My son is now a different person thanks to Lina! Before we met Lina: We found out my younger son, Yi, had speech & fine motor delay when he was 15 months old. Early intervention started when he was 18 months old, followed by OT, ST and PT. Then he got the ASD diagnosis at 2-year old and ABA started two months later. However, with all the helps from all the therapists, no one was able to help Yi establish eye contact or help him learn to point. I got perhaps half a second eye contact with Yi in an entire month. Even when we had it, I was not sure because it was so brief - I thought it could be just me imagining things. Yi had many tantrums a day, very intense. He's in pain, we were in pain, every single day. When we met Lina: Day 1: within half an hour, Lina helped Yi establish SOLID eye contact with me!! I almost cried! He saw me! Day 2: Yi started to point, thanks to Lina! Before meeting Lina, I felt so overwhelmed and didn't know what I should focus on. Lina helped me prioritize and establish a plan for the next steps. - Thanks for Lina's push, I started the GCCF diet right after the training. Yi used to vomit when he had tantrum and cried a lot, which happened on a daily basis. A week after cutting out milk, Yi's vomiting stopped. - I signed up and took Hanen program "More Than Words" parents training, thanks to Lina's recommendation. It was another really helpful program that helped us a lot. Soon after meeting Lina, Yi's eye contact dramatically increased (we adopted the same method from Lina and taught all other therapists to do the same). He learned to point to communicate his needs. His vomiting stopped. With all these changes, Yi's tantrum greatly reduced. Yi has transformed from a suffering child living in his own iron bubble to a cheerful little boy who opens up to the outside world. I can't say enough thank you to Lina! She took time to understand my son, and gave us individualized trainings based on Yi's unique needs. You can tell this is not just a job for her. It's something that she cares deeply and passionate about and she's highly competent. We lived in the South Bay and I work full time. I'm so glad I made the decision to take time off from work and brought Yi with me to see Lina. It was the best decision I made and time really well spent. read more

We have been seeing Lina for a few years and she has been both an instrumental "boots on the ground" and "eye in the sky" when it comes to our autistic son. I cannot think of any higher praise that I could provide other than she is the model of what I think an excellent consultant is; knowledgeable, experienced, practical, compassionate, passionate, and responsive. Her services are truly valuable, both for my son, and our family as a whole. Having someone in your corner with the above skillset is hard to find in any profession, let alone the autistic one, and I recommend you not lose her number. read more

Lina has opened our eyes about early intervention. Our son got diagnosed with ASD during the pandemic. As first time parents, my husband and I were lost and not knowing what we should do. Instead we just got ABA to start without knowing what exactly that can do. After six months in, we still did not see much progress. So we reached out to Lina through support group friends' recommendation. Lina quickly connected with us. During our first visit with Lina, she was able to swiftly engage with my son and showed us how we can help him by improving his eye contact and encouraging him to express! During our second visit, my pre-verbal son was able to pronounce "more" twice which did not happen before! Lina is also very flexible. When we asked for an outdoor session to learn about what we can do in a playground setting, she immediately adjusted her schedule and made it happen. We are very grateful for having Lina as our coach during this journey. We can't thank her enough for being our advocate at our first IEP meeting. She made the process a lot easier than we initially expected by outlining the goals and advocating for our 3 year old to get the adequate support. We will definitely recommend Lina! read more

Our son was diagnosed in March 2020 with nonverbal autism (no pointing and no single words) and the journey from diagnosis to finding support was terrifying. But with help of Lina, we were able to parent train me and my husband in a few weeks. We knew we want to take advantage of early neuroplasticity but we didn't know how to while we waited for other services to start up. Lina is an amazingly knowledgeable and caring person. Here are some detailed notes on how we worked together: 1. Weekly parent training with observation: as we were entering the world of antecedents and behaviors, we had no clue how to implement preventative and reactive strategies. Lina gave us training over zoom (it was during in the middle of the pandemic) guiding in detail how preventatively we could use supports such as visuals or timers to make transitions smoother and how to help him regulate through a meltdown or tantrum. Observing our son was key because Lina was able to spot things we could not. Lina has amazing attention to detail when teaching parents, and deep experience of behavior. 2. Deep compassion: We were so lucky to have Lina help us through key transitions overall. Lina really made space in her schedule to attend our son's first IEP and rocked it. She is an expert at knowing what to ask and when to negotiate, back off and how to talk at an IEP. You need Lina if you are nervous like I was. I am very grateful for her help and will never forget it!!! Today my son is 4 and speaks fluently in sentences. He is fully potty trained and plays board games. We are now working on social skills with him. We are very grateful for Lina's help so early on to train us. This helped us take advantage of early neuroplasticity and make the best use of his time. I highly recommend Lina's help to navigate this special needs world!! read more

Lina is professional, empathetic, supportive and knowledgable. After years of searching for someone who could help our family reduce challenge and facilitate growth and togetherness, I found Lina--and was so grateful. If you need support with neurodiversity, behaviors, therapies, the 504/IEP process... reach out to her. Her services are invaluable. Highly recommend! read more

This is a long overdue review and much deserved recognition for the work of Lina Fancy. When we finally ended up at Lina's doorstep we were pretty beat up , confused and desperate. Lina turned this all around in about an hour. We left our first meeting knowing it was going to be ok. She has been our rock and held our hands the whole way. From helping my husband and I find common ground and open communication to attending and advocating for us at our IEP meeting, and all things in between. Lina has been the most important part of our journey and most importantly our child's happiness and success. I am happy to share my personal experience anytime. Lynsie Guillen 415-464-7699 read more

When we first found Lina 7.5 years ago,  she was working at the outstanding JumpStart program at the Autism Center of Northern California.  We were in shock and confused about which way to turn.  It was just a few months earlier that our 2 year old was given the diagnosis of moderate to severe autism.  JumpStart was exactly the resource we needed.  It was a five day intensive program designed to assess, educate and guide families beginning their journey.  The week started with Lina Fancy, who is simply wonderful. She is compassionate and intuitive in her approach. On day 1, she had our son consistently make eye contact. In 1 day!  On day 2, she had him follow a 1-step direction (she patted the floor, and said "sit down").  Remarkable progress!  The training was hands on and everyone present participated.  Lina managed to connect with our son right away - something we were struggling with.  For us it provided us a time out to spend focused time sorely needed in the hands of truly masterful clinicians.  Lina has forged keen observation skills from an unbelievable amount of experience in behavior therapy.   Since that time, Lina has not blinked in her willingness and dedication to continue to provide our family with amazing support for all the trials and tribulations that have happened since.  We've had struggles in negotiating with our school district around IEPs -- and she showed up and helped us resolve them to satisfaction.  When our son was having difficulties with progressing in his speech, she astutely diagnosed auditory processing disorder and helped us attain the resources needed to effectively treat it.  Today, he's nearly at or above grade level in academics.   You see, while Lina has the experience of a master behaviorist, she combines this with her direct experience (and training) in helping countless families through varied "situations."  She intends to succeed and consequently her knowledge has grown.  I think it's her loving heart that guides her..  Anyways, she can see and anticipate the next set of challenges in our son's development and provide us with a roadmap to nullify it in advance.  We've been using Lina to help us check in on a semi-regular basis all these years and can comfortably say that her input has changed our son's trajectory in life.   Thank you Lina for all you do for us, the community and those to come!  We need you. read more

It shows how much we think of Lina and her work with our son that I am writing the first, and likely only, Yelp review I have ever written. Lina provided us with our first set of tools and guidelines when our son was diagnosed as autistic 4 1/2 years ago at age 2. Even though we had our suspicions long before the formal diagnosis, once we received it we had no real idea how to start this journey. We were put in touch with Lina and her Jumpstart program. She gave us strategies, both short and long term, talked us through our concerns and just provided a piece of mind we hadn't had to that point. A sense we could help our guy get better and find a place in the world. And she has been doing that ever since that week back in 2018. We now use Lina primarily for IEP services and general check-ins when something our other service providers suggest don't make sense. She has been wonderful working with both us and our district team on IEPs. She has done multiple in-person assessments of our son (and we live on the Peninsula) prior to annual IEP meetings and one-off meetings to help retain existing services. She is thorough, prepared and absolutely level-headed in the IEPs (a big help for us more emotionally invested parents). For this, she is absolutely admired and respected by our school/district team. Our principal told us after our last meeting how much she liked working with an advocate like Lina who not only has a deep knowledge but treats both parties with respect. I have no doubt that our son would not have had the success he has had in school, or received the services he needed without Lina's help on our IEPs. I can not recommend her more. -Dennis Miller read more

Lina has been a game changer for our family. Even prior to my kids' official diagnosis, Lina worked with our family in every step of the way. She taught us how to work play and teach our kids, how to evaluate schools, and how to process our own feelings. Essentially, Lina is like an advocate, school consultant, teacher, and therapist all rolled up in one. She's also very well connected and know how to point you to the right resources. We feel incredibly lucky to have found her and just can't say enough good things about her dedication. I recommend anyone with loved ones on the spectrum to work with Lina. read more