DIR/Floortime Therapy

DIR®/Floortime™

The Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-Based (DIR®/Floortime™) Model is a comprehensive framework for understanding, assessing and treating children with developmental challenges and other special needs. The objectives of the DIR®/Floortime™ Model are to build healthy foundations for social, emotional, and intellectual capacities rather than focusing on skills and isolated behaviors.

The D (Developmental) part of the model describes the building blocks of this foundation. Helping a child relate to others, communicate, problem solve, play creatively and master academic skills.

The I (Individual-Differences) describe the unique, biological-based aspects of how a child interprets and responds to the world around him or her. Individual differences in auditory processing, visual processing, sensory-motor processing, motor planning and sequencing, and regulation determine the child's unique timeline and pathway for reaching developmental milestones.

The R (Relationship-Based) describes the relationships of family, caregivers, peers and educators – tailored to the Individual-Differences of the child – that enable progress in mastering the foundational levels.

The Functional Emotional Developmental Levels (FEDL) describes the developmental milestones that every child must master for healthy emotional and intellectual growth. This includes helping children to develop capacities to attend and remain calm and regulated, engage and relate to others, initiate and respond to all types of communication beginning with emotional and social affect based gestures, engage in shared social problem-solving and intentional behavior involving a continuous flow of interactions in a row, use ideas to communicate needs and think and play creatively, and build bridges between ideas in logical ways which lead to higher level capacities to think in multi-causal, grey area and reflective ways. These developmental capacities are essential for spontaneous and empathic relationships as well as the mastery of academic skills.

Central to the DIR®/Floortime™ Model is the role of the child's natural emotions and interests which has been shown to be essential for learning interactions that enable the different parts of the mind and brain to work together and to build successively higher levels of social, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Floortime™ Therapy is based on mobilizing the developmental milestones through affective and emotional exchanges with caregivers and therapists, helping children master the building blocks of relating, communicating and thinking which provides a foundation for learning.

For more information on DIR® Floortime™ visit this website:

www.icdl.com

The Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL)

The following papers have been provided by The Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL) www.icdl.com

FLOORTIME: WHAT IT REALLY IS, AND WHAT IT ISN'T
By Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.

Floortime, as you know, is at the heart of our DIR®/Floortime™, and it's at the heart of a comprehensive program for infants, young children, and families with a variety of developmental challenges including autistic spectrum disorders. This comprehensive program includes working on all the elements of the DIR®/Floortime™ Model – the functional emotional developmental levels, the individual processing differences and creating those learning relationships that will help the child move ahead in their development – relationships that are tailored to their individual differences that move them up the developmental ladder, mastering each and every functional emotional developmental capacity that they are capable of. The DIR®/Floortime™ Model involves often not just Floortime, but different therapies like speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, education programs, counseling support for parents, and intensive home programs as well as school programs.

Today we really want to focus on the Floortime component, which is at the heart of the home component and also at the heart of the other components that must be carried out at school. In other words, Floortime is a particular techinque where we get down on the floor and we work with the child to master each of their developmental capacities. But it is also a philosophy that guides the way occupational therapists work and speech pathologists work and educators work with the children. So you need to think about Floortime in two ways:

A specific techinque where for 20 or more minutes mommy or daddy gets down on the floor with little Johnny or Susie.
A general philosophy that characterizes all the interactions with the child, because all interactions have to incorporate the feature of Floortime as well as the particular goals of that interaction, be it speech therapy or occupational therapy or special set of educational goals.

In thinking what Floortime is and what Floortime isn't, we will define it in a way that will hopefully help both professionals and parents understand why Floortime is the cornerstone, the engine that drives the DIR®/Floortime™ Model and drives the developmental process. At the heart of our definition of Floortime are two of what could be called emphases that sometimes work together very easily and other times may appear to be opposite ends of the continuum:

Following the child's lead
Joining the child's world and pull them into a shared world in order to help them master each of their Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities.

pdf Click here to read the full paper 6.61 Mb

CDC/ICDL Collaboration Report

CDC/ICDL COLLABORATION REPORT ON A FRAMEWORK FOR EARLY IDENTIFICATION AND PREVENTIVE INTERVENTION OF EMOTIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL CHALLENGES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL) Work Group on Early Identification and Preventive Intervention:

Jose Cordero, M.D., M.P.H., Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., Margaret L. Bauman, M.D., T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., Barbara Dunbar, Ph.D., Peter C. Mundy, Ph.D., Ruth Perou, Ph.D., Keith G. Scott, Ph.D., Stuart G.Shanker, D.Phil., And Ruth E.K. Stein, M.D.

From page 1

. . . . both research and clinical practice suggest that the following essential developmental processes are vital for healthy functioning and are often impaired in various types of challenges. These processes are often described in different ways by clinicians and researchers. They include compromises in the range, stability, and flexibility of the capacities for:

Self-regulation and attention
Relationships (attachments)
Social interactions, i.e., reciprocity and increasing social problem-solving (including multiple join attentional frames and initiating reading and responding to intentions)
Meaningful use of language (pragmatic) and play (with toys or other objects), as well as the meaningful use of ideas (symbols) coupled with the progression to logical and abstract thinking.

From page 5

. . . . these essential developmental processes are vital for healthy functioning and are often impaired in various types of challenges. . . .

. . . . Most importantly, because these core developmental processes influence multiple areas of functioning, including language, cognitive, emotional and social functioning, and involve relationships with key caregivers, they are a vital foci for a comprehensive early intervention program. It is also important to emphasize that while there has been a great deal of research on these core developmental processes in children with some diagnoses, such as ASD, there are also challenges in the mastery of these very same processes with children who evidence a large range of developmental challenges (e.g., Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, environment neglect or abuse, etc.).

pdf Click here to read the full paper 135.83 Kb