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Zones of Regulation
The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum geared toward helping students gain skills in consciously regulating their actions, which in turn leads to increased control and problem solving abilities. Using a cognitive behavior approach, the curriculum's learning activities are designed to help students recognize when they are in different states called "zones," with each of four zones represented by a different color. In the activities, students also learn how to use strategies or tools to stay in a zone or move from one to another. Students explore calming techniques, cognitive strategies, and sensory supports so they will have a toolbox of methods to use to move between zones. To deepen students' understanding of how to self-regulate, the lessons set out to teach students these how to read others' facial expressions and recognize a broader range of emotions, perspective about how others see and react to their behavior, insight into events that trigger their less regulated states, and when and how to use tools and problem solving skills. The curriculum's learning activities are presented in 18 lessons. To reinforce the concepts being taught, each lesson includes probing questions to discuss and instructions for one or more learning activities. Many lessons offer extension activities and ways to adapt the activity for individual student needs. The curriculum also includes worksheets, other handouts, and visuals to display and share. These can be photocopied from this book or printed from the accompanying USB. The curriculum is designed to be taught by anyone who works with students who struggle with self-regulation. This can include special education and regular education teachers, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, psychologists, counselors, behaviorists, social workers, and parents. Throughout the text, the user is referred to as "teacher"; however, this does not mean you need to be a classroom teacher to teach the lessons.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
26 people are currently reading
308 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 17, 2016
The zones are a great tool for teaching self-regulation. We're going to try to implement them school-wide this year (700 4-to-11-year-olds), so wish us luck! Thankfully, I attended one of Leah's seminars yesterday, so I'm feeling up to the challenge...
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LATER...
The one star off is because not only are the emotion faces difficult to read, they're also creepy as fuck. I'm redoing my ZONE cards using Yoga Cats.
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LATER...
The one star off is because not only are the emotion faces difficult to read, they're also creepy as fuck. I'm redoing my ZONE cards using Yoga Cats.
February 18, 2018
Mixed feelings. I like the overall concept -- teaching students to put their emotions into one of four different zones -- but as with most social/emotional curricula, some of the lessons are really effective while others don't really connect with students.
June 29, 2016
Love the addition of social thinking ideas to a self regulation program! Also love that the "toolbox" includes relaxation techniques, cognitive behavioral strategies, in addition to sensory processing ideas. I'm speaking in zones instead of engines at work now!
December 1, 2016
I use this at work literally every day for social thinking and emotional regulation for my patients with autism. the visuals and handouts are great. I just wish they were also provided in Spanish!
March 8, 2020
Before you read this review, know that I'm a BCBA and an SLP. I come to the table with those knowledge bases and biases. I try to stay very open to other disciplines. If you disagree with me, let me know. Tell me why. My life would be professionally much easier if I liked it.
I’m going to start with the last chapter because that’s where she wrote the foundations of her program. It’s a very short chapter and she spends 2 pages of it dedicated to Claire Kopp’s overview of the early phases of development and self-regulation. I never want to disregard the research and foundations of other fields. No one likes THOSE Behavior Analysts. But I was concerned that in this summary, the stages were summarized with words like “Kopp feels they progress into the next stage, “ or “Kopp theorizes children develop the ability to,” (italics mine). It made me uncomfortable, at least.
In this summary of Kopp, I read about quite a few cognitive processes that were assumed to be happening. I wonder if Kopp had any way to prove any of the processes discussed. There was a lot about how kids learn the “hidden rules,” that they learn strategies that “reduce their tension and increase their conscious introspection and reflection of their behavior.” It really seems to me that learning through reinforcement and punishment is a much more provable, observable, and frankly, simpler explanation of development and learning. Kopp’s theory, at least in this summary of it, requires a lot of assumptions.
I’m not going to go into detail about what I think about each underpinning that was listed. Some of them I know and have read the source material, some I have not. I am going to take a moment and point out the Social Thinking and ILAUGH section. She makes a specific point to say, “This is quite different from teaching students how to learn social skills through behavioral reinforcements and teaching rote social rules.” (that was an un-subtle dig against my kind) But, then goes on to talk about students learning social expectations and how their behaviors impact how others think about them. I would posit that this is learned though observing how other people have responded to them in the past and doing more of what results in more reinforcement. It is long term application of reinforcement and punishment and generalizing past social interactions to current ones.
My snarky self would point out about the ILAUGH model, putting together an acronym that spells a real word is usually a forced procedure. Coming up with developmental pieces that fit your word is bound to leave something out. I’ve seen education teams come up with their own CHAMPS words!
I also want to bring up the Enactive Mind approach (which I am not familiar with). Apparently, this approach has a strong emphasis on teaching skills in natural settings. I saw this as a major weakpoint of Zones. There was no explicit instruction on how to apply and teach in the classroom setting. Therapists in the schools are frequently encouraged to bring their therapy into the classroom, but it is the rare intervention that actually addresses the nuts and bolts of how to do so. Zones did have a small paragraph at the end of the intervention chapters that discussed generalization – but most of the generalization recommended was to send a note home and encourage them to use the strategy, to share the strategy with other team members, or post a visual of the strategy. There is a wealth of applied research in Behavior Skills Training. I would have been interested to read something more than give the other adults a written copy of the strategy and post a picture of it in the room. Meaningful social skill instruction is super hard. I personally get frustrated when the experts tell educators to go do more of it in the classroom with no direction on how.
So, what do I think of the actual program?
I have a pro (I know that is surprising after all the stuff I just wrote!) and a few cons
• I have found giving concrete definitions of feeling words and behaviors useful. This is a system that is widely referenced in schools, so it is language that can be used as shorthand.
• However, I see this system being used poorly in the schools, where they stop at labelling and never actually teach what is a socially acceptable behavior. And when they do teach a socially acceptable behavior, they do it in a small pull-out session, and never role-play or practice in situ.
• There are very few concrete calming strategies actually taught. It’s a few variations of deep breaths. Maybe this is why so many programs work on identifying and labeling emotion words, but not what to do in the next step.
• The thinking strategies are really another level of labelling. They don’t teach you to do anything. Is it Rock Brain or Superflex? There can be some useful moments in labelling and classifying behaviors or thoughts, but then what do you actually do next?
• (I realize I did not address the sensory strategies. I’m going to leave the whole area of “sensory” alone. It is too big a minefield for me tonight!)
• Zones requires the educator/ therapist to fill in a lot of gaps in delivery. There is a lot left to the practitioner to write and program herself. And that is concerning, because a lot of folks will be providing service for areas outside of their scope of practice.
• Above all else, I do worry about basing therapeutic programming on a system that is built on research that I don’t trust.
I’m going to start with the last chapter because that’s where she wrote the foundations of her program. It’s a very short chapter and she spends 2 pages of it dedicated to Claire Kopp’s overview of the early phases of development and self-regulation. I never want to disregard the research and foundations of other fields. No one likes THOSE Behavior Analysts. But I was concerned that in this summary, the stages were summarized with words like “Kopp feels they progress into the next stage, “ or “Kopp theorizes children develop the ability to,” (italics mine). It made me uncomfortable, at least.
In this summary of Kopp, I read about quite a few cognitive processes that were assumed to be happening. I wonder if Kopp had any way to prove any of the processes discussed. There was a lot about how kids learn the “hidden rules,” that they learn strategies that “reduce their tension and increase their conscious introspection and reflection of their behavior.” It really seems to me that learning through reinforcement and punishment is a much more provable, observable, and frankly, simpler explanation of development and learning. Kopp’s theory, at least in this summary of it, requires a lot of assumptions.
I’m not going to go into detail about what I think about each underpinning that was listed. Some of them I know and have read the source material, some I have not. I am going to take a moment and point out the Social Thinking and ILAUGH section. She makes a specific point to say, “This is quite different from teaching students how to learn social skills through behavioral reinforcements and teaching rote social rules.” (that was an un-subtle dig against my kind) But, then goes on to talk about students learning social expectations and how their behaviors impact how others think about them. I would posit that this is learned though observing how other people have responded to them in the past and doing more of what results in more reinforcement. It is long term application of reinforcement and punishment and generalizing past social interactions to current ones.
My snarky self would point out about the ILAUGH model, putting together an acronym that spells a real word is usually a forced procedure. Coming up with developmental pieces that fit your word is bound to leave something out. I’ve seen education teams come up with their own CHAMPS words!
I also want to bring up the Enactive Mind approach (which I am not familiar with). Apparently, this approach has a strong emphasis on teaching skills in natural settings. I saw this as a major weakpoint of Zones. There was no explicit instruction on how to apply and teach in the classroom setting. Therapists in the schools are frequently encouraged to bring their therapy into the classroom, but it is the rare intervention that actually addresses the nuts and bolts of how to do so. Zones did have a small paragraph at the end of the intervention chapters that discussed generalization – but most of the generalization recommended was to send a note home and encourage them to use the strategy, to share the strategy with other team members, or post a visual of the strategy. There is a wealth of applied research in Behavior Skills Training. I would have been interested to read something more than give the other adults a written copy of the strategy and post a picture of it in the room. Meaningful social skill instruction is super hard. I personally get frustrated when the experts tell educators to go do more of it in the classroom with no direction on how.
So, what do I think of the actual program?
I have a pro (I know that is surprising after all the stuff I just wrote!) and a few cons
• I have found giving concrete definitions of feeling words and behaviors useful. This is a system that is widely referenced in schools, so it is language that can be used as shorthand.
• However, I see this system being used poorly in the schools, where they stop at labelling and never actually teach what is a socially acceptable behavior. And when they do teach a socially acceptable behavior, they do it in a small pull-out session, and never role-play or practice in situ.
• There are very few concrete calming strategies actually taught. It’s a few variations of deep breaths. Maybe this is why so many programs work on identifying and labeling emotion words, but not what to do in the next step.
• The thinking strategies are really another level of labelling. They don’t teach you to do anything. Is it Rock Brain or Superflex? There can be some useful moments in labelling and classifying behaviors or thoughts, but then what do you actually do next?
• (I realize I did not address the sensory strategies. I’m going to leave the whole area of “sensory” alone. It is too big a minefield for me tonight!)
• Zones requires the educator/ therapist to fill in a lot of gaps in delivery. There is a lot left to the practitioner to write and program herself. And that is concerning, because a lot of folks will be providing service for areas outside of their scope of practice.
• Above all else, I do worry about basing therapeutic programming on a system that is built on research that I don’t trust.
August 1, 2017
Amazing resource for helping teachers and students understand the importance of self-regulation and how to improve self-regulation skills. I'm very excited to implement the suggested strategies with several teachers this year!
August 28, 2018
I’ve seen the zones in action, so did more of a skim on this book than a full read. It is a great tool with the younger kids or those on the spectrum. Although it touches on using it with older kids I have a hard time seeing the group I work with taking to it well.
April 27, 2020
Pretty decent program for supporting self-regulation and emotion control. I haven't actually taught the lessons in the book but they seem like they will be useful.
Read for IDHP 641 : Communication, Behavior, and Participation Linkages for People on the Autism Spectrum
Read for IDHP 641 : Communication, Behavior, and Participation Linkages for People on the Autism Spectrum
March 29, 2022
I am an OT and I have used this curriculum with individual students, small groups, and with staff at my schools. I pair it with the Michelle Garcia Winner books and curriculum on Social Thinking. The visuals included are extremely useful. I use this daily in my practice as an OT.
October 24, 2017
Great book for the classroom. Includes clear instructions and lesson plans for implementation.
May 8, 2020
Definitely a book I want to add to my teacher bookshelf. The research is there, the strategies are well laid out for teachers to implement with students, and there's a clear plan in how to do it. Lots of resources in one easy to get to place.
June 16, 2020
I am a teacher, but I'm planning to use this curriculum with my children. The zones are described clearly, and I like the tools. I think there are a lot more tools that would be useful, but this gives me a place to start.
August 29, 2014
This is a good overview and curriculum which brings together several self regulation strategies.
March 11, 2015
Clear, well-written curriculum for teaching emotional regulation in a variety of clinical and classroom settings.
August 25, 2015
Every teacher needs this book NOW !
March 27, 2016
I really enjoyed this book and plan to implement the lessons starting next Monday! I hope it helps several of my students.
February 6, 2017
This was recommended to me by an OT and I will definitely be running a program with this over the next few months, very promising and I'm really hoping for some great results.
February 15, 2022
Had to reread this for a classroom consultation case...
November 20, 2017
This book has many great ideas for assisting kids with emotional and behavioral challenges to learn how to recognize and manage their emotional states. However, some of the exercises must be taken with a grain of salt. The student population at my school scoffs at some of the lessons as being too childish. The staff is trying to adapt some of the lessons based on feedback they're getting from the students. Kuypers makes a great suggestion near the end of the book for the student who doesn't want to work on ZOR exercises, that is, have that student use the ZOR concepts to view and analyze other students' behaviors in a more intelligent manner. It's possible that an interest may develop to the point where that student will apply the techniques to his/her own behaviors.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews