Parent Perspectives

On this edition of Parent Perspectives from Affect Autism, we have another parent panel! Parent Perspectives is an addition to the usual podcasts.

This Week’s Guests

This edition of Parent Perspectives features three mothers of autistic daughters, including one who is autistic herself, and one mother of an autistic son. We discuss finding DIR/Floortime, and their retrospective perspectives including their insights as they reflect on their Floortime journey.

Samrawit is in Virginia and the mother of three girls age 11, 9, and 4. Her youngest is autistic. She has been in the United States for about 12 years. Like Maria, from our last parent panel podcast, English is her second language and her extended family is back home. She was a teacher and principal in Ethiopia and had experience with autism, so recognized that her daughter might be autistic at about 18 months old. She found Floortime as she searched for an alternative to Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).

Cass Griffin Bennett is in Washington State and the mother of two girls, aged 6 and 4, both autistic. Cass was diagnosed with ADHD as a young adult and since her girls were diagnosed, found out that she is also autistic, which has helped with her insight into her daughters as she realized that the things that helped them, helped her as well, and vice versa. Her youngest is non-speaking and began robust high-tech AAC at age 2.

Donna is just outside of Toronto, Ontario, and is the mother of a 5-year-old neurotypical girl and an 8-year-old non-speaking autistic girl. She found Floortime when she was looking for an alternative to her autistic daughter’s public school. She is a powerful advocate for her daughter and a great friend of mine.

Michelle is in New York State and is the mother of two boys, age 15 and 12. Her older son is autistic. She found Floortime many years ago. Her son had Floortime until elementary school, and then she came back to Floortime in the last six years, and has found it to be very helpful, as well as having been a learning journey for her, too.

Thank you to Samrawit, Cass, Donna, and Michelle for sharing their experiences with us! Please feel free to share it on Facebook or Twitter and feel free to share relevant experiences, questions, or comments in the Comments section below. Stay tuned for the next Parent Perspectives parent panel podcast in the new year! In the meantime, Affect Autism’s regular podcast will be back in two weeks!

Until next time, here’s to choosing play and experiencing joy everyday!

Thank you to recording artist Ayria for the intro/outro song permission.