Types of Therapy

Every day you will be able to incorporate different types of therapy into your activities. It is important that you research each therapy in a greater way than this overview. The more you understand about the concepts the more natural they will come when it is time to apply them. Please remember that we are only scratching the surface, there are a lot more therapies out there. Your therapist and psychologist can play a great role in helping you find the therapies that best fit your child.

ABA Applied Behavior Analysis

This therapy breaks down task into parts and then you teach the parts. They start with the basics of eye contact, sitting in a chair and move through imaginative play. There are numerous books on ABA. You can find some listed through this website.

Floortime

This is a child lead approach that emphasizes joint attention and imaginative play. Floor time has 6 basic steps that you follow. They recommend 20 to 30 minute sessions a few times a day. This program focuses on building the child skills through joint activities.

RDI Relationship Development Intervention

During this therapy the emphasis is placed on the relationship with the child, not necessarily focusing on the academics but looking for the emotional recognition and attachment. This is a parent lead approach.

Daily Life Therapy

There are 2 schools (one in Massachusetts and one in Japan). Their philosophy stresses the importance of  physical exercise that through physical exercise the children will be more confident, and more self sufficient. They all believe in full inclusion and teaching on grade level.

Music Therapy

Through this approach the therapist focuses on speech development. They will play a rhythm and the child will start by filling in the blank. For example, "My name is _____". This would be set to music and then the child would start by saying the last word and then expanding by continuing to say more of the phrase.

Video Modeling Therapy

This is where you write scripts, the video is suppose to last any where from 30 to 60 seconds. The child watches it 3 times and then the child is asked to perform the task they just watched. You can teach imitation, saying your name, address, colors, shapes, etc.

Remember this is just an overview of different types of therapy. There are a great number of therapies out there. You can order books from this website to help you on your journey.

Supplemental Therapies (again this is not all of the supplemental therapies, but here are 3 of the most popular)

Sign Language, there are a lot of great sign language DVD's and books out there to learn from. This can be a great way to show some children with autism that words have meanings.

Sensory Integration Therapy, there are excellent books that teach what SI (sensory integration) is and different things that you can do at home to help some of the sensory problems.

PECS Picture Exchange Program, this is a program where the child gives you a picture for something that they want. For example, juice, food, toys, break, and the options are endless. They serve well for creating a visual schedule and preparing the child for a trip to a place that they have never been.