Name: Bianca Calipari
Name: Bianca Calipari
Student number: 2239906
Due date: Monday 12th of September
Word count: 2500 words
Topic: Instructional strategies: DSRS2234
Assessment 1: Report 50%
Synopsis:
Christina is a 13-year-old girl who has autism and struggles with her emotional regulation. Her hobbies include playing with her other siblings and watching her favourite movie moana all together as a family.
Her mother was in a car accident with Christina in the car on the way to one of Christinas health professional appointments, and thankfully they both suffered non-life-threatening injuries. however, Christina broke her leg in the process and now must attend weekly rehabilitation because of this.
Christina is now currently facing issues with her anxiety when driving to these appointments and feeling very overwhelmed as she now has many health professional appointments and doctor check-ups on top of her normal speech, dietician and OT appointments and is struggling with self-management and her mother would like to get her used to this due to this being a continual thing in her life.
Christina attends a health professional frequently however once she leaves the appointments, they cannot remember how to complete the exercises provided, nor are they in a routine of completing the exercises regularly. What could you recommend that might assist with lessening Christinas anxiety?
Skills:
Emotional Regulation, Visual Support & Self-management
Strategy 1: Emotional Regulation- zones of regulation
As Christina has autism and struggles with her emotional regulation and frequently has breakdowns before her health professional appointments a beneficial strategy for her would be for her to use the zones of regulation. The Zones of Regulation is the original framework and curriculum (Kuypers, 2011) that develops awareness of feelings, energy and alertness levels while exploring a variety of tools and strategies for regulation, prosocial skills, self-care, and overall wellness. This helps individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as well as those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other related conditions. This lesson plan makes it simple for us to reflect on and communicate how we really feel on the inside, and it also helps us categorise these emotions according to f nour distinct colour zones, all of which are normal parts of the human experience. Once we have gained an understanding of our feelings and zones, we will be able to learn how to use tools and strategies to manage our various zones in order to achieve our goals, which may include completing schoolwork or other tasks, coping with intense feelings, and maintaining healthy relationships with other people. Learners and those who provide support for them benefit from The Zones of Regulation's straightforward, everyday language as well as its graphic layout, both of which help to make the complicated skill of regulation more real. https://www.zonesofregulation.com/index.html
Christina will benefit from using the zones of regulation as once she knows what zone she is in then her mother will be able to use the strategies under it on how she can help her feel less of what she already is feeling.
The "Zones of Regulation" method incorporates four levels of attentiveness and emotion: Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red. Most teachers who utilise this approach have a poster in their classroom for each colour, with a little picture and description for each emotion that children may use to describe how they feel. Blue zone emotions include modest levels of alerntness, such as sadness, boredom, or feeling sick. The goal zone is in the green zone. Students in the Green zone are alert, joyful, and attentive. When pupils are in the Yellow zone, they are aware but may be agitated, foolish, or impatient. Students in the Red zone require the most care because they may be experiencing fury, terror, mania, or any other intense emotion that causes them to feel out of control. The Zones of Regulation application also includes particular zone tactics to assist pupils in moving to the Green zone. For example, some red zone methods can include going for a short jog or doing yoga. https://inside.ewu.edu/managementtoolbox/zones-of-regulation/
*** the importance of customising it to chridstina**
In order for christina to be engaged in the process it is important that the zones are customised to her and what she enjoys.
Strategy 2: visual aids
As Christina struggles with how to complete the exercises provided by her health practitioner, a beneficial approach for her to use to maintain this is to create fitness cue cards. These cue cards will represent the excicsies she needs to complete and how to do the exercise and how many times it needs to be repeated.
ASD Visual Aids aim isto support communication for children, young people and adults with social communication difficulties such as autism. Research has shown that many children and young people with autism spectrum disorder are able to process visual tools more effectively than the spoken word.
Visual supports and visual schedulesgive children visual information that they can look at as often as they need to. When autistic children know what's expected of them, or what's going to happen next, it can reduce their feelings of anxiety.
HYPERLINK "https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiq06LK75b6AhV_zzgGHeVcAuMQFnoECAMQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fraisingchildren.net.au%2Fautism%2Ftherapies-guide%2Fvisual-supports&usg=AOvVaw2kX5EDosg3sfHcdEmX9tXB"
Visual schedules & supports: autism | Raising Children Network
Children with autism tend to prefer repetition and sameness. Whether it's for their preferred activities, hobbies, mealtimes, or bedtime, routines come naturally to them. Routines can be a great tool that helps your children in a way that feels natural and comforting to them. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjD_I3n9Jb6AhWShuYKHXmIBtMQFnoECAYQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tpathways.org%2Fblog%2Fwhy-children-with-autism-need-routines%2F&usg=AOvVaw1kEG0B5WqlnI4n18PTbeA6
Due to the car accident and christina having to see new doctors in the rehabilitation center she is finding It difficult to know which appointment she has each day so in order to lessen her anxiety having a routine of what doctor she will have and on what day will be beneficial for her.
Strategy 3: self-management picture cues
Self-management is a strategy to increase independence and teach new skills and behaviours through monitoring, recording, and rewarding one's own behaviour.
With self-management, the individual monitors their own behaviour, rather than someone else doing it. On pp
When to use Self-Management Strategies- exercise cue cards
-when someone has become prompt dependent i.e., dependent on others to tell them what to do next or look for continuous approval from others
- for those who can already do the task, but distraction is an issue i.e., difficulty retaining focus or remembering steps of a task
-self-management strategies may also assist with learning a new skill
As christina does not remember the routine the best option for him is
Need to put in quill bot:
Organization involves the ability to; plan ahead, pull together the required materials, sequentially perform a task, adhere to a task long enough to follow it through and complete the task in an appropriate time frame. Organization is typically a skill that (at least at some degree) needs to be specifically modeled, supported by sensible structures (such as diaries or visual charts, labelled storage containers) and reinforced by realistic routines (pack away one toy/task before commencing another).
Visual cues are anything that provides visual information. Specifically related to organisation,visual schedules and timers tell the child for how long they need to perform a task and when they are going to have to do an activity. Schedules can be helpful in helping a child sequence step involved in tasks as well as reduce anxiety about what is coming up.
-71819929135700Appendix A:
I used the zones of regulation for my strategy to improve christinas regulation of emotions to help her regulating the emotions she feels before she enters her health praticioners appoitments. Due to her having behaviours of concern, using this chart will benefit her to be able to work through them and also knowing when she is in that zone how that will impact her later on.
***speak about the rewards she will receive when shes good and vise versa when shes bad***
I customised Christians zone of regulation chart to her so it will have more meaning to it and she will be able to relate to it. Because of her love for moana the movie under each zone moana represented the emotion. This allows christina to understand that its okay to have emotion and its not a bad thing that she does however its important to know how to handle her emotions and foer her to be awafre of the emotions shes feeling in order to overcome it.
Appendix B:
I used a visual support aid for Christina as she struggles with organisation and anxiety on what is upcoming. As christina has autism and doesnt cope well with chancge this would be beneficial for her. Christina likes to have a visual and be able to tick off her tasks once they are done so sticking this up on the fridge and using Velcro ticks for her to be able to be involved and not look at all of her appoints in a daunting and scary way.
I personalised her weekly planner by using colours that she loves and different motivational stickers to help push her.
Including the times of the appointments and the days she can rest and enjoy activities of her choice will be helpful for her as she can then use the same calendar with her mum to add any additional important information that may arise which she will look forward to.
Appendix C:
