The Regulation Plan: The Resource Guide is now available HERE in digital form!   Save 35% off the print copy available on Amazon.com.   Complete with clickable tabs to quickly find the page you need!  
 
This Resource Guide was written and designed to be used together with “The Regulation Plan, Application Guide.” Regulation is a crucial skill developed in childhood. The ability to be regulated allows a child to engage and interact with others and through these interactions the child develops skills needed to reach their fullest potential for thinking, relating to others and forming healthy relationships.
The ability to be regulated includes many components. An internet search for “regulation” will reveal a variety of concepts including “sensory regulation,” “emotional regulation,” “behavioral regulation,” and “self-regulation.” Regulation includes all of these things and more.
Regulation is best defined for understanding why it is so important for function and reaching one’s highest level of potential: This resource guide pulls all the concepts together into the the understanding that “Regulation” is: A person’s ability to be in a “just right” neurological arousal and emotional state that allows them to be available for engaging and positively interacting with other people and exploring their environment by showing interest and giving attention.
Without good regulation skills, a child is not available to learn from others, because they are not available for engagement and positively interacting with others. When children have challenges with regulation, they can have difficulty engaging and interacting with others and developing skills. Parenting and caregiving for a child with regulation challenges can be stressful. Children with regulation challenges can get labeled in a negative way, and others may view them as “behavioral.” This guide follows the holistic approach to child development that believes that “All behaviors serve a purpose.” Understanding regulation states and dysregulation states can help us support positive behaviors and connections.
This guide supports user knowledge of individual differences in sensory processing, for themselves AND the child. This knowledge of sensory processing is then combined with the relationship and development knowledge from the evidence-based model and intervention approach DIRfloortime®. Learning to understand and support your own regulation needs along with the child’s, in the context of the developmental, strengths, and relationship-based model of DIR®, can make a world of difference in your relationship with the child that will benefit you both. This understanding will help you facilitate positive interactions that you both enjoy. These positive interactions and your relationship with the child will help the child build core capacities of learning to think, problem solve, and relate to others.




Users can read about the components of regulation and how to develop and support regulation in the Resource Guide, and then immediately apply knowledge to their own and the child’s regulation using worksheets in the Application Guide. Summary charts are used to record important information. The Resource and Application Guide ends with an individualized plan to begin immediately supporting and developing the child’s regulation through understanding of sensory processing, DIR® concepts, and facilitation of positive interactions. These guides were written to support parents, caregivers, and professionals working with parents and caregivers. Reference charts in “The Plan” can support communication about the child’s needs with others. These guides can also support those learning about individual differences and the DIR® model. These guides are unique in that they were intended to be a “hands-on” curriculum to learn about regulation and development in an immediately relevant and applicable way.