During my study at the Department of Special Education at the University of Leiden I got interested in developmental disorders such as autism. My internship and thesis were dedicated to diagnostic assesment and treatment of young children with autism. I have experience in both alternative therapies for children with autism and mainstream therapies such as social skills therapy. After I got my Masters' degree I started working at Leiden University as a researcher on a project on social play by at-risk children. This was followed by a move to the Radboud University Nijmegen, where I started my PhD project. In march 2010 I finished my PhD project at the University Nijmegen involving the classification of Pragmatic Language Impairment (PLI). The project was financed by Sint Marie (now known as Koninklijke Kentalis), an institute dedicated to diagnose and treat individuals with communicative problems. During my PhD project I started teaching several courses. In addition, I started working as a psychologist in a clinical setting at Zorgverlening PGZ.
I currently live in Sunnyvale, California with my husband and two little sons. The reason for our sudden move abroad? My husband started working for Google. Because I came on an H4 visa I am not allowed to work as of yet. This does not mean I don't have anything to do, because I am swamped in side-projects (writing papers and columns, enrolling in clinical courses, analysing statistical data on a questionnaire and test for children). In the upcoming months I will be in pursuit of an institute willing to file an H1b visa for me. So, if you accidentally stumble on my homepage and have psychology connections in California, be sure to send me an email. During our stay in the USA I will use this site to keep family and friends informed of our adventure.
