Special Needs School in New York City

The key to effective learning at schools for children with an autism spectrum disorder or ASD is based on teaching them how to relate and communicate with others. A lack of these basic developmental capacities, typically acquired from birth till the age of four to five, is the root cause of the social and academic challenges faces by autistic children. The DIR model or Developmental, Individual-Difference, Relationship-based model, developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, allows for assessing where an autistic child lies on the proposed developmental scale and forming an intervention plan.

The DIR model provides a framework within which clinicians, educators and parents can assess the challenges and strengths of an autistic child. The model allows for developing healthy foundations for social, emotional and cognitive skill development. Let us explore what each term in the Developmental, Individual-Difference, Relationship-based model stands for.

‘Developmental’

The DIR model proposes six developmental levels that a child is believed to reach on a natural basis from birth till the age of four to five. Children with autism may reach these levels on a delayed basis, or may need assistance in order to be able to do so. Gauging where the autistic child lies on the developmental scale can help schools and therapy centers provide developmentally-appropriate guidance to the child.

‘Individual-Difference’

Autistic children tend to face certain biological challenges that may impact how they process and interact with their environment. The application of the DIR model to aid an autistic child’s development involves ascertaining the child’s unique sensory processing issues as well as motor planning and sequencing challenges. These differences between the sensory and motor challenges of a child are referred to as ‘individual differences’. Academic and therapeutic interventions are based upon these individual differences.

‘Relationship’

The forming of a trustworthy relationship with an autistic child is of paramount importance to enable the child to reach crucial developmental milestones. As these children find it difficult to relate to and communicate with others, it is essential to try to become a part of their world and welcome them to be a part of yours, through warm interactions, to enable learning and holistic development.

The DIR model helps take into account a child’s unique differences and developmental capacities for providing them with suitable assistance and for remedying the challenges faced by them. The interventions are conducted in the form of emotionally meaningful learning interactions that are built upon a child’s interests and motivation.

Learning and developing is not just about academics. As children, every individual goes through an important phase of developing crucial social, emotional, language, motor and cognitive skills, which lay the ground for a healthy social life and effective academic pursuits. According to the DIR or Developmental, Individual-Differences, Relationship-based model, developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, each child is born with an emotional system that needs nurturing. This essential nurturing can be provided only through warm, interpersonal interactions.

For children with autism and other disorders of relating and communicating, basic developmental skills are compromised due to the challenges faced by them in initiating and responding to attempts at communication. This is where Floortime Therapy; the practical application of the DIR model by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, can help.

What is Floortime therapy?

As the name suggests, Floortime therapy involves “getting on the floor” with the child to try to enter into their world and bring them into yours. The therapy is not restricted to the floor and can extend to any place or situation in which you find an opportunity to interact with the child.

What are the steps of a typical Floortime therapy session?

Floortime therapy can be carried out by not only therapists but parents and educators as well. The typical steps of a Floortime therapy session involve:

· Observing the child to assess their interests and intentions

See what holds the child’s interests in the present moment. Try to join them in whatever they are doing or what they seem to intend to do. For instance, if the child is stacking blocks one on top of the other, assist them in the activity by handing over the next block and cheering them on.

This primary step helps establish a foundation of trust, opening up opportunities for meaningful interactions.

· Challenge the child

Challenging the child in a gentle and encouraging manner can help foster essential motor, language and cognitive skills. For example, you could place one of the blocks on top of a short cabinet for your child to retrieve. Creating increasingly complex motor challenges makes the child likely to learn key motor skills. Similarly, you can challenge the child to develop their language skills by asking them to voice out their ideas and encouraging them to talk, in general.

Floortime therapy is a compassionate, gentle and encouraging method to challenge children on the autism spectrum to reach key developmental milestones. Teaching your child to communicate and relate as well as overcome their motor skills deficits can help them become more receptive to the world around them, as well as assist them during academic lessons and activities as they progress in school and beyond.

Emotional self-regulation refers to the ability of a person to deal with their environment in a way that is flexible enough to allow for varying, socially acceptable responses. Emotional self-regulation abilities help people assess situations to know if it would be feasible to respond spontaneously or modulate their impulses.

Children with autism often find it hard to regulate their emotions which makes them subject to phases of emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation is an emotional response that indicates poor modulation of one’s emotions reflected in a way that isn’t socially feasible.

Why is emotional regulation so important?

Emotional self-regulation is important for several reasons. For school-aged children, it is imperative to be able to regulate one’s emotions for effective learning.

When a child is emotionally regulated, they are most available for engaging with their teachers and peers and for retaining what’s been learnt.

Causes of emotional dysregulation in autistic children

Children with autism find it hard to communicate their feelings and concerns. As they also find it hard to symbolize their experiences, they are prone to disorganized emotions. Other possible factors that make autistic children prone to emotional dysregulation include:

Physiological factors

Autistic children often face sensory processing issues which implies that it is difficult for their brains to process sensory stimuli in an organized manner. A child with autism may be hypersensitive to bright lights or loud background noises, for instance, making them susceptible to feeling emotionally distressed during such conditions.

Psychological factors

Children with autism may find social settings difficult to cope with. Their anxiety could be triggered by being part of a social situation that puts them at a loss for what to do or makes them feel uncomfortable. Being put on the spot at school by being asked a question or being required to perform a complex academic task could act as triggers for bringing about a state of meddling and overwhelming negative emotions such as anxiety and fear.

Special education schools assist autistic children in the regulation of emotions by employing preventive strategies that are aimed at creating an environment conducive to learning. This could include offering opportunities for physical movement through sensory gyms to calm and organize the child’s mind and body and using visual supports in the teaching process, among other things.

Reactive strategies used by special education schools in the USA and other parts of the world include creating a place for students that can serve as a quiet haven to resort to in times of emotional distress. Other techniques involve reducing the duration of an overwhelming activity or simplifying it when the child shows signs of being overwhelmed.

Some special education schools in NYC, such as Rebecca School in Manhattan, have a deep and thorough understanding of the various behavioral issues that children on the autism spectrum tend to struggle with. These special education schools are known to provide therapeutic teaching programs that aim to provide not just cognitive development for the child but emotional development as well.To know more about special education schools NYC visit: www.rebeccaschool.org/

Floortime therapy is an essential aspect of the DIR/Floortime intervention aimed at helping children with developmental disorders grow and develop past their diagnoses. The therapy involves joining a child’s world and pulling them into a shared world where they can develop key social, emotional, language and intellectual abilities.

Floortime therapy was developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan for helping children learn through meaningful learning interactions that are orchestrated while taking into account the child’s functional emotional developmental capacities, that is, their ability to relate, communicate and think. Effective Floortime therapy also requires taking into account individual sensory processing differences. Children on the autism spectrum often face difficulties processing sensory stimuli from their environment. They may by hypersensitive, under-sensitive or a mix of both to sensory stimuli such as sound and touch. A therapist (or parent/teacher) who is not considerate towards these differences could alienate the child much before the therapy starts to progress.

Joining the child’s world

The first step of a Floortime therapy session, which usually lasts for 20 minutes or more and can be conducted by a parent, teacher or a professional therapist, is an attempt to join the child’s world by following their lead.

If a child is wandering and jumping around the room, you may start doing the same. If a child is moving their truck around on the floor, you could make a tunnel with your hands through which they could drive the truck.

Respecting a child’s interests establishes a sense of warmth and intimacy between the caregiver and the child. This is essential for making the second step of a Floortime therapy session possible.

Gently pulling the child into a shared world and helping them develop essential functional emotional developmental capacities

The second step of Floortime therapy involves playfully challenging the child to master essential functional emotional developmental capacities that include the successive abilities to:

Attend to the environment while remaining calm and organized
Relate to others
Engage in purposeful, two-way communication
Engage in complex communication
Form ideas
Stringing ideas and emotions together to form a more complex chain

Developing these capabilities require parents, teachers and therapists to attempt to engage the child’s senses and motor skills in order to pull the child into a shared world that challenges them to hone their ability to relate, communicate and think.

This can be done through an unlimited means of creative and innovative activities that should be based on the child’s current abilities and their sensory processing differences. For example, with a child who’s hypersensitive to stimuli such as touch and sound, you’d have to be soothing yet compelling in your interactions. For a child who is under-sensitive to such stimuli, it would be effective to be energetic and stimulating so that the child wants to pay attention and engage in an interaction.

The Floortime therapy model should not be restricted to isolated therapy sessions. Rather, it should be applied throughout the course of the day. The aim of all or as many interactions as possible during the day should be to join in the child’s world and challenge them to build their ability to relate, communicate and think.

Rebecca School in New York is a therapeutic day school for children with autism spectrum disorders or other developmental disorders. The school programs are established upon the ideologies of the DIR model/Floortime therapy. To know more about Rebecca School, you may visit: http://www.rebeccaschool.org/

A prominent sign of a child who may be suffering from autism or another type of disorder of communicating and relating is their inability to hold a conversation like a neurotypical person can.

Special education schools have teachers and certified specialists who understand the special needs of these children and what is going on in their heads as they engage with the world.

The reason why an autistic child communicates differently than a neurotypical one lies in their preferred mode of communication. For the purpose of this blog we will focus on the two main styles of communication which are common with children who suffer from autism.

Instrumental communication

Instrumental communication is communication that you carry out with a definite right/wrong or yes/no response in mind.

It is communication that is instrumental in provoking a predictable or desired response.

For example, the question, "When will we reach school?" is an example of instrumental communication.

Experience-sharing communication

Experience-sharing communication is communication that is held to not achieve any desired objective but to simply derive from the pleasure of engaging in sharing experiences with another individual or a group of individuals.

For example, "Hey, it's cold today" or "I really feel that that political party should not have won" are statements that express a specific mental state.

Experience-sharing communication is the act of sharing information about subjective experiences.

Children with autism and similar disorders may not speak much unless prompted. This may be because they cannot imagine another person as having certain thoughts, state of mind, beliefs, opinions or intentions.

To them, their sole reference point may be their own mind.

What to do when dealing with children with disorders of communicating and relating?

Special education schools that cater to children with special needs understand the keys to eliciting conversation from these kids.

There are several such schools in NYC whose teachers and administrative staff excel in knowing how to communicate to a child who has trouble communicating and relating.

Being a teacher or a parent, the following guidelines can serve you well when talking to a child facing social challenges:

• Do not keep asking questions.
Questions put undue pressure on the child to come up with the 'right response'.

• Model 'experience-sharing communication' by sharing your experiences with the child, instead of bombarding them with questions in an attempt to coerce conversation.

• Talk about what's happening in the present moment, preferably with the child.

Say things like, "That painting on the wall seems to be interesting" or "The song that you are humming has some really high notes."

When you point to what the child is experiencing, you create a 'shared experience' and increase his ability to relate.

Children with autism cannot make out other people's state of mind.

Share what you know or don't know and pause, in order to elicit a reaction.

There are several schools in NYC that cater to children with special needs. In order to know about them or for more information on how they deal with children who require special education programs, you can visit: www.rebeccaschool.org

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