My son will be 2 yrs old next month and he is currently receiving 12 hrs/wk of ABA therapy. We have decided to try Floortime as well as RDI in addition to ABA. Not sure the logistics or how it is going to work, but thought an additional therapy would be beneficial. I realize every child is different, but wondering how it went or is going if anyone else has tried these other therapies or is currently using them. I go back and forth as I wonder if increasing ABA hrs would be more… read more
More therapy always sounds good to us. But you don't want to over stimulate that, you might find yourself going backwards instead of forwards. I'm not saying don't do it, just go into it easy.
My daughter has been getting ABA since she got diagnosed and she’s progressed tremendously with it. I also took an online certification course on floortime/DIR last year to try to supplement her therapy at home. I asked the floortime teachers what their opinion was regarding getting both therapies. They told me it’s a bad idea because of the vast difference in approach. I also realized they had very negative things to say about ABA. At the end of the day, I feel I know my daughter best and I was confident enough in that to do some floortime with her side by side. It worked out well. Floortime is a gentler approach and it felt more like me spending focused quality time with her than actually doing therapy. I know her well enough to pick out which toys or activities we were going to use for her therapy. However, with school and all the therapies she goes to as well as me working full time we have not done formal floortime at home inmany months. I do incorporate a lot of floortime strategies in our day to day interactions. There are some YouTube videos of floortime by Dr. Greenspan. You can get an idea looking at those clips. You could even do them yourself to help with getting your child’s attention. A large part of floortime is involving parents and teaching them what to do at home. She gets 15 hrs/ wk of ABA. In the summer she’ll get 25 hrs/wk. she loves going there. Both therapies are great in my opinion. I won’t do both unless it’s me doing the floortime therapy though. And that’s just my personal choice.
ABA teaches "skills", using drills and rote methods most of the time, using rewards upon completion of the targeted action. Floortime focuses more on the process which involves developing self regulation as well as building intrinsic motivation, not just doing things for an unconnected external reward.
If I had to compare, I would say that ABA has a place for developing rote skills whereas DIR Floor time allows self initiated use of skills and connecting with people. Floortime also builds skills but the process is very different and, of course ABA takes the load off the family whereas Floortime involves greater time commitment. As an Occupational Therapist, I believe that both can complement each other provided ABA is not an all consuming 30 hours a week. I would weigh your short versus long term goals.