Affect Autism Blog Posts including Podcasts
Everything you need to know to implement and practice DIR/Floortime on your own
To browse all posts/podcasts by topic/category/guest/profession, go to the Start Here link.
PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL VIEWS EXPRESSED BY PODCAST AND BLOG POST GUESTS ARE SOLELY THEIRS AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF AFFECT AUTISM, DARIA BROWN, NOR ICDL AND ASSOCIATED PARTIES.
Guests: If you hold a DIR/Floortime certificate or are a caregiver using DIR/Floortime with your child(ren) and would like to be interviewed for a podcast or write a guest blog, please Contact Us.
The Building Blocks of Motor Planning
This week’s blog post is a complement to last year's post entitled, Motor planning and sequencing challenges in children with developmental differences. There you can find the Key Take-Aways PDF from that blog as well. Last year's post was a brief overview of motor...
What does following the child’s lead really mean?
In DIR/Floortime we 'follow the child's lead'. This statement has been one of the most misunderstood aspects of the practice. It does not mean that we just follow whatever the child is...
Advocacy for Developmental Approach Therapies
There is a new advocacy organization to promote developmental approach therapies for autism in Ontario, Canada! The Autism Developmental Approach Therapies Association, or Autism DATA is a group of parents and professional practitioners in Canada who use a...
10 Floortime Tips From Our Visit to The Floortime Center
Last week we had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Jake Greenspan, the son of the late and great Dr. Stanley Greenspan. Dr. Greenspan's protégés, Jake Greenspan and Tim Bleecker...
DIR/Floortime Addresses Patient-Centered Outcomes, Offers Parent Choice, and is Aligned with Disability Rights
'Early intervention' for Autism in Ontario has been in the news non-stop in 2016. The focus has been on who gets funding, but the most important topics have been left out of the...
What is attunement in a developmental approach?
What is Attunement? Attunement, or emotional connectedness, is an essential component of any relationship, and as such, is probably the most essential part of Floortime. Attunement is...
Scaffolding in Floortime: Supporting your Child While Encouraging Development
This week we're talking about a practice in Floortime. Scaffolding is a technique common in developmental practices and teaching. Scaffolding means that you support your child, providing...
Moving Up and Down Developmentally
We ended our last blog post talking about how even a child or adult who is at the more complex capacities can still fall developmentally, just as we do as adults when flustered in...
Setting appropriate limits and expectations by respecting where your child is at, developmentally
A few weeks back, we discussed the developmental approach to setting limits. This week we delve into developmentally appropriate expectations of behaviour and also developmentally...
Parents Living with Grief About Their Child’s Support Needs
Last time we talked about barriers parents face when choosing a DIR/Floortime approach for their child with developmental differences. One barrier we didn't discuss was grief. Especially...
Barriers to Parents doing DIR/Floortime
Parents can find it challenging to implement DIR/Floortime with their child. Today we will look at why this is the case by exploring the barriers that exist for parents. A huge thank you...
Floortime in the car!
In honour of the May long weekends in North America, what better topic to discuss than travel? During our travels to see model train layouts with our son, I had the opportunity to practice...
What an ideal DIR/Floortime program looks like
The DIR Model is an ambitious one made up of many puzzle pieces. It involves a team of professionals who co-ordinate their services in the best interest of each child and family. It relies...
DIR/Floortime as a comprehensive developmental approach
Today begins a two-part blog about an ideal approach for children with developmental differences. DIR/Floortime is very unique as a comprehensive approach that is incomparable to any other...
Self-Reflection in Floortime
The last few blogs have covered how we can stay attuned to our children by accepting and respecting their emotional experiences. Another very important practice that often gets overlooked when we talk about working with children is self reflecting on our own...
A Developmental Approach to Setting Limits
Our last two blog entries have focused on respecting our children's emotional experiences—especially when our children are in catastrophic meltdowns or tantrums. This is very difficult to...
Respecting the Emotional Experience and Expressions of the Child
Last time we covered how emotions are key to affecting autism. This time we'll talk a little bit more about that. Specifically, let's discuss how essential it is to respect the emotional...
Emotions (within safe relationships) are key to affecting autism
I've been taking the new Heart Matters: The Science of Emotion course of Dr. Gordon Neufeld this month and it is so relevant for our kids. And it is also fully compatible with the...
Slowing down and stretching out interactions
If there's one thing I notice when I see or work with parents and their children, it's that parents often rush interactions. Not only are we in a hurry with our children to get somewhere,...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 6: Fostering logical thinking and building bridges between ideas
Cartoon obtained from Clipart Panda For many weeks, we have been going over stumbling blocks that parents face when playing with their children in each of the functional emotional...
A User’s Guide to the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) Model
This week we are thrilled to bring you an interview with Dr. Andrea Davis, the founder and director of Greenhouse Therapy Center in Pasadena, California. She is a licensed...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 5: Inspiring the expression of ideas and feelings
This week we continue with our series on stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their children, and how to move past them. Today we will focus on the...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 4: Encouraging Shared Problem Solving
This week we continue with our series on stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their children, and how to move past them. Today we will focus on the...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 3: Encouraging purposeful emotional interactions
This week we continue with our series on stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their children, and how to move past them. Today we will focus on the...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 2: Fostering attention and engagement
Two weeks ago we started a series on stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their children, and how to move past them. Today we will focus on the...
Motor planning and sequencing challenges in children with developmental differences
Today's blog post is brought to you by M. Mendes who uses the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) approach with children and holds a Certificate of Proficiency...
Stumbling blocks in Floortime at FEDC 1: Facilitating shared attention and regulation
Last week we went through an example of a Floortime session and many more will follow. This week we'll focus on some stumbling blocks that parents come across when trying to play with their...
Example of a Floortime session
For the last several weeks you have read about the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) model and Floortime. This week let's dive into a video example of doing...
Co-regulation in Floortime: How to interact with a distressed child
Last week we talked about how the 'D', the 'I', and the 'R' interact with the Floortime session: namely, that we need to know where the child is Developmentally to begin, we need to know...
The interaction of the ‘D’, the ‘I’, and the ‘R’ in the Floortime session
By now, if you've read all the blogs, you should have a good grasp on what DIR/Floortime is all about. We've covered most of the theory but the success of this practice lies in the...
The nuts and bolts of the Floortime session
In the last two blogs we talked about starting to implement a DIR/Floortime for your child by first determining their individual sensory profile, and then by determining their developmental...
Starting DIR/Floortime with your child: Where is your child developmentally?
Last week we helped you determine your child's sensory profile, or part of their individual differences ('I'). We need to keep these differences in mind in every interaction with your child...
Starting DIR/Floortime with your child: Step 1 is the sensory processing profile
Yay! After a few weeks of defining what the DIR/Floortime approach is all about, it's finally time to put it into practice! Here's how our family started Floortime. First you need to know...
Floortime as a Family Approach
Most people who have heard about DIR/Floortime probably think about getting down on the floor and playing with your child. But the Floortime in DIR/Floortime is so much more than that....
Introduction to Floortime
Most people that have heard about DIR/Floortime probably think about getting down on the floor and playing with your child. But there is more to Floortime in the Developmental, Individual...
The ‘R’ in the DIR model: Relationship-based
The 'R' in the DIR model is the Relationship-based part of the model.The R describes the learning relationships with caregivers, educators, therapists, peers, and others who tailor their...
The ‘I’ in the DIR Model: Individual Differences
This week I'll talk about something so essential to the DIR model: Individual Differences. Dr. Stanley Greenspan's writing is so easy to read and so intuitive. His eloquent description...
The ‘D’ in the DIR Model: Development
This week I'll talk about the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) model's developmental ladder: The Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDCs) for...
It’s all about Affect
What a great fortune that the url affectautism.com was available! I thought of the name during one of my DIR certificate courses. In the videos I've seen, Dr. Stanley Greenspan spoke so...
Welcome to Affect Autism
Welcome to AffectAutism.com! Thank you for taking the time to visit. The purpose of this site is to educate, empower, and support parents of children with developmental differences in the following ways: Providing regular blog posts about the Developmental, Individual...