Our Team
Avital Shuster
Clinical DirectoR
Avital is the founder and director of Tumble N’ Dots.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Southern California (USC) with a Bachelors and Masters degrees in Occupational Therapy, she began her work as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist at Irvine Unified School District.
Having completed post-graduate education and training in Ayers Sensory Integration and Feeding Therapy, Avital has been working with children since 2008 and has experience serving children with a variety of diagnosis in the clinic, home, school, telehealth, and community-based settings.
She specializes in using task analysis to develop goals and plans that support the child’s needs.
Avital believes in helping parents to focus on the strength and abilities of each child while incorporating behavior plans and strategies to foster success.
Avital is also the creator of OTPlan – an activity idea search engine for developmental activities.
In her free time, Avital enjoys spending time with her husband, 3 young children, and her dog, going to the beach, hiking, and traveling.
Avital brings her love for children, understanding of parents struggling with a special needs child, and years of therapy experience to every session.
Miranda Orosco
Pediatric Occupational Therapist
Miranda was born and raised in Orange County, and received her Bachelor’s degree in Child Development and Family Studies in 2018 from Cal State Long Beach. She graduated with her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from Cal State Dominguez Hills, and has always been passionate about working with children.
Her Occupational Therapy experiences include special education schools, private pediatric OT practice, and teaching swimming lessons to children with sensory processing challenges.
Throughout her time in her OT program, she had also conducted a 1.5-year long research project focusing on the experience of families affected by pediatric cancer.
Miranda has over 8 years of experience working with and supporting children and their families. She has extensive experience working with children in groups, as well as one-on-one, and loves teaching new developmental skills. Her strengths include creativity, communication, improvising, and adapting.
In her free time, she enjoys music, movies, spending time outdoors, and quality time with family and friends.
Laura Petix
Pediatric Occupational Therapist
Kelly Mason
Pediatric Occupational Therapist
Kelly is originally from Orange County but only recently moved back into the area. She is grateful to be living again near her beautiful hometown!
Kelly has always found joy and fulfillment working with young ones and their families; however, there was also a desire to develop an interest in being an advocate for human rights. This led her to receive a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and French at California Lutheran University, in Thousand Oaks, CA. After spending some time studying and teaching English in France, Kelly decided to pursue her MS degree in Occupational Therapy at A.T. Still University in Phoenix, AZ, so that she could become skilled in an area where she could use her interests and strengths in the fields of science and psychology.
Working with clients 1:1 has been extremely rewarding and Kelly feels honored to help families by sharing the tools she has learned through OT, specializing in sensory integration and feeding. Kelly’s mission is to help children and families learn the strategies to improve self-regulation so they can become more fully engaged in their surroundings and experience life to its fullest. Finding self-healing from personal health challenges in mindfulness, movement, and whole-food nourishment, Kelly is passionate about incorporating related evidence-based techniques into her therapy sessions. Recent certifications include Beckman Oral Motor and Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) Approach to Feeding. Kelly has most enjoyed serving the pediatric population in SI clinics, schools (Pre-K & Elementary), and home health and hopes to have the opportunity to continue expanding her contribution at a broader community level, at home and abroad, in the near future.
In her free time, Kelly enjoys plant-based cooking, Latin dance, barre, yoga & meditation, travel, time near the ocean and most importantly, spending quality time with her close friends and family.
Lichelle Fernando
Pediatric Occupational Therapist
Lichelle is a pediatric occupational therapist and feeding and swallowing specialist. She received her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences in Canada before moving to Wisconsin where she received a Masters degree in Occupational therapy. She has over 15 years of extensive experience working with a variety of diagnoses with the pediatric population.
The majority of Lichelle’s career has been at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago focusing on the complex medical needs of patients ranging in age from high risk neonates to young adults. Lichelle’s specializations include developmental therapy, picky/selective eating, bottle feeding, transitioning to solid foods, and sensory and oral motor feeding challenges while looking at the whole child’s sensory, developmental and environmental needs. Lichelle counsels families in providing strategies to foster positive mealtimes at home.
Lichelle has a passion to work with families closely to help their day run more smoothly. She takes on a “holistic” approach looking at all areas that may impact a child’s ability to eat and carry on daily skills successfully.
Additionally, Lichelle has experience working in brachial plexus clinic, hand clinic, and specializes in splinting and providing hand therapy for a variety of upper extremity diagnoses in the pediatric population.
Lichelle has presented at OTAC, AOTA, and APTA national and regional conferences providing evaluation and treatment strategies for the pediatric population with feeding/dysphagia issues.
Lichelle is a native Canadian who successfully worked her way down to warm, sunny California where she loves to try new restaurants, attempt new recipes, entertain friends and family, and do anything fun that is active or inactive with her husband, two kids, and dog Bailey.
Amanda Harpst
Speech Pathologist (Aspire for Autism)
Amanda is the founder of Aspire for Autism.
Amanda is a mother of 3 and a speech pathologist. She graduated from Cal Poly with a BA in English and from Cal State Northridge, with a Masters in Speech Language Pathology.
She has years of experience with children of all ages, starting with tutoring in her younger years, to her more recent experience as a speech-language pathologist, and especially as a mother. She has been in the speech therapy field since 2002, with a range of experience in school programs, private clinics, home-health, and hospital/medical facilities.
What she loves most is providing opportunities for parent-involvement in their child’s therapy planning and progress, and parent coaching for greater success.
Amanda’s previous therapy experience has given her the opportunity to work with and learn from teachers, occupational therapists and other related professionals.
She’s learned a lot about the benefits of adding movement and sensory techniques to provide a functional, productive learning environment for each child. With advanced training in the Lindamood-Bell learning programs, she brings reading, comprehension, memory and visualization techniques into therapy sessions. Her advanced training in Stanley Greenspan’s DIR/Floortime model has taught her the importance of building strong relationships in a developmentally appropriate, child-led, play-based and relationship-rich environment.
Most recently, Amanda has created a parent training program using the philosophy and proven success of DIR, called C.A.R.E. for Parents, which walks parents through the process of understanding their child’s strengths and learning style to be able to connect and communicate meaningfully. The combination of these programs among others, has allowed her to create a comfortable, natural setting for the children, where they and their families can thrive.
In her free time, Amanda enjoys going for walks, hikes and jogs; spending time in nature with her 3 kids, and painting, jewelry-making and anything else crafty. Amana takes her personal experience of being in speech therapy as a child, along with her own parenting joys, to create a nurturing learning environment for both the child and parents together.
Christina Johnson
Speech Pathologist (Aspire for Autism)
Christina Johnson has been a licensed and ASHA certified speech-language pathologist for 23 years.
She has been serving a largely pediatric clientele in her own private practice for the last 2 decades. Christina is a mother of 3 kids and is an avid runner and cyclist.
Christina earned her Master’s Degree in Communicative Disorders from California State University, Fullerton in l997. She also holds a BA in Communicative Disorders from CSUF and BA in Social Ecology from UCI. She is credentialed with a Clinical Rehabilitative teaching certificate in the state of California.
Christina has worked in a multitude of settings, such as acute hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, public schools, early intervention agencies and private practice.
Her professional experience includes the assessment and treatment of children and young adults presenting with a variety of communicative disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, language
processing disorder, phonological/articulation disorders, fluency disorder, childhood apraxia of speech, myofunctional/tongue thrust.
Christina’s clinical vision is to provide a family centered approach to therapy through evidenced based intervention for her clients, and education for caregivers to ensure the successful achievement of goals.
In her free time she also enjoys water sports and traveling with her family.
Krystal Lopez
Office Manager
Krystal was born and raised in Santa Ana and received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology & Social behavior from the University of California, Irvine. Through high school, college, and post college she has been involved in multiple environments that focused on helping kids mature and develop.
She has worked as an ABA therapist under the Center for Autism & Related Disorders and worked with many students with learning disabilities and other special needs at the Santa Ana Unified School District. With her involvement in these organizations as well as her personal experience, she has found a passion and love in nurturing kids. She sees the values in helping every child receive and learn the necessary skills to succeed in life.
She joined Tumble N’ Dots after volunteering and is now working on receiving a Masters in Occupational Therapy.
During her free time she likes to watch movies and have game nights with her family. She enjoys spontaneous adventures and spending time with loved ones.