DIR/Floortime

It's official - I'm DIR/Floortime certified! 

Don't know what DIR/Floortime is? Until a few years ago, I didn't either. I was sitting in a meeting, listening to people discuss whether or not a child had autism, when the psychologist said - "Oh, he does, he just had DIR/Floortime when he was young."

What? What is that? I'd never heard of this intervention. How is it possible that 1) He received an intervention that worked so well that now a roomful of professionals cannot decide whether or not he has autism. 2) If this intervention is so effective, why have I not heard of it?

I immediately turned to my good friend Google, which introduced me to Dr. Stanley Greenspan, and directed me toward the certification path. The DIR stands for Developmental, Individual, Relationship. This therapy is a way to connect with children through considering their developmental needs, their individual differences, and their relationship to their environment. You connect to a child by following their lead, often through play, (or at least that is what I originally thought). While it is typically a therapy used with children with autism, it can also be used anyone.

I started reading Greenspan's work, and I took one on-line class over the summer a few years ago. I thought I understood the concept pretty well. It made sense to me, so this winter I decided to start the certification process.

The first class was short, and repeated much of the same information I'd read in Greenspan's books. I quickly enrolled in the second class, excited to get started. It was this class that allows for the basic certification. It is a pass/fail class, and when I enrolled I excitedly that it would be a simple way to get my certification. After all, I thought I had a good understanding of the therapy already.

I was wrong. So wrong. I understood the words used to describe Floortime, but I really had no idea what I was talking about - yet. This class, to be quite honest, kicked my butt.

Although I was very familiar with all of the words being used, I didn't actually know their definition through a Floortime lense. It was like being in a foreign country and thinking you understand the language, only to quickly learn you thought you asked to go to the bathroom and you were directed to the swimming pool.

From a meta-cognitive standpoint, it was a fascinating experience. The last time I struggled this much with learning something was my computer science course during college. But, being far more motivated to learn Floortime than I was HTML, I threw myself into this course. The more I realized how much I did not understood Floortime, the more I was determined to learn it, and do it well. I watched the videos my classmates presented and saw the progress kids made in the short, eight minute video clips. Then, I saw the sparks in some of the children I work with. When I started using Floortime techniques with them, I saw the shift. It was remarkable. Magic. Except not magic - science.

But to learn Floortime, I had to unlearn or at least shelve any behaviorist approaches I'd relied on before. In reflecting on my own teaching, I realized that much of what I do, much of what any of us do in the schools, is from a behaviorist model. In order to learn Floortime I had to stop myself from my previous work and start looking at children with new eyes. Behaviors or individual differences I had overlooked before because I didn't consider important, now are essential to understanding the child and how to interact. I find myself watching every child with "DIR eyes" as my mentor calls it.

Who knew that learning to play effectively would be so difficult? I had no idea when I started this process, and yet now I have a whole new understanding of just how powerful peek-a-boo is.

Now that I'm more comfortable with Floortime, I hope to be writing about it more, and hopefully I can explain it here. More importantly, I am ridiculously excited to be officially allowed to practice it. My struggle this winter and spring paid off.