Introduction to the Soaring Eagle Academy Curriculum

The Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-based (DIR®/Floortime) model is a framework for assessment and intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other challenges of relating and communicating. It identifies the child's developmental level of emotional and intellectual functioning (D); determines his individual way of reacting to and comprehending movement, sounds, sights, and other sensations (I); and formulates learning relationships and interactions at home, in school, and in different therapies (speech, occupational therapy) geared to the child's profile (R). The individualized learning relationships utilize the child's natural interests and emotions (by following his lead) and create interactions that help him master the stages of relating, communicating, and thinking.

These stages include:

• Regulation and attention (the ability to stay calm and observe the world around him)
• Engagement (an emotional connection to parent, teacher and other adults)
• Reciprocal emotional signaling (initiating and responding in a back and forth manner with gestures, head nodding, turning to look, etc.)
• Shared social problem solving (taking adult by the hand and through multiple back and forth gestures getting him to an object out of reach) - also often referred to as joint attention
• Creating ideas (pretend play)
• Connecting ideas logically (thinking)

The DIR®/Floortime approach is intensive and comprehensive and involves family members, educators, and therapists. It is based on recent developmental and neuroscience research that shows that the core deficits in ASD are related to compromised mastery of early stages of emotional interactions and underdeveloped pathways connecting different parts of the brain. The DIR®/Floortime approach creates opportunities for mastering the early stages of emotional interactions, at the same time helping different components of the mind to work together in order to build healthy foundations for relating, communicating, and thinking. This, in turn, enables children to work on the core deficits that characterize ASD and make more progress than formerly thought possible in reading and responding to emotional signals, empathy and creative and reflective thinking.*

Soaring Eagle Academy students will be supported according to their Sensory Profile, individual strengths and challenges and developmental level of emotional and intellectual functioning. Based on this knowledge, student’s individualized curriculum will be generated by interaction of the student’s natural interests, the DIR®/Floortime Approach and Illinois Learning Standards Goals and Benchmarks.

* The preceding text was written by Dr. Stanley Greenspan and used by permission of The Floortime Foundation.