Alejandra Albarran

Ph.D. in Education, 2014
School of Education

December 1, 2009

Doctoral Student Committted to Promoting Education Equity

Alejandra Albarran is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine with a focus on Learning, Cognition, and Development. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Child and Adolescent Development at California Lutheran University, and her Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology, Early Childhood Education, at California State University, Northridge. In 2007 Alejandra, alongside her esteemed advisor Dr. Rothstein-Fisch, presented at the National Training Institute’s Zero to Three Conference on “Cultural Pathways on Infant Care and Development.”

For the past seven years, Alejandra has been working as an Early Interventionist with children with varying developmental delays, including autism, cerebral palsy, speech impediments, and mental retardation. Her experience with these children and their families inspired her to research the early intervention system as part of her Master’s studies, by looking into the Latino parent’s perspective and reaction to developing an Individualized Family Service Plan. Alejandra intends to continue studying the Latino parent’s perspective of early intervention and to take it a step further by researching the process of transitioning from in-home early intervention to in-school intervention at the age of three.

Alejandra is proud to be a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at UC Irvine. Her research interests include parental perceptions of special education services, inequalities in education, and parent-child interactions. Her first year project, entitled “Development of Maternal Self-efficacy for First-time Mothers and its influence on 12-month Language Development,” was presented at the Society for the Study of Human Development biennial conference in October 2009.

Alejandra continues her research on first-time mothers’ self-efficacy and works to support and supervise undergraduate students’ research. Alejandra’s attributes her academic success to her father, who instilled in her a love of learning and an ever enduring desire to make a difference, and to her Master’s advisor who maintains unyielding faith in Alejandra’s ability.

Alejandra plans on becoming a university professor while continuing her research on parent perceptions of the transition from in-home early intervention to in-school special education. It is Alejandra’s goal to make higher education a possibility for her students, as well as to make education equality possible for ALL infants and toddlers with special needs.

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