Reina Factor MS, PhD

Dr. Reina S. Factor, Ph.D. is a Psychological Assistant at the Spectrum Psych LA. She is also a Postdoctoral Clinical Psychology Fellow at the University of California. She has expertise working with autistic individuals and neurodevelopmental disabilities of all ages, particularly with the pediatric population, as well as individuals with a range of co-occurring diagnoses including anxiety, depression, early psychosis, ADHD, OCD, ODD, and mood disorders. She has specialized training in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance commitment therapy (ACT), exposure response prevention (ERP), pivotal response training (PRT), parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation (JASPER), RUBI parent training, the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) for Preschoolers, Adolescents, Young Adults, and Careers; the Stress and Anger Management Program (STAMP), and Family Focused Therapy and tailoring these interventions to be appropriate for individuals of all ages. Dr. Factor has also trained in assessments, in inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings and has extensive experience in parent training and involving the family in therapy across settings.

In addition to her work at Spectrum Psych LA, Dr. Factor serves as the Director of Outreach and Dissemination at the UCLA Tarjan Center, is an Attending Psychologist in the PEERS® Clinic, and runs the Parent Training Program and PEACE Program (for parents of adolescents) through the UCLA Friendship and Parenting Clinic. She also spearheads the Employment Team for the PEERS for Careers Program, reaching out to community partners and employers. She is a certified JASPER interventionist and works with young children on building language and social communication skills, while also teaching their parents to implement the strategies themselves. She conducts supervision with trainees and oversees students at all stages of their training, as well as working with state and national organizations on various initiatives.

Dr. Factor earned her undergraduate degree at Emory University, where she completed an honors thesis examining an early social responsiveness screener. She then worked as a research associate at UCLA, focusing on the JASPER intervention developed by Dr. Connie Kasari and administering Discrete Trial Training (DTT) and Parent Training. She completed her M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Virginia Tech. She completed her predoctoral clinical internship in the Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities track as well as her Postdoctoral Fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and her fellowship in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in the Child and Adult Neurodevelopmental (CAN) Clinic, PEERS® Clinic, and Max Grey Child and Adolescent Mood Disorders Program (CHAMP). Dr. Factor is also a prolific researcher, with research interests in the social and emotional development of children with ASD, highlighting the impact of systems (e.g., peers, parents, the family) and how they inform interventions by looking at mechanisms of change and treatment outcomes.