The Zones of Regulation is a framework and curriculum designed to foster skills in self-regulation, including emotional control, sensory regulation, and executive functions. It is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach that uses four colors to help students visually and verbally self-identify how they are functioning in the moment given their emotions and state of alertness. The model incorporates Social Thinking concepts to help students use perspective taking to understand the social context and how their management of their feelings and states impact those around them. Through using the curriculum, individuals become more self-aware and learn tools they can use to regulate emotions and states to meet environmental and social demands. It can be used effectively in home, school, and clinical settings, as well as in conjunction with other social emotional learning (SEL) strategies.
The Zones of Regulation presentation provides teachers, therapists, and parents with hands-on knowledge on the nature of self-regulation and strategies for improving self-regulation and emotional control in individuals of all ages. The presentation addresses topics such as: the brain’s involvement, typical development, sensory processing, emotional regulation, social cognition, and executive functioning. Audience participants will learn an explicit, stair-stepped method and tools to guide students in using The Zones framework across situations and environments to regulate sensory needs, impulses, and emotional states to social demands.
Visuals, videos, and student work samples are highlighted to illustrate numerous learning activities. A variety of tools (sensory supports, calming techniques, and thinking strategies) are explored to help students recognize their internal emotions, sensory needs, and thinking patterns in each zone, when shifting from one zone to another, and then self-regulate within zones. Participants explore ideas on how to support students using tools effectively across environments. The Zones of Regulation presentation also incorporates core concepts from Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking framework to help teach students about perspective taking, so they better understand how being in the different zones impacts the thoughts and feelings of other people around them and use this insight to guide them in self-management.
Participants will be able to:
- Describe the role sensory processing/ modulation, emotional regulation, executive functioning, and social cognition play in self-regulation.
- State three ways in which the Zones of Regulation’s framework teaches students to self-regulate.
- Identify two ways to integrate The Zones into practice and support generalization of skills across settings.
- Explain how to teach students to individualize their own tools for self-regulation.