Mona Delahooke – Social and Emotional Development for Children and Teens: Mind-Body Strategies to Improve Challenging Behaviors, Self-Regulation and Stress

Outline

• Foundations for Social-Emotional Treatment
  • Difference between developmental and chronological age and clinical/educational implications
  • Neuroception—Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges, Ph.D.)
  • The therapeutic “use of self”
  • Difference between purposeful misbehavior and stress responses
  • Parent-child and provider-parent relationships
  • Promote a calm and alert state
• Strategies Tailored to Individual Differences
  • Conscious vs unconscious behaviors
  • Identify underlying challenges
  • Work at each person’s neurodevelopmental level
  • Identify the behavioral features of stress responses and how to support in real time
  • Treat functional capacities/challenges across diagnoses
  • Three steps to personalized attunement
• Mind-Based Techniques for Regulation, Attention and Engagement
  • Sensorimotor contributions to physiological regulation
  • Establish the neuroception of safety as the priority
  • Auditory and other sensory pathways to support physiological and emotional regulation
  • Play techniques for pre-symbolic development
  • Powerful wordless dialogues
  • Non-verbal social problem solving
• Body-Based Techniques for Social Problem-Solving, Executive Function and Cognitive Flexibility
  • Communicative flow
  • Build symbolic bridges
  • Re-enactment of procedural memories and how to debrief
  • Availability to use “mind” to control body
  • Integrate mind/body strategies
• Techniques for Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Behavioral, developmental and hybrid approaches—how to choose
  • Floortime®, DIR and FCD, and developmental, relationship-based techniques
  • Behavioral and developmental techniques
  • Alternative forms of communication for non-speakers
  • Lessons about neurodiversity and avoiding ableism
• Techniques for Communication Delays
  • Non-verbal communication
  • Affect/emotion harnessing techniques
  • Promote intentional communication with caregiver
  • How to combine words, affect and action
• Techniques for Challenging Behaviors
  • Deconstruct oppositional defiant disorder
  • Determine upstream causes of challenging behaviors
  • Use the child’s natural sensory preferences for cooperation
  • Stress responses and faulty neuroception
  • Support adaptive responses to emotional dysregulation
• Techniques for Anxiety, Stress and Trauma
  • Identify stress responses as early as possible
  • Emotional co-regulation and modulation strategies
  • Build symbolic pathways through story telling
  • Explore fears through procedural re-enactment
  • Partner with parents