Dr. Lorna Luz Sanchez, PsyD
Licensed Clinical and School Psychologist
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About Dr. Lorna Luz Sanchez, PsyD
Philosophy
Dr. Lorna Luz Sanchez is licensed in both Clinical and School psychology with over 18 years of professional experience focused on adults, children, and families with special needs. She enjoys delivering life enhancing therapy, consultation expertise, and evaluation reports that use state of the art procedures specifically tailored to each patient. She ensures that each of her services are extensive in their scope and provide immediate benefits and valuable recommendations to children, families, courts, and schools. Her therapy services are evidenced based and integrate Cognitive, Behavioral, Family, Mindfullness, and Expressive modalities with a strong emphasis on parent collaboration and support. She is highly trained in culturally sensitive and trauma sensitive service delivery and is able to provide all services to multilingual Spanish patients as well as diverse and/or multi-lingual patients from all walks of life.
Training and Experience
Dr. Sanchez currently provides psychological, psycho-educational, neuropsychological, and forensic evaluations and consultation services at her private practice in Washington, DC with an emphasis on family, cultural, and spiritual values. Dr. Sanchez also evaluates children for the District of Columbia Public Schools Early Stages Program, determining eligibility and educational planning programs for children with educational/medical disabilities age 2- 6. She is considered to be an expert in IEP development, school-based special education services and interventions, neuro- developmental disabilities, bilingual psychological evaluations.
During her four years at the Pediatric Developmental Center in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Sanchez developed extensive experience/training with diverse children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), language delays, genetic/medical conditions, and ADHD. She has been the recipient of state and private grants to fund innovative treatment and recreational programs she designed and coordinated for children with ASD. Dr. Sanchez received 3 years of training in the provision of in-home therapy with an emphasis on the Lovaas and other applied behavioral methods to address developmental skills acquisition, parent coaching, potty-training, structured learning systems, child friendly discipline and behavior systems, establishing family routines, improving sibling relationships and family unity.
As Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Department of Disability and Human Development (DHD), Dr. Sanchez completed clinical evaluations and delivered therapy to children with genetic and neurodevelopmental conditions. At UIC she also specialized in assessments of children and adults for various courts including special education due process and immigration courts. She has provided resolutions that were beneficial to her patients on each of these cases due to the thoroughness of her work. Dr. Sanchez continues to provide specialized forensic evaluations of children and adults with an emphasis on culturally and linguistically competent assessment practices and has testified as an expert witness in federal court on several occasions.
Education
Dr. Sanchez graduated Cum Laude on a full scholarship from St. Mary’s College of Maryland (B.A) double majoring in Psychology and Sociology. Her undergraduate research focused on the intersections between parenting, stress, and coping. Dr. Sanchez obtained her Doctorate degree (Psy.D) on a Fellowship from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her research focused on family- based play therapy for children with medical issues and cultural barriers to treatment and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). She completed an APA approved Residency in Health Psychology, rotating in the Emergency Room psychiatry, Internal Medicine, and OB/GYN departments. Her Post- Doctoral training was competed at The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Department of Disability and Human Development (DHD) which houses one of the nation’s seven Institutes for Excellence in Disabilities.
Dr. Sanchez is fluent in Spanish and provides all services in Spanish and English as needed. She enjoys traveling and spending time with her large family, husband and son.
She has been in private practice in the Washington, DC area for 11 years.
Committed to helping kids and families grow into their natural potential!
