Let me be clear – this isn’t just my stance, this is the stance of the Autistic community. Join a group like @Autism Inclusivity to find out more: there’s a major post about it that explains it perfectly and describes exactly how harmful it is. I’ve also written about it extensively if you want to search through my blogs or read my books.
DIR Floortime was invented by Stanley Greenspan, who had the same ideas as ABA, but wanted to do it ‘nicer’. His idea was that you have to train the parent how to abuse the child – not directly train the child – but instead train the parent (because the parent is at fault for the ‘autism’ or for the lagging skills of the child (which is the same as what Australia is doing with the “Thriving Kids program” which is based on the exact same program design as DIR Floortime: “The Inklings Program” which was designed by and ABA enthusiast – Andrew Whitehouse). This is the old ‘refrigerator mother’ blaming idea that was around decades ago that always blamed the mother for the perceived ‘deficiencies’ of the child.
Let me be clear here… there’s nothing wrong with the parent or the child. This is just biased a-holes passing judgment on families that they know absolutely nothing about. So don’t you (as a teacher) also start blaming the parent or the child either. Most often: the parent is undiagnosed ND, and just does exactly what they feel ‘normal’ about and with.. with their child. They are both getting along perfectly. But all of a sudden, the child starts kinder or day care and the teachers see fault in the child because they are different. Not bad or wrong etc – but different from the other children. So they are told to seek out therapy to stop or ‘fix’ that difference. That’s where things like DIR Floortime come in…. to “fix” the differences that are perfectly normal to that family.
Greenspan also blamed the parent for not interacting with the child enough – or being a hover parent or whatever… it was the age old ‘refrigerator parent’ theory that he made his ‘therapy’ around. He insulted every mother around with this garbage, and yet some teachers or therapists recommend DIR Floortime when the family rejects ABA or PBS (because of the obvious toxicity and abuse of those programs). They think they are giving a better alternative to the family – but they are actually doing is insulting the family and recommending a ‘therapy’ that is the same as ABA/PBS but they don’t realise it. I’m here to demystify the why surrounding Floortime… why is it also horrifically bad for autistics. (Please also see my upcoming blog about giving praise for more information).
So, DIR Floortime starts out great – by working with the child… getting to know them.. and then you need to chuck out everything after that point – because the rest is the same as ABA/PBS and teaches masking better than ABA/PBS does.
The next step in Floortime is to ‘challenge’ the child. In other words – the parent is to use their newfound knowledge about the child (which they gained by being kind and present in the child’s life) to gain trust and then push them to do NT things in NT ways. It trains the parent how to do ABA/PBS in the home, all the time – in the smallest increments so that the child doesn’t know where DIR Floortime ends and they begin.
Eg: If the child is playing at the park- in their own autistic way, the parent is to play with them, but then – they are to say something like– “let’s try X or do Y” (which is always leading them to more and more NT things). The first X is a small stretch, but you keep building on that by praising them constantly for accepting their new reality, their new abuse, their new task etc….. until they are indistinguishable from their peers. This is a direct example from the Greenspan website BTW. They literally say to praise the child until they do what you want.
As a teacher, you may see this as innocuous, or harmless – because that’s what PBL (Positive Behaviour for Learning) teaches new teachers to do when they undertake their university degrees. It’s the worst thing you can do to autistics. You are using Conversion Therapy on them and don’t realise… but if you do realise – you’re the asshole. Not knowing means you have plausible deniability for the harm you cause, but once you know – you can no longer deny the harm you are doing….you are now doing it on purpose.
Floortime is more insidious and more harmful than ABA/PBS, because it’s tiny increments and it focusses on the child still being broken and needing fixing. It makes the ‘challenge’ less of a stretch so that the child isn’t having conversion therapy used on them. With ABA/PBS/PBL the child is more aware of your manipulation and trials at control and subversion/coercion – because you use it blatantly in front of other children to use peer pressure to subdue and control them.
Floortime is more about betrayal – where the parent gains the child’s love and trust and then fully uses that against the child in a blatant and hideous attack on the child – making them conform and converting them to ‘typicalness’. To no longer be themselves: to become a shell of a person who has no idea what they like, hate, when they feel pain, when they’re being abused or being taken advantage of, or when they need supports/help. It’s about a child being hated for who and what they are and then being totally unmade and remade. It’s the total destruction of a person – by the very parent who is supposed to love them for who and what they are. That’s why it’s total betrayal at the basest form.
In the end – a child who is under ABA/PBS/PBL can sometimes see the abuse upfront and often realises they are masking or that the adult is using praise and rewards to control them. Whereas Floortime is more disguised, as it’s done by a trusted parent (who is taught to abuse the F out of them), and you lose yourself more gradually over a longer period of time…. You can’t tell you are masking because it’s been a slower process….
It’s also worse because you are praised and motivated to do it more – because if you don’t extend yourself (become more NT)– the parent stops playing with them. The program starts out being kind and using praise to gain compliance, but when the child stops doing what the parent wants –it becomes the same as punitive punishments that ABA/PBS also uses…. The parent is instructed to stop the play, stop the love, stop the everything. This is denying love – planned ignoring, and manipulation at its best. A child who’s had this done to them doesn’t know how to recognise when they are being taken advantage of, when they are being used and abused, and they become people pleasers. They are the most susceptible children in the world to s3xual assault and abuse.
This is why autistics are more likely to experience s3xual, financial and emotional abuse more than any other minority worldwide. We are taught to ignore our needs, senses and gut – and do whatever the adult tells us to do – no matter who the adult is. You are not just setting up the child for failure, you are literally teaching them how to be abused, and not just accept – but to actually beg for it.
A child ‘graduates’ from Floortime (and ABA/PBS) when they are indistinguishable from their peers ….AND when they follow the adult’s suggestion – no matter what it is – on cue every time.
Imagine if you did what you were suggested to do every single time, no matter what. What could an unscrupulous person get you to do???… maybe: make you have sex with someone, kill someone, give all your money to them, work as a slave for them, make you beg for love and affection from them, hit you and you beg for more.
You may laugh or say “that’s ridiculous” – but this is exactly what autistics have described happened to them because of ABA/PBS/PBL and things like Floortime. The actual lived experience of these people make up the very real statistics on rape, and abuse and suicide victims the world over. It’s actually been proven that autistics are the people who make up those percentages more than any other population of people….. and they say it’s directly from what they were taught as children. They were taught to ignore their own needs or safety in favour of someone else’s. Believe it or not – it’s true and factual.
Lastly – the child who is forced into Floortime training eventually realises that their parent wasn’t playing with them because the parent loved them or loved the way they did things, or loved to be with them. The child eventually finds out that the parent only played with their children in order to change everything about them.
Imagine if you found out that your parent only ever spent time with you so they could change every damned thing about you – because they actually hated everything about you? Would you have massive abandonment issues, or issues with attachment, or anger management, or issues with severe mental health and depression? Would you hate your parents, and the world, and the teachers that also used this crap on you? Of course you would!!!
Because finding out that the world hates you and only tolerates your presence long enough so they can change you and everything about you – sends you straight towards suicide ideation.
That’s why ABA/PBS has been proven to cause suicide ideation. It teaches you that everything about yourself is abhorrent and requires remediation and change. That unless you change – you will not be accepted or loved or even tolerated by family, friends, classmates, peers and teachers.
Did you know that when NT people meet autistics (without even knowing they are autistics) the NT person immediately dislikes the autistic person – on looking at them… not even waiting until they speak – they decide they don’t like them on gut feeling??? They’ve proved it from research of putting NT’s and autistics in rooms together and asking everyone to decide who they did and didn’t like on sight. Do you know how hard that is to know as an autistic person? That a whole neurotype hates you without getting to know you. That your family who is NT probably has the same inclination? That teachers do this every year? That no matter what you do – people will hate you upon meeting you and immediately want you to change.
Those programs and those interactions literally train us to eventually commit suicide.
It makes me frigging mad and cry every time an ignorant person recommends Floortime, PBS, ABA, or PBL. Stop using this stuff, and stop recommending it.