Neurodiversity affirming practice within Learn To Play Therapy (2 hour ONLINE Workshop) 

Friday 22 March 2024

12:00pm – 2:00pm (AEDT)

Presented by Emeritus Professor Karen Stagnitti

*Start and end times are in Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, UTC+11:00

ABOUT

This 2 hour workshop delves into the Neurodiversity Movement and considers what is neurodiversity affirming practice. This knowledge is then applied as a lens to Learn To Play Therapy. Learn To Play Therapy is a child-centred responsive therapy to support a child’s pre-pretend and pretend play abilities. Within this short workshop, misconceptions about Learn To Play Therapy are examined (for example, why do some practitioners think Learn To Play Therapy is a cookie cutter approach?) and clarifications are discussed.

This presentation also includes working with parents/carers in a neurodiverse affirming way with Learn To Play Therapy.

This workshop would be valuable to those who work with neurodiverse children and their families and have attended Part 1 training, or SPA Play Skills workshops, or Zi Mei pretend play workshops. This 2 hour workshop is supported by videos and short case examples. Also may be of interest to those who are curious about this area of practice.

This workshop will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date if participants are unable to attend the Live workshop.

PRESENTER’S PROFILE – KAREN STAGNITTI 

Karen Stagnitti is Emeritus Professor in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. She is retired from full time teaching and research but continues to run workshops and write. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Queensland. For over 40 years she has mainly worked in early childhood intervention programs in community-based settings as part of a specialist paediatric multidisciplinary team. In 2003 she graduated from LaTrobe University with a Doctor of Philosophy. Her area of research is children’s play. Karen has over 150 publications, including journal articles, book chapters, and books. She has developed several play assessments including: Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment, the Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist and the Animated Movie Test. From this research, Learn To Play Therapy was developed. Throughout the year, she is still invited by national and international colleagues to contribute to books by writing book chapters or editing.