The Floortime Center summer social skills groups

[Anonymous]

Has anyone tried the Floortime Center (previously DIR) Summer social skills group/camp for their child? They sound interesting. Child is verbal, but has some language and attention issues, but is not on the spectrum. Can these groups work for a variety of issues? Did people notice a difference at the end of the summer? Did they do a good job of fitting kids together well? Thanks

[Anonymous]

Personally, if your child isn't ASD, I wouldn't bother with Floortime. There are play groups that focus on language or social skills for kids on the spectrum, non-ASD kids, and some with a mix of both. Personally we got a lot out of National Speech and Language camp that had a mix of kids:
http://www.nationalspeech.com/camp

How old is your child?

[Anonymous]

NP here. PP, could you say a little more about the camp?How old was your kid when he/she attended? Mine will be almost 3 1/2. She's got MERLD and some behavior and social issues. Would it be a good fit for her profile?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. PP, could you say a little more about the camp?How old was your kid when he/she attended? Mine will be almost 3 1/2. She's got MERLD and some behavior and social issues. Would it be a good fit for her profile?

My kid was almost 3, non-ASD, expressive speech delay, maybe had about 6 words, and had been doing speech 2x week for 9 months. By the end of the summer, expressive vocabulary grew in leaps and bounds. It's not cheap, but it was a great experience. They take kids on the spectrum too, and DC's class was a mix of kids. It looks like in this year's flyer, they're doing an ABA group, so maybe the class make up will change.

I would call them in terms or your DD's specific issues regarding behavior and social issues. They have a lot of aides; I think there was one-to-one coverage with the younger kids. Not sure about the older classroom. If we can swing it, we'd definitely like to repeat this summer.

OP, I've also had direct experience with a non-ASD child and Floortime. Did not think it was particularly helpful.

[Anonymous]

Floortime was great for my non-ASD son. I have never heard its only for kids with ASD, but it certainly helped my son socialize and learn to clam himself. I dont know how they do the pairings of kids, but the other boys he was with were similar to him in that they needed help dealing with playing with each other and being flexible. I would recommend.

[Anonymous]

PP here. No it's not only for ASD kids but primarily used with ASD kids. My experience for speech was that it wasn't helpful for us.

[Anonymous]

I have one kid on the spectrum and one who is NT. I think floortime is great for expanding play and language with ANY child (NT, ADHD, ASD), but I wouldn't pay a lot of money for it. I just read about it and use those ideas.

With my child on the spectrum, I actually didn't like the floortime approach of an EI person he worked with. One thing that helped him improve so much was modeling prosocial and NT behaviors and encouraging those, but the interventionist who described her self as taking a floortime approach allowed the obviously ASD behaviors and discuraged me from redirecting. We made LOTS of progress once we moved on to a new therapist and now years later I am actually starting to hear things like he blends and a person observing would not know he was on the spectrum, etc. Most importantly he has friends. Very young kids are so accepting of differences, but as kids get older I think many stims, etc are going to make it harder for them to fit in and I certainly don't need an adult chastizing me for helping my child show prosocial behaviors.

[Anonymous]

THought floortime was okay, nice, but nothing special for my non-asd child. I know the center does alot of regular ot as well. It seems most therapy offices and programs have a mixture of children with issues, and use a variety of approaches and philosophical approaches for social skills. I don;t know how floortime heavy the summer groups are, but curious if people feel that that they are well run and beneficial to a verbal child?

[Anonymous]

We have done a lot of work at The Floortime Center over the past 4 years with our ASD child. I cannot say enough good things about it. However, we also do a lot of floortime at home and strongly believe in this approach. It has made a huge difference for our child in the areas of regulation, engaging in relationships with others, communicating, problem solving, etc. Our child has been part of a social group throughout this school year. It has been a wonderful experience for her. She is paired with two peers that are a good fit for her. There are a lot of new, exciting things happening at The Floortime Center. If you think it might beca good fit for your child, then I highly recommend calling and talking directly to one of the directors, Jake or Tim. They're both very approachable and will be able to answer your questions.

Hope this helps....

[Anonymous]

We enrolled our son in the summer program last year and have paid the deposit to enroll him again this year. It was a great experience for him. He is very verbal and not on the spectrum - we are working on sensory issues, rigidity etc.