DIR for Autism and Developmental Disabilities

DIR FLOORTIME THERAPY

Has your child been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or another developmental disability? Has this disorder set off a cascade of anxious feelings and thoughts?   My practice utilizes DIR/Floortime therapy to assist these children with emotional and behavioral regulation, relatedness and communication, and give parents the tools to be an agent of change at home.

Often children with special needs are challenged by neurobiological factors that make it difficult to participate in and enjoy early emotional interactions with their parents, and subsequently with their peers.  The DIR model supports parents through their interactions with their child to combat core deficits in relating and communicating by fostering development in regulation, joint attention, engagement, back and forth communication, motor skills, novel thinking, social problem solving, etc.  These are the skills that form the foundation necessary for lifelong learning and relating.  Growth is achieved through shared interactions that are meaningful, developmentally appropriate, positive and pleasurable to the child. The DIR model recognizes and honors the parent as the ultimate agent of change.  In this model the clinician is the coach; it is the parent, as the natural and pivotal partner for the child, who supports functioning on an ongoing basis in the “real world”.

The Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship based (DIR) model was developed by Stanley Greenspan, MD, and Serena Wieder, Ph.D. The treatment is called Floortime.  It involves meeting the child where he or she is at to fill in gaps in development mentioned above.  Rather than training the child to produce an “appropriate” response using rewards as in ABA therapy, this treatment works by joining with your child in his or her interests and, by doing so, harnessing the power of the relationship to inherently motivate interactions.  Development advances when an experience captures the child’s emotions and interests, something new and pleasurable is discovered and it gets organized and integrated through the interaction into his repertoire of thinking feeling and functioning.

For more information please go to www.icdl.com or www.profectum.org

PRESCHOOL CONSULTATION

I have spent many years in the preschool classroom as a programmatic consultant to teachers and administrators as well as consulting on individual children.  Preschools are often the first place that mental health or developmental challenges come up on the radar screen, when the demands of the activities, transitions, and/or social environment overwhelm a child’s capacities.

Are you a preschool or daycare with concerns about a particular child’s development, emotional needs, behaviors or social interactions?  Would you like to make the environment a better place for emotional learning?  Perhaps you’d like a talk on a particular topic related to child development?

Should any of these services be of interest, you may contact me for further information.