CENTER FOR ADAPTIVE LEARNING

 

A Key to Individual Potential for Adults with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

Genevieve Stolarz,

Founder and Emeritus Executive Director

Genevieve Stolarz was the Executive Director of the Center for Adaptive Learning since its beginning in 1988 to 2010. Prior to becoming one of the founders of the Center for Adaptive Learning, Ms. Stolarz was the mother of a son with disabilities. She became a self-educated authority on disabilities on the PDD spectrum and the Autism Spectrum.

Ms. Stolarz was employed by the State Department of Education as a consultant in Special Education for quality and compliance reviews of school districts. She spent 28 years on the board of the Community Advisory Committee of her school district, serving 12 years as Chairperson. In that role she devoted herself to counseling parents on the ins and outs of IEPs, insisting that children with disabilities be taught marketable skills in school, and guiding parents through many other advocacy issues.

In the 1980s she co-founded an organization that marched on Washington and successfully fought the dismantling of the landmark 1975 legislation that guaranteed a free and appropriate education to all children. Genevieve has a firm grasp of both the academic and pragmatic issues of disability; but beyond that, her special talent is in touching young adult clients and their parents with her wisdom. She believes in the inherent worth of each individual, regardless of his or her limitations, and she speaks to them with such warmth and connection that they come to believe in themselves as well.

Since 1973, Genevieve Stolarz has been instrumental in developing services, being a watchdog over disability-related legislation, and training parents to secure services for their children with disabilities.

Nancy Perry, PhD., Clinical Director

Dr. Nancy Perry earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a specialty in Neuropsychology in 1994. Before that she had been an MFT psychotherapist in private practice for many years. In returning to graduate school, she developed a passion for the study of the brain and thereafter did

all her training at neuropsychological placements.

 

Dr. Perry trained at two Veterans Administration placements and at a private facility for the treatment of acquired brain injury. She developed a test to evaluate a portion of executive functioning as her dissertation. The function of the frontal lobes and the executive functions of the brain remain her areas of expertise as she works with neurodevelopmental disability in adults.

 

For the past ten years Dr. Perry has served as the Clinical Director of the Center for Adaptive Learning in Concord, California. She has spoken on the Executive Functions at the International LDA Conference and at numerous workshops and parent groups over the past decade.

 

For more resources by Dr. Perry

please refer to our RESOURCES page.

Jeannine Chang, Education Director

Jeannine Chang has served as the Education Director of the Center for Adaptive Learning since 2000, and the Director of Case Management from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000 she was the Program Manager of the Lincoln Youth Center in Oakland, California. Ms. Chang received her Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology from Wayne State University in 1993. Her thesis was a comparison of frontal lobe function in schizophrenic vs. non-schizophrenic patients. Her training has included placements at mental hospitals, substance abuse treatment facilities, juvenile probation court, and teaching undergraduate psychology.

Ms. Chang is also a group facilitator for the National Council on Alcoholism, working with first time DUI offenders.

Jay Zlotnick, Interim Executive Director

Jay Zlotnick has been the Center’s Interim Executive Director since early October, 2011.  Jay brings over 35 years of experience in community-based non-profit organizations serving people with disabilities.  For nearly three decades he was the Executive Director of a multi-county agency in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The agency provided a wide variety of services to young adults, and adults, with mental illness, enabling them to live as independently as possible in their home communities.  Since then he has worked as an interim manager in several local organizations, including an assignment as the Interim Director of Children’s services at an agency serving developmentally disabled clients.

Board of Directors

President - Robert L. Edwards

Vice President - Barbara Hughes

Treasurer - Barry E. Chinn

Secretary - Muriel Wilson

 

Directors

Geoffrey W. Steele

Dennis Custance

Lori Pendergraph