About

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Maria is a non-attorney special education advocate who resides in Northern California. She holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology and has served in both general education and special day class programs as an autism specialist paraeducator for six years across multiple Bay Area school districts. She has completed graduate-level work with a concentration in Language and Literacy. She has attended hundreds of IEP team meetings and has collaborated with psychoeducational evaluators, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, board-certified behavior analysts, general education and special education teachers as well as site administrators and district staff to best support children with educational and/or behavioral needs. 

Maria's additional training and professional affiliations include:

• Member of the Council of Parents, Advocates, and Attorneys (COPAA), with SEAT 2.0 Certification
• International Dyslexia Association Northern New England Alliance
• Stanford Neurodiversity Summit 2022, 2023
• 15th Annual Autism Spectrum Disorders Update, Stanford University (2022)
• UC Davis MIND Summer Institute on Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (2021)
• Social Thinking Conference co-hosted by Michelle Garcia-Winner (2015, 2017)
• Support for Families Conference, San Francisco (2014-2018, 2021)
• Member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)