The "Incredible 5 Point Scale" was created in 2003 by Kari Dunn Buron and Mitzi Curtis. Kari taught in the K-12 Minnesota public school system with students on the autism spectrum for 30+ years and was a founding member of the MN Autism Project. 

The 5 Point Scale is basically a thermometer — it's a simple, flexible tool for communicating how intense/strong something is. You can make a 5 point scale for voice tone, the size of a problem, degrees of embarrassment and shame, etc. etc.

Pictured below — An overlay of example 5 Point Scales on top of the Mood Meter:

The 5 Point Scale works perfectly in tandem with the Mood Meter. You can essentially grab a slice of the Mood Meter and make a thermometer out of it using the 5 Point Scale. For example, this lanyard badge slices out a chunk of the Mood Meter from 🟢 calm-to-🟠 frustrated-to-🔴 enraged.

Who made each and why:

While they both use the same colors, Mood Meter and Zones are very different. 

• The Mood Meter was created by Dr. Marc Brackett and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI), beginning in 2005. It's part of Yale's RULER program and was designed to maximize EQ for everyone — all students (PreK-12), and adults as well.

• The Zones of Regulation was developed by Occupational Therapist Leah Kuypers, originally published in 2011, and designed to support individuals with neurobiological disorders (e.g., ASD, ADHD).

What Zones does:

Zones is a simple 4-point scale of energy/alertness, from blue (lowest energy) to red (highest energy). Unlike Mood Meter, it doesn't matter how pleasant the emotions feel — so, for example, "elated" and "terrified" are both in the "red zone" because they are both high-energy emotions.

Distinguishing Yale's Mood Meter from Zones:

1. Mood Meter is a complete map of human feeling, much more than a thermometer... Because Zones is a 4-degree energy thermometer, you can sort hundreds of emotions into those four buckets, but there are still only 4 points of meaning and only 2 directions you can go, up or down. In contrast, every single spot on the Mood Meter has special meaning, and your mood can walk across that map in any direction. Whether you're using a Mood Meter with 4 feelings on it or 140, the position of each mood tells you the amount of energy behind it and also how good it feels.

2. ...but, Mood Meter can also be that thermometer. In the midst of a high-intensity behavioral outburst that you're trying to de-escalate, a "simple thermometer" sounds pretty darn good. Mood Meter is comprehensive, but it's also easy to grab a slice of the Mood Meter and make a simple, complementary 3-point or 5-point scale that aligns to Mood Meter colors (ex. 🟢 calm-to-🟠 frustrated-to-🔴 enraged).

3. Mood Meter was designed, from the ground up, to build EQ in all students. Mood Meter was created to enrich Tier 1 instruction and supports (including for students with disabilities). Yale knew that teachers would need Mood Meter to be useful during academic discussions, to help build students' emotional vocabulary, etc. Students can tell a lot about what a word means just by where it sits on the Mood Meter, and that's just not the same when "elated" and "terrified" are both in the same Zone.

Pictured below — A crosswalk of Mood Meter (left) and Zones (right):

NOTES: (A) This example Mood Meter is intended for high schoolers/adults. (B) The Zones image has been annotated. This includes flipping it on its side, adding numbers 1-4 (to underscore its design as an energy scale), and adding colors next to the specific emotions to show where they fit on the Mood Meter.

Pictured below — A compatible "upset" scale (left) and Zones (right), both superimposed over Mood Meter:

The Zones of Regulation is just 4 levels of energy, and when you stretch that concept across the full Mood Meter — the complete map of human feeling which also considers how pleasant the emotions feel — it warps. However, there are simple "thermometer" scales that are very compatible with the Mood Meter (see example — "Upset Scale Jr.").