The employees of The Center for Social Thinking are a wonderful group of people who not only enjoy working with the students, but they also enjoy working together.

Each year the clinicians go on a retreat to Asilomar, in Monterey, California to brainstorm new treatment approaches that can be explored when educating the students.

All of the employees take an active approach to learning more about how to help our students. Only then can everyone help to answer parents and educators questions.

Our Center is a fairly busy place receiving over 1500 phone calls and at least that twice that many emails each year from persons wanting to learn more about helping persons with social cognitive deficits.

Michelle thanks her lucky stars for her incredible employees, all of whom give much more than a standard 8-hour day each day of the workweek! 

•  Cathy Hart, Office Manager
  Cathy has worked at the Center for Social Thinking since the clinic began in 1999. She is Michelle's administrative assistant and the CST office manager. Prior to coming to CST, she worked for many years in corporate Silicon Valley as an executive secretary and department secretary before taking time to raise her family. Cathy is generally the first personal contact for families calling into the clinic. Her duties include the initial interview, maintenance of client files and information, overseeing the client billing, maintaining clinic schedules and a myriad of other tasks to help keep the clinic running as smoothly as possible. She has learned a great deal about social cognitive deficits since coming to the clinic and feels fortunate to be working with a team of professionals who are intelligent, inspiring, compassionate, a lot of fun to be around and who are making a positive difference in a tangible way. Cathy has been married to her husband Robert for 24 years and they have three wonderful daughters.

• Stephanie Madrigal, Director of Therapy Services
  Stephanie is a very creative therapist incorporating her broad knowledge of therapeutic processes with humor and fun to impart information to her students. She is innovative in creating new materials for use in therapy and creating a warm and friendly rapport with her students and their families. She received her Bachelors and Masters Degree in Speech Pathology from San Jose State University. She has worked for Michelle for four years leading social-thinking groups for kids of varying ages. She is currently the lead therapist and clinical manager. Her responsibilities include: leading many of the social thinking groups, off-site observations, training and assessments. Her experience prior to working at this clinic included 4 years as Lead therapist at PACE, a non-public school for students with autism. Her caseload at PACE included working primarily with children on the autism spectrum, including those with Asperger's Syndrome, students with learning disabilities and behavioral issues. In addition, her role included assessment and treatment, consultation with staff, staff training and supervision of other therapists. 

•  Pamela Crooke, Ph.D., Speech Pathologist and Educator
  Pam joined the social thinking team in 2007 after moving from Tucson, Arizona.  She was a clinical faculty member at the University of Arizona's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences for a number of years where she taught graduate students about Social Thinki