Add to Cart Activating development for children

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Activating development for children on the Autism Spectrum requires models of intervention that embrace the complexity of each child’s individual trajectory and provide experiences that build the foundation for learning, competence, friendship and relationships to prepare for the future. Understanding the DIR model (Developmental Individualized and Relationship-Based) core foundational capacities and the building blocks needed to move from skills to competencies can help close the gaps and barriers impeding development. Presentations of children with different profiles will focus on prioritizing goals and integrating related intervention approaches individualized to each unique child.
Participants will be able to describe 3 components of the DIR/Floortime model:
Development- Including capacities to attend and remain calm and regulated, engage and relate to others, initiate and respond to all types of communication beginning with emotional and social affect based gestures, language acquisition, use ideas to communicate needs and think and play creatively.
Individual Differences- each child takes in, regulates, responds to, and comprehends sensations such as sound, touch, and the planning and sequencing of actions and ideas.
Relationship Based - Model describes the learning relationships with caregivers, educators, therapists, peers, and others.
Engaging Autism: Integration of Developmental and Behavioral Approaches to Intervention
Connie Kasari, PhD, UCLA Center for Autism Research & Treatment
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This presentation will focus on current evidence based interventions in ASD, and the trend towards targeted approaches, and modularized interventions. As the field moves toward more personalized interventions, understanding the active ingredients of interventions for children at different ages, and in different contexts becomes critical in building more effective interventions. A program of research will be described that addresses core impairments in the early development of autism. These research studies have integrated developmental and behavioral approaches to address the early core areas of joint attention, play and language. Applications of the research have been examined with preverbal toddlers and preschoolers as well as older minimally verbal children with autism. Focus will be on the changes in developmental targets depending on child characteristics and context.
Participants will be able to:
Identify at least three developmental tasks of early childhood that are impaired and linked to later language development.
Identify at least two specific methods associated with later improvement in language outcomes.
Identify two predictors of long term outcomes.
New Research Evidence for Developmental Approaches in the Treatment of ASD - Showcasing the P.L.A.Y.® Project
Richard Solomon, MD, Medical Director of The P.L.A.Y. Project and the Ann Arbor Center for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Michigan; NIMH Grant Recipient
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In this talk Richard Solomon, MD will present the results of the NIMH study: “Randomized, controlled trial of The P.L.A.Y. (Play and Language for Autistic Youngsters) Project Intervention for Autism”. This study evaluates outcomes, after one year of intervention, by comparing 60 control children receiving community standard services (CSS), of 12-14 hours of special education pre-school, to 60 PLAY Project intervention children receiving CSS plus the PLAY Project, a once a month, home-based, parent training program using trained masters level PLAY Project Home Consultants. Dr. Solomon will review the related scientific literature, describe the PLAY Project’s intensive developmental intervention model and present the key outcomes including the interactional skills of parents and children, language, and autism severity.
Participants will be able to:
Describe the scientific evidence for developmental (as opposed to ‘behavioral’) interventions for children with autism.
Describe the P.L.A.Y. Project Home Consultation model.
Define the research findings of the P.L.A.Y. Project’s NIMH grant.
Blended Developmental - Behavioral Intervention for Toddlers at Risk for Autism: The Southern California BRIDGE Collaborative
Joshua Feder, MD Director of Research, Graduate School, Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders Medical Director, SymPlay LLC Family Games for Autism; Clinical Associate Professor, UCSD School of Medicine
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DIR Model Informed Thinking: A Case Study in Treatment of Anxiety and ASD
Mona M. Delahooke, PhD, Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Profectum Foundation Mental Health Working Group Co-Chair
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The Parent Perspective: Building the Treatment Team that is Right for Each Child
Joyce Show & Yudi Bennett
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Now more than ever families are a utilizing a hybrid approach in the treatment of their child with autism or other special needs. This groundbreaking plenary panel will focus on multi-disciplinary and multi-modality collaboration, between educators, mental health practitioners, early intervention and behavior specialists. A panel of experts will discuss commonalities, differences and potential new linkages between behavioral models (ABA & PRT) and developmental programs (DIR model). A case discussion and parent panel will illustrate how professionals and families can work together to coordinate, cooperate and complement treatment for children and families. Moderated by Mona Delahooke, PhD
Participants will be able to:
List 2 critical differences between discrete trail training (DTT) and pivotal response training (PRT).
Describe the salient differences and similarities between PRT and the DIR/Floortime model.
Describe an understanding of behavioral and developmental treatment approaches as a stimulus to thinking about how an integrated approach tailored to each child’s individual differences can address anxiety and stress.
 Building Resilience: Addressing Stress and Anxiety in Children and Parents

Super Parenting: Building Stress Resiliency in Parents of Special Needs Children
Elissa Epel, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry UCSF
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Dr. Epel will describe how chronic stress of caregiving has a toll on both emotional wellbeing and physical health. However, while being a caregiver is often a situation beyond one's control, is not a deterministic fate for worsened health, in fact, it can provide opportunities for building stress mastery, and greater meaning, and ways of coping with stress that minimize the usual wear and tear of a chronic stress exposure. She will describe her studies on links between types of adversity and psychological coping processes with bodily cell aging, and what we are learning from interventions about how to reverse or at least slow cellular aging.
Participants will be able to:
Identify three ways that chronic stress can impair health.
Define how caregiving is different than other types of chronically stressful situations (like job stress). What makes it unique.
Describe how the skill of mindfulness can reduce stress. What are other ways of minimizing caregiver stress.
Bullying: Prevention, Building Resilience & Creating Supportive Communities
Lisa deFaria, LCSW, BCD, Director, Family Center for Developmental Therapies, CA
Monica G. Osgood, Executive Director, Profectum Foundation; Co-Founder & Executive Director, Celebrate the Children School, NJ
Karen McDowell, BA, Lead Teacher, Celebrate the Children
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Children and adolescents with an Autism Spectrum Disorder or other special needs are frequent targets of peer harassment – “bullying” – both at school and in the community. Core challenges in the areas of social communication, reading and adapting to social cues, vulnerable sensory and emotional regulatory capacities, even idiosyncratic areas of interest contribute to their peer’s perception of the ASD individual being “different,” and therefore vulnerable. Since bullying often begins as early as preschool and accelerates in intensity and complexity as the child ages – intervention requires a developmental framework, sensitive to each age and stage. Utilizing video and discussion, the presenters will explore how a focus on individual empowerment, experience-driven and in the natural environment, may improve awareness, communication skills and the ability to self-advocate appropriately, to build resilience in the child. However, presenters will also discuss the equally important role of community education and understanding, inspiring a culture that tolerates differences, while mandating a “zero-tolerance” for bullying across the domains of school and community.
Participants will be able to:
Define the meaning of “bully” – or peer harassment – as reflected by age and stage.
Describe how bullies are created – as are victims - culture, community, school, educators, parents and peers – we are all complicit.
Identify key differentials of the bully-victim dynamic when the targeted child or adolescent has special needs.
Describe how the individual with special needs may unwittingly contribute to their victimization, including: misinterpreting social cues; black and white thinking; misunderstanding humor; poor perspective taking or “theory of mind;” unaware of social hierarchy; and lack of “filter,” knowing how much to say, what and when not to.
Identify the six primary proactive elements of intervention:
Creating school-wide “bully-free” zones
Maintain a culture of zero tolerance for bullying reinforced across grade levels
School wide peer sensitization, plus tools for peers to intervene
Establish well-articulated consequences, as well as help, for the student that victimizes others
Enhance the social intelligence of the individual with special needs
Empowering the victim to advocate for themselves and how to do so appropriately.
The Path to Joint Attention: Challenges and Stressors Along the Road
Griff Doyle, PhD; Profectum Foundation Certification Track Development Coordinator
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This workshop will focus on the more unique sources of and remedies for stress inherent in the achievement and maintenance of Joint Attention (JA) between caregiver and child. We will go beyond the recognized definition of JA by briefly describing its evolution and fulfillment as the active processes that occur in FEDL Levels I-IV. The DIR model will be adopted to recognize specific stressors that caregiver and child encounter while establishing and sustaining basic co-regulation, and the of sharing mutual positive affect through intentional, reciprocal two-way communication.
Participants will be able to:
Define the standard definition of JA and how it augurs in a transformative, new means for caregiver and child to experience the world together.
Describe the basics of how FEDL Levels I-IV provide a perspective with which to identify the earliest functions and the original, imperfect blending of mind, body, and affect from which JA unfolds.
Identify some of the major stressors that can compromise and damage the dyad’s ability to graduate into this new realm of relating in which they can simultaneously engage warmly with each other and focus on a third entity (object, person, problem, event, etc.) together.
Communication and Anxiety
Cindy Harrison, M.Sc., Reg CASLPO, SLP; Profectum Foundation Conference Coordinator
6-month subscription - $15
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This workshop will focus on the role of communication in anxiety. Individuals with uneven processing, challenges with comprehension (receptive language – verbal and non-verbal) or production (speech, expressive language) and pragmatics (social use of language) are often more challenged in the communication realm during times of stress or anxiety. This workshop will address how to support communication and will provide some clinical strategies to address these issues.
Participants will be able to:
Identify the role that stress and anxiety may have on speech/language and communication.
Identify clinical strategies to support communication during times of stress and anxiety.
Helping Parents Cope with Stress and Find Resilience
Mona M. Delahooke, PhD, Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Profectum Foundation Mental Health Working Group Co-Chair
Elissa Epel, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry UCSF
Barbara Kalmanson, PhD; Founder of the Oak Hill School
6-month subscription - $15
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This workshop will continue the theme of day two with a closer look at how parents can cope with stress, and how professionals can support parents. The panel will present relevant information on techniques parents can use to buffer stress and promote physical and mental health, including communication styles, maintaining close relationships, mindfulness etc. Dr. Epel will continue the theme from her morning plenary on building stress resiliency in parents of children with special needs. Dr. Kalmanson will present information about the stress on the couple and siblings, and Dr. Delahooke will describe how professionals can use their relationship with parents to promote family resilience.
Participants will be able to:
List 2 techniques that buffer stress for parents of children with special needs.
Describe how an awareness of how mindfulness practices improve health in mothers of children with developmental challenges.
Describe how clinicians can assist parents to buffer stress as they coordinate services for their child.
Individuals Grow Best Within Family Relationships
Ruby Moye Salazar, LCSW, BCD, Director and Senior Clinician at Salazar Associates; Profectum Foundation Tutoring Coordinator
6-month subscription