Executive Functioning and the DIR-FCD Model in Schools

Celebrate the Children’s founder, Monica G. Osgood, is an experienced behavioral consultant and therapist who specializes in using developmental approaches to support children with autism and other differences in relating and communicating. She is also the Founder and Director of the Developmental Center for Children and Families and Executive Director and a founding member of the Profectum Foundation. Monica has worked in homes, therapy centers, and private and public school settings for over 20 years. Some of her experience has included assessment and the development of intervention programs, curriculum and IEP development, and parent and professional training. In 1998, Monica created the first public school program with the Developmental Individual Relationship-based (DIR model) approach as the core philosophy. ​In 2000, she was the first educator to join the senior faculty of the Interdisciplinary Council on Development and Learning(ICDL) to provide interdisciplinary training in the DIR model. During her time with ICDL, Monica served as faculty for all of their yearly training institutes, spoke at many of their conferences and had the opportunity to work closely and collaborate with Drs. Greenspan and Wieder to further develop the DIR model in school settings. ​In 2004, she collaborated with Lauren Blaszak to open a state-approved, DIR model school for children ages 3-21 in Denville, New Jersey, now serving over 70 school districts and 130 families. Additional accomplishments include, many speaking engagements at conferences and participation in television, radio and newspaper interviews across the USA, Wales, Ireland and Amsterdam. Monica has appeared on Welsh Channel 4 and BBC1 documentaries, sharing the DIR model approach with British parents and professionals. Monica and the Celebrate the Children school were featured in a TIME Magazine cover story in May of 2006. ​She serves on the Advisory Board for 3LPlace and the National Advisory Council for The Centers for Exceptional Children​. Monica also serves on the Economic Development Advisory Council and the Sustainable Economic Development Plan Steering Committee for her local Town Council. Finally, she collaborated with twice Grammy nominated children’s artists Dan Myers and Brady Rymer on an album and music video celebrating diversity in children with all abilities released April 2011. https://www.monicaosgood.com/

Chris Seminaro is an Instructional Coach for Students with autism spectrum disorders in a large suburban public school system near Chicago, Illinois. She has 30 years of teaching and administrative experience specializing in working with families and students with ASD. Chris has presented nationally on development, assessment, intervention, working with families as part of the school system and educating students with autism spectrum disorders. She has presented at the International Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL) International Conferences on the topic of the DIR® in Public School Systems. Chris has been on the faculty of the DIR®Institute and is on the faculty of Profectum.

George McCloskey, PhD is a Professor and Director of School Psychology Research in the Psychology Department of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He frequently presents at national, regional and state meetings on cognitive and neuropsychological assessment and intervention topics. Dr. McCloskey consults with a number of school districts and private schools in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and California on issues related to improving students’ self-regulation capacities in the classroom, behavior management, assessment and intervention for executive functions difficulties related to academic and behavior problems, balanced literacy reading and writing instruction, and implementation of RTI. Dr. McCloskey is the lead author of Assessment and Intervention for Executive Function Difficulties and author of Essentials of Executive Functions Assessment. Dr. McCloskey also has been involved in test development and publishing activities for more than 25 years. He directed the development of the WISC-IV Integrated and was a Senior Research Director and the Clinical Advisor to the Wechsler Test Development Group for The Psychological Corporation (now part of Pearson) and Associate Director of Test Development for AGS (now Pearson).