We often hear the phrase, “neurons that fire together, wire together.” It’s the golden rule of Hebbian learning — a concept that has long explained how we form habits, memories, and skills. But a groundbreaking new study from Northwestern University has turned this classic understanding on its head, revealing that our over-reliance on positive reinforcement might be creating a “death spiral” that traps children in rigid, unproductive learning loops.

This research has profound implications for child development, education, and behavioral therapy. When we view these findings through the lens of Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s foundational work, we discover that the key to cognitive flexibility isn’t more training — it’s shifting who is doing the thinking. The answer lies in approaches like The Greenspan Floortime Approach®, which prioritizes internal processing and child-led discovery over externally reinforced compliance.

What Is the “Death Spiral” of Learning?

A study published in Communications Physics by Northwestern University researchers introduced a new theoretical framework for observing how activity spreads across brain networks. Their counterintuitive finding: while positive reinforcement strengthens existing neural connections, it can accidentally trap the brain in a loop — what the researchers call a “death spiral.”

The Record Player Groove: Efficiency vs. Adaptability

Think of a vinyl record player. If a record is scratched, the needle gets caught in the same groove, replaying the same three seconds of music over and over again. No matter how rich the rest of the symphony is, the needle cannot move forward on its own.

In our brains, a similar process occurs. When we consistently use positive reinforcement to reward a specific action, we carve a deep “groove” into neural pathways. Because that pathway is so smooth and efficient, the brain prefers to stay in it. The result: the brain becomes “stuck,” unable to adapt when the environment changes. This is the neurological foundation of rigid thinking in children — not a character flaw or a diagnostic inevitability, but a learned pattern shaped by how we teach.

If a learning environment focuses primarily on repetitive, reinforced success, it may be inadvertently training the brain to stay locked in single, predictable grooves. It becomes incredibly efficient at that one response, but utterly incapable of “skipping to the next track” when the situation changes.

The Hidden Trap: When Adults “Do the Thinking” for Children

This neuroscience insight aligns perfectly with a question Dr. Stanley Greenspan famously asked in his Greenspan Floortime® consultations: “Who’s doing the thinking?”

In many traditional behavioral interventions — including some ABA-based programs and behavior plans in school settings — the goal is often to elicit a specific, “correct” response through high-frequency, adult-led prompts. The adult decides what the target behavior is, and the child is reinforced for “getting it right.” From a neuroscientific perspective, this is the perfect recipe for a Hebbian “death spiral.”

By providing constant, directive feedback, the adult is doing all the cognitive heavy lifting — planning the sequence, predicting the output, and guiding the path. The child’s brain is never required to generate its own solution or navigate the “friction” of a novel, unpredictable situation. They aren’t learning to adapt; they’re learning to execute a pre-programmed script.

Over time, this trains the brain to stay within narrow, reinforced loops, producing the rigid thinking that many therapists and parents eventually find themselves trying to “fix.” Unfortunately, this learned rigidity is often misattributed to a child’s diagnosis — particularly in cases involving Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) — when it may actually be a product of the intervention approach itself.

Rigid Thinking in Child Development: Nature or Nurture?

Understanding the roots of rigid thinking in child development is critical for parents and professionals. When a child struggles to shift from one activity to another, insists on rigid routines, or melts down when expectations change, the reflexive explanation is often neurological or diagnostic. But the Northwestern research invites us to ask a harder question: Have our interventions inadvertently reinforced this rigidity?

Breaking the Cycle: How The Greenspan Floortime Approach® Builds Flexibility

If positive reinforcement loops create rigidity, how do we foster flexibility? The answer, as championed by The Greenspan Floortime Approach®, is to stop “teaching to the test” and start engaging in the process of discovery.

Unlike models that prioritize external reinforcement to shape specific behaviors, Greenspan Floortime® prioritizes internal processing. Here is how it directly counteracts the “death spiral” effect:

1. Following the Child’s Lead

In Greenspan Floortime®, we enter the child’s world. Instead of forcing a specific, “correct” response, we join their interests. This requires the child’s brain to generate its own ideas and responses, rather than relying on an adult’s prompt. This puts the child in the driver’s seat of the thinking process — the very opposite of the adult-directed loop that creates rigid thinking.

2. Embracing “Friction” and Novelty

The Northwestern study highlights that for a system to remain flexible, it must break out of its old paths. Greenspan Floortime® thrives on exactly this. By engaging in spontaneous, reciprocal “circles of communication,” the child must constantly read social cues and generate novel responses. This diversity of experience prevents the brain from falling into a “death spiral” because no two interactions are exactly the same — every exchange is a new problem to solve.

3. Prioritizing Process Over Product in Child Development

When we ask “Who is doing the thinking?”, we remind ourselves that the goal of child development is not about the child giving the right answer — it is about the child figuring out the answer, with our support. By valuing the child’s intent and their manageable struggle to solve a problem over finished, compliant behavior, we build the “hardware” for executive functioning in the prefrontal cortex.

We are strengthening the child’s ability to plan, sequence, and adapt — rather than just repeating a reinforced habit. This is the foundation of genuine cognitive flexibility and the antidote to rigid thinking in children.

What This Means for Parents and Therapists

The implications of this research extend beyond clinical therapy rooms. For parents navigating child development at home, for teachers structuring classroom environments, and for therapists designing intervention plans, the message is the same: efficiency isn’t always the goal of learning. Sometimes, efficiency is just another word for “stuck.”

Re-evaluating our reliance on narrow, adult-led positive reinforcement doesn’t mean abandoning structure or warmth. It means creating environments — at home, in the classroom, and in therapy — that value the process of discovery as much as the result of a behavior.

By embracing The Greenspan Floortime Approach®, we invite children to be the thinkers of their own lives. In doing so, we help build brains that are not just efficient, but truly adaptable, creative, and capable of navigating an ever-changing world. To learn more about how Greenspan Floortime® supports flexible thinking and healthy child development, explore the resources at stanleygreenspan.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the “death spiral” of learning?

The “death spiral” of learning refers to a neurological pattern identified by Northwestern University researchers, in which over-reliance on positive reinforcement carves such deep, efficient neural pathways that the brain becomes trapped in repetitive loops. Rather than adapting to new situations, the brain keeps defaulting to the same reinforced response — leading to rigid thinking and reduced cognitive flexibility in children.

Is positive reinforcement bad for child development?

Not inherently. Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool, but problems arise when it is used as the primary driver of learning — especially in adult-directed, scripted formats. When children are constantly guided toward a predetermined “correct” response, they miss the opportunity to develop their own problem-solving and adaptive thinking. The Greenspan Floortime Approach® balances support with genuine child-led discovery to avoid this trap.

How does Greenspan Floortime® differ from ABA?

Greenspan Floortime® — also known as The Greenspan Floortime Approach®, Dr. Greenspan’s version of DIR/Floortime — differs from ABA primarily in who drives the interaction. ABA typically uses adult-directed prompts and positive reinforcement to shape specific behaviors. Greenspan Floortime®, by contrast, follows the child’s lead, uses spontaneous reciprocal play to build “circles of communication,” and prioritizes the child’s own thinking process over behavioral compliance. This is why Greenspan Floortime® is especially effective at addressing rigid thinking and building genuine flexibility in child development.

Can Greenspan Floortime® help children with rigid thinking?

Yes. The Greenspan Floortime Approach® was specifically designed to build the emotional and cognitive foundations — including flexible thinking — that underlie all learning. By engaging children in spontaneous, child-led interactions and gradually expanding their “circles of communication,” Greenspan Floortime® builds the prefrontal cortex capacity for planning, sequencing, and adapting that is often described as executive function. This directly addresses rigid thinking at its neurological root.

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If you’ve been told your child would benefit from Floortime therapy but aren’t sure where to start at home, you’re in the right place. The Greenspan Floortime Approach® was developed by Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan — one of the world’s leading child psychiatrists — and it’s something every parent can learn to do, right on the living room floor.

What Is Greenspan Floortime®?

The Greenspan Floortime Approach® is a relationship-based therapy that builds your child’s emotional, social, and intellectual development from the ground up. Unlike approaches that focus on behavior modification, Floortime focuses on connection — meeting your child exactly where they are developmentally and building upward from there.

The 6 Developmental Milestones

Dr. Greenspan identified six Functional Emotional Developmental Levels (FEDLs) that every child needs to master in order:

1. Self-regulation and interest in the world — Can your child stay calm and engaged?
2. Engagement and relating — Does your child show warmth and connection with you?
3. Two-way purposeful communication — Can your child open and close circles of communication?
4. Complex problem solving — Does your child use social interaction to solve problems?
5. Creating ideas — Can your child engage in symbolic or pretend play?
6. Logical and abstract thinking — Can your child connect ideas and reason?

Step-by-Step: How to Do Floortime at Home

Step 1: Follow Your Child’s Lead

Start by simply observing what your child is interested in. Are they lining up cars? Spinning a top? Don’t redirect — join them. Get on the floor and enter their world without an agenda.

Step 2: Open Circles of Communication

Once you’re in their world, look for ways to join the play that invite a response. If your child pushes a car, gently block it with your hand — not to stop them, but to create a moment of interaction. Did they look at you? Make a sound? That’s a circle opening.

Step 3: Close the Circle

A circle is closed when your child responds to your gesture, sound, or action with their own. Work toward closing 20+ circles in a session over time.

Step 4: Stay Playful and Warm

Floortime only works when it’s fun. Keep your energy warm, playful, and full of delight — even when it’s challenging.

Step 5: Do It Daily

Dr. Greenspan recommended multiple Floortime sessions of 20–30 minutes per day. Even 2–3 meaningful sessions daily makes a measurable difference over time.

Floortime Happens Everywhere

You don’t need a therapy room. Floortime moments happen during bath time, meals, car rides, and bedtime routines. Every back-and-forth interaction — every opened and closed circle — is building your child’s developmental foundation.

Ready to Learn More?

Dr. Greenspan created a comprehensive Parent Course specifically to teach families how to implement The Greenspan Floortime Approach® at home. The 4-part video course is bundled with The Floortime Manual 2nd Edition ebook. Explore the Parent Course + Manual Bundle at stanleygreenspan.com

Frequently Asked Questions

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The core symptoms of autistic spectrum disorder are all addressed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s Floortime Approach. The three components of Dr. Greenspan’s Floortime Approach–a capacity for intimacy, an ability to communicate expressively, and the capacity for meaningful speech–address these missing or underdeveloped abilities of children with autism.

Each of these three missing or underdeveloped functional capacities in children on the autism spectrum require emotional engagement with other people. Going around this emotional engagement requirement, as Applied Behavior Analysis does to train basic and essential skills, does not support the development of the child with autism’s capacity for emotional engagement with other people, especially their parents or caregivers.

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To engage in these Floortime interactions, following the child’s lead on the one hand and on the other challenging the child to master each of their new milestones, we have to do something very, very important—we have to tune into their individual processing differences! If a child is under-reactive to touch and sound, we have to be very energetic to pull the child into a shared world. If a child is over-sensitive to touch and sound where they hold their ears and get overwhelmed easily, we have to be extra soothing while still being compelling. Many children have mixtures of over- and under-reactivity so we have to be soothing and energizing and compelling. For instance, if they are under-reactive but sensitive to sound, we use a soft but compelling voice, whispering, “Here! Here!”

We have to pay attention to their auditory processing and language abilities. We don’t want to simplify by slowing down the cadence of our words or speaking in monotones (or not speak at all!) because they process words slowly and need help to tune in. Instead we keep a normal rhythm because that is more pleasurable and easier for a child to digest. We can use simple phrases and repeat them. If we are saying “open the door,” it’s not in a monotone voice, “ooopen, ooopen,” but in a sing-song voice, “Open door? Open?” and showing the child. It’s with energy and rhythm but with simple phrases. With visual spatial processing, some children have good visual memory but can’t see the forest for the trees. They are not yet good visual problem solvers. We can use lots of visual cues in their visual memory skills to help them share our world. Many children have motor planning and sequencing problems. Here we start with simple actions and go to more complex action patterns.

We have to tune into the child’s individual differences in order to challenge them to master their different levels.

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 What is the science of Greenspan Floortime? What are the key principles discovered by Dr. Stanley Greenspan that have helped so many children and families dealing with developmental disorders? Dr. Greenspan’s son Jake Greenspan helpfully explains his father’s scientific discoveries in this important essay.

The Science of Greenspan Floortime

   Jake Greenspan

In the early 1970s, a young child psychiatrist named Dr. Stanley Greenspan said that at birth all children have emotional experiences and emotional systems.  He believed it was these emotional experiences that drove the developmental process of each child and encouraged their interaction with the world.  He also said that it is these emotional experiences and emotional perceptions that help us organize and integrate the different parts of our brain to develop a true understanding of the world around us. Having studied under behavioral conditioning leaders such as BF Skinner and studied the works of Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget, he determined that it was our emotions that drive and select our behavior. In 1989, he first described his Floortime approach as a way to help every child reach their maximum potential. Even though he couldn’t see what was happening in the brains of the children, he instinctively knew that he was helping to improve their neurological organization and wiring. By encouraging growth from the inside, and letting that drive behavior and thinking, he saw that his results were comprehensive and lasting. We now know from neurological research done over the last 50 years that he was right.  Currently there are a number of versions of DIR and Floortime-based interventions being used by parents and professionals, but there is only one original version that Dr. Stanley Greenspan created, The Greenspan Floortime Approach®. 

FLOORTIME AND NEUROPLASTIC RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS

Many behavioral approaches, like ABA, and many special needs school curricula use repetition of adult-led activities to teach a child a desired response.  These “stimulus-response” approaches focus on external observable behavior, not on what is happening on the inside of the child.  This form of conditioning can get quick, measurable results.  However, professionals have debated how comprehensive these results are and at what cost to future learning they are attained. 

In 2015, researchers found that individuals with autism spectrum disorders who were taught using techniques that involved repetition showed initial gains. However, after the learning experience, they had poor generalization of that information and “automatously poor learning.”[1]  

This research reports what many professionals and parents have worried about—that behavioral conditioning and teaching techniques don’t produce long-term generalized results.  As disconcerting is that the results show that these techniques can also negatively impact a child’s ability to learn in the future.  Since the behavioral techniques have been the standard for many years, this new evidence leave us asking,” What is the best teaching method for children to achieve long-term comprehensive results?”

Neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone has described our brain and the way it wires and reorganizes itself (its neuroplasticity) like the trails down a snowy hill. When we slide down, we create a path. This path is symbolic of the connections between the neurons in our brain that activate together when performing a task or when having an experience (the wiring). We can slide down and create a path, then try it again to create a second path, and a third path, and a fourth. From then on, we can be flexible in choosing which path to go down. Gradually a number of paths become deep and permanent. However, if we take the same path repeatedly, that one path can become a rut so wide and deep that ultimately no matter how hard we try to establish a new path down the hill, we can’t.  Instead we constantly get trapped in the original one. If we get trapped in a rut in our brain, the result is rigid thinking and behavior.[2]  

Rigid behavior is by definition maladaptive.  Ideally we want to have many paths that are each permanent and well-defined but don’t trap us. This raises the question, should we encourage children, especially those with ASD, to take the same path over and over, that is, engage in repetitive activities for learning purposes?

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Over the last five years Dr. Greenspan’s Floortime Approach has amassed a growing body of research and support. This research has not only collected empirical data that authenticates The Greenspan Floortime Approach® clinically, but it has also shown scientifically that this approach can change and rewire how the brain is organized. This rewiring strengthens existing connections in the brain while also helps to create new ones. We see this impact from a clinical perspective when children improve their abilities to relate, communicate, and exhibit flexible and adaptive social behavior.

Scientific evidence from other neuroplasticity research supports the positive effect that Greenspan Floortime™ has on a child’s brain. When considering this evidence, it is important to understand how the brain works and wires itself.  To do this it is important to understand neuroplasticity.

It is a well-accepted scientific fact that our brain is constantly changing. It remains plastic, developing and malleable throughout most of our lives, even into late adulthood, especially when proven learning principals are applied. The neuroplastic properties of the brain ultimately lead to changes in our behavior and thinking abilities.  In this way the brain either produces more flexible (adaptive) behavior or more rigid (maladaptive) behavior.

An infant’s brain changes and grows very rapidly, which is why at younger ages we absorb certain things so quickly.  An example is language, where within the first seven years of life we have a critical phase (learning from exposure) for learning language.  Similarly with other parts of our sensory processing system, stimulation within the first few months of life promotes development.[3]  However, when the critical phase is over and the brain is no longer learning from exposure to stimulus and experiences, the brain is plastic in the sense that it can still build new connections and learn new skills and capacities under certain conditions. It is important to know the conditions for wiring the brain, particularly when tailoring a program for children who need support in helping their brains develop and grow more rapidly than they are predisposed to do, such as in cases of developmental delays.

NEUROPLASTIC PRINCIPLES FOR FLOORTIME

 1.     A Fully Involved Child.     For the brain to experience lasting changes, people must be highly involved in a learning activity, i.e. pay very close attention.[4] If they are passively involved, then changes in the brain will not be as solid and will not last. In other words the neural pathways are not sufficiently deep and permanent. It is under these circumstances that we often see children who make short-term gains, but not long-term ones.  This can happen with activities where the child is only mildly interested because an adult chooses the activity and then leads or directs the child.  Letting children pick the activities and helping them stay enthusiastically engaged is a way to ensure their high level of involvement.  In The Greenspan Floortime Approach® we call this Following the Lead.

 2.     Integrating Information.     Researchers have coined the phrase: “neurons that fire together wire together.”[5]  With most experiences in life, especially those that involve multiple elements,we use different parts of our brain simultaneously to process and respond to that information.  For example, when communicating in a social setting we use such areas as: 1) auditory processing (understanding the sounds), 2) visual processing (watching the mouth and interpreting changing facial expressions and gestures), and 3) linking this information to the emotions the person is conveying. We integrate different types of information (motor, auditory, visual, and emotional,etc.) into a unified picture. 

Neuroscientists know that when we can do this, the principle of “neurons that fire together wire together” is in place.  Performing or even thinking about a multi-element activity lets us practice using multiple areas of the brain at the same time. The brain wires itself to perform those tasks as a unit. Researchers have seen through brain imaging that even saying or hearing a word like “garlic” lights up not only the language centers of the brain but also smell and other parts.  Language is not just about words. 

 Conversely, “neurons that fire apart wire apart.”[6] If we practice things in isolation, we only have access to those capacities in isolation. So if we practice auditory processing (understanding language) in the absence of a rich social-emotional environment, it may be more difficult to process auditory information when in a real social relationship. This is not to say that we can’t do exercises to isolate the auditory processing, but they should be only a small part of a program that focuses on integrating all the information, especially social-emotional. 

 So if we want children to learn from their teacher and from their social environment, then practicing should involve them being positively involved with their social environment—not just learning from a book or a computer screen, but learning in a 3-dimensional space in a social setting. Unfortunately many interventions for children with developmental delays use isolated activities or individual skill-based activities focusing only on one area. They do not integrate many components together. Especially during skill-based activities, like fine motor work, the child’s social-emotional connection with the adult is often sacrificed for performing the activity or solving the problem.  In Greenspan Floortime™ the second step, Challenging the Child to Interact, Communicate and Think, uses integrated experiences to make sure a child can generalize and differentiate how and when to use a skill. 

 3.     Thinking vs Memorizing.     Reinforcing the thinking process, instead of conditioning (teaching) a specific answer or response, gets faster and more complete neurological results.  By acknowledging and responding to a child’s purposeful gesture, we encourage more communication and foster an internal process. Our responses help to improve the brain’s wiring by causing the child to think and use different pathways, rather than the same one.[7]). Coming up with one’s own response, rather than using one given repetitively by someone else, achieves long-term results and a stronger internal process for use in future situations.  It helps children establish their own thinking process instead of giving them your solution (i.e. teaching to the test). 

 4.     Working from the Ground Up.     When helping a child or even an adult to develop greater neurological wiring and progress in a skill or ability, the challenges in the activities must be designed to meet them where they are developmentally. Unfortunately most teachers and therapists try to teach a specific age-appropriate expectation or skill.  A bottom-up or “Ground Up” approach emphasizes neurological development, not chronological age. For example, to rewire the motor cortex of someone who is learning to walk after suffering a brain injury, they need to learn to crawl again and cruise again first. If a child is learning to communicate verbally, they need to learn to communicate physically and gesturally prior to developing language. Starting from the ground up will make sure we are developing the comprehensive neurological wiring necessary to support future functions. This will help achieve an integrated internal thinking process and ensure initial as well as longer-term success. In Greenspan Floortime we call this Finding the “Just Right” Challenge.

 5.     Subtly Expanding Interactions.     Subtle changes in the challenge, starting from a point of success, are necessary to train the brain.[8] Here, we need to make sure that the challenges we provide a child progress at such a subtle rate that the change is almost imperceptible and that the child can overcome the challenges in a fun and confidence-building manner.  In Greenspan Floortime™ we call this “Expanding the Challenge”.

 6.     Giving the Right Kinds of Reward.     It is through the release of certain chemicals such as dopamine[9] and acetylcholine[10]that our experiences become learning experiences.  These chemicals are released based on the type of reward that we receive at the end of the experience. In turn these chemicals help solidify (remember) the learning while also fine tuning (making more efficient) what we learn from that experience. They are released from the parts of our brain that process pleasure, and it is through pleasurable experiences and rewards that researchers now know that we learn best.

 What type of reward gives us the greatest level of pleasure? Emotional rewards: ones we are able to receive constantly throughout the rest of our lives—a smile, a friendly look, even the feeling of self-confidence after overcoming an obstacle or achieving a goal. 

 The Greenspan Floortime Approach® is based on developing and deepening relationships that naturally give positive emotional rewards.  These are not external and superficial, but instead center on the feelings you have for another person.  If we become conditioned (i.e., develop the neurological habit and tendency) to expect an external reward such as an M&M, cookie, or computer time, the gains are not as strong because the rewards are not as meaningful.  We do not receive these types of rewards throughout our lives. Additionally using them in this way can make them addictive. 

 Another reason the positive relationship itself is the best reward is that we need to be cautious of children developing negative relationships, negative perceptions of people around them, or associations of always receiving an external reward for the activities need to perform for daily living.  Learning a skill within a negative relationship can make a child (or adult) avoid using that skill.   

 7.     Involving Parents.     In addition to developing rigid behavior patterns, which many children are already predisposed towards, many behavioral approaches require the child to be away from parents for 20-40 hours per week, starting as early as 1.5 – to 2-years old.

            We already know that spending time with a caregiver is important. Now new research sheds light specifically on its neurological importance.  In a recent study researchers from Stanford University found that: “Nonsense words produced by mother activate multiple brain systems, including reward, emotion, and face-processing centers, reflecting how widely mother’s voice is broadcast throughout a child’s brain. Importantly, this activity provides a neural fingerprint of children’s social communication abilities”.[11]  A child needs to hear mother’s voice. And we see clinically that they need to hear their father’s too!  Hearing these voices improves the processing of social information and functioning. 

 A mother’s involvement does even more than improve sensory processing. In 2010, a study found that girls aged 7-12 who performed stress-inducing activities that raised their cortisol levels were calmed by a hug from their mother.  “For girls who interacted with mom, their levels of oxytocin, often called the ‘love hormone,’ rose significantly, and the stress-marking cortisol washed away. This reprieve from stress was also lasting.”  The same changes in hormones were experienced by another group of girls who heard their mother’s voice over the phone.  Unfortunately many behavioral approaches tell parents to ignore their child when they are experiencing stress, anger, and frustration.  How are they to learn to calm themselves?[12] 

 This research supports a parent-centered, therapeutic approach like The Greenspan Floortime Approach®.   Dr. Greenspan urged parents to talk to their child, especially non-verbal ones, and be physically involved.  He saw improvements in communication and self-regulation,   the areas discussed in the above research.  While some children with autism or other developmental challenges may initially have difficulty processing their parents’ voices, The Greenspan Floortime Approach® can improve a child’s responsiveness. Using fun techniques, parents become actively involved in their child’s program. With Greenspan Floortime™ parents’ voice and touch are important elements that are constantly being used for engagement and interaction and are helpful for children with behavioral challenges as well as social and communication ones.

Please note:  Some versions of Floortime (not created by Dr. Greenspan) encourage parents to verbalize minimally with their children. Except for children who are extremely sensitive to auditory stimuli, this restrictive measure is neither a principle of Dr. Greenspan’s Floortime nor obviously supported by the above research.  Given the research, a non-verbal or minimally verbal environment can be harmful to the developing child.

 8.     Consistency and Intensity.    Research on Floortime at York University conducted by Jim Stiebens established that about 20 hours per week of in-home Floortime was necessary to see significant clinical results.[13]  Other studies on neuroplasticity suggest that there is a mandatory amount of time to create plastic reorganization of the brain. Neuroscientist Edward Taub found that a two-week intensive training period of three-hours a day seems to begin the plastic reorganization process within the brain, a finding he continues to explore. [14]

 At The Greenspan Floortime Approach® facilities, such as The Floortime Center®, strong clinical results are being achieved through intensive treatment programs that involve 3-4 hours a day for a minimum of two weeks. We see that these intense intervals jump start a child’s developmental process.  Treatment programs at The Floortime Center®, where the above neuroplastic conditions are applied within Greenspan Floortime-based services, include Greenspan Floortime™ opportunities for parents coached by Jake Greenspan or Tim Bleecker as well as opportunities for Greenspan Floortime-based approaches for occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, feeding therapy, visual-cognitive therapy, and social opportunities.

 At the end of these intensive periods, not only have the children significantly strengthened their relating, thinking and communicating, but the parents have received a good foundation for doing Greenspan Floortime at home.  Families can then maintain a level of Greenspan Floortime throughout daily life and revisit The Floortime Center® for another intensive program a number of months down the road.

CONCLUSION

In 2006, the consulting firm Accenture studied 251 of its executives to determine what made them successful. It concluded that although intelligence is an important factor, it is not the main one.  The key predictor is emotions: more specifically, “interpersonal competence, self-awareness and social awareness — all elements of emotional intelligence.”[15]

This conclusion makes eminent sense. In a seminal monograph in 1979[16], Dr. Greenspan described how emotions are the foundation of intelligence, to the skepticism of some of his colleagues.  And almost 40 years later they still are. They continue to be the basis for the Greenspan Floortime Approach, which he described in the monograph.

One of the most important emotional capacities associated with emotional intelligence is empathy.  Empathy— the emotional connection between human beings that gives an understanding of others’ feelings—is critical for a fully participating in life. The basis of empathy is flexible behavior.[17] Since all children need to develop empathy, especially those with developmental challenges like ASD, it is important that we encourage flexible and adaptable behavior versus rigid and repetitive behavior.

Using the principles of neuroplasticity within an approach like The Greenspan Floortime Approach® lets all children achieve flexible adaptable behavior, empathy, and improvements in communication and thinking. Knowing how adaptable the brain is proves that these are all realistic goals for children with developmental challenges and behavior difficulties. Simply teaching them a new behavior is insignificant when compared to what these children can truly achieve through an approach that is aligned with optimal neuroplastic development.  

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What is Greenspan Floortime? Greenspan Floortime is the center of a comprehensive program that benefits children at risk for developmental disorders that include autism spectrum disorders.

What is Greenspan Floortime really about? Greenspan Floortime has two dimensions. Both of these two dimensions are important for helping children of all abilities but are vitally important for children with developmental challenges like autism spectrum disorders. These two dimensions help children master their developmental stages.

Overview of Greenspan Floortime

The first of these two dimensions comprising Greenspan Floortime is a specific technique in which you get down on the floor with the young child for twenty or minutes a few times each day. The second of these two Greenspan Floortime dimensions is a general philosophy. This general philosophy informs all interactions with that child, incorporating both the overall features of Greenspan Floortime and the particular goals of that specific interaction, whether occupational therapy, speech therapy, or a set of educational goals.

Ultimately, Floortime seeks to join a child in their world and gradually interest them in joining ours. By engaging a child in the Greenspan Floortime process, that child can learn how to

• Focus and attend
• Relate with real warmth
• Be purposeful and take initiative
• Engage in back-and-forth communication with others
  • Initially through gestures
  • Eventually through words

Then we can help a child learn how to

• Problem solve and sequence actions so that the child is in a continuous interaction with their environment, including the people within it
• Create ideas and use them logically, leading to higher levels of
  • reflective thinking
  • empathy
  • understanding of their world

One day that child with a developmental challenge, if they can evaluate their own feelings, might say “Hmm, I’m angrier than I should be today.”

While not every child is capable of achieving the highest level of reflective thinking, most children are capable of moving up the developmental ladder. Regardless of developmental diagnosis, we have found that there is in fact a sizable subgroup who can reach the highest levels of reflective thinking.

To help you go further and learn how to apply Greenspan Floortime, we have created online training in Greenspan Floortime for parents and professionals that includes video-based courses and a Greenspan Floortime manual.

3 Steps of Greenspan Floortime

To achieve these goals of helping a child climb their developmental ladder towards the highest levels of reflective thinking, Greenspan Floortime uses three steps. These three steps must work together to be successful. The three steps are

1. Following the child’s lead and joining the child’s world
2. Pulling the child into a shared world, often by challenging the child
3. Helping the child master the Developmental Stages by expanding on their own interest

Step 1: Following the Child’s Lead

Following a child’s lead is the most well-known step of Greenspan Floortime. Following the child’s lead implies that we are harnessing the child’s own natural interests.

Why would we want to follow the child’s lead? After all, in our own development and education, we had to learn and do things that we didn’t want to. We were never permitted to study or behave however we wanted to. Why then would Dr. Greenspan advise us to take our cue from the child? Is this overly indulgent? We follow a child’s interests because they are the window into a child’s emotional life. Through these interests we see the picture of what is enjoyable and pleasurable for that child.

It is too easy to use a child’s diagnosis as a way of explaining that child. Why does a child stare off at a fan? Another child, why does he rub a spot on the floor over and over again? Why does this other child repetitively open and close a door? Because they have a particular disorder. If we become trapped in explaining a child solely through the lens of their diagnosis, we run the risk of losing the child as a person in that process.

If instead we begin with the essential question–“Why is this specific child doing this specific thing?,” we acknowledge that this child is a human being. Sure they may have a disorder or a set of problems, but that child is not the disorder or that set of problems. That child is a real human being with real feelings, real desires and real wishes.

Sometimes a child can’t tell us what their feelings, wishes and interests are, so we have to figure out what they are. We need to read their behavior to learn what gives them pleasure. We start by following their lead and using their own interests to engage them.

With this first step, we join the child in their world. We demonstrate that we respect and care about what they are interested in. This is so important because our ultimate aim is to form a close relationship. Everything begins with the relationship between the caregiver and the child.

So if a child aimlessly wanders around the room, we wander with that child. In so doing, the child experiences a partnership in aimless wandering. Similarly, when we rub a spot on the floor with them, we are entering their world.

This first step is just the beginning, and it is often very short-lived. Our intention is to have the child share their world with us, letting us in, and not merely tolerating our presence.

Two outcomes can occur at this point. Sometimes, the child responds to our participation. They look at us or gesture to us, or engage us in whatever is going on in their world. Once the child lets us into their world, we move on to the second step of Floortime. Following the lead may only last for a few seconds or a few minutes. We do not simply stay in their world following their actions. If, however, the child still does not respond to our participation, then we have a few tips. In either case, we need to move to the second step.

Step Two: Challenge

In step two of Greenspan Floortime, we are challenging the child to connect to a shared world so they can master each of their developmental stages. This second step of challenge can be used in two distinct ways. One is to use it to start the initial interaction with a child who continues to ignore you. In this case, its use is to solve the avoidance problem. The other way is to use it to expand the initial interaction once the child begins responding to you.

Solve the Avoidance Problem

In the first case, a child is wandering around the room paying us no attention regardless of what we do. So how do we get their attention?

We introduce a challenge, using their movement to create a simple game. That is, we get in front of the child so that the child has to go around us to continue to avoid us. He looks at us to check out how to get past and we look back. It’s a cat-and-mouse game and the first little moment of interaction. Even if fleeting, he has let us in. A big grin and positive emotion from us—and importantly letting him get past us—lets him discover the fun in interacting. Soon he may even smile back as we keep up the game and he bests us by getting around us.

Our ultimate goal for entering their shared world is to bring them into ours and to support them in becoming empathetic, creative, logical, reflective individuals. We don’t want to pull them in screaming and yelling. Instead, we want to pull them in with warmth and pleasure. We want the child to want to be in a shared world. ‘Wanting’ is the key. When following the lead, we need to be sensitive to the child. With a fun challenge we will see that, instead of looking annoyed or running away, the child starts giving us friendly glances, warm smiles and letting us in.

What will motivate a child to be a part of a shared world? Is it as simple as running around and jumping with the child or playing on the floor with building blocks? Or is it as simple as being silly and making funny noises with them or playing copy-cat games with them? In other words, how does “following their lead” actually mobilize a child to master the critical developmental milestones, the fundamentals of relating, communicating, and thinking?

The Dialectic

The goal is to follow the child’s lead on the one hand but then create opportunities and challenges that bring them into a shared world where they can master the developmental stages. That is the “dialectic,” the two opposite polarities of Floortime: joining the child in his rhythms, joining the child in his pleasure, but harnessing them to bring the child into a shared world, and a shared world where they then master each of their functional emotional milestones. That means creating systematic challenges to expand their abilities and master each level of development. It is in these systematic challenges that many of the specific techniques and strategies of Floortime come in. Now we are talking about the real skill in doing Floortime, its real infrastructure.

Let’s say a child has a favorite car that he loves to bang on the floor. We bang our car next to him. He looks at us and giggles but no more. Playfully we reach for it a couple of times and retreat as he protects his car. Next we can grasp it, making sure he is holding it, so we have a tug-of-war game that he wins. After much playful back-and-forth, we take his car and ‘hide’ it outside the door, showing him where and closing the door. Now he bangs on the door, and we say, “Can we help you? Can we help you?” Being really motivated to get that car, he takes our hand and puts it on the doorknob to open the door.

Over a few weeks, we expand the interaction, and he begins to say “Op, op, op” and eventually “Open” so he can get that toy. Through following the child’s interest and then challenging, we have mobilized not only attention, engagement, and purposeful action, but also problem solving and even the beginning use of words. This type of challenge strategy “playful obstruction.” We don’t want to do to the child. We want the child doing to us. Challenge the child to do something to us rather than us do to the child.

Sometimes we can start the interaction by doing something to the child that we know they enjoy, especially physical activity such as a little tickle game or a horsey ride. Children love to get on daddy’s shoulders and move a lot. But then how do we get the child to do to us? As soon as he is up on our shoulders, he has to gesture or make a sound to show us that he wants the horse to move more or he wants the airplane to go again.

We challenge the child to take initiative. If we give the child a backrub, he can show us where he likes to have his back rubbed or whether he wants his tummy or arms rubbed. If we are playing a finger game or toe game – which foot he wants rubbed or which toes on which foot – he can show us by wiggling or moving that foot a little bit. So we are always challenging the child to take the initiative to do to us rather than us do to him. The key is to harness the child’s initiative.

Step 3: Expanding the Interaction

Let’s say the child is now in our world and wants to engage with us. He moves a truck back-and-forth, and we open our hands to make a tunnel. He looks at that, gives us a big smile, and moves the car into our tunnel. Now we have shared attention, engagement, purposeful action, and some problem solving: real thinking. Words, “truck, truck, move,” often follow soon. But there’s more to be done. We begin to give his choices, expanding the play: “Do you want to move it into the tunnel or the house?” He goes, “Ha, ho” indicating “house” and points. We ‘play dumb’—another type of challenge—and ask if he wants the truck in the house or on our head. He laughs and points to the house again.

Once we get the interaction cooking, a back-and-forth where we get attention, engagement, and purposeful communication, then the whole question is, and this is the biggest missing piece that I see and the hardest part for both professional colleagues and parents, other caregivers, and educators, is how to get a continuous flow of communication. In other words, children usually communicate once they can be purposeful with gestures – a smile, a nod, arm gestures, body posture – as well as, hopefully and eventually, use words. But the hardest thing for children, particularly children with developmental challenges including autism, is how to make that a continuous flow: going from a few interactions where they use a single word or gesture to 50 or 100 back-and-forth interactions in a row so you two are having a real conversation.

Continuous Flow

Dr. Greenspan’s advice is very, very simple: Make it a major objective. Don’t skip it. With the child who wants to go out the door, we make it into a 10-step interaction rather than one. “Well, mommy can’t open the door. Get daddy.” The child pulls on daddy, and daddy has a hard time too. “Can you show me? Do I turn or pull the knob?” and the child shows you. The child can make a sound to make the door open and so forth, until you get 10 circles of communication rather than one of simply opening the door.

We need to expand circles of communication—often by playing dumb—to get a continuous flow where the child takes the initiative, where it isn’t just us doing to or for them. And continuous flow is not just repeating the same action over and over. We always need to vary what we do. That challenges the child to expand his ideas and come up with new solutions, often within the same basic scenario or game.

Once the child has words, it’s the same thing: can we get a lot of back-and-forth use of words? Once a child is logical, can we get many logical circles of communication? I see many, many children who read and do math. They can use whole, long sentences but can’t have a long back-and-forth conversation. That becomes the hard part. That is often the missing piece in many children’s development: getting the continuous flow going.

So when doing Floortime, I’m asking you to always think about its two poles – following the child’s lead and challenging them to master new milestones. We are always trying to broaden the child’s capacities in terms of their current milestones — strengthening and broadening those and introducing the next one. If they are a little purposeful, we want them to be very purposeful. Once the child can open and close three or four circles of communication (back-and-forths with gestures or words) we want to get it to seven and eight and then to ten and twenty until we get 50 or more. If a child has a few words, we want to extend back-and-forth conversations to get a continuous flow.

Greenspan Floortime is for all the time

In summary, Floortime involves a polarity or dialectic between following the child’s lead, entering his world and pulling him into our world, and challenging him to master each of the developmental stages. It means paying attention to the child’s individual differences in terms of processing sounds, sights, and movements and modulating sensations as well as paying attention to the family patterns and to our own personalities. It means getting into a continuous flow.

That is the heart of Floortime. And that is why Floortime is not just a technique where several times a day we spend 20 minutes or more with a child at home. It is also a philosophy for school interactions and for interactions in the store or car.

Greenspan Floortime is for all the time.

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An introduction to Floortime by Dr. Stanley Greenspan himself

Let us give you an introduction to Floortime! During a television interview, Dr. Stanley Greenspan introduced his Floortime model and approach. He identified three key developments from his research on children with developmental problems. The first of these is the importance of affect and relationships for the growth of the brain and mind. The second is that there are significant variations in the underlying processing capacities of children. Third is the recognition of what the integrated early stages of development actually are.

Dr. Greenspan’s research and insights are responsible for moving our understanding of developmental problems beyond merely managing surface behaviors. He dove beneath the surface. In so doing, he uncovered the importance of emotions and relationships in development. In this introduction to Floortime, he also identified the important ways in which children can differ in their processing capacities. And Dr. Greenspan organized early development so that therapists and practitioners would be able to meet the child where they are and help them climb the developmental ladder.

To learn more than this introduction to Floortime about the Floortime Approach from Dr. Stanley Greenspan and his son Jake Greenspan, sign up for one of our courses at Floortime U.

We’re at an important crossroads now because we know more about how the mind and brain developed than we ever knew before. We’re going to learn more in the next 10 to 20 years still. This gives us an opportunity to redefine the standards of care for infants and children with severe developmental problems, including children with autistic spectrum disorders and also other problems in relating and communicating.

The older [behaviorist] model did the best that it could under the circumstances. The older model worked with surface behaviors. A lot of behavioral work just to modify how children behaved. That was better than ignoring children, doing nothing, and simply trying to contain their aggressive or withdrawing behavior. In its time and for a long time, it was the only treatment available.

It was a very very promising development, because it got people working intensively. It got people feeling optimistic about what could be done. But now we can go beyond working on modifying behaviors and work on some of the underlying issues that are giving children trouble. We can really now begin to systematize what might be called a developmental approach that synthesizes and integrates all the best information we have about how the mind and the brain grow.

There are 3 insights over the last twenty years that are the cornerstones of our new way of working with infants and children with developmental problems.

Importance of affect and relationships for growth

One of these is the importance of affect and relationships for the growth of the brain and the mind. It used to be thought that if you want a particular cognitive skill, you stimulate that particular cognitive skill. Now we know that the brain grows most rapidly in the early years as an outgrowth of interactions with caregivers. So every word in our language has to be lived first to understand it. You don’t define an apple by its redness and roundness. You define it by how it tastes and what it feels like to throw it.

So language cognition, math and quantity concepts are all conveyed through interactive relationships through affect. That’s one important new insight. So we can’t teach children in the old fashioned ways anymore, particularly children with special needs who have processing problems. This means working not only within a relationship with a child but with the whole family pattern, because it’s within the family context, actually the cultural and community context, that these relationships and these emotional interactions occur. So it means a much broader relationship-based, family-based approach, cultural and community-based approach to children with special needs.

Underlying processing capacity differences

The second new development that in the last 10 to 20 years we’ve also figured out is that there are important underlying processing capacities that are behind children’s worrisome behavior. So we’ve understood how children are individually different in the way they process sounds, auditory processing and language. The way they process what they see, visual spatial processing, whether a child can find the hidden object, whether a child can search for an object, whether a child can understand mommy’s in the next room and I’m here and doesn’t get panicked. Also motor planning and sequence [have differences in processing capacities].

We find enormous variations among children in how they can plan options. Some children can only do banging. Some can put a toy car in a garage and take it out. Other children can take the car out of the garage, take it to grandmother’s house, and then bring the car back with some extra tea for mommy who’s sitting back at the original house. So one child does a one step or a two step action plan while another child is doing a six or seven step planned action pattern. This is what we call motor planning and sequencing, which is enormously important for children.

We find a lot of children with autistic spectrum disorders have severe problems with their motor planning and sequencing and that underlies a lot of their repetitive behavior. You see, if you can’t plan and sequence, you’re going to repeat. We also find that a lot of children who are self-absorbed are under-reactive to things like touch and sound. A lot of other children are very avoidant and run away from people. It’s not that they don’t love people. It’s because they’re over-reactive to things like touch and sound.

So we need to look at the sensory modulation of the child to find the right pattern to pull that child into a relationship. This is the second area of big insight—individual differences in the way that a child processes their sensations and plans their motor actions. This explains a lot of the surface behaviors. If you work with the underlying processing differences, then you can influence many behaviors and help the child be adaptive across a broad range of issues rather than just work on isolated cognitive skills or isolated behaviors.

Identifying the stages of development

The third big area of insight based on our new research is to understand what the early stages of development are. Historically, we thought of development in very isolated ways. For example with motor development, we have a timetable for sitting up and for walking. For language development, we have a timetable for when the first sounds are made and when the first words are made. The same for different areas of areas of cognitive development, for when the child searches in your hand for an object, for when a child can stack blocks in a certain way, and so forth and so on. For social and emotional development, a timetable for when a child will greet, when a child will play with peers, and when a child will do some pretending.

But each area has been separate. So we’ve had separate lines for each area of development, as though these are somewhat independent of one another. But in fact for the child all these lines of development are interrelated. The child doesn’t separate out their language and their motor skills. He doesn’t say “Well I’m a 4-year-old motor-wise but I’m only a 2-year-old language-wise, and only an 8-month-old socially and emotionally.” The child integrates all of these in one smooth way.

In the last 10-20 years we’ve put together what we call the functional developmental roadmap. Here we now have identified the core levels that synthesize and integrate all the different developmental capacities. We’ve identified six core levels and then additional ones beyond that that help us organize where we want to work with the child. So then we try to identify where the child is not only in their language or motor development, but in their core functional developmental capacities. Then we meet the child where they are and work up the developmental ladder.

Dr. Stanley Greenspan

If you are a parent or a professional, you can go beyond this introduction to Floortime through one of our Floortime U. online classes.

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How often do parents feel that they have to choose between a happy child and a smart child? When should we stop the hugs and pull out the book? Why do we seem to feel like there’s never enough time?

Dr. Greenspan’s research and experience showed him that the key is in valuing and treasuring our relationships. Taking the time to emotionally engage within our relationships actually increases both happiness and intelligence. Having a child be both happy and smart is possible because these flow from emotionally invested relationships with caregivers.

Learn more about helping children be both smart and happy at Floortime U!

Dr. Greenspan knew that the emotional experiences of children drive their developmental processes, encouraging or discouraging their further interaction with the world. Emotional experiences and emotional perceptions help all of us organize and integrate the various parts of our brain in a way that provides us with a true understanding of the environment around us.

The most important thing is we should value and treasure our relationships. That’s critical. That’s first and foremost.

Protect those relationships. Protect your time with your children. Make that your top priority. Make sure that the adults have time with one another.

So this hurried on the run society that we have needs to regroup and change its basic philosophy of commitment. That’s probably the single most important thing we can do. Treasure those sweet subtle relaxed emotional moments with all the relationships we have.

Once we do that, then we’ll naturally begin doing some of these other things. We’ll have longer and longer interactive sequences with our children, which will be building their intelligence as well as their self-esteem. So if we realize that it’s not that we hug our children to make them feel good, and then we read them a book to make them smart.

Those same experiences that make children feel good can also make them smart. If we go from the hugs and cuddles to the interactive little dialogues and then to the pretend play and then to the debates, we have both a happy child a child who feels I could do things and a child who’s very very bright and intelligent.

Dr. Stanley Greenspan

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How are ideas formed? What is the process that leads to the development of a child’s first idea? What is the role of affect and social interaction in this process?

Dr. Stanley Greenspan developed and wrote about idea formation in his First Idea book that he wrote with Dr. Stuart Shanker: The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Early Primates to Modern Humans.

When you are in the catastrophic expressive mode of emotions, you are living by your affect. You’re going from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. You’re in the fight or flight reaction mode. when you get into the catastrophic expressive mode, your perceptions and your actions are tied together so tightly that perception and action become almost a singular unit. You see and you grab. You get mad and you bite. You get scared and you withdraw. So you got perception and action tied tightly together.

When you get into co-regulated affect signaling, you now are no longer tied to these perceptual motor patterns. Now you have interactive emotional signaling as a substitute for catastrophic discharge. So for the first time perception and motor reaction are separated.

Now you have perception. You see mommy. You want some milk. You don’t just scream and yell. You don’t just grab, but you flirt. You want to hug. You don’t just grab. You flirt. Now you have affect signaling in-between the perception and the action. So we’re separating perception from action.

Once we separate perception from action, what is a freestanding perception? If you see a picture, if you see mommy, you’re not driven to action. So what you have in your mind is a multi-sensory picture. You have a freestanding image. What can you do with that image pattern? You begin investing it with different emotions from different experiences. Mommy hugs me. Mommy does this with me. Mommy does that with me. Daddy does this with me.

An image builds up emotional investment. And that emotionally invested image becomes the first idea. That’s the way we believe ideas are formed. Perceptions get freed from their actions through co-regulative affect signaling, take on emotional meaning, and become the first ideas. We think that’s what happened in evolution, and we think that’s what happens in the life of each baby.

Of course there has to be a certain biological substrate for this to happen, but we believe the interactive elements are the sufficient part. The biology and physiology is necessary but not sufficient. The social interaction is the sufficient condition that gives birth to symbol formation.

Want to learn more? Want a deeper dive into Floortime and idea development? Try one of our courses at Floortime U!

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