Floortime play therapy based on the DIR model promotes overall skills with activities. Floortime play therapy aids in the development of emotional connections and communication skills in children with autism.
Floortime, unlike behavioural therapy, focuses on assisting children and teens in making emotional connections. This structured play therapy is a low-risk, low-cost way for your child to improve his or her emotional and social abilities. While having fun, you can strengthen your parent-child bond.
Goals of Floortime Play Therapy:
Floortime therapy has six main objectives. The pupil grows emotionally and intellectually as they fulfil each goal. By interacting with others through play, students are encouraged to improve their interaction abilities.
The Six Milestones of Floortime Include:
- Self-regulation and interest in the world
- Engagement in relationships, or intimacy
- Two-way communication
- Complex communication
- Emotional ideas
- Emotional thinking
These objectives are achieved by daily sessions lasting two to five hours in calm, peaceful locations. Floortime play therapy specialists may teach parents and caregivers how to join in the child’s play, follow their lead, and encourage their development.
What Does the Floortime Play Therapy Involve?
Assessment, home interactions, school interactions, playdates, and specific therapies are all part of floortime play therapy. This consists of 2-5 hours of a day playtime between an adult and a child, usually on the floor.
How Does It Work?
Floortime play therapy can happen at all time, and everywhere! Children with autism tend to need intensive early intervention and are found to rarely initiate interaction on their own unless they need something. To encourage interaction and a shared world, floortime can happen anywhere, such as:
- Inside the home
- In the backyard
- In a therapy office
- In elementary school
- At preschool or daycare
- At a playground
- In a supermarket
- In the car
- In the bathtub
Anyone, including parents, colleagues, and siblings, can participate in floortime at any time of day. The key to floortime is that those who take part in it enjoy themselves.
Floortime is supposed to be a constructive and enjoyable way to improve communication. It should not be a source of anxiety for any of the parties concerned.
The Efficacy of Floortime Play Therapy
Children with autism who participate in floortime sessions on a regular basis for a long time show greater emotional development and less autistic symptoms. Children whose parents engaged in floortime activities with them an average of 15 hours per week for three months, improved significantly in the areas of
- Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS)
- Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS)
- Functional Emotional Questionnaires
Floortime play therapy has been identified as a vital strategy for helping children with autism because it increases learning through interaction. Floortime’s social-communication-based approach helps autistic children develop their social interaction abilities as well.
How to Know if Floortime Play Therapy is a Good Treatment Option for My Child?
To help you decide if floortime play therapy is a good treatment option for your child, you have to see a floortime play therapy specialist who can say exactly for what reasons this floortime play therapy approach will be a good option.
At Hope AMC in Dubai, the floortime play therapy specialists work collaboratively with the parents of the child to provide the best care for their child. The team aims to develop healthy foundations for social, emotional, and intellectual capacities rather than focusing on skills and isolated behaviors in children with autism and special needs.
To get more details or consult with our floortime play therapy specialists in Dubai, click here
