Dr. Nirit Bauminger

Dr. Nirit Bauminger, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, Bar - Ilan University. She serves as the Head of the Graduate Program specializing in ASD and a Deputy-Director of the School of Education. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology/Special Education at UCLA - Los Angeles, California in 1996. From 2000 to 2004 she served as the Head of the Committee for the Development of Curriculum for Children with Autism, Ministry of Education, Israel.

In the past 12 years she has been at the forefront of basic and applied research on the social-emotional development of higher functioning children affected by autism. In this regard her research on developments of peer interactions, friendships, emotional understanding and expressiveness, as well as loneliness in higher functioning children, has been groundbreaking. She has also pioneered new and effective methods of cognitive behavioral treatments, including multimodal individual and group social-cognitive behavioral treatments for school age children with higher functioning autism.