Advisory Board

Mary Lynch Barbera, RN, Ph.D., BCBA-D

Mary Lynch Barbera learned in 1999 that the eldest of her two sons, Lucas, had autism. Since Lucas' diagnosis one day before his third birthday, Mary has focused her attention and research on autism and related disorders.

In 2000, she founded the Autism Society of Berks County. She became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst in 2003 and worked as the Lead Behavior Analyst for the Pennsylvania Verbal Behavior Project from 2003 until 2010. Over the past several years, Mary has had the privilege of working with hundreds of children on the autism spectrum and has assisted in providing training to thousands of professionals and parents.

In 2007 Mary published the pivotal book, The Verbal Behavior Approach, How to Teach Children with Autism and Related Disorders. Mary is an international speaker on the subject of autism and Applied Behavior Analysis. She recently recieved her Ph.D. in Leadership and completed a dissertation on staff training in evidenced-based procedures for individuals with autism. 

Guy Bruce Ed. D., BCBA-D

Guy Bruce is an assistant professor in the Behavior Analysis Program at Florida Institute of Technology. Since earning his Ed. D. in Educational Psychology from the Behavior Analysis in Human Resources program at West Virginia University, Dr. Bruce has taught behavior analysis in both undergraduate and graduate programs and worked as consultant organizations, including agencies that provide services to individuals with disabilities.

He is the author of “Instructional Design Made Easy,” a workbook for designing more efficient learning programs and PARSE, a data-based process that can be used by human service organizations to help clients achieve their goals. His goal is to help individuals and organizations achieve their goals, through the use of positive methods to improve performance. Guy researches variables that affect learning efficiency such as the number of practice opportunities per minute, reinforcement frequencies, and sequencing of practice.

 Susan M. Wilczynski, Ph.D., BCBA-D

Susan is a Distinguished Professor of Special Education and Applied Behavior Analysis at Ball State University's Department of Special Education. She served as former executive director of the National Autism Center. During her time at the National Autism Center, Dr. Wilczynski served as the chair of the National Standards Project. In this role, she secured input from 40 of the leading experts in autism treatment in the United States and spearheaded the development of the methodology for evaluating empirical literature of the most extensive systematic review of the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders that has been conducted. This was an iterative process involving the integration of expert opinion with research methodology. Thus, she has significant experience securing input from a large body of individuals, aggregating results, and organizing the outcomes in a meaningful way that produces a strong product. She has written in book chapters and presented extensively on this topic and is considered one of the leading research methodologists in autism treatment. Dr. Wilczynski established reliability of coding and analyzed data for 775 empirical studies, thus demonstrating a capacity to manage large sets of data with input from multiple informants.

Also in her role at the National Autism Center, Dr. Wilczynski oversaw the development of the coding manual and software used by over 80 individuals internationally to evaluate the ASD treatment literature. This process involved modifying software based on beta users feedback and ensuring the eight-page expanding Adobe Acrobat document captured critical data for further analysis. Software development was also an iterative process involving feedback from end users.

Although serving as chair of the National Standards Project contributed significantly to the general knowledge about Autism Spectrum Disorders, it required almost all of Dr. Wilczynski’s time between 2006-2011, thus limiting the number of empirical publications and extramural grant activity possible. In her new role as a Distinguished Professor at Ball State University, half of her time is dedicated to these scholarly activities. 

Jamey Wolff MA, CAS

Jamey is the cofounder and Program Director of the Center for Spectrum Services formerly known as The Children’s Annex in 1976.  For 35 years, The Center for Spectrum Services has provided model programs for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their families.  Under her leadership, Spectrum Services has grown to serve over 250 students yearly in day schools in Kingston and Ellenville New York, in community-based programs for toddlers and preschoolers and through the Spectrum Services Clinic providing diagnostic evaluations, counseling, program consultations and trainings in best practices.

Founder and Coordinator of the Hudson Alliance for Children with Special Needs, a consortium of 25 programs serving students with special needs, Ms. Wolff is also cofounder and an Honorary Board Member of The Hudson Valley Autism Society, Invited to serve on the New York State Autism Task Force, Ms. Wolff  participated in the development of The Autism Program Quality Indicators: a quality improvement guide for schools and programs serving students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and as the instructor of record at The New York State University for the development of a course entitled Effective Strategies Educating Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Awarded an Effective Practices Grant from New York State Education Department  for the exemplary model developed for integrating Spectrum Services students back to their neighborhood schools, Ms. Wolff produced a grant funded training video in 2000 entitled Planning Effective Integration Practices for statewide dissemination to public school programs. In 2009, she produced and directed an educational documentary entitled The Asperger’s Difference: A film for and about young people with Asperger Syndrome. Ms. Wolff consults and presents nationally on best educational practices for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Anne Lau, M.Ed, NCC, BCBA

Anne has been working with children with autism and related disabilities since 2004 in many different settings; from intensive center-based, in-home early intervention, all the way to facilitating the transition into regular education. 

Anne received her Masters in Education from University of Hawaii at Manoa in Counseling and Guidance. She is a Nationally Certified Counselor. Her interests include verbal behavior, feeding problems, precision teaching, and organizational behavior management.