“Break Through” Self-Regulation Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Autism, ADHD, Sensory or Emotional Challenges

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Speaker

Teresa Garland, MOT, OTR/L Related seminars and products

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Teresa Garland, MOT, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist and author specializing in sensory and modulation issues. She has worked in schools, sensory clinics and medical settings with children and adults, treating sensory disorders, ADHD and autism. Ms. Garland works closely with other health professionals, teachers and doctors to understand and treat underlying sensory, timing, and coordination/motor planning issues as well as overlying socio/emotional behaviors in the symptoms of autism. She is trained/certified in the SIPT, Interactive Metronome®, Integrated Listening Systems (iLs), Therapeutic Listening, Wilbarger’s Sensory Defensiveness, the Natural Heart Approach, Mindfulness Training, and Food Chaining. Her bestselling books are titled Self-Regulation Interventions and Strategies: Keeping the Body, Mind and Emotions on Task in Children with Autism, ADHD or Sensory Disorders (PESI, 2014) and Hands-on Activities for Children with Autism & Sensory Disorders (PESI, 2016).

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Teresa Garland is a presenter with Michigan Job Rehabilitation. She receives a consultant fee, speaking honorarium, book royalties, and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Teresa Garland has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Objectives

1. Utilize effective calming, sensory, motor or behavioural techniques and activities for a given type of behaviour in the classroom, clinic and home.
2. Demonstrate early predictors of ASD, ADHD and sensory challenges in infants and toddlers to design appropriate interventions.
3. Implement interventions for repetitive and restrictive behaviours for a child with stereotypy.
4. Integrate peer-to-peer video feedback into social interventions for children and teens with ASD to increase social ease.
5. Utilize the “Bedtime Fading with Response Cost” sleep intervention for children with erratic sleep schedules.
6. Design innovative grounding activities and organizational strategies effective for teens with ADHD for at home and school.
7. Integrate “team-based” self-regulation interventions for the classroom, clinic and home.

Outline

The Many Challenges of Self-Regulation

• Balancing the needs of the body, brain, senses, emotions and the social self
• Emotional regulation and sensory regulation
• Neurotypical children v. atypical children
• Differences with ASD, ADHD, and other challenges
• How well are we doing the research?

A Little Bit of Neuroanatomy

• Cerebellum: The prediction machine
• The ASD, ADHD, sensory connection
• Mapping emotions
• The vagal nerve’s job in all this

Let’s Talk about Infants and Toddlers

• Early predictors of ASD, ADHD and sensory challenges
• Infants, temperament, crying and social attention
• Facial expressions and emotions in ASD
• Parent video feedback with infants makes a difference!

Self-Regulation for All Age-Groups and Behavior Types

• Calming and gradual exposure and desensitization
• Rethinking the classroom, office, and/or home environment
• Strategies for pre-school and the kindergarten classroom
• Play, play, play! Inside/outside the classroom
• Classroom aerobics and other activities
• Heavy work, exercise, deep pressure and play

Eating and Sleeping Can Co-opt Good Effort

• Effect of poor sleep on repetitive behaviours and negative affect in ASD
• Effects of sensory processing on sleep
• Bedtime Fading with Response Cost (BFRC) Intervention
• Melatonin, elimination diets and supplements for ASD and ADHD
• Sensory intervention at mealtime

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Techniques You Should Absolutely be Using

• Engaging lists, stories and transitions (Make them fun!)
• J. Shauls’s Conversation Train (and more!)
• Making consistency as your modus operandi
• Play engagement, DIR, ABA, Discrete Trials and more
• Restrictive, Repetitive Behaviors (RRBs) Interventions
  • High order v. low order
  • Exercise and aquatic movement
  • Ayer’s Sensory Therapy®
  • Mixed method interventions
• Help kids with ASD handle peer rejection
• Video feedback for social scenarios: Do’s and don’ts

ADHD: Effectively Intervene with This “Moving Target”

• How imaging studies have challenged our ideas of ADHD
• A new look at combined ADHD and Concentration Deficit Disorder
• Innovative organization techniques
• Creating simple habits and keeping it simple
• Grounding activities: Mindfulness, karate, HIIT
• Self-management intervention and “getting to centre”
• Check impulsivity meta-cognitive group games
• Revisiting feedback and timing in the cerebellum

Special Interventions for Teens and Tweens

• Video feedback: Create appropriate expressions, reactions and interactions
• Social skills programs to develop real-life empathy
• Regulation techniques for social situations and avoiding peer rejection
• Sensorimotor Therapy to cut through trauma

It’s a Team – Going for the Championship

• Partnership of teachers, therapists and specialists
• Interlace the team’s self-regulation goals to make them effective
• How to include parents: Highly effective at-home interventions

Target Audience

• Occupational Therapists
• Occupational Therapy Assistants
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Teachers/School-Based Personnel
• School Administrators
• School Social Workers
• School Counselors
• School Psychologists
• School Guidance Counselors
• Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Licensed Professional Counselors
• Physical Therapists
• Physical Therapist Assistants

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