When implementing a new strategy into student learning, it is always good to know the theory that back up the curricula. Below are the fundamental pieces of research that support the Zones of Regulation and how the program aids the emotional self-regulation process.
Developmental Stages of Emotional Regulation
Children respond to their own biological needs and react accordingly, with no conscientiousness of social norm for behaviour.
|
Children begin to perform or stop certain behaviours at the guidance of external forces such as the wishes of a caregiver or teacher. Children begin to learn societal norms.
|
Children develop the ability to recognize their own behaviour and regulate it internally based on knowledge of social norms without external guidance.
|
Executive Functioning
According to the National Centre for Learning Disabilities, "executive function is a set of mental processes that help us connect past experience with present action". There are 8 behavioural categories associated with executive function, all of which play a role in emotional self-regulation.
When trying to teach students emotional self-regulation, it is important to consider two things, their age and their executive functioning skills. For the students of Mount View School, most students are between the external and internal developmental stages. These students are on the cusp of recognizing their emotions, but struggle with identifying coping methods for their behaviour. This is because they lack the emotional control necessary to think clearly about their actions and thus falter through a cascading effect in other executive functions such as impulse control, flexibility, working memory, and task initiation. Since school-aged children still rely heavily on external cueing in order to monitor their behaviours, it is critical that teachers take the time to provide explicit direction in helping the child recognize what they are feeling, why, and how they have coped with their feelings prior, or how they could cope with their feelings now.
|
National Centre for Learning Disabilities. Executive Function 101. 23. Online Print. 2013.
|
The Zones of Regulation® is trademarked and the intellectual property of Leah Kuypers.
The Zones of Regulation curriculum and posters' copyright is held by Social Thinking, Inc.
Please see Social Thinking's disclaimer on use of Zones' intellectual property, products and development of derivatives here.
The Zones of Regulation curriculum and posters' copyright is held by Social Thinking, Inc.
Please see Social Thinking's disclaimer on use of Zones' intellectual property, products and development of derivatives here.