chment relationships in infancy are at risk for the development of psychopathology in childhood and into adult life.
For children with relatedness and communication challenges, GreenspanÆs Developmental, Individual-Difference, Relationship-Based (DIR) Model is an effective framework and intervention (Greenspan, 2000, p. 1). According to Greenspan and Wieder (1998), there are six major developmental skills or milestones that children need to master to prevent the development of psychopathologies. These six milestones are: 1) shared attention and regulation; 2) intimacy and engagement; 3) purposefully two-way communication; 4) complex communication; 5) emotional ideas; and 6) emotional thinking (Greenspan, 2000, p. 1).
The DIR model is broken into three main components for assessment and intervention. The ôDö or development, relates to ôidentifying a childÆs development level with the framework of the functional developmental capacities or milestonesö noted
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