Pediatric occupational therapists are usually all-in when it comes to using physical methods to help children achieve affective modulation. We use the Wilbarger Protocol, Astronaut Training, Therapeutic Listening, and more. But are we using Dr. Harvey Karp’s Happiest Toddler on the Block techniques? Not so much. All that talking seems like something a teacher or psychologist should do. Folks, it’s time to climb off that platform swing and look at all of the ways children develop state regulation. Early development is the time when children experience attunement with caregivers and create secure attachment. But this is a learning process that grows over time and can be damaged by events and by brain-based issues such as ASD. The Happiest Toddler on the Block techniques aren’t billed as such, but they are the best methods to create attunement and attachment while teaching self-regulation skills that I have found. Combined with sensory-based treatment, progress can be amazing!
Research has told us that the way we interact with children and the way they feel has direct effects on neurotransmitters and the development of autonomic reactivity. If you don’t believe me, check out Stephen Porges’ work on the ventral vagal component of the autonomic nervous system.
When we use The Fast Food Rule, Toddler-Ese and Patience Stretching ( Use The Fast Food Rule to Help ASD Toddlers Handle Change and Stretch Your Toddler’s Patience, Starting Today! ) to get a child focused, calm, listening, and recognizing that we “get them” even if we don’t agree with their toddler demands, we shift more than behavior. We shift their neurophysiological responses that can become learned pathways of responding to stressors of all kinds. We are using our social interactions to create neurobiological regulation. I believe that the use of Happiest Toddler techniques can make a significant neurophysical change in a young child even before we put them on a swing. I am going to go out (further) on a limb and say that if our interactions aren’t informed by understanding attunement and engagement, our sensory-based treatment might be seriously impaired.
Long story short: if you aren’t using effective methods of developing social-emotional attunement and engagement with young children, your treatment isn’t taking advantage of what we now know about how all children learn self-regulation. And if the child you treat has ASD, SPD, trauma from medical treatment, etc…..you know how important it is to use every method available to build the brain’s ability to respond and self-regulate.