The presentation is dedicated to studying and understanding the advantages and resources of the DIRFloortime approach. What are the opportunities, strengths and potential noted by the professionals? How does the family experience therapy? What can DIRFloortime offer the child?

The presentation will allow parents to become more familiar with DIRFloortime. Professionals will be able to explore the positive factors of therapy that create additional internal support for the family.

This presentation will focus on common motor challenges seen in autistic children, the impact of these motor challenges on social communication and on emotional and behavioral regulation.

This presentation will be helpful to parents and to professionals, especially professions not trained in understanding sensory motor processing to better understand how to recognize and support motor challenges that may impede social communication and regulation.

• The mother is the key figure in the development of the child

• Development/Learning – what’s the difference?

• The professional is a guide and a partner, not someone who does all the work themself

• Attunement, the mom’s involvement

• From observer to participant

• Caring for the mom’s resource

The audience will see video clips of a play session with a boy who does not use speech for communication (5.3 y.o.), and has difficulties with the perception and processing of verbal information. Participants will have an opportunity to observe how symbolic play emerges from sensory play: the emergence and expansion of emotional ideas, choosing substitute symbols, the characteristics of a child being in a game they initiated.

Together we will think about why it’s possible for a child to return from symbolic play to sensory play.

• The conflict of systems: the autistic need for a rigid routine comes into conflict with the impulsivity and disorganization caused by ADHD

• Difficulties with self-regulation due to under-sensitivity

• Difficulties with communication caused by alexithymia

• How DIR understands development and how Floortime puts it into practice

• FEDCs are a tool for understanding child development and building individual intervention goals

• In the presentation we will describe and provide examples of each of the six fundamental capacities, study how they manifest themselves in early childhood, adolescence and adulthood

The FEDCs model has many nuances and subtleties. Illustrative material and practical examples will help parents deepen their understanding of each fundamental capacity. The presentation will also be useful for those who would like to learn more about the basics of the approach.

• What boundaries exist in Floortime

• Boundaries and FEDCs

• How to set boundaries in a healthy way so that it helps development and doesn’t traumatize

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of boundaries and how they relate to child development

• Communication goes beyond mere speech; words alone do not guarantee true interaction

• Our focus should be on developing communication skills rather than only speech production

• Once communication skills are strengthened, functional speech naturally emerges as a result

• True progress is measured not by the number of words, but by the depth of interaction and connection

Listeners will learn to distinguish between speech and true communication, recognizing that words alone do not always reflect meaningful interaction. They will gain insight into how focusing on communication skills – such as joint attention, emotional sharing, and reciprocity – lays the foundation for functional speech. Practical examples will illustrate how this shift in perspective can transform both assessment and intervention.

This presentation will be especially useful for speech-language therapists, psychologists, educators, and parents who work with or care for children with developmental differences. It will help professionals refine their intervention goals and guide families to look beyond the number of words a child produces, focusing instead on fostering real communication and connection.

When a child is born, they begin to receive an enormous amount of stimuli (information) from the outside world through their senses and sensory systems. This information is the basis for the development of the child’s nervous system and their successful psycho-emotional development. In children with ASD, the perception and processing of this information has certain differences that significantly affect the development of the nervous system as well as overall development.

Almost all neurodivergent children have difficulties with sensory integration – with how the nervous system receives these stimuli, how it processes this information. And this directly affects the individual profile of the child and their development.

The unique feature of the Floortime approach is that sensory integration is an essential part of our interaction with the child to support the natural stages of their psychoemotional development.

We will look at when a child's sensory systems begin to develop, starting in the prenatal period, and how important they are for development. We will learn about the functioning of the sensory systems of neurodivergent children and how this affects the formation of the child's individual profile. We will also understand how Floortime helps with the sensory integration of all the information that a child receives through their senses and sensory systems.

• Applying DIRFloortime with neurodivergent adolescents, characteristics of the adolescent age

• A look at adolescent development through FEDCs and consideration of sensory differences

• What the practice looks like: formats of the sessions and key principles of work

Listeners will learn what are the common struggles of neurodivergent adolescents, how Floortime can be applied for this, what are the features and practical effectiveness of the approach, and see examples from practice.

1. History of the creation of the cards based on practice

2. Why the cards can be useful for children and how to play with them within the Floortime philosophy

3. Using the cards in working with children; purpose, meanings and ways of building interaction and games

4. My experience: using the cards in psychotherapeutic practice with children

Listeners will acquire a tool that will help children they work with develop emotional capacities.

• My classification of sensory stimuli for all senses (hearing, vision, smell, touch, taste, body awareness inside and in space), with examples

• My classification of cognitive stimuli present due to certain features of the working memory and monotasking, with examples

• How to recognize overload before breakdown: instantaneous overload (trigger reaction) and sequential overload (long accumulation, then explosion)

• Nuances of meltdowns in case of aggressive tendencies: what to do if the breakdown has already begun, how to prevent it from happening, how to help the person stabilize quicker

1. Identity as a phenomenon and how it relates to neurodiversity

2. The influence of caregivers on the formation of the child's image of self and sense of self-worth

3. How perception is transmitted through actions, words and non-verbal communication and determines the child's decisions and choices

4. Acceptance or non-acceptance of neurodiversity as a factor that affects all areas of the child’s life

5. Differences in the roles of parents and therapists in the development of the child’s self-perception

6. Caregiver’s worldview as a basis for choosing therapy and approaches

7. The movement for neurodiversity: the worldview and principles of true inclusion

For professionals, it will be interesting to see the therapist not only as a professional, but also as a person with a specific worldview that can affect the child’s identity. The principles of the neurodiversity movement and how they can be integrated into daily practice will become clearer.

For parents, the presentation will help understand the power of words, actions and even non-verbal signals in shaping the child’s self-esteem. It will show how their worldview and attitude can become the foundation for the child's confidence in the future. And in general, listeners may be interested in learning how the formation of the child's identity is related to the acceptance of neurodiversity and how the worldview of caregivers affects the quality of inclusion. The presentation will combine theoretical principles with practical examples for daily work with children.

1. Reflect on the impact of the environment on an individual’s sensory processing moment to moment

2. How this reflection supports co-regulation moment to moment

3. The 5 C’s – Comfort, Competence, Confidence, Control, Communication

Participants will learn about:

• The Brain/Body Connection

• The many factors in the environment that we need to consider from a sensory perspective as well as the individual’s sensory processing and modulation

• The marriage between what is coming in from the external environment, which we refer to as exogenous input, and what is processed and perceived within the individual is referred to as endogenous input

• The exogenous input from the environment is changing moment to moment

• The endogenous input represents your body’s processing

• How to support the sense of Safety

This will be applicable for parents, clinicians, educators and others as it will promote comprehensive reflection on behavior and sensory processing

1. Depression appears across many diagnoses

2. Depression in Autism can be severe and even life threatening

3. Start your individualize assessment by looking at the patient's setting: family, school, and community

The presentation is for clinicians as well as family members. Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe how depression appears in at least three other neuropsychiatric condition

2. Participants will be able to prioritize the main parts of a biopsychosocial assessment

3. Participants will be able to explain why it is better to begin with non-pharmacological responsive caregiving approaches for depression with autistic and non-autistic children and teens

What to do if your neighbors treat you like strangers?

We’ll discuss how the biopsychosocial model helps parents of neurodivergent children maintain their mental health, find resources and support groups, communicate and advocate for their child's rights, and make the town friendly for everyone.

We’ll provide “the big picture” of the double empathy problem, and the need of autistic families to be visible. For parents, the importance of support groups, strategies that help communicate with others and defend the rights of the child; for professionals, helping create safe support spaces.

We’ll mention real cases of various life situations that can arise in society and we’ll introduce our view on healthy solutions to these problems.

Why do a home program, how to do a home program, what is involved in a home program.

This will be useful for parents to know it is available and can support their journey. It is also important for providers to know to refer for a home program when in person may not be available.

• What is parental care? Is it healthy food, lots of toys, private kindergarten, elite school? Or is it warm relationships? Lots of time together with the child? Lots of joint attention, joy? Respect for the child’s feelings? Understanding individual differences? Ability to attune and co-regulate?

• What do we choose – functional care or a tender emotional connection that can always be relied on and which becomes the foundation in the process of formation of the child’s personality?

• Who should care for the person that is caring for the child? Exhaustion and lack of parental resources: how do you get out of the vicious cycle?

• What’s the difference between "creating conditions for development" and "teaching"?

• Important points that must be the top priority for caregivers raising a child

• The importance of the alliance between professionals and parents. How the lack of such alliance will affect the results of Floortime therapy

• Support of parents is an essential part of DIR (training courses, parental groups, regular coaching)

Parents and professionals will see a significant difference between “correction” and “development”. They will deepen their awareness of their own influence on the child’s development.

Organizing Committee

Liliia Huziuk | Oleksandra Hendelieva | Tamila Kolesnyk