Discussion: For a parent who suspect their child may be delayed, it’s hard to know how early to intervene. A child’s speed or level of development is not always easy to determine, but you don’t necessarily need to pinpoint it to improve it. Turn the observations that concern you into action.
Dr. Greenspan tells us, “If a child is not fully engaged or exchanging gestures, it shouldn’t be of concern to us if the child is autistic, or pre-autistic. It’s enough that the child is not mastering that healthy building block.”
The most important thing is to get that child back on a healthy developmental pathway. The absence of a developmental building block should be enough to cause us to work on it. We don’t want to ask ourselves, “Will the child catch up?” and then wait to see.
“We don’t do that with reading or math. We don’t say: let’s wait until the child is a teenager and see if he catches up with reading. We don’t do that with athletic skills either. Why wait and see for something as important as social and intellectual skills?” Dr. Greenspan astutely remarks.
Floortime encourages healthy development in all children. Doing Floortime when you have a concern can only help your child.
Learn more about Dr. Stanley Greenspan and the Greenspan Floortime approach. If you are new, we have a background and introduction to Greenspan Floortime including how it helps special needs children. We also have Greenspan Floortime training courses at Floortime U. specifically designed for parents and professionals including the Floortime Manual.