Davis floortime strategies menu.pdf

Core Methods A: Strategies to Promote Social-Emotional and Intellectual Development

A.1 Follow Cues

Provide sensitive interactions by following cues

A.2 Be Responsive

Always respond to all communication

A.3 Build Upward

Meet your child or teen at current developmental capacity

A.4 Use Play

Use play and playfulness as primary means to engage and teach

A.5 Use Natural Interests

Capitalize on natural interests to elicit higher skills

A.6 Use Problems

Set up situations that invite child-initiated solutions

A.7 Pretend Play

Create opportunities to use ideas in symbolic (pretend) play

A.8 Embrace Feelings

Help embrace a wide range of feelings

A.9 Enrich Ideas

Help enrich ideas or stories in play and conversation

A.10 Self-Reflect

Take a reflective stance toward yourself in interactions

Core Methods B: Understanding/Addressing Individual Differences in Processing Profiles

B.1 Child’s Profile

Identify and understand your child’s profile of strengths/weaknesses

B.2 Adult’s Profile

Consider your individual differences

B.3 Adapt Yourself

Adapt your interactive style to your child’s or teen’s unique profile

B.4 Calm or Energize

Provide motor or sensory inputs as needed to calm or energize

B.5 Home Design

Set up the home environment to accommodate the unique sensory profile

B.6 Sensory Connections

Provide daily sensory-motor relational experiences

B.7 Practice in Play

Provide daily planned play activities to address processing challenges

Capacity 1. Regulation and Attention: Attaining a Calm, Alert, Attentive State

1.1 Support Regulation

Help your child or teen get regulated before expecting more

1.2 Notice and Adjust

Notice and adjust your intensity to support an optimal arousal level

1.3 Calming Choices

Offer choices for help in calming down

1.4 Lengthen Attention

Attend to and join interests to expand focus and attention

1.5 Avoid Flooding

Support regulation at early stages of upset to avoid emotional “flooding”

1.6 Practice Modulation

Practice modulation regularly in fun, playful ways

Capacity 2. Social Engagement: Getting Involved and Connected

2.1 Joint Attention

Develop joint attention

2.2 Gaze Tracking

Attend to the pattern of gaze

2.3 Share Pleasure

Facilitate experiences of mutual joy

2.4 Mirror Emotions

Mirror child’s affect by matching facial expression, tone of voice, & tempo

2.5 Emphasize Affect

Exaggerate your expression of affect (feeling)

2.6 Interact

Turn every action into an interaction

2.7 Advance the Agenda

Promote the child’s or teen’s agenda

2.8 Be Necessary

Be the means to an end--be necessary

2.9 Use Anticipation

Use anticipation to increase the capacity for mutual attention

Capacity 3. Reciprocal Social Interaction: Initiating and Responding Purposefully

3.1 Invite Circles

Entice to initiate and respond

3.2 Total Communication

Do not rely on words alone—use the total communication system

3.3 Wait Enough

Wait long enough for responses in order to allow for slower auditory, cognitive, and motor processing speeds

3.4 Sportscaster/Narrator

Be the sportscaster/be the narrator

3.5 Playfully Persist

Challenge the child or teen to close follow-up circles

3.6 Easy Choices

Offer easy choices if needed

3.7 Communication Temptation

Play games requiring initiation

3.8 Consider Questions

Carefully craft your questions and statements

Capacity 4. Complex Communication: Using Gestures/Words to Solve Problems Together

4.1 Stretch Interactions

Stretch out interaction chains to 50 or more circles in a row

4.2 Don’t Judge

Express interest in all attempts to communicate

4.3 Feign Ignorance

Expand reciprocal communication by pretending to be ignorant

4.4 Assign Meaning

Treat all play actions as if they are goal directed

4.5 Playfully Obstruct

Playfully obstruct to expand interactions and joint problem solving

4.6 Devise Problems

Set up the environment to promote independent problem solving

4.7 Genuine Self

Allow more of your genuine self in interactions

4.8 Social Flow

Enhance understanding of emotional meaning and flow of social interactions

Capacity 5. Symbolic Play: Creating and Using Ideas

5.1 Use Pretend

Create opportunities for pretending

5.2 Animate

Bring the characters to life

5.3 Plot Thickening

Deepen the plot and add complexity

5.4 Instigate Creativity

Expand the opportunities for creativity at every opportunity

5.5 Vary Emotions

Broaden the emotional themes

5.6 Challenge and Support

Take on dual roles within play

5.7 Enrich Play

Vary the forms of symbolic play

Capacity 6. Emotional & Logical Thinking: Making Sense of Oneself, Others, the World

6A: Emotional Thinking

6.1 Narrate

Empathically narrate feeling states

6.2 Highlight Emotions

Emphasize the emotional aspects of life

6.3 Emotional Curiosity

Reflect on all feelings

6.4 Encourage Empathy

Help put on another’s shoes

6.5 Play Therapeutically

Use play to help master overwhelming feelings

6B: Logical Thinking

6.6 Build Bridges

Help build bridges between ideas

6.7 Elaborate

Ask elaboration questions to encourage logical connections

6.8 Incite Thinking

Help your child or teen think for him- or herself

6.9 Make Connections

Help child connect three or more ideas in a logical sequence

6.10 Event Planner

Sequence, plan, and communicate about the past and future

6.11 Organize and Summarize

Bring the child or teen back to the main idea

6.12 Debate

Use debate to challenge the child to connect ideas and develop logic

Capacities 7–9. Complex Thinking: Multicausal, Gray Area, and Reflective Thinking

7

Promote multicausal thinking

8

Develop gray-area thinking

9

Encourage reflective thinking

Reducing Problem Behaviors

X.1 More Floortime

Increase Floortime play proportional to increased expectations/challenges

X.2 Find Behavioral Clues

View behavior as a meaningful clue

X.3 Choose Behaviors

Choose and target the most important behaviors

X.4 Take Manageable Steps

Teach new behaviors in manageable steps

X.5 Make Modifications

Modify the environment & schedule to reduce problem behaviors

X.6 Notice and Mention

Notice and mention all the small steps in the right direction

X.7 Preview

Rehearse and preview expected behaviors and new situations

X.8 Post Rules

Agree on, post, and enforce written household rules

X.9 Provide Visuals

Provide visual reminders and visual schedules

X.10 Provide Support

Provide empathic responses to expressions of negative emotion

X.11 Grant Wishes

Grant a wish imaginatively