Providers in Dallas, Texas

Dr. Alexandra Pillat

Founder/Chief Psychologist

Alexandra Catherine (Dowd) Pillat graduated Cum Laude in Psychology from Harvard University in 2011.  She completed her honors thesis in the Laboratory for Developmental Studies under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Spelke, exploring if 9-month-old infants understand how to take a person’s object preferences into account when helping that person acquire an object. 

After graduation, she spent two years working as a Research Assistant in the Yale Early Social Cognition Laboratory with Dr. Katarzyna Chawarska and Dr. Frederick Shic. During her time at Yale, she initiated two research projects that assessed the presence and developmental trajectories of various regulatory and affective responses and social deficits during the second year of life in infants later diagnosed with ASD.

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Alexandra received her Masters and Doctorate through the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Texas at Austin.  Her dissertation, "Social Spectrum: Understanding the incremental development of social skills in infants at-risk for autism", explored how early social skills first emerge and develop from 12 to 24 months of age. Alexandra coined the term "Social Spectrum" which refers to the full range of social functioning from typical developing to severely impaired. 

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Alexandra then completed her Doctoral Internship and Postdoctoral Fellowship at Emory University. For two years, she conducted diagnostic assessments for children with autism and other developmental disabilities at the Marcus Autism Center.