Lindsay Rentschler

Dr. Lindsay Rentschler is a postdoctoral research fellow at Juniper Gardens Children’s Project and Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Science & Special Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on designing and disseminating high-quality community and school-based services and supports for autistic adolescents and young adults. She is committed to community-engaged research and has partnered with families, advocacy groups, and schools to develop and examine support strategies and instructional practices. She co-developed a parent-implemented intervention for autistic adolescents’ daily living skills acquisition and evaluated its efficacy for her dissertation research. During her doctoral program, she collaborated on two IES-funded studies including the Center on Secondary Education for Students with Autism Follow-Up (CSESA) and the Propel Project, as well as the National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP). She has co-authored several book chapters and articles related to this work in highly visible journals, including a first authored publication in Teaching Exceptional Children, the flagship journal for special education practitioners. To translate autism evidence-based practice research into practical tools for service providers, she has also written two Autism Focused Intervention Resources and Modules (AFIRM).

Dr. Rentschler has more than a decade of experience working with children and youth with disabilities in schools, clinics, and homes. She has a Master’s in Teaching and has worked in ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse public schools. She is a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA), and she has been the director of applied behavior analysis clinics, supervised behavior technicians and BCBA candidates, and advocated for children and teens with disabilities in schools.