DIR/Floortime Ò Model for School Children with Language impairment: Training for Parents, Primary Caregivers and Teachers

Abstract

The DIR/Floortime Òmodel is a holistic framework developed to promote social-emotionaland intellectual development in children with developmental disabilities. This quasi-experimental study with a one-group pre-test/post-test design was conducted to examine theeffects of DIR/Floortime Ò intervention on the improvement of language abilities and thefunctional emotional development of 22 school children with impaired language ability,aged 6-7 years, at a public elementary school in a central province of Thailand. The intervention focused on training 15 parents, 7 primary caregivers and 8 teachers through aprocess of modelling, coaching and feedback. The intervention included group and individual sessions conducted over a three-month period. After implementing the intervention, thesemantic development scores and proportion of children with normal Functional EmotionalAssessment milestone increased significantly. The number of children at narrative development Stage 4: abbreviated episode (can describe character, setting, a kick-off event anda list of actions and a conclusion to the story/direct consequence of events) was also markedly increased. This study provides supporting evidence that training using DIR/Floortime Òapproach will help parents, primary caregivers and teachers create emotionally meaningfullearning that promotes the functional emotional development and language abilities ofchildren with impaired language ability, both at home and at school.