Emotional Regulation and Social Thinking - Part Three 

Emotional regulation is defined as the ability to control and modify emotions across time.  A child that is unable to regulate his emotions may miss opportunities to share with his peers. Continued missed opportunities for a child who experiences difficulty regulating his response may impact many areas of needed growth - communication development, motor development, friendships and more.   

There is a developmental path for strategies employed by children to achieve emotional regulation as they interact with others and their environment.  The first level, employed by typically developing infants and toddlers, includes behavioral strategies. Children use these as they become socially engaged with their caregivers and generally are simple motor or sensory-motor actions. A child might vocalize or engage in repetitive movements as a behavior to aid him in experiencing optimal levels of arousal or comfort, shifting attention from something that has been dysregulating to an organizing action. The second level of strategies are more complex and occurs as the child transitions to using language with his partners, such as stating “okay” when he falls down as a message to himself that there is no need for dysregulation.  The final level of strategies for emotional regulation is metacognitive strategies and is the most sophisticated of all three. Metacognition means being able to think about your own thoughts.  At this level a child can reflect on his emotional experiences and communicate his responses to partners. A child using metacognitive strategies is typically conversational and can internalize a dialogue and take the perspectives of others who are sharing their experiences.

It is so important to consider a child’s current developmental levels when guiding him to regulate his emotions. It is not reasonable to expect a child who is not yet verbal to internalize his emotions or provide labels for his emotional experiences. Instead, it might be best to help him share in sensory motor or regulatory patterns of movements to achieve regulation. Additionally, helping a child transition to more appropriate strategies ensures his continued development. For example, as a child acquires single words or manual signs, modeling an expression of “mad”, either spoken or signed, when he screams begins to help him develop more sophisticated responses. As you parent or teach, consider how you are modeling emotional regulation strategies for your child that helps him maximize his current developmental abilities while stretching to the next level.  Remembering these developmental strategies during periods of your child’s emotional dysregulation will assist you in remaining regulated and being a purposeful guide.  

Be sure to check back for the conclusion to our series on Emotional Regulation.   

·         Compiled from readings in The SCERTS Model: A Comprehensive Educational Approach for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2006, Barry Prizant, Amy Wetherby, Emily Rubin, Amy Laurent and Patrick Rydell.

Emotional regulation, that is, a child’s ability to control and modify emotions across time helps the child to acquire meaningful social relationships.  A child that is unable to regulate their emotions to an appropriate level for the context may miss opportunities to share with their peers or be shunned by friends. Continued missed opportunities for children who experience difficulty regulating their responses may impact many areas of needed growth - communication development, motor development, friendships and more.  Understanding the dimensions of emotional regulation may help professionals and parents problem solve those areas of greatest need for these children. Additionally, the multidimensional nature of emotional regulation may require a multidimensional response from caregivers and professionals.

Emotional regulation consists of five dimensions. The first, cognitive appraisal allows the child to reflect on his own emotional experience, as well as, the ability to read the emotional reactions of others. In other words, the child is noticing how everyone is experiencing the event.  Using these abilities, the child is able to determine an appropriate course of action based on their judgments and predictions about the event.

The arousal state or physiological regulation to the emotional experience is also a critical dimension of emotional regulation. Responses in the brain and the body work together to impact the intensity and type of responses the child has to the event(s). 

The third dimension of emotional regulation communicates the reaction verbally and non-verbally between partners. This dimension is referred to as emotional expression and can range from facial expressions, giggles and crying, to changes in muscle tone and flushing of the skin. Emotional expression can be the result of both involuntary responses and intentional actions.

When a child demonstrates an emotional response to an event and monitors and adjusts for its social acceptableness they are demonstrating what is called socialization. This aspect of emotion regulation is highly impacted by cultural experience and standards. Parents and familiar partners provide much of the early feedback for the child as they learn what emotional responses are appropriate in their particular environment.

The final dimension is the child’s ability to regulate emotional and mood states. This includes recovery from extreme emotional reactions and adjusting or modifying one’s internal reaction to the events of the external world.

Considering all the dimensions of emotional regulation will aid parents in developing strategies to assist the child in achieving optimal emotional regulation. 

Our series on emotional regulation continues on our blog in the coming weeks. Please be sure to check back for the next installment in this multipart series.

·         Compiled from readings in The SCERTS Model: A Comprehensive Educational Approach for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2006, Barry Prizant, Amy Wetherby, Emily Rubin, Amy Laurent and Patrick Rydell.

Janice P. Guice, MA, CCC-SLP

RDI® Program Certified Consultant

What are your interests? Were you born with that interest or would it be more appropriate to ask where and when the seed of that interest was planted and by whom? I ask because I often meet with parents working to engage their children with special needs more fully.  They repeatedly tell me, “He is really not interested in anything” or “The problem we have is he is not interested in doing anything with us.” In their answers I can hear their frustration, disappointment and their uncertainty that there is any hope for richer participation.

Although I understand their concerns, I have to respectfully disagree.  Children, regardless of disability, have the capacity to develop new interests.  Dictionary.com defines interest as those times when something causes our “attention, concern, or curiosity” to be “particularly engaged.”  As I think about my interests today, in every case, I owe the seeds of those interests to more experienced adults in my life. I doubt I ever begged my mother to learn to sew, given that she had done it masterfully for me for years. But, at some point she invited me to join in her interest and slowly watered the seeds she planted for me. Gradually my interests grew. I made mistakes and gave up and every time she invited me back again. She never forced me to do it. She introduced new steps slowly at a pace that I could be successful at. She gave me space, but was never far away. Before long a love of sewing became my own.

Another vivid example in my life is that of my oldest son, who enjoys a wonderful career in the music industry. He is often described as passionate about what he does.  It can be traced back to an interest sparked by an adult in our church during my son’s elementary school years. This special adult invited our son to explore the career he loved, sound production. It was something my son did not know would be a lifelong interest. It took time. The opportunity to explore was offered purposefully, but without pressure or condition. Interest was nurtured. It was allowed to take root over time. It was offered on many occasions and in many contexts. It did not merely reside in my son, waiting for him to come of age. It was offered to him by someone willing to do the hard work of engaging a child in something new and unfamiliar.

As the most important guides for our children, we must accept the significant and sometimes costly responsibility of inviting children to explore.  It will cost us our most precious commodity- time.  Sometimes our offers will be declined or merely tolerated. Some seeds may not grow at all, but just as the gardener does not abandon the garden because every seed does not take hold of the earth and grow to bear fruit, we cannot give up in guiding our children to explore, to notice, to experiment in new arenas. As guides we must help our children direct their attention, concern and curiosity to a variety of topics and experiences.  Let’s give up saying “He is not interested in that,” and discover the joy of watching some of those seeds grow into lifelong interests.   

No matter what holidays you may be celebrating in the coming weeks, it will provide many wonderful memories for your family.  But, we all know that the holiday season can bring stress, lack of sleep and days that are not long enough to meet everyone’s needs. 

This will be my seventh holiday season since starting RDI®  and I want to offer a few suggestions that will help everyone stay on track as a mindful guide despite the demands inherent in the weeks ahead. 

Below are some of the most common challenges of the holiday season and tips to help you to manage outside noise and to stay focused throughout this busy time. 

Managing School

• Speak specifically with the teacher about controlling food and upcoming schedule changes so that you can help to prepare your child.
• Talk aobut the holiday and reinforce learning about the traditions.
• Ask the school not to allow the computer to be used as an alternative when your child can not attend special events.
• Consider keeping the child home on days that will be particularly hectic.

Managing Distractions and Triggers

• Limit gifts or spread them out over time.
• Consider developmental needs for gifts and not the gifts from the marketing blitz. 
• Tell family/friends what type of toys are best (avoid electronics and batteries.)
• Focus on giving to others.
• Practice the fun of giving- talk about it.

Managing Biology- Sleep, Eating and Stress Reduction

• Maintain your regular schedule (or get a regular schedule going.)
• Avoid over-scheduling.
• Take time for yoursel- even if it is a break at home.
• Take some “couple time.” 
• Avoid sweets.
• When schedules are interrupted, return to the routine immediately.

Managing Visitors

• Prepare children for greetings- give them a role (put coats away, etc.)
• Talk to and prepare young children for visitors they may not know as well - use pictures if you can.
• Maintain your schedule while visitors are staying in your home.
• Educate visitors- especially about communication.
• Make a plan for handling meltdowns- have an escape route and maybe even an escape manager- so when they do meltdown, you can resolve it sooner. 

We hope that these reminders will help you start your holiday preparations with your child’s needs in mind.  Stay tuned for the second part of our series, when we will list specific holiday tasks and how to incorporate RDI® therapy into these tasks.  Please let us know how we can help you during these busy days ahead. 

Janice P. Guice, M.A., C.C.C.-S.L.P

RDI® Program Certified Consultant

jpguice@essential-communication.com

I recently attended a two day conference on The SCERTS Model presented by Barry Prizant and Amy Laurent. SCERTS is a family centered autism treatment, with a strong developmental emphasis in communication and emotional regulation that I have long respected. The conference offered great insights, practical information and strong foundations in best practice. When I attend a conference, like most, I will feverishly supplement the presenter’s handouts with important information I am hearing or seeing during the lecture. But I also make a separate bulleted list of details that I want to come back to when I return back to work or that stand out to me for some special reason.   I thought I might share a few of those with you for the next few posts of Handle with Care.

As Dr. Prizant talked about a preschool program where he had consulted, he shared that instead of calling their classroom assistants paraprofessionals or instructional assistants or parapros or teacher’s aides or extenders this program called them Independence Facilitators or IFs. I smiled when I heard it. It was the perfect blend of practicality and hope.  What are we doing if we are not working to help all the children in our life grow towards greater and greater independence?  My husband and I frequently told our sons they were ‘adults in training’ and we were responsible for helping them arrive at the status of being an ‘adult’. I wish I could say that I was always mindful of that very, very important role as I guided them.  Did I do too much? Did I rob them of growth because it was easier or faster to do it myself? Did I miss moments where their confidence and competence could have been boosted by taking time to facilitate instead of lecture or allow my lack of impatience to show through? ABSOLUTELY!  What a help it would have been to me to think of my job title as their mother as an Independence Facilitator or an IF.

Being an IF also seems to suggest that you can see the possibilities and all the best what-IFs for your child today and tomorrow. You choose to dream all the dreams that can yet come true and you see your child’s sippy cup or milk glass as half-full on even the most challenging of days.   Day in and day out there is a consistent effort to point the child down the path of growth and opportunity, not just the easy or the familiar.

WOW!  I want to be an IF, an Independence Facilitator! IF? DEFINITELY! Do you see your role for the children in your life, be they your students, grandchildren or your own treasured children, as an Independence Facilitator? Imagine if you become an IF!

I want to share another highlight of the Training Institute on Autism at Florida State University sponsored by the FSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD).  For one full day Michael McSheehan, Clinical Assistant Professor of the University of New Hampshire spoke about Inclusive Education. His ideas and plans for executing them far exceeded the typical ’inclusion’ picture being played out in many schools across our country. So often inclusion is the opportunity for a child with special needs to coexist in the same classroom with typically developing peers while receiving different and one on one instruction from a paraprofessional in one corner of the room. As a professional we have all seen the classrooms where the presence of that child is completely ignored by his peers and everyone is careful to not look his or her way. 

From his research and his upcoming book, Michael McSheehan shared a completely different picture of inclusion for special needs children of all levels.  Mr. McSheehan’s starting point is the guiding principle of the “least dangerous assumption,” a concept introduced by Anne Donnellan in 1984 as it relates to individuals with disabilities.  She states ” in the absence of conclusive data, educational decisions ought to be based on assumptions, which, if incorrect, will have the least dangerous effect on the likelihood that students will be able to function independently as adults”. She adds “we should assume that poor performance is due to instructional inadequacy rather than to student deficits.”  From that cornerstone, Michael McSheehan provided tools to evaluate and implement routines that would help the student gain membership, participation and finally learning in a general education classroom. His case studies were fascinating and gripping.  I could go on and on. But I endeavored to provide this information so that you would be persuaded to read his book that will be coming out in the next few weeks. Let me assure you that I have not relationship to Mr. McSheehan or any of the authors and I have no financial benefit in sharing this book release. Nor have I read the book since it has not been made available yet. But if his book is true to the teaching I observed at conference  it will be well worth the read.  I so hope that as a community of people who care deeply about individuals with disabilities we can begin to write a new chapter in inclusive education.  Better yet that we can arrive at a place where no chapter on the subject is needed because every classroom is truly inclusive, regardless of the differences.

 http://www.brookespublishing.com/store/books/jorgensen-67175/index.htm. 

Enjoy the read!

Janice

I had the opportunity last week to attend the Training Institute on Autism at Florida State University sponsored by the FSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD). Over the course of the week there were a number of national experts on autism that spoke. In the weeks to come I thought I would share a number of impressions and ideas I discovered while I was there.

One of the speakers was Dr. Michael Siller of Hunter College, CUNY. He spoke about his research in the use of play for developing social reciprocity and language in children with autism. He talked about the importance of parents developing play routines with their children and providing that consistent opportunity to share, explore and communicate about the shared interaction. He even has parents schedule the time to play so that it is not set aside in our busy days. Many parents tell me that play is hard with their child because the child’s disability prevents them from providing a strong feedback loop as they play. A regularly scheduled routine to focus on just enjoying play would help to offset that feeling of why bother to play.

I have always taught families that the toy is the backdrop and the interaction is the important concept. Dr. Siller suggested having a special bag or box that in which you place special toys that you can share with your child at each playtime occasion. The bag or box becomes an anticipated signal of the fun that is to come. It was not surprising that he suggested to avoid toys with batteries or relying too much on cause and effect toys that might merely entertain the child and may take a more prominent place in the child’s attention than the interaction with you.

I was reminded that often with children with autism professionals and parents alike are so focused on ‘getting’ the child to say something or do something that aligns with therapeutic goals that we forgot to celebrate the fun of just playing and creating an environment that invites that rich sharing and removes demand.

I hope you will get in the floor and play with your child just for the fun of it for a brief time each day. Create a celebratory tone as you invite the child to join you and at first meet the child where they are and then gradually expand the play to new opportunities. Enjoy!

Janice

Hope is a belief that events will turn out for the best, that something currently unseen will become reality. Practicality describes processes that are adapted or designed for actual use, not resting only in the theoretical.   When first thinking about hope and practicality they seem to be in clear opposition of one another. But pause for a moment. When rethinking these two concepts they would be the perfect counter balance for one another. What value is hope if it resides only in the possible but not the likely or even the doable?  Furthermore, there is no value in practicality if it does not elevate its users to a new and more desirable place.  As we launch HANDLE WITH CARE, we want to invite you to join us as we explore ideas that will both encourage and equip. Our goal is to build up parents and set their sights on new places. Come along – you are welcome here.