| The "Greenspan" Floor Time Model |
10. The "Greenspan" Floortime Model
Tools for Early Identification and Intervention- 0-5 years
By James J. Messina, Ph.D
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8. Props Needed for Floor Time
Food:
plastic vegetables and fruits etc.
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plastic foods: chicken, hot dogs, eggs, bacon, french fries etc.
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plastic dishes, cups, forks, knives and spoons
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plastic or paper soup cans and boxes of foods
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plastic cooking utensils, pots, mixer, toaster etc.
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play kitchen with table and chairs
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Transportation:
minimum of 12 match box size cars, trucks etc
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tool kit to fix cars, e.g.: screwdriver, wrench, pliers, etc.
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garage
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road signs, play road
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road construction equipment
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other forms of public transportation: airplane, boat, bus, train
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Empathy and Nurturing of others:
minimum of two dolls, one boy and one girl
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minimum of two bottles
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plastic figures of a family whose sex and number of members matches the child=s family
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plastic figures of helpers in the community: doctor, nurse, fireman, construction person, police
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doctors kit to help dolls
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tool kit to fix objects owned by dolls
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doll house for plastic family
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blankets and clothes for dolls
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play bath equipment for dolls
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play crib or bed for dolls
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Fantasy Play:
plastic animals from the jungle, zoo, water and farm
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plastic dinosaurs
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Fisher Price or Play School: farm, pirate ship, airport, school, store etc.
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Communications:
set of two telephones
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chalk or white board on easel
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Reading:
books on a variety of topics which are age appropriate
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word signs around the room
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display of letters of alphabet and numbers 1 to 10 in room
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school desk for dolls or child to go to school
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Aggression Fantasy:
toy soldier set with military transportation (e.g.: tanks, helicopter, boat, and armored trucks) guns, tents, etc.
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cowboy and Indian set with horses, tents, wagons, guns, bows and arrows etc
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Construction Play:
wooden block set
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plastic block set
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tool kit for construction e.g.: saw, hammer, screwdriver etc.
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Lincoln log set
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construction equipment: truck, earth mover, etc.
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Art Play:
crayons and paper
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watercolor tempera paints, brush and paper
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finger paints and finger paint paper
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clay or Play Dough for sculpting
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Outdoor Play:
sand box, pails, shovels and other sand containers
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water play table
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gym set with slide, swings and ladder
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rubber football and/or baseballs to throw and catch
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rubber soccer ball and/or basketball to kick
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Constructive Obstruction Props:
soap bubbles to be blown on child while playing with other props to create need to be flexible and attend to distraction in a coping way
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balloon or light ball to bounce on the drama which is occurring to create crisis
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blanket to hide the desired objects under
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rubber bands, to fix or bind things together
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tape, to fix or bind things together
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bunch of nerf balls to throw to create obstacle which needs to be attended to
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Prop Storage: keep theme related props in "shoe box" size transparent plastic containers with covers so child can see inside and select theme to play with. This will make it easier to keep play room orderly and neat when floor time is ended. Enlist child to assist you in putting props in their respective containers.
9. Opening the Symbolic Door
get engaged at any level
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get intentional - build on any intent, problem solving, corner or undoing
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heighten affect - at every level, all emotions are equal
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10. Follow the Child's Lead
have symbolic toys available
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recognize and create opportunities
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cue or model symbolic actions
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be meaningful
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make it easy
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persist through - affect cues - affect pacing-wait/speed up
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personalize
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be a player - join in
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expand and keep going
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do not change the subject
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11. Creating and Expanding Ideas
treat object or action as an idea!
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you do not need permission to play
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do not "read" or just describe
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talk to child in role - as actor or with figure
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take on a role and talk through the role
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build on real experiences - bridge to what would happen next
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wait for child to make the next move - then give choices or model next step
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resist the temptation to take over
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"Appreciate" child's need for control
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try to build bridges between ideas
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give reasons for your or child's actions
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problem solve and assist in the finding of a solution
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make ideas more complex and more elaborate
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12. CONSTRUCTIVE OBSTRUCTION to Extend Problem Solving
The child will be surprised, amused or frustrated when faced with the changes and obstacles you create for them.
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Approach child with a supportive attitude, sharing surprise, Oh no what happened?, What's the matter?
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Help child solve the problem, but wait for child to recognize the problem first and then encourage the process.
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Stretch the problem as long as possible by playing dumb
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Offering wrong solutions so child can check out several alternatives
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Asking questions and opinions about what they want, etc.
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Remember: goal is not to frustrate child but to mobilize child's thinking and acting in face of something which matters personally to the child.
13. Opportunities for Doing Floor Time with Child
To assist child to solve problems and handle changes identify opportunities in the child's daily life which present a "stage" for problem solving and change accepting "dramas"
Brainstorm how you could utilize the following opportunities:
all thing you routinely do for child
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all the things child expects or waits for you to do
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all the things child already expects to do for self
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all the things child desires or expects to have or go to
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daily challenges
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14. Home Based Opportunities for Floor Time
dressing and undressing: giving child choices about what to wear or not or what to take off first, is following the child's lead.
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mealtime: chose one meal a time with enough time - talk may focus around food preparation, different foods being served, which foods are particularly enjoyable or any topic relating to the child's life.
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car time: engage child in a relaxed conversation in which child takes the lead, or sing-along for which child chooses songs
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coming and going time: plan to have at least a little time to get child settled on arrival to a classroom or in switching and transitioning from one activity to another by reading a short story, visit pet in classroom or at home, or look at special toy in classroom or at home. Show child support through your interest and warm clear good-bye if leaving in classroom. On picking child up from classroom give the child a chance to tell you something important about the day while you are still in the school setting.
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bath time: Bath toys are wonderful props as they float, get dunked, and come into contact with each other. The water is a great opportunity for play. The child will naturally relax in the water.
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book time: Read the book with the child on your lap or next to you on a chair or bed. As you read, be aware of responses and questions that you can extend. (If the child is totally absorbed, however, it is best to continue reading and simply enjoy the sense of shared interest)
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bedtime: Bedtime is often accompanied by a ritual, but is also a moment to feel close and loving. Children sometimes share important thoughts and feelings during the last moments before falling asleep. Although you will not want to rev-up the child up prior to sleeping, you can respond with empathy and stay close until the child is calm and feels safe enough to sleep.
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15. Turning Every Day Activity into Problem Solving for Child
chair not close to table, in the child's spot, when meal time arrives
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bottle not open when you are trying to pour juice
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bathtub empty of water when you tell child it is time to take a bath
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shoes hidden from usual resting place
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changing the shelf locations of favorite books, tapes etc.
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putting two socks on same foot
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putting shirt on feet
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give child adult shoes instead of their own
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use rubber band to hold together a spoon and fork when giving child tool for eating
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being sure cup is upside down when offering child a drink
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put markers in a new container which child has not yet learned to open
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mix puzzle pieces of two or three puzzles together
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16. Strategies for Engagement and Two-way Communication
Give child seemingly random actions new meanings by responding to them as if they were purposeful.
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Use sensory-motor play -- bouncing, tickling, swinging, and so on -- to elicit pleasure.
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Use sensory toys in cause-and-effect ways: hide a toy, then make it magically reappear; drop a belled toy so that child will hear the jingle; bring a tickle feather closer, closer, closer until finally you tickle child with it.
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Play infant games, such as peekaboo, I'm going to get you, and patty cake.
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Play verbal Ping Pong with child, responding to every sound or word the child makes and continue the ping pong match to expand the number of circles closed.
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Pursue pleasure over other behaviors and do not interrupt any pleasurable experience.
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Use gestures, tone of voice, and body language to accentuate the emotion in what you say and do.
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Try to be as accepting of child's anger and protests as you are of child's more positive emotions.
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Help child deal with anxiety (separation, getting hurt, aggression, loss, fear, and so on) by using gestures and problem solving.
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17. Strategies for Helping Child Build Symbolic World
Identify real-life experiences child knows and enjoys and have toys and props available to play out those experiences
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Encourage role playing with dress-up props, use puppets - child may prefer to be the actor before using symbolic figures
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Use specific set of figures/dolls to represent family members and identify other figures with familiar names
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Substitute one object for another when props are needed. Pretend that the ball is a cake or the spoon is a birthday candle.
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Resume use of gestures for props along with toy objects and substitutes
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Expand as long as you can. (Use all of the Who, What, Where, Why, When questions, and keep them open ended)
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Get involved in the drama.
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Be a player and take on a role with your figure.
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Talk directly to the dolls rather than questioning child about what is happening or narrating
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Both help the child and be your own player.
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Talk as an ally (perhaps whispering), but also have your figure oppose or challenge child's ideas.
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Insert obstacles into the play. (e.g.: make your bus block the road. Then speaking as a character, challenge child to respond. If necessary, get increasingly urgent (whispering to child to encourage to deal with the problem, offer help if needed by becoming an ally).
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Use symbolic figures child knows and loves, such as Barney, Disney or Sesame Street characters, to generate symbolic play. Reenact familiar scenes or songs, create new ideas, and notice characters and themes child may be avoiding or fear.
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Use play to help child understand and master ideas/themes which may have been frightening. Work on fantasy and reality.
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Let child be the director. Child's play need not be realistic (child may still be a magical thinker) but encourage logical thinking.
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Focus on process as you play; which character to be, what props are needed when ideas have changed, what the problem is, when to end the idea, etc. Identify the beginning, middle and end.
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As you play, match your tone of voice to the situation. Pretend to cry when character is hurt, cheer loudly when your character is happy, speak in rough or spooky tones when you are playing the bad guy. Remember, drama, drama, drama to give child affect cues.
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Reflect on the ideas and feelings in the story both while playing and later on as you would with other real life experiences
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Discuss child's abstract themes such as good guy/bad guy, separation/loss, and various emotions such as closeness, fear, jealousy, anger, bossy, competition, etc.
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Remember symbolic play and conversation is the safe way to practice, reenact, understand and master the full range of emotional ideas and experiences.
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18. Strategies to Develop Abstract Thinking
Follow child's lead, build on child's ideas
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Challenge child to create new ideas in pretend play
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Heighten affect and engagement
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Practice and expand rapid back and forth interactions and conversations (gesturally and verbally)
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Carry on logical conversations all the time (e.g.: while driving, at meals, during baths etc.) Content does not have to be realistic
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Recognize fears and avoidance of certain feelings, themes and characters.
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During play and conversations get beginning, middle and end of story or idea - identify problem to be solved, motives and feelings - accept all feelings and encourage empathy
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Select books to read that have themes, motives and problems to solve - discuss alternative outcomes, feelings
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Use visualization - picture yourself
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avoid rote, fragmented, academic questions
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Encourage role playing with dress-up props, use puppets - child may prefer to be the actor before the child uses symbolic figures.
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Use a specific set of figures/dolls to represent family members and identify other figures with familiar names.
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Get involved in the drama. Be a player and take on a role with your own figure. Talk directly to the dolls rather than questioning child about what is happening or narrating.
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19. Strategies to Develop Motor Planning Abilities
Provide destinations for actions - treat as intentional and symbolic
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child throws - catch it in basket
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child holds figure (little person, animal) -bring over toy slide, school bus, food (if child does not use spontaneously, ask if the figure would like to... give choices if needed...ask figure directly...try not to direct)
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child taps - bring over drums (can be plate, plastic toy, sticks etc)
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child rolls car - bring over garage, crash into it, block with figure
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child reaches for hand - play give me five, variations, dance
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Be playful and supportive as you encourage and expand these interaction
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Change environment frequently to encourage flexibility, create problems and expand discussion
move expected objects (change drawer content, change content in baskets)
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rearrange furniture and create problems (child find chair upside down, or is told to sit down when chair is across the room)
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hang up pictures from magazines at eye level and change frequently
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Play interactive song-hand games
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Itsy bitsy spider
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one potato two potato
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slap my hand
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sailor went to sea, sea, sea etc.
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Play Treasure Hunt and use maps (use visual and verbal cues)
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social playground/party games
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board games (cognitively challenging)
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cooking
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drama
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arts and craft activities
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Encourage athletic activities
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individual sports e.g. tennis, roller skating, shooting baskets, ice skating etc
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group sports e.g. soccer, baseball, basketball etc
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gymnastics
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Tae Kwon Do
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20. Strategies to Address Processing Difficulties
Child's Actions
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Adult's Solutions
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Avoids, moves away
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Persist in your pursuit
Treat as intentional
Provide visual cues
Playfully obstruct
Attract with "magic"
Insist on a response
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Stays stuck, does not know what to do next
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Provide destination
Return object of interest
Use object in some way
Expand, expand
Give new meanings
Use ritualized cues to start ("ready, set, go")
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Uses scripts
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Join in
Offer alternative scripts
Change direction of script
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Perseverates
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Ask for turn, join, imitate, help
Make interactive
Ask "how many" more times
Set up "special" time
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Protests
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Act sorry, play dumb, restore, blame figure
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Rejects, refuses
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Provide more things to say "no" to
Expand, give other choices or time
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Says something unrelated
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Insist on a response
Notice change or bring closure
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Becomes anxious or fearful
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Reassure
Problem solve
Use symbolic solutions
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Acts out, pushes, hits
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Provide affective cue ("Uh, uh, uh"; "No, no, no") to encourage self-regulation
Set limits.
Reward for absence of negative behaviors
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21. Developmental Stages of Greenspan's Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS)
Regulation and Interest in the World (by 3 months)
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Forming Relationships and Attachments (by 5 months)
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Intentional Two-Way Communication (by 9 months)
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Complex sense of Self I: Behavioral Organization (by 13 months)
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Complex sense of Self II: Behavioral Elaboration (by 18 months)
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Emotional Ideas I: Representational Capacity (by 24 months)
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Emotional Ideas II: Representational Elaboration (by 30 months)
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Emotional Thinking I: (by 36 months)
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Emotional Thinking II: (by 42-48 months)
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22. Structural and Thematic Characteristics of Greenspan's FEAS Developmental Stages
Stages of Development
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Organizing Fantasies and Themes
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Regulation and Interest in the World
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Omnipotent control; being overwhelmed; falling apart
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Engagement and Relating
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Isolation; emptiness; inanimate objects; unconditional love
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Intentional Communication
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Part object pleasures or fears; chaotic, fragmented interactions
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Complex sense of self
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Narcissistic self-absorption; grandiosity; suspiciousness; somatization; global self deprecation
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Emotional Ideas
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Neediness, being taken care of and/or fear of separation and/or danger
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Emotional Thinking
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Power; being admired; respected; shame; humiliation; loss of love; injury or harm to self or others
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23. Greenspan's FEAS Levels of Functioning and Corresponding Floor Time Strategy
Developmental Level
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Child's Skills Needed
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Floor Time Strategy
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Regulation and Interest in the World
(by 3 months)
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Sense of protection, care and encouraged engagement in world
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Provide one on one ping ponging and cuddling to set a pattern that is predictable and comforting
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Forming Relationships and attachment
(by 5 months)
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Rich investment in human world; woos and is wooed
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Provide secure relationship which evolves into an attachment that survives negative feelings
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Intentional Two-Way Communication
(by 9 months)
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Reads and responds contingently to range of affective and behavioral cues
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Provide experiences which help develop capacity to facilitate empathic reading of the "other"
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Complex Sense of Self:
Behavioral Organization & Behavioral Elaboration
(9-18 months)
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Secure availability to others while admiring and supporting greater behavioral organization, initiative and originality
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Provide experiences which encourage self-observing capacity and permits integration of affective opposites around dependency, aggression, passivity and assertiveness.
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Emotional Ideas:
Representational capacity and elaboration
(18-30 months)
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Using evolving, representational (symbolic) capacities across a wide thematic and affective range
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Provide experiences which work at the use and elaboration of fantasy and pretend play
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Emotional Thinking:
Representation, Differentiation and Consolidation
(24-48 months)
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Using of representational capacity and reality orientation
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Provide experiences to shift between fantasy and reality and integrate wide range of affective and thematic issues
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24. READING LIST on Floor Time
Greenspan's Floor Time Related Books:
THE CHILD WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: ENCOURAGING INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL GROWTH. Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D. and Serena Wieder, Ph.D., Addison Wesley: (1998, Reading, MA). The most recent, comprehensive, and parent oriented discussion of the use of floor time with children with special needs.
INFANCY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD - THE PRACTICE OF CLINICAL ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION WITH EMOTIONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL CHALLENGES, Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., International Universities Press, Inc.(1997, 3rd Printing Madison, WI). The comprehensive coverage of the whole range of Behavioral, Sensory Spectrum Disorders which is addressed to clinicians. The FEAS scales used in this program were developed from material contained in this book.
Other books by Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D.:
THE CHALLENGING CHILD - UNDERSTANDING, RAISING, AND ENJOYING THE FIVE "DIFFICULT" TYPES OF CHILDREN. Addison Wesley (1995, Reading, MA).
THE CLINICAL INTERVIEW OF THE CHILD. Co-authored with: Nancy Thorndike Greenspan, American Psychiatric Press, Inc. (1991, Washington).
DEVELOPMENTALLY BASED PSYCHOTHERAPY. International Universities Press, Inc. (1997, Madison, WI)
FIRST FEELINGS - MILESTONES IN THE EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR BABY AND CHILD. Co-authored with Nancy Thorndike Greenspan, Penguin Books, (1985, NY).
THE GROWTH OF THE MIND - AND THE ENDANGERED ORIGINS Of INTELLIGENCE. Addison Wesley (1997, Reading, MA).
Floor time film with Greenspan:
FLOOR TIME - TUNING IN TO EACH CHILD. Scholastic Inc, NY, 1990. Contact at Toll Free Number: 1.800.325.6149
If you want to get copies of the above material please contact Dr. Stanley Greenspan through www.stanleygreenspan.com .
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