What did Floortime do for your Asperger's child?

[Anonymous]

I'm about to give up and stop having our Floortime instructor come to our house to instruct me on how to do Floortime with my AS 4 yr old. My AS child's issues are mostly at school - not playing with other children - and I haven't seen how doing Floortime at home translates into any improvements at school. He does fine one-on-one with adults at home and school. We are increasing his private OT to 2x/wk from 1x/wk, gets OT, PT, social group/speech at school, has an IEP. I am thinking about having the Floortime instructor go to school to observe him and give his teachers help/tips on how to engage him more in the classroom but I'm not sure how useful it'll be.

Anyway, what did Floortime do for your child and was it helpful?

[Anonymous]

I found it very helpful when my DS was young. For us the point was not so much learning how to play, though that was helpful, but also to engage in problem solving and higher level, abstract thinking, which is actually what NT kids get from play.

There came a time when we stopped, I think he was five or six. All these kids are different and their menu of therapies will reflect that so do what you think is best for your child and don't worry what other people are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found it very helpful when my DS was young. For us the point was not so much learning how to play, though that was helpful, but also to engage in problem solving and higher level, abstract thinking, which is actually what NT kids get from play.

There came a time when we stopped, I think he was five or six. All these kids are different and their menu of therapies will reflect that so do what you think is best for your child and don't worry what other people are doing.

Op here: Can you explain how this is done? We play a lot of board games, Goldfish, Candyland..., pretend play with DS but I don't need instruction to do this and DS doesn't either and certainly not at home. I'm starting to think it's all a waste of time and all the mumble jumbo about "completing circles" and stuff isn't helping.

[Anonymous]

We used an ABA approach with our child with AS. It's all about building skills, step by step. My guess is that floortime may have some value in establishing a connection between parent and child, teaching that communication is contingent, and developing theory of mind in the child. I am only guessing because it probably forces the child to look at your face more for information about what's going on, what you are thinking, predicting what you will do next, etc. That is very important for these kids. Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking also gets at this--you should get familiar with her stuff--she's amazing. So I can see value in floortime, having never used it and having heard it' a bunch of B.S. I suspect it has value but limited value. These kids need help building skills as well. And yet the social skills are predicated on theory of mind. Try to build perspective taking in your child, team him about your facial expressions and gestures, and build skills to "read" your nonverbal social cures so he can start doing this with others. It takes years to build these skills so start now. We were happy with the skillbuilding approach of our behavior therapy team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We used an ABA approach with our child with AS. It's all about building skills, step by step. My guess is that floortime may have some value in establishing a connection between parent and child, teaching that communication is contingent, and developing theory of mind in the child. I am only guessing because it probably forces the child to look at your face more for information about what's going on, what you are thinking, predicting what you will do next, etc. That is very important for these kids. Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking also gets at this--you should get familiar with her stuff--she's amazing. So I can see value in floortime, having never used it and having heard it' a bunch of B.S. I suspect it has value but limited value. These kids need help building skills as well. And yet the social skills are predicated on theory of mind. Try to build perspective taking in your child, team him about your facial expressions and gestures, and build skills to "read" your nonverbal social cures so he can start doing this with others. It takes years to build these skills so start now. We were happy with the skillbuilding approach of our behavior therapy team.

Thanks, this is helpful. Our developmental pediatrician recommended we do this and we have a meeting with him on Monday. Our child's main issue is engagement with his peers at school and he's improved by leap and bounds since he has gotten an IEP and supports at school. No other behavior issues, no academic issues - the only issues are being engaged with peers and fine and gross motor deficits which are being addressed in OT/PT. DS connects with us, his parents and adults, just fine at home and everywhere else including school. We were hoping that doing Play therapy at home with us would translate into school with his peers but neither our therapist nor anyone else has been able to explain how this would happen.

This is soooo frustrating and expensive to boot - considering I don't think it's doing squat.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think the idea is to build reciprocal behavior in your DS. You are probably scaffolding quite a bit in the play unconsciously. It's my understanding, which may be off, that closing the circles and all is when DS engages in the social behavior in a way that would be more consistent with what would happen with a peer. By building the strength and the consistency of those interactions, where he is the most engaged and comfortable, I think the idea is that then the stronger skills can carry over. So it's not the playing of the board game, it is the heightened social interaction that occurs around it that is beneficial. Have you watched any Floortime videos online? I was kinda uncomfortable at first too but it was ultimately helpful for us. Remember, when DS is older, the adults will be his peers, not older people who are doing a lot of the social work in interacting with him. At his age it can seems almost charming to be like a "little adult" but working on these skills now helps to ensure that your DS will not be a painfully lonely kid and adult. Having friends and social support is so important for happiness and for being successful at work, getting married, etc. It might help it to be more effective if you could understand it a bit more. Also, does your therapist videotape any of the interactions? That was helpful for us too. We could see where we stepped in too much. You are basically taught to interact like a play therapist with the child so he can be getting a LOT of social skills therapy all the time, it's not to judge your play activities, they are the vehicle. Does that help?

[Anonymous]

That was VERY helpful. Thank you. You've explained it better than our therapist.

She videotapes at home and at school. Everyone who's viewed the videotapes including Dr. Solomon has commented that it appears to be two different children. DS's play at home with me and with the therapist appears almost NT with lots of circles closing even before we started PLAY. At school, he appears autistic - wandering aimlessly, not engaging. Granted, he has improved dramatically at school but that's due to his IEP and school supports not due to the play therapy.

[Anonymous]

I would drop Floortime and look into social skills groups with peers his own age. In the summer I think some groups form. I love Michelle Garcia Winner's stuff just like the PP said. Look for a social skills group that uses her material.

[Anonymous]

My child presented in a similar manner and there was an ADD component. Medicating that helped a great deal at school, DD could engage when there was less to screen out and she was less overwhelmed. Have you tried to intergrate kids into playdates at home? How do those go?

[Anonymous]

OP: We haven't done playdates at home simply b/c he's at school all day, 5 days a wk, including aftercare (we've found this works better for DS, before I would pick him after lunch). We will try to have playdates over the summer and I will definitely look for social skills groups and /or camp using Michelle Garcia Winner's materials. Anyone have recommendations?

He gets a social skills group at school 4x/wk. The group has 4-5 preschool kids and he does very well. He also gets Sp Ed support and OT/PT/Speech as specified in his IEP. We have seen a remarkable difference at school with the supports: He plays, interacts and has friends. He is in a mainstream classroom. We also supplement with private therapies including parent instruction in floortime but it seems this is the one thing that isn't making a difference.

Originally, his developmental pediatrician and neuropsych recommended we change schools b/c he naturally does better in a smaller classroom. However, he currently attends a language immersion school and it turns out he is very good in the language. He has problems feeding, dressing, etc himself but he is excellent in Mandarin Chinese. Since he would still have the social issues no matter the school, we've decided to let him stay for at least another year and see how it goes. We will be doing neuropsych testing for ADHD since it's commonly comorbid with ASD when he is 6.

[Anonymous]

PP who wrote about behavior therapy here. Our home therapists (college kids) would also try to act more like peers, inlcluding using less verbal communication than adults use, using facial expressions and tones to steer our child to interpreting and follwoing those cues. For example, if they wanted him to stop something in exasperation, they'd say his name in that same tone you might say "No fair!" Peers don't accomodate their communication the way adults do so they are harder to interpret and of course the give and take is a two way street with peers. You can do this kind of practice at home--just talk more like a kid. You can also practice joining in, which includes watching first to figure out what kids are doing. My child has a hard time figuring out what the action is, so it's hard to figure out what he's joinging and hence how to join. With his team he watched youtube video of kids playing various games (e.g. tag) and had to figure out what they were doing, infer the rules, and come up with ideas about how and when to join. I agree that taking a social skills class is a great idea. I haven't used her yet but I heard Sue (?) Abrams teaches Michelle Garcia-Winner style social skills.

[Anonymous]

Followup: We had our meeting with DS's developmental pediatrician. Going to stop PLAY and try ABA therapy. Floortime was too unstructured with unspecified goals and therefore did not seem to be accomplishing anything. We are going to try ABA for specific issues such as using utensils, trying different foods, etc. Will see how it goes.

[Anonymous]

Part of floortime is pushing back so that the child has to use his imagination in order to play. So board games are too structured (you roll 5, you move 5 -- not a lot of imaginative play there). But if you are down on the floor and the child is, say, moving a car back and forth and back and forth, you would take another car and go in there, maybe make the cars crash or chase his car or block his car. Then the child has to move out of his perseverative play into interactive play. This not only teaches the child how to play with other kids, but also teaches him flexibility, problem solving, a higher level more abstract way of thinking. The car is not just something that goes back and forth, its something that is out in situations and you develop play from those situations. Board games don't do this. Also anything electronic where you push a button and get a response doesn't do this.

[Anonymous]

Not to be dumb, but what is perservative play? And scaffolding? These are terms i have heard professionals use, and I dont actually know what it means. Google didnt work on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of floortime is pushing back so that the child has to use his imagination in order to play. So board games are too structured (you roll 5, you move 5 -- not a lot of imaginative play there). But if you are down on the floor and the child is, say, moving a car back and forth and back and forth, you would take another car and go in there, maybe make the cars crash or chase his car or block his car. Then the child has to move out of his perseverative play into interactive play. This not only teaches the child how to play with other kids, but also teaches him flexibility, problem solving, a higher level more abstract way of thinking. The car is not just something that goes back and forth, its something that is out in situations and you develop play from those situations. Board games don't do this. Also anything electronic where you push a button and get a response doesn't do this.

OP: Floortime did not work for what we intended: Being engaged at school and increasing interaction with peers.

DS's play at home is interactive and he is very engaged with adults. We had no issues with DS's pretend play or interaction with adults and did not start therapy with the intention of improving his pretend play and interaction with us.

While I would love for floortime to help DS"play with other kids, but also teaches him flexibility, problem solving, a higher level more abstract way of thinking", I did not see any of these things happening.

Since we have limited money and time, we're going on to something else.