Hi y’all! My name is Dr. Monica Abdul-Chani (she/her/hers/ella), and I am a post-doctoral (“post-doc” for short) clinician at Kimel Psychological Services, LLC. My post-doc title means that I ama Ph.D. level doctor who is finishing the required supervised clinical work to be a fully licensed provider in the state of Colorado. At KPS, I provide assessment and intervention services for
autistic individuals and individuals with developmental disability diagnoses. I also provide services for females/women/girls, the LGBTQ+ and gender diverse communities, and Spanish-speaking families. Finally, I am receiving training on forensic and psycho-legal consultation services to best serve individuals with developmental disabilities in the legal system. While I work with a large age range, my age groups of expertise and passion are adolescents and young adults. I received my Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Spanish from Skidmore College, and my Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Medical/Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I completed internship in Developmental Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Colorado and am currently completing my 1-year fellowship at KPS, supervised by Dr. Lila Kimel. Advocacy and prioritizing the voices of those with the lived experience has been my main objective and passion since I started my training in 2017. As a bilingual-bicultural, multiracial Latina, I grew up witnessing and experiencing systemic inequities. As I began working with autistic individuals and individuals with developmental disabilities, I gained more perspective on similar injustices that existed because of the presence of a diagnosis. My research and clinical
work have focused centrally on stigma, prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination for autistic individuals and their families. As such, when working with patients I strive to pull together the individual facets of one’s identity, their experiences, and the way in which they move through the
world to understand who they are. My goal is to utilize this approach to appropriately diagnose, treat, provide recommendations and consult on best care and practice for each person. I am originally from a small, rural town in northwest New Jersey, and am fluent in Spanish. When I am not working, I’m hanging out with loved ones (including my ball python), at the dance studio, reading, baking, or wandering in the woods.