Kayla Johari, OTD, OTR/L

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Dr. Kayla Johari is a licensed occupational therapist who specializes in working with children with autism, ADHD, and developmental delays. Her areas of clinical expertise include emotional regulation, executive functioning, sensory processing, fine motor skills, social skills, and Kindergarten readiness. She is trained in Zones of Regulation, Social Thinking, Spot of Emotion, and the Alert Program to facilitate development of self-regulation skills for children presenting with socio-emotional challenges. She incorporates occupation-based interventions to support development of sustained attention, frustration tolerance, and impulse control for children with ADHD. She utilizes a strengths-based, relational approach as the foundation for her interventions to support client engagement, regulation, and sense of self-efficacy.

Dr. Johari completed her doctoral residency at the USC University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles where she specialized in providing occupational therapy services within an interdisciplinary pediatric mental health setting for children with co-occurring neurodevelopmental and mental health diagnoses. She has previously presented at Occupational Therapy Association of California (OTAC) conferences on supporting neurodiversity-affirming practices in clinical care and occupational therapy’s role in enhancing executive functioning skills to optimize occupational performance in youth with ADHD.

She is committed to providing child and family-centered care within her practice. She conducts parent consultations to support children’s independence and engagement in home routines and provides parent education in supporting their child’s development. Dr. Johari collaborates with school teams to provide OT accommodation recommendations to support successful participation in the classroom through consulting for and attending IEP and 504 plan meetings.

In her free time, Dr. Johari enjoys cooking new recipes, visiting farmers markets, doing pilates, and spending time with friends and family.

Education and Training:

Doctor of Occupational Therapy (Clinical Track: Pediatric Mental Health), University of Southern California

Master of Arts in Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California

Bachelor of Arts in Human Biology, Minor in Occupational Science, University of Southern California

OT License # 22882, California