About Katherine Schoenthal Kar, EdM, BCBA, LBA
Kate Kar (she/her) has been working with children and adults in home, school, community, and center-based settings across the greater New York area for over 15 years. Assessment has always been among her professional interests, sparked by various teaching assistantships related to standardized testing during and after receiving her Master of Education degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Among the courses, she assisted in teaching were Individual Psychological Testing Levels I & II, Neuropsychological Assessment of Children and Adults, Psychoeducational Assessment, Assessment of Infants, Children, and Youth with Exceptionalities, and others. These courses offered training regarding administration, scoring, interpreting, and reporting of individualized assessments (i.e., cognitive, achievement, neuropsychological, personality, and projective measures), structured and semi-structured clinical interview formats, norm-, criterion-, and curriculum-based assessments, as well use of non-standardized assessment procedures with communities who are under-represented in current research.
Ms. Kar’s work with children and adults on the Autism Spectrum led her to the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which utilizes assessments along with other methods of data collection to understand and impact human behavior. She continued her education at CUNY Hunter College, receiving an Advanced Certificate in ABA and becoming a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and a Licensed Behavior Analyst (LBA) in New York State.
Ms. Kar joined Dr. Robokos’ practice in 2019. She provides Autism-related parent coaching and collaborates with Dr. Robokos in providing well-rounded assessments of clients’ strengths and needs on neuropsychological and educational evaluations. She also works with the Bank Street College of Education’s Family Center, guiding parents and their young children through the evaluation and eligibility processes of the Committee on Preschool Special Education within the Department of Education. Additionally, Ms. Kar is a professional services manager with RethinkEd.com, an education technology company that provides data- and technology-driven, evidence-based solutions that support teachers, students, families, communities, and entire school systems.
Originally from nearby South Jersey, Ms. Kar was granted residence at the International House upon moving to New York City for graduate school. Her small community quickly grew to include friends and colleagues from around the world. This sparked a lifelong interest in travel and volunteering that has so far taken her, her late husband, and their backpacks to more than 30 countries across six continents. Ms. Kar has also traversed the city through the years, for work-related home- and school visits (and just for fun), stopping over at 94% of MTA subway stations! You can often find her exploring city parks in her spare time with her dog Chewbacca, a mini-goldendoodle who sometimes makes guest appearances during Zoom sessions.
Ms. Kar’s years of clinical, education, and teaching experience, combined with experiences lived around the city and the world, inform an approach to assessment and collaboration that is data-driven and empirical but also sensitive to individual, community, and cultural elements. She is passionate about using this holistic lens to demystify the evaluation and intervention processes so that solutions are practical and effective for anyone.
