Finding the Yellow Brick Road

I recently completed an initial education and coaching session with a mother and father on DIRFloortime. Their 8 year old son is autistic as well as having a genetic disorder which impairs his use of language and speech. We were beginning the individual Floortime sessions with me in clinic and, as with all parents of neurodivergent children I work with, I was helping them understand the Floortime developmental approach and the importance of their seeing and engaging their son with a Floortime framework each day at home. They listened intently with, at most times, little expression as I described first understanding their son’s developmental profile including his motor skills, auditory and visual processing, and sensory responses, among others. I then explained how Floortime practitioners and parents engage and relate to children from the starting point of supporting the child's regulation needs and then through the next three Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDC), hoping to help them understand our first area of focus will be to increase his natural and spontaneous use of circles of communication with others and have him begin to find greater joy in relating to persons most important to him in his life.

The mother and father asked only a few questions while I provided visual aids to support my verbal description of Floortime. When I gave them all that I usually give in these first parent education sessions, I was worried I had turned them off somehow or that they were just not buying the picture I was painting regarding their child's coming therapy experience with Floortime. Then to my surprise, the father looked intently at me and said “I believe we have found the yellow brick road we have been hoping for”.

So allegories always have their limitations and application to the lived experiences they represent. But as I later thought about this father's hopeful response, I have come to appreciate that the Wizard of Oz story could in some ways be viewed as a representation of the life and journey of a neurodivergent child and those that love them. Dorothy is in all of us - parents, caregivers, teachers and therapists who suddenly find themselves in a strange new world of a neurodevelopmental condition within a child standing before us. The sudden realization that we are no longer in our comfort zone can be confusing, disheartening and for some downright depressing. We may grasp at whatever we may think will get us “home”.

For a caregiver or parent of a neurodivergent child, “home” can be the human connection and relating to their neurodivergent child in a way that gives the child and caring adult a deeper sense of connection and “knowing” each other.  It can be the sudden and spontaneous encounter with the wizard within the child that has been hiding for sometimes years behind the curtain of their neurodivergence.

Now as I stated at the outset of this blog, no allegory is perfectly relatable. The Wizard of the 1939 movie chose to hide behind his self-imposed curtain due to his own perceived inadequacies and to use dramatic and odd tactics for relating and engaging with the human world around him. Neurodivergent children do not choose their hiding places. But just as Dorothy was shown a path on the yellow brick road that led to the land of Oz and her ultimate engagement with the complex humanity of the Wizard, so we as those who love and care for neurodivergent children can find a path that brings us to engage and relate to each of their beautiful yet complex human natures that is hidden behind a curtain.

The road will always be challenging with forks in the road to be discerned and sharp dangerous curves that must be carefully navigated. There are fields of poppies that can be beautiful on one hand and downright mystifying on the other as well as extremes of flying monkeys that can darken and make treacherous the road ahead at times. But with courage to move forward, a true and open heart that is willing to love even when it's hard and working for an intentional and clear thoughtfulness and understanding of a child and the path they are on, we can find a road such as DIRFloortime.  And this wonderful road can guide us in helping a neurodivergent child discover their own fulfilling way of coming from behind the curtain to engage and relate to the world around them.