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!)
This is a clip from a panel I did on the website, “Kids in the House.” During the panel discussion, I got tossed a question about what intervention for Autism I would recommend. I don’t think they were prepared for how enthusiastically I would support DIR/Floortime and Stanley Greenspan. The other 2 panelists wanted to defend the ABA model. You can see the whole 30 minutes at the Kids in the House website through the link below. The part I posted actually gives you the whole idea, though.
If you come to see me at the Summer Autism Institute for the State of Vermont where I will be keynoting Friday, June 26th (http://www.uvm.edu/cnhs/autism_institute/) or Autism Society International Conference in Denver in July (http://www.uvm.edu/cnhs/autism_institute/) or at United States Autism and Aspergers Association in Tucson at the end of July (http://www.usautism.org/conferences/) you should probably know by know that I am going to talk about the parent supportive, respectful, effective DIR/Floortime and Rebecca School.
This is a snippet of an hour long public talk Christopher Gauthier and I gave at the United States Autism and Asperger Association national conference in Kansas City this Fall. USAAA just put this up on line, it had originally gone out live on a live feed from the conference, and I was really pleased to be able to link to it. USAAA is a very cool group, dedicated to finding sensible answers to dietary, biological and intervention questions for the Autism and Asperger community. I am always delighted to be asked to participate. This year I got to sample (and by sample I mean I ate every meal!) Kansas City barbeque. I also got to spend time with Chris Gauthier, the immensely talented photographer and inspiring activist. He and his wife Jacqui are the kind of friends who you dearly want to spend more time with, but somehow cannot make all the busy schedules work to get together. We all have these friends, and the Gauthiers are mine. I console myself by having access to Chris’ work, and by these annual conferences where we get to touch base once again. Maybe now that I am part time on the west coast, in Santa Rosa, CA, so that the distance between the Gauthiers and the Tippy’s is shorter, we can finally make our visits more regular. Check out Chris’ work at the link above, and notice the gallery of pictures we are sitting in front of on stage at USAAA. They are also Chris’s work.
Rae and I got a chance to present at the Interdisciplinary Council for Development and Learning’s (ICDL) International Conference on 11/9/14. We presented on the way that a DIR/Floortime curriculum meets the requirements of the Common Core Standards, is relatively easy to do, and is very effective with kids on the Autism Spectrum. The work is from the Rebecca School in Manhattan, where I am the Clinical Director and one of the Founders, and Rae is the Educational Coordinator, and also a founding member of the faculty at the school. This is really a teaser, and if people want to see the entire thing I would be happy to put it together in small segments. You could contact Rae at the Rebecca School, or me through my blog or website. We were really happy to be so well received by the audience. We think this is the answer for how to meet the Common Core Standards for kids with developmental challenges, and for neurotypical students as well. Good developmental work is simply right in many different situations.
Tania Singer, PhD
The Dalai Lama Speaks at the Conference
I am still so blown away after four amazing days at the Mind and Life International Symposium for Contemplative Studies. In meeting after meeting, from the dialog with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, though the amazing closing presentation by Tania Singer, PhD, who electrified the audience with her amazing research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, it was the most amazing conference I have ever been a part of. I presented a poster
Rebecca School’s Mindfulness Group Poster
At the Symposium in front of Rebecca School’s poster.
about the Mindfulness Support Group I run at the Rebecca School. Arianna Huffington was wonderful, and remarkably funny and mindful at the banquet on Saturday night. But the really amazing part for me were the presentations and the practice support. I had the chance to meditate, several times, with Roshi Joan Halifax, John Kabat-Zinn, and Sharon Salzburg. One of the meditations I attended with Sharon Salzberg, along with the closing address by Tania Singer inspired me to take our simple meditation group in a direction which I hope will directly influence our work with the kids and families at the Rebecca School. All in all, an entirely amazing and life affirming four days!
Arianna Huffington
Sharon Salzberg
John Kabat-Zinn
Roshi Joan Halifax
The panel at Respecting Autism, Sept. 27th
At the Rebecca School, we are still on a high, after the amazing conference, “Respecting Autism“, we gave at Middlebury College on September 27th. In conjunction with the Sapphire Center, a very cool local center for kids with
Petra Daitz answers questions from an audience member
developmental challenges that is doing DIR/Floortime, volunteer staff from the Rebecca School presented a full day conference on what Floortime looks like in a school setting, when it is done well.
Stacey Hensel talking about Music Therapy
Presentations on Parent Support, Visual Spatial support, Floortime with a group of challenging students, Lunchtime Speech and Language programing, our Cafe Rebecca Program, our Music Therapy program, a panel discussion with all of us, and my keynote on the importance of thinking. It was an amazing day!
Yummy Cafe Rebecca cookies at the conference
Here is the good news! We recorded the entire thing! Our amazing Creative Services director, Billy Gomberg, worked tirelessly all day, and as a result, we will be able to offer the entire conference, the very best of Floortime
Meghan Collins talks about visual/spatial support
in the school setting, to everyone, for free! Through the generosity of Tina McCourt, the Program Director of the Rebecca School, we will be able o put all the presentations on-line. So, if you were unable to make it to Middlebury on September 27th,
Lunch alfresco at Middlebury
you will be able to see the whole thing, on-line. Watch this space, because as soon as we have the material edited, and the server space set up, we will let you know.
It was a great day!
Hope some of you got to see the amazing Christopher Gauthier and me streaming live from the United States Autism and Asperger Association national conference. Here we are on stage, after the presentation, in front of some of Christopher’s Photographs from his Facing Autism project. You can access that here http://www.christophergauthier.com/ , or you can follow the link to it from my home page http://www.drgiltippy.com . We had an amazing day here in Kansas City. Wish you were here to see it.
This is part of a presentation I gave with my friend, Rae Leeper, at the YAI International Convention in NYC this year. The Common Core Curriculum is the right way to go for all kids, and especially for kids with developmental challenges of relating and communicating. The way behaviorists work with these kids, Response to Intervention (RTI) worked alright with the memory based No Child Left Behind, (which left everyone behind), but does not work at all with the Common Core Standards. Behaviorists are left doing an ineffective intervention faster and faster to try to meet the Common Core Standards, but they cannot do it. I predict that in two years everyone will be clamoring to do our brand of respectful, developmental, individualized, child centered intervention and teaching.
This is little piece of a case conference I ran at the Rebecca School a couple of weeks ago. These weekly conferences include the team working with the child, the parents, and the entire 120 person staff of the school. The team talks about their program and the rest of the staff and I offer suggestions to make the program better. This clip is me talking about a child who loves the tiny details of a small locking block set, and a particular type of train set, and how he can see the trees but not the forest. I tell the staff to throw out all the tiny detailed stuff in order to invite the child into the world. I also talk about the tiny frustrations that lead to every child, not neurotypical and neurotypical alike, to be able to tolerate frustration and the challenges of the everyday world. Children beginning to understand that they have the inner resources to handle challenges is what leads to children seeing challenges as interesting problems to be solved, as opposed to seeing them as insurmountable frustrations to be controlled by rigidly sticking to set patterns.
This is Part 5 of a lecture I gave at Rebecca School about ABA Detox, the term we coined to talk about the difficulties children who have had a lot of ABA treatment sometimes have when they get into a respectful, appropriate developmental setting. I get a chance to talk briefly about language, and when children start talking as they move up developmentally. It is touching to me, that when I pause in the lecture and turn to the audience, that they all know that there are three words every parent wants to hear from their child.
Gil's primary office is in Nassau County, NY. He also has an office in Sonoma County, CA. He is available virtually for individuals, schools and clinics, worldwide. Call 516-922-4091, or email gil.tippy@gmail.com to inquire or schedule an appointment.
Dr. Gil Tippy's Child Development Blog 