DIR/Floortime Support Group Notes From May 6, 2009 Hi everyone – great meeting on Wednesday. Thanks so much to everyone who presented and helped out. We saw two kids on video, and the support to our guest family with MaryPat and the other presentation with Lori McCurdy were excellent. I want to repeat the announcements: The Miller-DIR conference is coming up June 6-7. The flyer is attached. Sign up at millerinsandiego.com - Dr Miller and I will be presenting our models and comparing them as well as, on the second day, we’ll see a couple of new children that neither of us have seen before. It will be a great conference for parents and professionals, focused on our more difficult challenges. IEP Day is coming even sooner – May 30, all day. The flyer is attached. In case you are interested, I am speaking twice that day, once on Living with Developmental and Learning Challenges and separately on Living with Autism Spectrum Disorders (same talk, different crowds – there is a story about that). We are doing lots of advocacy at ICDL these days to ensure that families have choices when it comes to intervention services. My letter to Senator Durbin is attached. Note the quote from Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh where she talks about the problems with designating one best treatment for autism. Great news on the research front: the BRIDGE Collaborative (Bond, Regulate, Interact, Develop, Guide, Engage), a group of people led by Dr. Aubyn Stahmer, from Rady, UCSD, Regional Centers here and in LA, HOPE Infant, The Crimson Center, parents, private professionals, and others, is developing a pilot program for early identification and intervention
for infants and toddlers in our region. Well, after meeting for 18 months or so and a bunch of hoops, we got an NIH pilot grant – very exciting - and in the fall we will be vetting intervention methods for the project. Stay tuned! Asilomar is coming up in 8 weeks and we have, at last count, nine people joining me there to complete various levels of presentation toward DIR®/Floortime™ certification. We have review and preparation sessions planned for Sunday afternoons on May 28, June, 14, and June 28 from about 1:30 to 3:30 pm, with room for at least two rooms going at once. Marilee Burgeson has graciously agreed to help out that day (Thanks Marilee!) and we hope to have other local DIR-experienced people on hand as well to help people get ready for Asilomar. For those interested in certification and tutoring, the ICDL Southern California Regional Institute is starting up next fall, and we will be meeting monthly in Pasadena on Saturdays in September and October 2009, and January through May 2010. This pilot program will have a total of 24 spots, 12 each for the first two levels of presentation toward DIR certification (DIRB and DIRC1). As many of you know we have about 20 people in town who are doing tutoring with me. Tutoring is another requirement for eventual certification. Next year’s tutoring will be modeled after the new regional institute model, and will be in town here. It will count for tutoring and prepare people for their next levels of certification. Finally, our next meetings, next month, will be on June 3. Professionals will meet with me from 9-10:30 am, and parents / caregivers with Mara from 10:30 – noon. Hope to see you all next month! Dr. Feder