Interoceiption - Listening TO your body

Interoception!

I have a social skills group I lead once per week.  It consists of Kindergarten and 1st graders.  We have worked through all the Wee Thinkers from Social Thinking, so now as the school year is winding down, I'm adding in some other sessions.  Today we talked about INTEROCEPTION.

You've never heard of this "sense?"  Well, it's all the rage now in the therapy world.  It is the ability to notice physical sensations coming from inside your body.

In the past we have done a lesson on Whole Body Listing (see previous post), and one of my smarty smartersons in the group raised his hand and said we already learned how to listen WITH our bodies.  He was right, of course.  But I explained to him that today we were going to learn how to listen TO our bodies.

I have broken up this topic into four lessons.  Lesson 1 - watch a video and introduce the idea of listening TO your body.  Lesson 2 - Discussing what different body sensations are and where we might feel them in our bodies when having different emotions.  Lesson 3 - Discuss different body sensations and how everyone feels those sensations differently when they experience an emotion.  Lesson 4 - Using the concepts of the zones of regulation and coping skills, we are now going to put together what and where we feel body sensations with emotions and the use of coping skills. (see previous post). You can't decide what coping skill to use until you can feel it in your body. 

Interoception is a pre-cursor to self-regulation.  If you don't "feel" the emotions in your body, then how can you control your emotions?  Answer - you can't.  You will be a slave to your emotions and ride the ups and downs without any control or ability to predict how your body will react to an emotion.  Empowering kids (and adults) to recognize and take control over their own emotions is a very important life skill.

Click on the picture below for the lesson plan and worksheets:

For more information about interoception check out this book:  

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Classroom Coping Skills

Back to school time is here!  I made this visual to help teachers to manage difficult behaviors in the classroom.  This tool does a few different things:

1. Helps the student to name and rate their feelings.

2. Gives the student tools in order to change their attitude.

3. Helps the teacher teach the student to manage their own behavior.

4. Gives the student and teacher concrete words and meaning for emotions.

5. Helps with self regulation for the student.

I am going to be giving this out to all my elementary teachers.  I will include the following directions for use:

You can use this visual in a few different ways:

1. Go over the packet with the student at a time they are calm and open to instruction.  You will not be able to teach them when they are in the midst of being upset.
2. Try to have the student either point or rate their emotions before and after they take a break or do an activity.  If they are too upset at first, have them think about how they felt before they took a break.
3. Look for signs the student’s body is reacting to an emotional state: sweating, red face/cheeks/ears, dilated pupils, fast breathing, gritting teeth.
4. When you see a student getting out of control, bring them over and read the packet together and have the student pick which activity they would like to do in order to calm down.
5. After you have talked to the students about these activities, show one of the visuals to a student who is starting to become upset.  Have them perform one of the activities and then check in with you when they come back.
6. Always check in with the student after performing a “cool down” activity.  Look for signs that they have regained control such as: slower heart rate, slower breathing rate, normal pupil size, calm appearance.
7. Depending on the age of the child, you may be able to train them to perform these activities on their own in the hallway.  
8. For older students (2nd-4th) You can use the “Take a Break Card” as a silent visual that the student needs to do something to change their mood.  Younger students will have to be supervised either in the classroom or in the hallway.

Click on the picture for free printable file.

The "bored" moment

The "bored" moment.

Because theory of mind is difficult for someone with autism, they do not realize they are being rude when they are stating they are bored.  We all have to deal with being bored at some time.  I have had my share of students yawning in my face, rolling their eyes, or bluntly telling me "this is boring."

Here is a lesson about how to "act" when you are bored.

Click on picture to download teacher guide and student handout.

It's always fun to have students role play expected and unexpected social behaviors so they can observe and practice expected behaviors.

Proactive-Reactive-Inactive

The students I have been working with all year have major issues with being proactive.  I realized that they probably did not even know there is an alternative to being reactive or inactive.  I wanted to empower them and make them realize they can take control of their actions and feelings.

Click on the picture for the lesson plan.

Circle of Concern/Influence

I have been trying to teach my social groups about being proactive.  I am so tired of hearing excuse after excuse.  This lesson seemed to go over really well to help the students realize they do have control over things in their life.

Click on the picture for the full lesson plan.

Email Communication

This was the lesson I did with my social group this week.  We had an incident where some group members had inappropriate email communication with each other.  As I was teaching the lesson, I realized that the parts of an effective email correlate well with the "conversation train" I've used earlier this year.  It seemed to struck a cord with the students.  This is a very important skill for all students to understand.

Click on picture for PDF of the lesson

Coping Skills in School

     I find that many students need coping skills to handle their emotions.  When students are upset, it is very difficult to reason with them.  I have had good success with teaching students coping skills to help change their emotional state.  The biggest hurdle for these students is to actually put into practice the skills we have practiced when they are calm.  Visual cues can be very helpful for these students.  I made up this visual support.

     I plan on making this a flip book with the "When I feel" page the front cover, and "Now I feel" at the end.  Cut each page in half and attach them together.

I'll let you know how it works.

Click on the picture for downloadable file

Social Smarts

This is a worksheet meant for younger students.  Using ideas from Michelle Garcia Winner, it explains what "social smarts" are and when we use them.

Click on picture for printable lesson

Conversation Train

We have been working hard on conversation skills.  This is another lesson to practice conversation skills.  We discussed and brainstormed WHY conversation skills are important.  Some ideas the students came up with include:
- Making friends
- Getting ahead in a job
- Getting along with others

I'm really proud of the students for being able to generalize this information and put it into practice.  I made up a worksheet for them to practice this new knowledge.

Click on picture for printable worksheet.

The magic of UNO cards

I've been having a hard time lately with some of the older kids I see.  They don't see the point or the importance of what we are working on.  I have been very frustrated, and our sessions have been less than productive.  In desperation, I turned to Pinterest, and came across some UNO activities.

I figured - what could it hurt?  We aren't getting anything done anyway!  Well, it was no less than MAGICAL!!!

My most difficult student didn't want to come see me, but I asked him to give me just 10 min.  We played the game, and he was happy about it.  I started to pick up the cards, and he grabbed the UNO cards and starting dealing out the cards.  We ended working for 30 minutes with smiles all around.

Below is the activity I did today.

Click on the picture for activity details.

After the session, my mind was buzzing.  Although the student did well, and shared, he didn't really listen to my comments.  So I came up with this idea.  This student needs to work on writing, so I made a handout so that he has to write down the other participant's comments.  

Click on the picture for activity details.

There is just something about UNO that everyone loves.  Here is another great idea showing how to use UNO cards in a session.  

Click on the picture for activity details.

Thank you Pinterest for such great ideas and breaking my therapy block with my older students.  I look forward to coming up with some more ideas.  I'll let you know how it goes.