Floor Time Support


Technically, Floortime is just one component of a larger comprehensive treatment approach called the “Developmental, Individual-Difference, Relationship-Based (DIR) Model,“ developed by psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan and psychologist Serena Weider.


Greesnpan and Weider tailor their treatment to the individual needs of the child. According to their website:


The goal of treatment is to help the child build the healthy foundations for relating, communicating and thinking. Mastering these healthy developmental foundations also helps children overcome their symptoms, usually more effectively than attempts to change symptoms alone (Floortime Foundation, 2004).


Practitioners of the DIR model believe that each child has unique sensory reactivity, sensory processing, and motor profiles that affect his or her ongoing development. Therapists consider these differences as they design individualized interventions.


The Floortime component of DIR involves working with children at their current developmental level and inducing them to interact and engage with others. This often requires the parent or professional to get down on the floor with a child - hence the term “Floortime.” Practitioners follow the child’s lead, using intrinsic motivation to help the child move up the developmental ladder.


DIR proponents claim that the intensive DIR therapy can lead to children with ASD becoming warmer, more engaging, and more communicative. One of the advantages to their approach, they feel, is that children can learn to be more flexible and spontaneous.


Preliminary results indicate that DIR/Floortime model can be extremely effective in improving social, communicative, and academic outcomes for students with ASD. Unfortunately no experimental evidence exists demonstrating the superiority of this or any general approach to teaching students with autism. As Greenspan indicates in the accompanying interview, however, advocates of both a traditional ABA approach and DIR hope to conduct an experimental study directly comparing these approaches.


For more information about the DIR/Floortime approach, check out " The Child with Special Needs " by Drs. Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder and http://www.floortime.org/

Also see a companion FACTS article: An Interview With Dr. Stanley Greenspan.


Re: http://www.ccids.umaine.edu/facts/facts_2004/floortime.htm