Don’t Equate a Sense of Humor with a Lack of Seriousness

Last week I gave a lecture as a part of a presentation at the ICDL international conference of DIRFloortime® on the use of humor in Floortime. In the lecture, I showed how a Pie Fight (yes a Pie Fight!) was the perfect vehicle for showing what a person could laugh at, at various Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities. It was a blast to put together (I got to watch hours of pie fights on film!), and tons of fun to present. At the beginning of the presentation I showed this clip of me presenting the Keynote at a previous DIRFloortime® conference in 2015. I am posting that clip again, to make the point that I made in 2015, and in 2022 in conference presentations, that joyful play is the vehicle for Floortime, but it is an absolutely serious method of developmental support.

Enjoy!

Practical Floortime Consulting

Here is a quick video of me doing a consult to a clinic in another country. I listened to the clinician as she presented the child’s complex sensory profile, and outlined his pressing need. The government had supported his getting cochlear implants, and because he had not yet made great progress, the child was in danger of losing the government’s support for those implants. So, I made up a couple of interventions, supporting the child’s sensory challenges, and supporting the child’s speech production. I also made sure the intervention was joyful, so that both the child and the clinician would want to continue.

The “Glinda Strategy”

 

This is a brief clip, from the end of my presentation at the Interdisciplinary Council for Development and Learning’s 2019 International Conference in San Francisco. It starts on a slide of a chapter I just published in the book, “Autism 360°.”

I wanted to empower therapists and parents to advocate vigorously whenever they see people misrepresenting which interventions have rigorous data over a long time that supports their interventions. I called it “The Glinda Strategy” in honor of everyone’s favorite good witch, Glinda, from the”Wizard of Oz.” Click on the cc at the bottom of the video to turn on the Closed Captioning, if it is not already turned on.

Gil Talking on Fox Radio “Fox on Love, With Ashley Papa”

https://radio.foxnews.com/2018/03/27/dating-embracing-your-partner-while-they-also-care-for-a-loved-one-with-autism/

Ashley Papa, the relationships reporter on Fox News Radio interviewed me recently on the subject of dating someone who is supporting a person with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I ended up saying, basically, that people with spectrum challenges were people first, and you needed to respect their wants and desires.

Click the link above to listen to the whole interview.

 

Gil talks about Shrub Oak International School on “Affect Autism.”

I love the blog and website, Affect Autism! I sat down with my good friend, and fierce developmental advocate, Daria Brown, while I was in Toronto at Oakwood Academy a couple of weeks ago, to do a podcast and interview for her influential blog. We talked about Shrub Oak International School, the school I am helping to found in Westchester County, New York. We ranged over a number of topics, but we focused in on how I plan to use what I have learned over many years of starting, running and consulting to schools to make Shrub Oak extraordinary. Specifically, we talked about how the fantastic 127 acre campus of Shrub Oak supports the sensory processing challenges of students, and avoids the problems that occur when classrooms are overcrowded and schools are loud and confusing.

Take a couple of minutes to listen to the interview, visit the Shrub Oak website, and then do a deep dive on Daria’s site, “Affect Autism.” I think you will find it worth the time you invest!

The Start Of Something Big!

I am thrilled to announce that I am the Co-Head, and Clinical Director of a spectacular new school, Shrub Oak International School! It is a co-educational, boarding and day school located in the town of Shrub Oak in Westchester County, NY, on 127 acres of beautiful rolling fields and woods. For me, it is a dream come true!

I have traveled in this country and internationally over the last many years, and I have looked at all kinds of developmental programs for students with autism spectrum disorders, and I have seen what makes them work, and what makes them not work so well. I have noticed, again and again, that if all other things are equal, one of the factors that makes a program successful is ROOM, and lots of it! When a program does not have enough room, and students do not have access to nature, things do not go well. Shrub Oak has those things in abundance. Not that space is the only advantage, but if you don’t have space, if your students are crammed into small classrooms and you cannot get them outside to play in nature, you are in big trouble!

I am so excited to be able to take the beautiful campus, with it’s fields and forests, its Equestrian Center, its pool, and especially its organic farm (with my son Glenn as its steward) and use these spaces to supply sensible, effective developmental clinical programs, in the way I have always dreamed to supply them.

There are, of course, a million other things to say, like the ages of the students (middle school and high school), the number of students (390 boarding and day), the number of staff (about 600) and details about the amazing programs and curriculums. But, all of that will have to wait, and as you can imagine, I will be talking here a lot about the school’s development from now to opening in September, 2018.

For now, I just want to say how proud I am to be a part of this project, and how thrilled I am at being able to make my dream school a reality!

Atlantic DIR/Floortime School Conference

Petra Daitz, MS/ED far left, and Gil Tippy, PsyD second from the left

On Saturday, January 21st, 2017, I will be speaking at a very cool conference in Atlanta, put on by ICDL and the Community School, entitled 2017 Annual DIR® in Education Conference . Not an inspiring name, but some inspiring speakers! I will be talking about DIR/Floortime models for post-21 education, particularly a not-for-profit model I developed in CA, and its application nationally. Dave Nelson, the Executive Director of the Community School in Decatur, GA, is organizing the event and speaking, as is Emily Rubin, MS, CCC-SLP, who always teaches me a lot. I am particularly excited to have one of the great teachers from Rebecca School presenting, Petra Daitz, MS/ED, who will present her fantastic class, with lots of video. The conference promises to really make clear the school application of DIR/Floortime, and is in a beautiful space at The Atrium at the Cator Woolford Gardens at the Frazer Center in Atlanta. This is a great conference, focused on schools, in a beautiful, intimate setting. Seating is limited, but some seats are available! I hope to see you there.

2017 Annual DIR® in Education Conference
Frazer Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Saturday, January 21, 2017
9:00AM – 4:00PM

Parents are Natural Floortimers

I was at a national autism conference this week, and was reminded that DIR/Floortime is what parents want to do with their children, and that punishing, ignoring and rewarding with “skittles cut up so small it is amazing,” are not the things they wish to do. (And, the things they don’t want to do don’t work anyway!)

Child Development is Real Science

 

DIR/Floortime is Science, and we have trouble showing lawmakers that, because when they get shown charts, even if those charts are nonsensical, they believe they are “Evidence.” This part of a recent talk sets out to show that child development is science, and the Real Evidence Based Intervention in the field of Autism.

Dr. Tippy on Empowering Parents in Autism Interventions

I got a chance to talk to a group of parents the other day at the ICDL conference where the subject was the developmentally appropriate intervention of DIR/Floortime. What a great group of folks came to my presentation! I was talking about how we could help to make developmental, relationship-based, sensory appropriate interventions the norm in Autism intervention, and during that talk, I spoke about parent empowerment. This clip is from that section of my presentation.

I also told the folks in the room that I would give them a form on this blog where they could get in touch, and get the slides from the talk. That form is below.

If you want to see the beginning of the revolution, you can go to RespectingAutism.org, and see what we are planning to do to change the way the world relates to all kids and young adults!

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