Self Regulation

Students with learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, and/or sensory processing difficulties may find it difficult to regulate their emotions when presented with particular demands and/or environmental stimuli.

• The ability to "self regulate" is complex! It requires a student to:

  • • recognize discomfort

    • determine what the cause is

    • (possibly) make an adult and/or others aware

    • identify strategies to de-escalate

    • complete the strategies necessary to calm themselves prior to returning to task

• Often times, it is an adult's responsibility to guide a student to understanding their own emotions and responses

  • • This may require an adult to look for physiological changes in a child's behavior (during the escalation phase), including (not limited to):

      • • increased breathing/heart rate

        • facial grimacing or frowning

        • raised voice

• Various programs exist to provide students with tools to regulate their reactions, I tend to lean towards the Zones of Regulation (see below).

Zones of Regulation

Created by Leah Kuypers

• This program breaks our emotional states into four "zones" and is based on colors

• None of the zones are "bad" although our goal is to get to the green zone

• We can move from one zone to the other at any time throughout the day

• It is perfectly normal to change zones, based on what is going on in your environment

• There are things we can do to return to "green zone"; you will notice that several strategies overlap