Get to know us.
We are a tight-knit group of professionals from diverse educational backgrounds who share a passion for helping our clients. We take different approaches to educational therapy, which has provided us with an interdisciplinarily-informed perspective on how to most effectively help individuals. We consult each other and have a collective repertoire of varying areas of expertise which diversifies our practice.
We are not your average educational therapy group, neither reading specialists nor little kid remediators, interventionists for little kids, or homework helpers. We are more collaborative, have deeper and broader expertise, are more resourceful; we really dig for an honest sense of what’s actually happening and why one is not following through on goals. We try to understand, assess what steps should be taken and what strategies can be used to overcome and close gaps by connecting what you care about. We aim to foster self-regulated behaviors and dismantle habits that undermine our clients’ goals. Our team approach translates outside our office itself, as we provide extensive wraparound care with parents, educators, and other clinicians. Find out a bit more about who we are below…
Who We Are…
Karolina Claxton, Ed.D., Director
Karolina has worked for more than 20 years to train people and organizations in strategies to improve learning, memory and productivity. Her expertise lies in the anatomy of learning itself. She leads the team at Perspectives Group in training people and solving problems in all areas of learning, including instructional design, information processing, and the development of 21st Century skills. She is also the principal of The Foundry, a consulting group that provides workflows and training for small and medium-sized businesses in their psychological and organizational development goals.
She earned her BA at NYU, her Master of Public Policy at UCLA, and her doctorate in educational psychology at USC. Through a grant-funded program, she co-authored an entrepreneurial business plan for a special needs high school. At USC, she conducted research on self-regulated learning among students with and without ADHD in an online environment.
In New York, Karolina worked as an English and ESL teacher of students with and without special needs. During that time she founded and ran programs for English Language Learners and worked as a curriculum writer and professional development consultant. In Los Angeles, she has held curriculum design and professional development positions to train faculty at Windward School and Westside Neighborhood School. She served on the board of directors at FOCUSfish, a non-profit organization that provides alternative fitness programs to people in need. She is a twin mom and flies trapeze for fun.
Jonathan Schaefer, Ph.D.
Jonathan Schaefer is a Biology Ph.D. and a published author (peer-reviewed, even), and yet has also managed to remain dedicated to understanding the anatomy of learning processes. For several years he has worked as a classroom teacher in independent schools, as well as one-on-one in private practice in the Bay Area and now in Los Angeles. Jonathan builds effective learning strategies with clients by applying evidence-based cognitive neuropsychology in developmentally appropriate ways. He is Wilson-trained, participates in the Learning and the Brain community events and is pursuing formal AET certification. In addition to teaching, he leads professional development seminars on broadening access to science and authors blended learning material to help tutors build mastery of math and science in secondary students.
Jennifer Bennett, Psy.D.
Jennifer was a child psychologist before she was an educational therapist. Her clinical experience included serving as: a school-based therapist for children on the autism spectrum, a psychoeducational group leader for children of divorce, and a lead teacher and curriculum writer for a gap-year program for teenagers who were not yet college-ready. She also wrote and published Miracle Baby: How Babies are Made the IVF Way, an illustrated book for children about in-vitro fertilization. As an educator, Jennifer taught elementary and middle school in an alternative school setting where she also designed and customized curriculum. In addition to her work with Perspectives Group, she teaches Judaic Studies at Santa Monica Synagogue. Her areas of training have included: the psychological and social aspects of learning, the impacts of specific learning issues and ADHD, crisis intervention, and executive functioning support, including training in learning strategies. She is warm and patient, very attuned to the social-emotional aspects of learning, and is also a West Side mom.
Katie Cadigan, MA
Katie Cadigan has a BA in Psychology from GWU, an MA in Special Education from LMU, and a post-master certificate program in educational therapy with a specialization in the development of intervention plans. She is an associate with the Association of Educational Therapists and has worked for the International Dyslexia Association. She has held positions at Canyon Charter and Summit View and has been formally trained in Orton-Gillingham’s Wilson programs. She’s insightful and well-educated, but also dynamic and energetic. That demeanor, coupled with her training in learning strategies, the use of assessments to determine individual needs, informs her work in the areas of executive functioning and language-based learning disorders.
Shayna DelVecchio, Office Manager
Shayna DelVecchio grew up in Long Island, New York, and moved to Los Angeles after she earned her BA from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. At NYU, she created her own individualized concentration entitled “Aesthetics, Psychology, and the Human Consciousness,” wherein she explored the philosophical and psychological connections between the human consciousness and the corporeal world as they relate to fashion, art, and literature. She earned a minor in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. Shayna was recently accepted into the Masters's program at Columbia University’s School of Social Work where she will be studying Advanced Clinical Social Work in the field of Health, Mental Health, and Disabilities. She hopes to one day pursue her PhD in clinical psychology and specialize in the treatment of anxiety disorders among adolescents. She has a pet “mini” potbelly pig named Penelope, and a kitten, Alfredo.