Developing Through FEDC 4 into FEDC 5

Affect Autism: We chose play, joy every day

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What is DIR?

What is Floortime?

DIR Glossary

This Week’s Topic

The topic of this episode is to give an overview and review of the fourth Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity (FEDC 4) of the Developmental, Individual differences, and Relationship (DIR) Model from last episode, an overview of the fifth FEDC, and to discuss how one moves through FEDC 4 into FEDC 5.

This Week’s Guest

Our returning guest, DIR Expert and Training Leader and Occupational Therapist Maude Le Roux has a DIR/Floortime clinic, A Total Approach, in Glen Mills, PA, just outside Philadelphia and a satellite location just outside Allentown, PA. She is an international trainer in many other modalities as well.

Developing Through FEDC 4 into FEDC 5

by Affect Autism

https://affectautism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-08-02.mp3

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Bonus Insights

DIR Parent Network click HERE

D = Developmental

I = Individual differences

R = Relationship-based

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The Fourth Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity (FEDC 4)

Two episodes ago, we talked about the third Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity (FEDC 3) and moving into FEDC 4. Last episode we dove into FEDC 4, and this week we are recapping FEDC 4 and bridging to FEDC 5 in the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) Model. Maude says that everyone always asks if their child is there yet, about FEDC 4, and the bridge between FEDC 3 and FEDC 4 is a huge bridge to climb.

The Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDCs) in DIR/Floortime

FEDC 1: Self-Regulation and Interest in the World

FEDC 2: Engaging and Relating

FEDC 3: Intentionality and Two-Way Communication

FEDC 4: Complex Communication and Shared Problem Solving

FEDC 5: Using Symbols and Creating Emotional Ideas

FEDC 6: Logical Thinking and Building Bridges between Ideas

FEDC 7: Multiple Perspectives

FEDC 8: Gray Area Thinking

FEDC 9: Reflective Thinking and an Internal Standard of Self

FEDC 4 is the structure on which everything lands, Maude explains. It’s the whole social-emotional understanding of having a social discourse and problem solving around a social-emotional level of being. If I want you to understand my thoughts without me always explaining them, then we need to have FEDC 4 in place, Maude explains. Theory of Mind–understanding another’s perspective–is where we get that ‘shared’ part of problem solving. The important word there is ‘shared’, Maude continues.

It’s not cognitive problem solving. How do we help each other to understand my thoughts versus your thoughts, and my opinion versus yours? How do we negotiate now that I will pretend to be Captain Hook and you’ll be the pirate, and then we’ll switch around? When we understand standing in another’s shoes, the beautiful work of empathy starts, which is the food of shared problem solving, Maude says. Maude says it’s emotional. It’s cognitive. It’s language. It’s practical on a praxis level. That’s where the depth of FEDC 4 really lies, she says.

We can construct what the jail will look like, how many bars it will have, that it will have a key, and we figure out how to build and structure it from our mind. We have to negotiate if we now have the praxis piece of the sequence of the structure, then how do we lay the sequence of pragmatic speech on top of that, then how do we take both of those constructs and put the story onto it that develops from the beginning, middle, and end, that contains visualization, ideation, imagination, and creativity.

When we then bridge into FEDC 5, Maude continues, the sympathetic arousal that comes with emotions has a place to land. If FEDC 4 is not in place, there’s no place for the emotions to land, and there’s no construct to hold them, and no container to understand them. There’s only a fear that the emotions will be overwhelming. When we have FEDC 4, then when we get into the true depth of the plot and understand what each emotion is, then we have to be sure that the child has the capacity to hold and contain it and not feel overwhelmed, Maude explains.

Bridging into FEDC 5

When I started learning about Floortime, Dr. Gil Tippy told me the biggest leap is that jump from the concrete world to the abstract world, which he felt happened at FEDC 5, whereas Dr. Greenspan thought that happened at FEDC 4. Once you can co-regulate off of another person, you no longer need to have catastrophic emotional reactions. I like the way Maude described that the emotions have nowhere to land without FEDC 4.

I couldn’t wait for imaginary play to start in my son and many starting out place imaginary play in FEDC 5, but it actually starts in FEDC 4. Maude says that at a rudimentary level, which is representational–the child represents what they see people in their life do and put that into some frame of understanding for themselves in their play, or imitate scenes they see in a movie–imaginary play starts in FEDC 4. A child will stay with what they’ve seen.

It’s only when you start expanding away from that, by adding more complexity with more emotionality that you bridge into FEDC 5, Maude says. There is an emotional component in FEDC 4, for sure. Dr. Stanley Greenspan used to say that the only way you get to FEDC 5 is if you have 60 or more ideas in one session, Maude recalls.

That ideation doesn’t mean it has to be full-blown emotional recognition. It means there’s a bridge that collapsed, and I can make a plan to fix it, Maude explains. I don’t have an airplane right now, but I can make this cell phone look like one in my mind.

A ‘Container’ to Fall Back Onto In FEDC 4, Maude continues, you start to visualize and put things to the concrete in front of you that don’t have to be completely concrete. Visualization is a structure from visual-spatial skills and FEDC 4 is where that happens, she says.

When you have an emotion, you get a sympathetic arousal. How do you discern the emotion so you don’t become overwhelmed if you don’t understand what’s happening when you get the physical response from it and don’t have anywhere to place it? Social becomes a scary world here, Maude cautions.

In FEDC 4, when things come a bit more contained for you, you can start to make sense of why Mommy is giving the soother to your sibling and you want her to spend more time with you. You can wonder what the limits in this preschool class are. If you don’t have a structure, it remains scary and something to be avoided, Maude explains.

If kids can’t bridge into FEDC 4, they want to skip FEDC 5, and use cognitive logic and cognitive ways of becoming more left-brain, systemizing problems into certain categories, and if it doesn’t fit, they’ll avoid it, because the emotional grayness that we need in FEDC 5 is not available. There’s not enough structure for it to land, so they pull away cognitive skill from their structured executive, praxis ability.

As it pulls away more and more, the disconnect between mind and body grows, Maude explains. The big piece we need to take that executive function to a place where the emotion can feel safe enough to explore is FEDC 4, so it’s crucial. Don’t rush it. Stay with it. The sturdier it is, the more we can do in FEDC 5, Maude encourages.

Staying at FEDC 4

I remembered my son being at Maude’s clinic wanting to build a big wall out of the firm, colourful pillow gym blocks. Maude said he had the ideas, but didn’t have the motor planning to build it himself, so he’d tell others to do it. He would place a triangle piece down on the tip so it would fall over. Motor planning comes in FEDC 4.

Maude also talked about beginning, middle, and end, and having timing and sequencing in FEDC 4. There’s so many aspects in FEDC 4. My son’s been in FEDC 4 for the better part of 7 years. Maude says that for some kids it does take longer. This is often where they see a lot of compassion and empathy for their families at A Total Approach, Maude shares, because things aren’t happening in the time frame parents expect because of how society tells parents that their child is delayed. It’s so important to support parents through these phases where it looks like their child isn’t developing.

There are many nuances to FEDC 4, but in it, an individual is working on praxis, language, visualization, and ideation, so it’s very important for clinicians to let parents know and help them understand that ‘FEDC 4’ is only the category of a wide range of things to be explored. Autistic exploration often lands up in single files, Maude believes, so it can take awhile for the single files (of praxis, language, etc.) to come together, then be translated into play.

It’s not that the child is not moving forward, Maude reassures us. It’s simply that FEDC 4 is a complex capacity so they have to focus on the different components of the capacity. It can feel like the child is plateauing and it can feel like you need to change therapists, but Relationship is so important, and we don’t want to send the message that relationships are not permanent and not to be trusted.

If you feel like a child is staying at the same place for too long, remember that if the child has a good relationship with a therapist, this is such an important piece. Maude talked about how going slower is how we move faster in a previous podcast. Maude says that without FEDC 4, it’s impossible to get to FEDC 5.

What FEDC 4 Imaginary Play Looks Like

I explained how my son’s play went from enacting a PJ Masks scene with PJ Masks characters years ago to now watching Curious George and enacting the scenes from it with Super Mario characters, or using a LEGO cart to be an ambulance in representational play, which is more complex than before. We can’t force our kids’ development. It comes from them when it comes. We can just provide ideal conditions, Maude stresses.

Maude says that the complexity is increasing. If your child takes the characters they like–whatever has foundation for them and their curiosity and what is comfortable to them–and if these characters start completing different scenes from what he has seen before–creating a novel storyline or creating a calamity that they have to solve, which is completely unique to that story–this is when FEDC 5 is emerging.

Maude continues that this is why Floortimers say to expand the play, along with promoting circles of communication. When you start seeing scenes like my son is doing–crossing over from one character series to another–then you can say, “I’m so scared…what am I going to do?” Once he starts putting his own story line with those characters with a production of a beginning, middle, and end, he’s emerging into FEDC 5.

When he is facing me with an emotion, he has structure–visualization and imagination in order to say, “It’s going to be ok!” Then you can reply, “I don’t know… I’m really scared“. Then he can say, “Come under this pillow!“, figuring out that when I’m scared, I can feel safe under the pillow and that safety will feel better. I get safety and now I get my play partner’s part, and now we’re negotiating both.

See ICDL’s Newsflash entitled 6 Ways to Help Untangle FEDCs 4 and 5

Bringing Reality into the Play

I found rainbow colours of painter’s tape and made a spider web across the banister at home for my son. My son grabbed his plastic Super Mario figures and stuck them to the tape. Then, I put a piece of tape joining two of the pieces of tape, from the higher one to the lower one, and my son made one of the characters slide down it yelling, “Whoo hoo!” I thought this was a bit more novel than other things he’s done in play.

I shared with Maude, though, that I haven’t seen him enact scenes from his typical day with parents, with friends, or at school. There could be a variety of reasons for that, Maude responded. She’d encourage him to take his characters to school and also add a piece of reality into his current play. If you went to the museum, for example, enact going to the museum with his characters. Bring in those pieces of reality so it becomes part of the fantasy play, she urged.

Maude wouldn’t push the fantasy in the play, she said, because that comes later. It’s not really FEDC 4. Instead, bring reality into the fantasy play so there’s more material of things your child has to make sense of, that they have to generalize from one thing to another. This brings the visualization to life, which is really important, she asserts. This ‘practice’ is essential for solidifying the foundation for the next capacity.

There’s still work in FEDC 4 with my son, Maude explained, because in FEDC 5 we have to start making emotional sense of things, which is the integration that FEDC 4 creates for us to build the material where we can land emotions and thoughts on later in FEDC 5.

What is FEDC 5?

The fifth Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity (FEDC 5) is called Using Symbols and Creating Emotional Ideas (earliest emergence 18 to 48 months). We’ve already said that the emotional piece must land on the structure of FEDC 4. This emotional piece is a crucial place where the sense of self comes into a place where one can understand interoceptively, cognitively, and emotionally what their emotions feel like, what they’re going to label them, and how they’re going to be dealing with them, Maude explains.

You can label emotions cognitively in FEDC 4, Maude says, but if my Mom is playing sad in FEDC 4, I want to go make my Mom smile by putting my fingers on her mouth to make her smile. At the end of FEDC 4 where they have cognitive empathy, they can start to handle you being sad, Maude continues. You can say, “I’m so sad. My doggy is sick.” They might kiss you to start, but when they are doing that real empathy, they can suggest putting a blanket over the doggy so he’ll feel all better. Then you can problem solve how to put the blanket on the dog because you’re out on the street, for instance.

The more you’re sad, the child tries to figure out how they can help your sadness and solve it in FEDC 5. Deeper in FEDC 5, they’ll come sit beside you and just hold your hand saying something like, “I know you’re sad” like when Sadness from the movie Inside Out put her hand on BingBong‘s knee when he lost his van. Empathy shines thorugh. Empathy feeds that sense of self in who we are, and our productivity and capability of actually dealing with someone’s emotion and leaving it separate from our own emotion is the depth and breadth of FEDC 5, Maude explains.

What about Empathy?

A lot of autistics say they have more empathy than others because they feel so much. Some autistic kids seem to be more overwhelmed by emotion than neurotypical kids. If you see sad things on TV, neurotypical people tend to think it’s cognitively sad, but it’s not the same as their own family. However, many autistics feel as affected as if it were their own family. What I hear Maude saying is that it’s not that the empathy isn’t there. It’s that there’s so much feeling that they don’t know what to do with it until they get to FEDC 5, whether you’re neurotypical or autistic.

Maude points out that in FEDC 1 we feel emotion, but you’re not able to label it, understand it, or be anywhere close to dealing with it. You’re just feeling dysregulated by it. You’re a victim of the environment. So it’s not that emotions aren’t there from the get-go. Empathy is built from the minute you are born when your mother ‘coos’ with you, Maude asserts. It used to be said that there were no mirror neurons in autism, but this is not true, however, they might be underdeveloped or underutilized, Maude says.

This is why we love to sit across from the child in Floortime, which makes the mirror neurons four times more active, Maude says. Iacoboni’s research on empathy says imitation is the place where empathy starts in our brain. Maude continues that you build the type of parent you’re going to be from the way that you were parented. It’s not what you say with kids, it’s what you do. As they pick up your response and empathy, that’s where empathy will land.

It is not true that autistics don’t have empathy, Maude stresses. Empathy, as it lands on interoception in the body, she says, can overwhelm the interoceptive system, and can lead us to shut down the interoceptive system if we don’t know what to do with it. This can then also lead to other problems, Maude explains. There’s a lot of adults who still struggle in FEDC 4 when you’re under stress, I pointed out, but we’re talking about the development of these capacities.

The Development of Self

Maude says that there’s a line that walks through the Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDCs) and that’s the personality. We’re born with different temperaments. Maude gravitates toward the nature-nurture theories that nurture shapes the personality. As we go through these capacities, a little ego is developing and becoming autonomous. Feeling that sense of “I can” is developing through these capacities.

All of us need to know that the moment you’re an entity as a baby, you have the full capacity in your nervous system to have the things in place you need to have, Maude asserts. Your nervous system is hard-wired to develop. You don’t tell a baby when to crawl. They naturally do that because we are pushed towards development. But when one part of development isn’t happening the way it needs to, then we turn into avoidance, she explains. We avoid the things that make me feel out of control, which is what causes the delay.

The experiences you need to become praxis-oriented, to build vocabulary for language, to put your language to what you’re doing, and applying yourself to it in play gets missing, so you don’t build the constructs that you need to. A model like the DIR model is one model of explaining how these things have to follow on each other, but it doesn’t mean the availability isn’t there from the beginning, Maude insists.

From the moment you see your mother’s eyes or hear her voice, you are feeling something, but being able to capitalize, understand, and organize those feelings comes with time, support, and containment, Maude continues. Any developmental model provides the timeline, but it’s not about one step at a time. In the podcast conversation, Maude says, her and I are doing the first six FEDCs at once, thinking of what we’ll say next to help others understand.

In DIR the ‘I’ is for Individual differences, and we like to focus on the individual profile over a diagnosis because everyone is unique in their development based on their unique profile. The whole emotional piece that is such a big piece in this developmental model is what we focus on, Maude says.

Final Thoughts

The fifth Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity is where we can work against polarized thinking, Maude says. If an individual can understand the range of emotion in themself and where it lands, and understand that another goes through something too–that is, if I can get you and you can get me–then we actually have a place where we can have a debate.

It’s an organizational structure on which I can trust you and where you’re coming from, and you can respect me and where I’m coming from, and the fact that we may differ in opinion doesn’t make it wrong or right. That ultimate respect lies in this model. It brings about so much healing that our world needs right now, Maude reflects. FEDC 5 provides the room in which me and you can be in a space that corresponds and keeps us co-regulating each other so we can both grow, Maude concludes.

This week’s PRACTICE TIP:

This week let’s practice meeting our child where they’re at, and fully working on making that capacity robust.

For example: Are they having robust circles of communication? If not, go back to watch this podcast from last month. If they are, let’s start enacting their favourite scenes with their favourite characters or stuffed animals. If they are fully doing representational play, start playing the role of one of the characters and have those emotions like Maude talked about. Let’s be a part of the drama they create.

I thank Maude for taking the time to record this podcast and I hope that you found it as helpful as I did in really getting a deeper understanding of FEDCs 4 and 5! Please consider sharing this post on social media.

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