A Developmental Approach to Educating the Disturbed Young Child

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to working with emotionally disturbed and autistic young children which is based upon developmental constructs. The Developmental Therapy curriculum is described and evidence of progress is presented for 106 handicapped preschool children receiving Developmental Therapy. The Developmental Therapy curriculum includes a sequence of 146 developmental milestones which are clustered into stages reflecting social and emotional growth in children from approximately age two to twelve years. Within each stage of Developmental Therapy four curriculum areas are defined: Behavior, Communication, Socialization, and (Pre) Academics. They are derived from four processes of adjustment: doing, saying, caring, and thinking. By incorporating these processes into the four curriculum areas and by sequencing them into major emotional milestones, long range goals and short term objectives for social-emotional growth are established and incorporated into a child's individualized education program (IBP). To explore the hierarchical validity of the Developmental Therapy Objectives Rating Form (DTORF), the primary instrument used in Developmental Therapy to measure emotional growth, 87 children were evaluated over a nine month period. An analysis of the data indicated the a priori orderings of the objectives in each area were very close to those yielded by statistical analysis of the DTORF ratings of the subjects. In a preliminary study of agreement between raters using the DTORF an overall 68 percent agreement was obtained. Subsequently, in four separate locations, DTORF data were collected on a total of 106 severely emotionally disturbed, autistic, or mixed handicapped young children. The results in one school year indicate progress in each area of Developmental Therapy and reflect a hierarchical integration across stages.