DIR Floortime Snapshots of Engagement and Connection

He is 3 and has autism. These pictures are from a two hour DIR Floortime coaching session in August 2008. These were a few very fleeting moments preceded by lots of work, but they are so wonderful.

These pictures literally represent a few minutes or seconds here and there followed by large amounts of time where he is not engaged and is in his own world.

Update 2011: He was 3 1/2 at the time. In those days we celebrated when he initiated interactions or shifted gaze to me, even for a few fleeting seconds. It was very daunting.
He is now 6 1/2. He now spends most of his day INITIATING interaction with me. He references me and smiles at me. He is constantly saying, mom, Look at me! or mom, look at this. AND he keeps trying until I look. He checks to make sure I look at him. I worried that would never happen 3 years ago, and indeed, his checking for my attentional focus only started this year. He also is pretty flexible and is way too creative for his own good :-) I am so prowd of him.

On his ADOS from April of 2008 it says, " Facial Expressions were notably flat." "He did not smile in response to others' smiles; he giggled and laughed only when physically tickled." 6 months later this was still mostly the case, but with the right scaffoding, we got a few seconds here and there of what you see in the video. Later it became a few minutes here and there.

Our coach made pictures of thses moments from videos to encourage me because the moments could be so fleeting, and I often felt discouraged. It is often hard to see the very slow changes that intensive intervention makes when you are in the trenches.

At the time of this film We were around 50 circles of communication, but it took very little to lose his engagement. However, at the beginning of intensive intervention we could only engage for about 5 circles before losing engagement.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• autism
• therapy;
• DIR
• Floortime;Relationship
• based
• intervention;
• Sensory
• integration
• dysfunction

[ldefaria1]

Hi and I LOVE these brief clips! What you share with all of us is the power of connection and intention, (clinical babble: "shared attention/engagement"). I smile with his smiles and yours, for I see true relationship formation and capacity for growth emerging with your every move....

Lisa deFaria

[jsarbora]

This little guy doesn't look very autistic here because the still clips are only of the times of engagement...they are from a much longer video of play. But the times he is engaging are spontaneous and inspired, not forced. He is joyful and so is mom. And that's what is so cool!

(The PLAY Project consultant who filmed it)

[drbreinbauer]

This is more than a "nice photo album", it is evidence of purposeful engagement, something that not many therapies can show.

[jsarbora]

Floortime and Son-Rise are JOYFUL approaches to helping autistic children feel the desire to share their attention and WANT to engage with us. From there, they will be able to attend more and learn more.

This is about helping atypical children move through typical development...it can be done and with pleasure. No drilling needed.

[ABAisSCIENCE]

What I see while watching this is a neat idea for a photo album which ought to encourage talking about good times, get a conversation going, and likely get a few laughs as well.

Nothing wrong with showing a child he's making memories and making you proud.