The DIR Model and “Triadic Collaboration”: A New Type of Collaboration

Dr. Lisa Schwartz completed medical school at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine with an internship in pediatrics, following which she completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology and fellowship in Clinical Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Yale New Haven Hospital. Currently, she is a physician and a research scientist in Women’s Health. Dr. Schwartz is also the parent of a 17 year old young man, diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum, with multiple medical challenges.

Dr. Michele Havens is currently the Educational Consultant to an autism program in Brooklyn, and Professor Emeritus at Kean and Montclair State Universities. She is a DIR® Model trainer at Profectum Foundation and an advocate and private interventionist for children with special needs. 

Collaboration may be defined as a practice whereby individuals work together for a common purpose to achieve a beneficial outcome for all parties. This concept of “triadic collaboration” deviates from past models of collaboration by adding the notion of a “triad” approach whose members include the parent, professional and child. Initially each member of the triad participates in an assessment process to understand their individual social, emotional and sensory/regulatory profile, rather than evaluating the child with special needs in isolation. This can identify the underpinnings of the individual differences that each member brings to the triad. This ultimately can allow for improved reciprocal communication within the triad to obtain joint goals, which can eventually generalize to others. Components from the DIR® approach as applied to the development of interpersonal relationships usually include an adult and a child, but can also be applied to adult-adult relationships.

Training in social-emotional development through a relationship-based approach such as the DIR Model, and applying triadic collaboration strategies, can be the foundation for developing and maintaining relationships with everyone encountered and in multiple environments.

Who Benefits?

Triadic collaboration can serve as a resource for everyone on an ongoing basis or during desperate moments, when, despite best intentions, a positive path is not identified oftentimes due to external obstacles conflicting perspectives with miscommunication. This novel paradigm is an unusual but successful parent-teacher collaboration that can transform a disastrous situation into a successful educational and home-school-community experience for the impacted child. We believe this model can be carried out by everyone and should be the norm.

Children with special needs usually have individual complex needs to varying degrees which impacts upon their family and interactions with the school and community environments. The child’s individual needs sometimes may be misunderstood by others, especially with regard to educational programming and services in the school setting and may even interfere with the child’s access to learning at school. The joint perspective of the family and educator can ideally bridge the hurdles and gaps that often need to be traversed to establish sensible and effective educational plans for a complex child.

Collaboration in the past had the following trajectory:

1950’s-1960’s:

1960’s-1970’s:

1980’s:

1990’s – today:

Surprisingly, barriers to “triadic” collaboration” still exist, such as:

Roadblocks can be addressed with the following techniques:

How Does Triadic Collaboration Help You?

1) Develops effective collaboration skills leading to:

2) Addresses the individual profile of the child

3) Can generalize into the school setting and classroom environment

4) Improved home-school communication

5) Does not necessarily impact on school budget and financial parameters of family (additional costs should not be incurred when appropriately applied)

6) Have a positive impact on social, community and political environments