Socialization with Children with Special Needs

Socialization Emerging through the Functional Emotional Developmental

Milestones

Children with Developmental Delays Can Develop:

Empathy

The ability to read emotional signals

The ability to negotiate with peers

Typical Social Development

• The emotion selects the behavior

Build foundations from the bottom upCreate heightened states of emotionality

to help the child use and connect emotions to his behavior

Ex: big smile gives a word like “hi” real warmth and meaning

Building social skills within each stage of development

Regulation and Shared Attention

Engagement

Basic Communication

Continuous Flow and Shared Problem Solving

Using ideas creatively and spontaneously

Using ideas logically

Higher levels of thinking

Regulation and Attention

Child must be able to see the world, faces, expressions, behaviors, etc.

This requires being calm, regulated, attentive, focused and having an awareness of physical sensations.

Social Example: Child must be able to stay calm and balanced when there are other children running around them. They also need to be aware of their surroundings and not be completely self-absorbed

Engagement

Must be comfortable with other human beingsWarm, trusting, and engagingFloortime play develops pleasurable

interactions

Social Example: Child must feel secure and confident when in room with other children. Cannot force them be with other children if they are anxious or scared.

Basic Two-Way Interaction

Purposeful communication

Chains of interactionExchanging gestures and sounds

Social Example: Verbalizing or gesturing to a child that they would like to play with their toy.

Shared Problem-solving

Beginning Complex social negotiationCreate interactions that mediate between what

the child wants to do and the satisfaction of his goal.

Focus on nonverbal cues as well as languageMastery of social interactions depends on a

subtle reading of emotional cues and signals.

Social Example: Interacting with another child around a hide and go seek activity that involves 20 or more circles of communication.

Using ideas creatively and spontaneously

Look for spontaneous language rather than scripted/learned ideas

Set up emotionally stimulating pretend and realistic scenarios to use as vehicles for expressive language

Encourage them to talk about their feelings resulting from social interactions

Social Example: Child has a nice interaction with his group of friends by asking them what type of pretend food they would like and making it for them.

Using ideas logically

Connecting ideas togetherAnswering all “w” questionsEx: “Let’s play basketball instead of

videogames, because I want to go outside”

Logical reasoningUnderstanding the rules to participate in

society

Social Example: Child has to follow the rules of a new game that his friend made when they are on the playground.

Organization and Techniques to Encourage Socialization

Social Interaction Fundamentals

Start with smaller groups (dyads) and move slowly to larger ones.

Create multiple environments, sensory and symbolic, to encourage different types of interactions.

Remember that child/adult play is different from child/child playOther children don’t always entice, initiate,

or counter-regulate

Group Organization

Make sure all children in the group are solid at the 4th milestone: Shared Social Problem Solving with a continuous flow.

Have children with complimentary sensory system. ie. an underreactive child and sensory seeking

child.

You can include children with similar and/or different developmental profiles. Optimally the children should balance each other

out with their profiles.

Techniques to Encourage Socialization

Allow children to create their own interactions or games, and follow their lead.

Facilitate maintained regulation, attention, and engagement.

Encourage sensory based games and semi-structured activities.Often we need to structure or introduce a

game to facilitate interest and attentionRemember the goal is to encourage the

interaction between the children, don’t do all the work for them. Encourage them to seek each others help or participation.

Techniques to Encourage Socialization

Use your affect to entice the children toward a common activity or each other.

Use your body to help a child carry out their social goali.e. playful obstruction

Ask questions to help the children maintain focus on each other and the activity.

ex. When a child wants to play a game, ask the child, “What do your friends think?” or “What do your friends want to play?”

Techniques to Encourage Socialization

Create physical problems that need to be solved with the help of many childrenEncourage a child to get a friend to help

them.

Ask questions that encourage the children to agree on different decisions before they get a need met.What should we do? Swing or bounce?

Techniques to Encourage Socialization

If children are having trouble initiating their own games or activities, or are getting disregulated, useSemi-structured gamesArt projectsMusicTo initially structure the expectations, and

allow them to expand creatively.

Facilitators must always…

Encourage interaction/communication between the children.Redirect children toward one another vs.

doing the floortime yourself

Counter-regulateKeep environment under control

PatienceLet the interaction develop naturally

The Floortime Center

Contact Information:

4827 Rugby Ave.

Bethesda, MD 20814

Email: info@dirss.com

Website: www.dirss.com

Phone: (301) 657-1130