About Affect Autism
Affect Autism was created to help caregivers access a respectful approach that can make their lives with their autistic children more joyful and meaningful for both their children and themselves. By supporting their children on their own at home, caregivers can watch their children’s developmental progress in ways they might otherwise not have done sitting on a wait list for services—or worse, going through services that don’t help.
The Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR®) model and Floortime was revolutionary in that it was the first to consider affect as the most important consideration in development, as affect is what orchestrates the development of the sensory, motor, affective, and cognitive systems. The DIR® model builds on this finding from neuroscience to propose a respectful way, that honours neurodiversity, to bring out your child’s development with years of research and clinical data backing up its validity and effectiveness.
A key concept in the DIR® model is that affect integrates the development of these systems — sensory, cognitive, motor, and affective — into a cohesive whole. Rather than developing in isolation, these systems are seen as interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Emotional experiences are viewed as the glue that binds these systems together, helping them evolve in a coordinated and adaptive way. Affect drives connection and engagement. Affect supports emotional regulation and cognitive development. Affect forms the basis for relationships.
- For example, when a child is emotionally engaged in an activity, they are more likely to regulate their sensory processing, focus on the task at hand (cognitive), and engage in motor actions to achieve a goal. At the same time, the emotional connection between the child and their caregiver or peers helps to build social-emotional skills, which further supports emotional regulation and cognitive development.
Our ultimate goal would be to have Floortime funded for families everywhere.
It is our mission to support you in seeing your child’s strengths using Floortime. Through the podcasts with experts and blog content which includes video examples, we give you the confidence to support your child without relying on our less-than-ideal public services.
To do this, enough parents must join together to voice our dissatifaction at the current state of services available for our children. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network has advocated for coverage for Floortime.
We’ve heard too many horror stories about the treatment of autistics and children with developmental differences in public schools, mostly due to a lack of understanding on the part of very dedicated staff and parents of neurotypical children. With education and the appropriate use of public dollars, all of this can easily be avoided.
We would like to see the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR®) model be the primary model in Special Education in the school system, and across all hospitals and community service resources for special needs children in Ontario and across the globe.
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