More on the Floor Time Therapy Model for children with autism

The Autism News | English

By Pamela G. Downing | Brownsville Herald

The children were all lined up outside the playground. They loved this time of day. For them, it was play time. For the teachers, however, it was the children’s sensory and floor time therapy period. Each child had different sensory and autism (ASD) issues. For example, one child could only speak by computer. Another didn’t like anybody being near him. Then there was a boy who wanted desperately to play with the other children but had no idea how to do it.

They all looked at the teacher. Then, the words came, “Okay, on your mark. Get set. Go.” Off the children ran. One went to the green swing. Another ran to the slide and another went to the single rope swing. A large group of children gathered around “Heath,” a classroom aide. He had lots of footballs. The kids loved to line up and catch the ball. Whoever caught it would join his team members. The goal was to get the ball back to Heath with their team.

At first, there were lots of tears and tattling. Over time, many of the boys learned how to talk and play nicely. One boy however, hated to lose. Even with social stories and lots of role playing, he just could not accept anybody winning except him. “Ralph” was extremely socially immature and was missing several developmental milestones. He needed more time to mature.

All children require time to build and complete developmental stages. The DIR Model provides a tangible methodology in assisting children and their families with the skills needed for developmental growth. Go to www.icdl.com/dirfloortime

This model recognizes that six critical milestones must be mastered for a child to acquire the abilities necessary for all learning. Typically, these stages will be experienced in the child’s first four years of life. Without mastering these stages, the child will not be able to develop more complex cognitive skills such as recognizing a dog growling is a signal to move away from the animal or if it is raining to grab an umbrella.

The DIR Model uses what is called “floor time therapy” as “a systematic way of working with a child to help him climb the developmental ladder; it is the heart of the developmental approach to therapy. It takes a child back to the very first milestone he may have missed and begins the developmental process anew.”

The program requires concentrated one to one work with the child. This therapy is an intensive program that consists of 20-30 minute sessions. Ideally, there will be eight of these sessions each day. Because of the time involved in this work, several people will need to be involved in this effort. This includes family members, therapists and trained helpers. Many families may not be able to complete such an intensive program. However, even if one’s time is more limited, applying the principles in the DIR Model as much as possible in interaction time with a child is very effective.

For example, one child, “Michael” rarely would interact with others in his classroom. His preferred activity was looking for dinosaurs on the computer. The teacher used that love of dinosaurs as an interactive play choice during math and reading. While he thought it was play, Michael was developing social skills and higher thinking skills. For Michael, dinosaurs eventually helped him read, write and play with other children.

“Abby”, on the other hand, could not focus long enough to speak either through picture communication or verbalization. Yet, she loved being squeezed. The teacher would sit beside Abby and only squeeze her if she reached for a picture of squeeze. Abby also loved gummy bears. The teacher would play a simple hide and seek game with her. Abby’s eye contact and concentration gradually increased and she became much calmer in the classroom. She also began using her communication board more frequently for simple requests such as I want chips or I want TV.

Source: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/font-112972-time-children.html

Please share this news with friends, family and also with your contact list on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.