Developing the family-based Floor Time Therapy and evaluating its effectiveness on mental health of autistic children and their families

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with extreme difficulties in learning and participation in daily activities that develop grounds for many psychological pressures on kids and families. Due to the negative effects of the disorder on family system, in this study, we tried to develop a family-based floor time therapy and compare its effectiveness with floor-time play therapy. The research project was a single subject, which was implemented on twelve 3-8 years old children with ASD disorder and their families over 6 months. For assessing the effectiveness of the treatment, a researcher – built instrument of (DFFAQ) (DFFAQ), (FEAS), (FEDQ), (PSI) and (CARS) were used. The results showed that the improvement percentage of behavioral symptoms of children participating in family-based floor time therapy group as well as improving of parenting stress of their mothers, especially in subscales of attention deficit / hyperactivity, health, attachment and relationship with spouse were higher than 50% and clinically significant. Family functioning in the areas of engagement, disciplining and children s emotional - functional development at levels of self-regulation, engagement showed improvement more than 50%, which was clinically significant. The effect size of the family-based therapy was also estimated higher than0.80. In general, one can say that the family-based floor time therapy developed in this study can increase the effectiveness of floor time play therapy, and could be used as an effective therapeutic approach in the treatment of children disorders.

Keywords:

Floor time play therapy , Family-based therapy , Psychological health , Autism spectrum disorder