Greenspan floor time conference

[bookwormde]

Greenspan floor time conference

Back from another seminar, I have followed this to some extent for a several year but since it was primarily developed for children younger than typical Aspergers diagnosis age I had not delved into it to deeply.

Quite honestly as an early intervention 1-5yrs, it seems quit useful and effective for a broad set of neurovaritions, all the way from isolated SID to Classic mid level autism to HFA, PPD and for those Aspersers children who happen to get diagnosed earlier.

Certainly much better than the ABA with behavior modification only and as a side of co-integrated system with ABA with skills development. I especially like the removal of the “jelly bean” approach and the use of a “social play” enticement model.

Dr. Geenspan’s son was the presenter and in addition to the core idea, understood the importance of reducing anxiety through both sensory modifications and appropriate social interaction before progress core relationship skills and broader developmental skills can be made.

On the down side it still was an “isolated” system with no pass through “hooks” to dealing with other core neurovariational issues such as EF differentials and only “practice based” approaches to TOM and broader social skills. With that said for children under 5 where these issues are not so impactful yet if shows serious promise. For later diagnosed Aspergers children, there is certain underlying value to the approaches but at that age many of our children have “self adapted” or received isolated therapies which have helped with many of the issues so without the strong hooks to social skills and EF components it would be up to the individual parent to try to adapt the system, though with the style of the system it might be fun to try.

Here is a link to his web site if anyone is interested.

WWW.dirss.com


If anyone has any question I would be happy to pass along what I have learned.


bookwormde

 

[MinnieVanMom]

Hi Bookwormde,

I went to the autism conference last weekend and during one breakout went to a presenter on floortime. Her breakout was not labeled floortime but she did cite greenspan often. She showed the clip of the child wanting in the door and crying.

I questioned her afterwards that wouldn't a SD be better than just body language? Or the best of both worlds, combine the SD with the body language so the child has the verbal cue and facial to complete the task.

I know plain ABA doesn't help with social issues and often comes out scripted but I know that for a first intensive and early intervention, ABA can be a great foundation.

 

[jodifla]

Greenspan floor time conference

Back from another seminar, I have followed this to some extent for a several year but since it was primarily developed for children younger than typical Aspergers diagnosis age I had not delved into it to deeply.

Quite honestly as an early intervention 1-5yrs, it seems quit useful and effective for a broad set of neurovaritions, all the way from isolated SID to Classic mid level autism to HFA, PPD and for those Aspersers children who happen to get diagnosed earlier.

Certainly much better than the ABA with behavior modification only and as a side of co-integrated system with ABA with skills development. I especially like the removal of the “jelly bean” approach and the use of a “social play” enticement model.

Dr. Geenspan’s son was the presenter and in addition to the core idea, understood the importance of reducing anxiety through both sensory modifications and appropriate social interaction before progress core relationship skills and broader developmental skills can be made.

On the down side it still was an “isolated” system with no pass through “hooks” to dealing with other core neurovariational issues such as EF differentials and only “practice based” approaches to TOM and broader social skills. With that said for children under 5 where these issues are not so impactful yet if shows serious promise. For later diagnosed Aspergers children, there is certain underlying value to the approaches but at that age many of our children have “self adapted” or received isolated therapies which have helped with many of the issues so without the strong hooks to social skills and EF components it would be up to the individual parent to try to adapt the system, though with the style of the system it might be fun to try.

Here is a link to his web site if anyone is interested.

WWW.dirss.com


If anyone has any question I would be happy to pass along what I have learned.


bookwormde

Thanks for the info. Was this the online conference?? Or were you there in person?

I've read Greenspan's Floortime approach. Seems a lot better to me than ABA on several levels...first, cost! Seems like something a parent could do with training.

I've also liked Greenspan's book on special needs kids, too.

 

[bookwormde]

I look at ABA in 2 ways.

First is those who do it to modify behaviors. While there may be instances of behavior, which are so damaging or debilitating that they have to be addressed before other progress can be made, in most cases it is just used to make children appear more neurotypical with no long term generalizable efficacy. There have been significant new studies that have verified this limitation

Second is those who use the analytical portion of ABA and overlay a skill based teaching program in place of the behavioral modification part. While this often changes, eliminates the need for or redirects behaviors this is a secondary effect of being able to apply the skill to the originally identified deficit and has a much better chance of generalization and ongoing efficacy. The problem with this is that is for the most part a “jelly bean” approach that even if faded not effective as a “self teaching” development tool for life long self initiated skill development. I have used this program to some extent but have used self-initiatable rewards like heightened sense of social justice, logic/perfectionistic, empathic and other internal familiar social based rewards which to some extent have elicited self initiated skill development.

Floor time sort of starts from the other end of engaging the child in developmentally appropriate play (not chronological or apparent age appropriate play) at the child’s level and uses that as the “jelly bean” (which for the most part is a socially acceptable, self initiating reward) to expose and work on with the child other skills such as social interaction, communications and cooperative skills. Reducing anxiety by both inventorying sensory issues and providing supports to minimize their effect and the non-stressful play nature of the therapy is a key to opening the child to progress.

My thought are that if the methodologies from the skills portions the second implementation of ABA could be slowly integrated into the floor time program in an analytical and structured way without loosing the “fun” “Jelly bean” effect of floor time and its less measurable benefits, that the progress for our children might be astounding particularly in older children.

Unfortunately these 2 “systems” so far have not been able to “work together” which is sad for our children. They do come at the challenges from 2 different directions but often that type of blending is what it takes to come up with a good solution (program).

Also unfortunately neither deals directly with some of the processing neurovariatons such as auditory processing memory issue, EF differentials like the visual, non linear, non discriminatory nature of many autistic minds and the lack if innate social skills with the associated extreme effort to intellectually duplicate these except as a secondary effect of broader skills development.

As you have heard me say before I believe that this comes in great part form the misguided desire to make our children more “neurotypical” instead of understanding their challenges and supporting their great gifts and educating society to “accept the package”.

bookwormde

 

[jodifla]

Wow. that's a good explanation. What's EF though? Don't recognize it.

 

[bookwormde]

EF is Executive Function (the way the mind organizes, stores and processes information).

bookwormde

 

[DisDreaminMom]

It's all about the EF, in my DS's world. Isn't there a vitamin he can take that strengthens this? Some weight lifting?

 

[MinnieVanMom]

I have to agree that if the two were blended it seems we could have the best of both worlds but it seems like both methods refuse to even acknowledge the other. Kinda not in my sandbox thoughts.

We used ABA to teach our DS to speak and that is something floortime can't do. We also like the pure data that shows progress. It is not my interpretation of DS improvement, my wish or desire. The data is pure and correct.

ABA does start out scripted but I will take a script over nothing any day. Fast forward several years and we have a verbal child with very normal voice inflection.

I sure do wish there were 1 concrete answer but with our children we all just need to keep trying to find something that works best for them.