Cynthia Martin, PsyD

Dr. Cynthia Martin is the Senior Director and a senior psychologist in the Autism Center at the Child Mind Institute. She is a nationally recognized expert in autism, neurodevelopmental disorders and rare genetic conditions that affect development and behavior. Dr. Martin is an international trainer on gold standard assessments used in autism evaluations and she specializes in the comprehensive evaluation, early detection and evidenced-based treatment of autism and related disorders.

Dr. Martin often works with children with complex presentations of autism, including very young children and girls. She provides assessments to comprehensively evaluate for autism, recommend specialized supports, and highlight the child’s inherent strengths. Dr. Martin provides initial evaluations for infants, toddler, and preschool-age children and follows children for repeat evaluations into early adulthood. She has extensive experience treating delays in communication and development, social skill deficits, challenging behavior, food refusal with restrictive eating, delayed toilet training and sleep difficulties. Dr. Martin is a certified trainer for the Autism Diagnostic Interview, Revised (ADI-R) and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2). She has advanced training in the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) and is certified provider for the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS).

In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Martin is dedicated to training, clinical-research integration and dissemination of knowledge in the field of autism and neurodevelopmental disorders. She has expertise in neurodevelopmental and behavioral phenotyping and she provides consultation on neurodevelopmental testing batteries for studies on rare genetic and medical disorders. Dr. Martin is the lead psychologist on a multi-site, NIH-funded study examining neurodevelopment and behavior in preschool-age children with Down syndrome. She also provides research evaluations on a longitudinal study of autism symptom trajectories in preschool children with autism, a NIMH-funded protocol in the Autism Research center. Dr. Martin has published in peer-reviewed journals, authored book chapters, and presented at regional, national, and international conferences.

• Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
• Staff Psychologist in the Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA
• Assistant Professor of Psychology in Clinical Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, White Plains, NY
• Early Childhood Psychologist, Center for Autism and The Developing Brain at New York Presbyterian Hospital, White Plains NY
• Early Childhood Clinician, Pediatric Developmental Center Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital, Chicago, IL
• Research Assistant, Child Development Research Lab, Morehead State University, Morehead, KY

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston MA
• Medical Units Pediatric Psychology Intern, Franciscan Hospital for Children, Boston, MA
• Extern, New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College, White Plains, NY
• Extern, Pediatric Developmental Center Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital, Chicago, IL
• Extern, Institute for Juvenile Research, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL

• PsyD, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Child and Adolescent Track, Chicago, IL
• MA, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Child and Adolescent Track, Chicago, IL
• BS, Psychology, Morehead State University, Morehead, KY