Greenspan Floortime is Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s relationship-based developmental intervention where caregivers follow the child’s lead in play to build emotional connection, communication, and thinking.
Co-regulated interactions are moments where caregiver and child mutually influence each other’s emotional state. In Floortime, co-regulation is the foundation of all learning: when two people are emotionally attuned, genuine connection and communication become possible.
Reading emotions is a developmental skill built through repeated co-regulated interactions. When caregivers consistently read and respond to a child’s emotional cues, children gradually develop the capacity to recognize and respond to others’ emotions. This is how emotional intelligence is built — through the experience of being understood.
The Greenspan Floortime Approach builds emotional reading capacity gradually through warm, face-to-face interactions where emotions are expressed clearly and consistently. As the child experiences being read accurately and responds to being read, the neural pathways for emotional recognition are strengthened.