Occupational Therapy at Cognus Limited has provided an emotional regulation group within a mainstream school setting to help increase pupil’s awareness of emotions (e.g. worried, silly or angry) and to begin to recognise them in themselves and others.
The Occupational Therapist (OT) used visuals, songs, videos and games to support the children to understand emotions and also began to discuss and model strategies to help the children feel calm and happy. The children’s Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) were present during sessions and were given resources and advice about incorporating strategies into the pupil’s daily lives at school.
The pupils in the group enjoyed the songs and videos and would request them again. The Learning Support Assistants (LSA) were able to repeat these activities to support memory recall and used the visuals throughout the day to communicate how they were feeling. One LSA reported ‘I have been able to use the OT resources on emotions each day and we have made great progress’. She reported not only was the pupil she worked with now asking the LSA how she was, but the pupil was now able to verbalise how she felt and had initiated deep breathing when feeling tired which effectively enabled her to report she felt ‘better’ and to continue with her school work.
