Tanya Paparella, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Child Psychiatry at UCLA and a licensed clinical psychologist. She is a director of the Early Childhood Partial Hospitalization (ECPHP) Program at UCLA. ECPHP is a short-term, comprehensive, interdisciplinary day treatment program which provides state-of-the-art diagnosis and intervention for preschool children with autism, related developmental disabilities, and behavior disorders. Dr. Paparella is specialist in the field of autism having spent over 15 years in autism intervention and research. She received Masters degrees both in Special Education and in Counseling Psychology from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her formative years in applied autism intervention were spent at the Douglas Developmental Disabilities Center at Rutgers University where she received extensive experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational programs for young children with autism. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from UCLA, and completed a two-year NIMH post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Child Psychiatry at UCLA. Dr. Paparella's research has focused on the development of core deficits in young children with autism. Her current clinical and research interests relate to the effectiveness of early intervention - particularly with respect to predictors of early intervention outcomes for toddlers on the autism spectrum.