprietary methods used in these individualized programs, and led the development of the 40-hour blended learning training for educators and clinicians seeking to learn and apply these methods to their work. My specialty was developing metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation, and other aspects of the Self-Regulated Learner framework.*
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Our programs were successful because of our commitment to individualizing every program to the individual's needs. In order to ensure the quality and integrity of our work, I led the development of a proprietary app designed to help educators and clinicians deepen their knowledge and their ability to customize interventions and generalize these skills. On the success of these programs, I then developed a course on the science of successful learning geared at middle and high school students. Topics included memory techniques and strategies, the role of forgetting in learning, the role of processing skills in learning, the role of metacognition in learning/how to develop Sophisticated Learners*, and myths and misunderstanding of learning.
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I am a certified Master Trainer™, certified Master eLearning Instructional Designer™, and am certified in Articulate Storyline.
*see Bjork et al 's Self-Regulated Learning: Beliefs, Techniques, and Illusions (here)
About DL
My goal is to develop DL into a community where your amazing kid can connect and thrive.
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I was inspired to choose "space" as a theme because space represents the best of humanity. It represents curiosity and discovery. It represents courage and cooperation.
It represents wonder and awe and possibility. It also represents being willing to do hard things and try new things because that's how discovery and progress happen. It represents rising above differences and connecting with others to reach a shared goal that is bigger than yourself. I want to build a place that cultivates all of this.
I have exciting plans to develop DL over the coming months and years. For now, my primary services are learning and independent living services. I specialize in developing conversation skills and helping kids gain confidence by learning and applying life skills. However, I am always looking to better understand the needs of families and kids like yours, and I would love to hear from you.