Re: Re: acceptance of ``A``

[Guest guest]

Welcome, . Your description of Floortime was very clear and interesting.

Thanks for taking the time to share. After all engaging our children more and

more, while increasing verbal and social is something we are all working on.

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 20, 2011, at 7:25 PM, " jenniferelrod83 " <jenny.elrod@...> wrote:

> Hi and All,

>

> I've been lurking and have not properly introduced myself yet (read the book,

trying to decide what to do next), but I want to jump in on this discussion to

say that Wyatt has made excellent progress with Floortime, too He never

leaves me alone anymore. He is always initiating. Just a year and a half ago, he

would not interact with me while he was playing, even though he would always

follow me if I left the room.

>

> I wish I could say his OCD has gone away, but it comes and goes in waves, and

it gets worse from multiple factors including lack of enough sleep,

hypoglycemia, and constipation. We still have a lot of work to do biomedically.

But several times when he has made a quantum leap in his communication skills or

social skills, he has gone through an intensive OCD phase where we spend hours

interacting around his fixations. And then he comes out of it and transfers his

new skills to more varied and sophisticated play. Right now he seems to be

honing his social turn-taking. He really, really wants to take turns with me -

and lots of them. His attention span is becoming really long. And it's beautiful

to see it get transfered to things besides his obsessions, as it is now starting

to be. Thankfully he's getting bored with lights and he played with me with his

stomp rocket for a long time today, going as long as he does with his fixations.

I've never seen that kind of attentiveness before, and it was totally driven by

him with no prompting from me.

>

> For those who aren't familiar with Floortime, its mantra is that to bring them

into our world, first we have to play with them in their world. It is child-led,

but the parent or therapist is always challenging the child while being led by

them. The reason why it is child-led is because that way the child is motivated

and things are emotionally meaningful to them. Here's what that can look like.

>

> When he was at his worst with his fixation on lights, his speech therapist

brought over a toy that had gears that went around in circles and lit up while

playing music. She would turn the button off on the bottom of the toy and dump

all the gears off. He'd try to turn it on and when it wouldn't light up, he'd

say, " Uh oh, broken. " She'd say, " Can you fix it? " And he'd have to put all the

gears back on. After they were all on, she'd turn it on, without him noticing.

While he was putting the gears on, she'd have him choose which color, indicate

whether he wanted one or two gears, say the word " gear " and other things. She

would put her hand on the gears until he said, " Move " . She would have him put a

stuffed animal on the gears to go for a ride on them. While he was busy " fixing "

his gears he learned about colors and numbers, he learned to say several words,

he learned to be assertive ( " Move! " ), and he learned the concept of " fix " . More

importantly, he learned to think dynamically and to problem-solve. Most

importantly of all, he was engaged, and in the parlance of Floortime, the ST got

lots of " circles of communication " out of the activity.

>

> This is one way to play with a child in a way that is led by them without

being passive. There are numerous other ways to do that.

>

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> >

> > I just need to say thay you really need to have a proper consultant and a

firm background in these therapies before you can really see if they work or

don't work.

> >

> > I, for instance, love the idea of RDI. I read the book and thought the

program had a lot of good qualities that could really help my son. I didn't want

to hire a consultant though so I just added it to our floortime program. What a

freaking mess! Mason had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea what I was

doing, and it really just confused him further.

> >

> > My point is that in order to say a therapy works or does not work you cant

just read the book, or hear the concept, and say it doesn't work. It needs an

investment in time and understanding before being able to fully apply the

concept.

> >

> > The notes about stimming. I just want to clarify. My son when he was first

diagnosed could not tell we were even in the room. He had a ridiculous

regression from typical toddler into severe autism within 2 months. We could

jump and dance in front of him and he wouldn't notice. He was too busy stimming.

We could however do ABA with him no problem, put a block in his hand and tell

him to put it in the bucket, sure, he got the concept. But really he was doing

it just so we would stop bothering him. We quickly realized he needed something

different. Even his ABA consultant recommended something like floortime,

sonrise, or RDI- they are all developmental and not behavioral therapies.

> >

> > So, we started approaching Mason differently. While he was pulling things

out of drawers we would do it with him. The point is not about stimming, it is

just about joining them in their world. He loved it, felt like we were doing

something together, and then he would start to play with me doing something

else. If the goal is just for them to stop stimming then you are not focusing on

the root of WHY they are stimming. They are stimming because something in their

sensory system is off and they are going into their own world. The goal is to

gradually, and happily, pull them from their world into ours. They don't stim

when they are engaged in our world. They stim when they are disengaged and in

their own world.

> >

> > I hope that makes sense, because it can really be helpful. My son is a

success story of floortime. He has gradually come into our world. He is now

happy to play with us and engagement is not difficult. He rarely stimms, but if

he does it is normally due to a medical issue or a sensory issue that is

throwing him off balance. Now if he stimms he will spin in circles, so I pick

him up and we spin in circles together, or we play ring around the rosie. He

forgets about stimming and he plays with me. He is three so this is

developmentally appropriate play. We also do an ABA preschool, and now that he

is engaged it makes his therapy a lot more beneficial. He still is autistic, but

is functioning at a much higher level than he was.

> >

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