Indian Journal of Health Social Work
Effectiveness of Floor-time therapy in comparison to Floor Time
Therapy Adjunct to Music Therapy in the Children with Autism
Spectrum Disorder
Manasi Rani Panda1 , S. Haque Nizamie2, Narendra Kumar Singh3
1Psychiatric Social Worker, Department of Psychiatric Social Work, S.C.B. Medical College, Cuttack, Odisha, 2Ex -Professor of Psychiatry, Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke, Ranchi, Jharkhand, 3Psychiatric Social Worker, Department of Psychiatric Social Work, Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
Correspondence: Manasi Rani Panda, e-mail id: pandamanasi1@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Background: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a group of neurological disorders characterized by impaired social communication and interaction as well as the presence of stereotyped behaviours and interest. The Floortime Therapy (FT) has been evolved around the principles of DIR (Developmental, Individual-differences, Relationship-based model) i.e. an intervention that is used to promote an individual’s development through a respectful, playful, joyful, and engaging process and music has also been studied to be an adjunctive therapy in numerous psychological problems and combined use of music and FT would fetch better results for children with ASD. There is paucity of studies on the impact of combined therapy in children and adolescents with ASD. Aim: The present study intended to see the effective comparison between FT and FT adjunct to Music Therapy in ASD. Method: Ten children diagnosed with ASD, as per ICD-10 DCR criteria were selected in the study through purposive sampling method and allocation of treatment was done. Those two groups of children were appropriately matched as per their age and clinical condition. Measures like ‘Socio-demographic and Clinical Data Sheet’, ‘Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS)’ & ‘Indian Scale for Assessment of Autism (ISAA) were used for data collection. Results: There was significant change in the scores of CARS and ISAA, over treatment from baseline to middle, baseline to post and middle to post in both groups i.e. FT and FT adjunct to Music Therapy. Conclusion: Adjunctive use of Music Therapy with DIR Model (e.g. FT) can hasten the improvement process in ASD as compared to single use of Floor-time therapy.
Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder, floortime therapy (FT), music therapy.
