What makes your approach different?

I haven’t always been lucky enough to have a successful private practice with a thoughtfully managed caseload. Twenty years ago, I started my journey as an intern in the Iron Triangle in Richmond, California. It was 2004, a time when the community was navigating one of the highest homicide rates in state history, and I was working in public schools so systemically underfunded and broken that their conditions directly inspired the historic Williams Act.

A series of professional (feeling awful as a district person for parents who chose the wrong assessor) and personal (trying to navigate the SPED system as a parent for my Autisic, Visually Impaired son), led me to specialize exclusively in IEEs. My cuurent office is a huge step up from my district-issued broom closets of the early 2000, but I don't sit there in a tower running isolated tests and hand down detached, inappropriate recommendations. At my core, I am still a public servant who will jump right in—the person who knows exactly what it’s like to break a crayon in half just so two kids have something to write with that day. I am authentic, engaged, and entirely on the ground.

Because I was forged in the realities of the public school system, I can’t help but look at your child’s assessment through three lenses simultaneously: as a clinician, as a school district service provider, and as a special education administrator. I don't write generic wish lists that look great on paper but fail in the real world.

School districts are only legally required to "consider" an outside evaluation. When they ignore a report, it’s rarely because they don't understand it—it’s because the recommendations are completely unexecutable in a real classroom. It is like handing a detailed plumbing schematic to an HVAC technician—there is simply nothing they can structurally execute from it.

An evaluation is useless unless it leads to actual, implemented interventions. Because I know the system from the inside out, I build data-driven, legally solid educational plans that a school district is structurally equipped and legally tasked to execute. I'm not here to check off a testing box; I'm here to change things for your child.

What happens if I don’t agree with your assessment results?

While it is rare, there are a handful of occasions (around once every couple of years) where a family disagrees with my findings. When that happens, my approach never changes: I am completely upfront with you, and I welcome your right to disagree.

The hard truth of special education is that neither of us can control what the data reveals. Your child is already exhibiting their unique traits and behaviors; my job is simply to act as an objective investigator and capture that reality. These disagreements most often happen around "heavy" pivots—like an Autism eligibility question or whether a child qualifies for special education services at all.

Even if the ultimate data isn't what you hoped for or expected, I believe you should have a powerful voice in the document. To make sure you do:

• Your exact words go into the report: In the parent interview section, I don’t just write my own summary of your perspective. I invite you to write, text, or dictate an actual, raw Parent Statement.
• Zero tone-policing: That statement goes into the final report exactly as you state it. It can be formal, polite, or aggressive—whatever feels truest to you and your journey.

Ultimately, even if we end up seeing the final data differently, I ensure your voice is protected, documented, and respected from start to finish.

Do I get to see the report before the school district does?

The final report is sent to the parent and the school district at the exact same time.

This policy plays directly into my commitment to absolute impartiality. If I were to give you early access to review or alter the text, it would give the school district immediate ammunition to suggest that the report was edited to your liking and is no longer an independent evaluation. Protecting the report's neutrality is what keeps it powerful at the table.

However, neither side is left completely in the dark before the meeting:

• The final stages heads-up: When the assessment is nearing completion, I give both you and the school district a heads-up that a draft is ready.
• Factual corrections: Both parties are given an equal opportunity to review the document and submit any minor factual corrections or formatting additions.
• It stays a draft until the meeting: The document remains an official "draft" right up until the IEP team reviews it together. It is only finalized after the IEP meeting is complete.

I understand you accept a very limited number of behavior cases. What determines whether you take one on?

To be completely upfront, I am highly unlikely to accept a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) case if another examiner is simultaneously conducting a psychoeducational or neuropsychological evaluation. I cannot feel like I am doing a complete, thorough job unless I can integrate all current data into the behavior plan—which is impossible when two separate testing tracks are running parallel. Furthermore, you would be shocked at how often different examiners assessing overlapping areas end up disagreeing with one another, causing massive, unnecessary confusion during what was supposed to be a clarifying experience for your family.

There are also practical realities of running a highly specialized private practice that dictate what I can accept, specifically compensation and time:

• The Compensation Piece: Because FBAs can be conducted by professionals with BCBA-only credentials, school districts typically cap their funding layouts. They usually pay around 40% or less of what they allocate for a psychoeducational evaluation.
• The Time Factor: If you do them correctly, a thorough FBA actually takes significantly more hours on the ground to complete than a standard psychoeducational assessment.

What I am likely to accept:

• Comprehensive Tracks: Cases where I am hired to conduct both the concurrent FBA and the psychoeducational evaluation together.
• FBA-Only with Existing Data: Cases where solid psychoeducational data already exists, and I am brought in to conduct the FBA exclusively.

What are your geographic boundaries for behavior assessments?

Case complexity and geographic distance play a massive role because FBAs require extensive on-site school observation time. My practice is based in the Pasadena and Monrovia area, but reverse traffic patterns open up my availability hugely.

• Where I am highly available: Heading east past the 210 border is incredibly smooth for my schedule. I am highly available for cases in Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, or anywhere in the Valley. I also happily take clients in Orange County—I am originally from there and still have a lot of family down there, which makes the commute and the trip well worthwhile.
• Where I pass: If you are located on the Westside or near La Brea, it is truly best to find an evaluator who is local to that area. Southern California traffic is a real constraint, and I want to ensure I can give every child my full energy rather than losing half my day fighting cross-town traffic on the freeway.

Do you do neuropsychological evaluations?

It truly depends on what you picture when you hear the term "neuropsychological evaluation."

A true, clinical neuropsychological exam is a medical assessment. It is designed to look for structural brain injuries, strokes, or acute neurological conditions, and it's typically done by a clinical neuropsychologist in a hospital or medical clinic.

In the educational world, excellent organizations like the California Association of School Psychologists (CASP) emphasize neuropsychological principles, but there actually isn’t a universal, legally binding definition for what a "school neuropsychological evaluation" has to look like. Because the term is a bit loose, it unfortunately gets used as a marketing buzzword in special education. That can cause a lot of unnecessary confusion for parents, and sometimes it allows providers to posture as elite experts without the actual rigor to back it up.

Whether my work fits your definition of "neuropsych" is entirely up to you. But here is what I can tell you: by any metric, I am a gold-standard assessor. I have been trained on the ADOS-2 for nearlu 20 years, sat in the second row at Dawn Flagggan's PSW workshop in the early 2000sI am quite possibly the most heavily invested single psychologist you will meet when it comes to my physical testing cache. I don't cut corners on my tools, because robust, precise data is what drives the real value of everything we do for your child.

To give you an honest look inside my testing cabinet, here are the gold-standard, highly specialized instruments I use, tailored precisely to what your child needs:

Neuro-Academic Foundations (The Feifer Family)

You rarely see these used in public school districts because they are incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive to administer, score, and interpret. But to me, they are the absolute best of the best. They look past simple scores to show us exactly how your child’s brain processes information. In plain terms: if your child has a hidden learning disability, this framework will find it.

• FAM™ (Feifer Assessment of Mathematics | 2016) — Looks at the underlying neurocognitive processes supporting math calculations, mental math, and quantitative reasoning to identify specific types of dyscalculia.
• FAR™ (Feifer Assessment of Reading | 2015) — A neurodevelopmental reading battery that examines how the brain processes phonetic decoding, sight words, and reading comprehension to target specific dyslexia profiles.
• FAW™ (Feifer Assessment of Writing | 2020) — Examines how brain processes impact mechanics, spelling, and spatial text generation to pinpoint dysgraphia or written expression disorders.

Cognitive, Attention, Behavior & Clinical Batteries

(Alphabetized for quick reference)

• ABAS®-3 (Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, Third Edition | 2015) — Evaluates the crucial daily living, communication, and independence skills your child needs to navigate the school environment.
• ADOS®-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition | 2012) — The gold standard for looking at social communication and behavioral patterns through direct, standardized interaction. I have received direct, in-person clinical instruction on how to administer this since 2008, I'm deeply familiar with every single module from preschool to adult, and I know its nuances inside and out.
• ARES™ (The Anger Regulation and Expression Scales | 2009) — A specialized rating scale to measure how a child experiences, regulates, and expresses big emotions across different environments.
• ASRS® (Autism Spectrum Rating Scales | 2009) — Multi-perspective data tracking across home and school environments for autism spectrum traits.
• BRIEF®-2 (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Second Edition | 2015) — Measures real-world executive function, working memory, emotional control, and self-regulation behaviors.
• CAS2® (Cognitive Assessment System, Second Edition | 2014) — Evaluates cognitive processing abilities based on neurocognitive PASS theory (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive processing).
• CAVLT™-2 (Children's Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition | 1996) — A pure, precise look at verbal learning, immediate memory, and delayed retention capabilities.
• CDI 2® (Children's Depression Inventory, Second Edition | 2012) — A comprehensive assessment tool used to evaluate cognitive, behavioral, and emotional symptoms of depression in children and teens.
• Communication Matrix™ (2004) — A highly specialized assessment designed to pinpoint exact communication behaviors in individuals who are at the earliest stages of speech development or have complex communication needs.
• Conners EC™ (Conners Early Childhood | 2009) — Specifically designed to assess behavior, development, and emotional milestones in toddlers and preschool-aged children.
• CPT-3™ (Conners Continuous Performance Test, Third Edition | 2014) — A precise, computer-based task that measures sustained attention and impulsivity. Frankly, if someone tells you they "specialize in ADHD" but they don't offer continuous performance testing, do they really specialize in it? This cuts through the noise and subjective bias of standard checklists to give us a real-world picture of how your child's attention actually functions.
• DP®-4 (Developmental Profile 4 | 2020) — Evaluates a child’s development and functional skills across five key domains (Physical, Adaptive, Social-Emotional, Cognitive, and Communication) to map out structural strengths and vulnerabilities.
• KABC-II® (Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition | 2004) — A deeply nuanced cognitive and processing battery that minimizes cultural and language biases.
• MIGDAS-2™ (Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, Second Edition | 2018) — A qualitative, sensory-based diagnostic interview framework that captures an authentic, descriptive profile of a child's distinct communication and behavioral style.
• RIAS-2® (Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Second Edition | 2015) — A reliable, precise measure of verbal and nonverbal intelligence, alongside memory assessment.
• SRAS-R™ (School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised | 2002) — A specialized instrument that evaluates the underlying function of school-avoidant behavior to determine exactly why a student is resisting school so we can help them return successfully.