Brain based therapy applies current neuropsychology to developing emotion regulation strategies. Emotion regulation involves learning to non-aggressively express strong feelings. People initially process anger and other negative emotions unconsciously in the right cerebral hemisphere, but require cross-hemispheric communication involving the left cerebral hemisphere for conscious awareness, verbal expression and emotion regulation (Riggs et al., 2006; Shobe, 2014). The Switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies were developed to help link movement activities with the verbal expression of feelings.
Research suggests that communicating negative feelings between the brain hemispheres for emotion regulation can be particularly difficult for students with complex behavioral disorders, including diagnoses of Autism Spectrum (Anderson et al., 2010) and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Pechtel & Pizzagalli, 2011), who have significantly reduced neurological communication between the cerebral hemispheres. Many of these students, as well as those with ADHD or neurological immaturity, also resist remaining seated and discussing their feelings and behaviors. Because expressing feelings is difficult for students with complex behavioral challenges, they tend to avoid practicing it.
The Switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies were developed to use movement games to promote the verbal expression of feelings in students with complex behavioral challenges. The Switch hands toss strategies combine passing a beanbag with the verbal expression of preferences, feelings, values, and choices. The ball bouncing and drumming strategy similarly combine two hand sequential activities with the verbal expression of feelings. Building on Positive Behavioral Support activities that teach emotions and express feelings, the switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies are fun interactive tasks that can be done individually with students and in groups. Both the movement and expression of feeling are developmentally individualized to improve emotion regulation and verbal skills.
Current brain research suggests that most students initially process anger and other negative emotions unconsciously in the right cerebral hemisphere, but require cross-hemispheric communication involving the left cerebral hemisphere for conscious awareness, verbal expression and emotion regulation (Riggs et al., 2006; Shobe, 2014). This can be particularly challenging for students with complex behavioral challenges. Research indicates significantly greater difficulties with neurological communication between the left and right cerebral hemispheres in students with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The picture below shows the corpus callosum (marked as number 1 in black) a major network of nerves connecting the cerebral hemispheres.
The switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies combine sequential two handed movement activities with the expression of feelings. These strategies combine movement with the verbal expression of feelings to promote functional communication between both cerebral hemispheres. The switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies are easily graded by matching the specific movement and verbal expression to the student or group’s level.
The switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies address the verbal expression of: favorites (e.g., color, team, quality in a friend), best coping strategy, guessing the feeling or degree of feeling expressed by the therapist or peers, right now I feel _____, and I messages (e.g., when you yell at me, I feel sad, so please speak to me politely). These strategies enable students to express their feelings with out needing to be seated or the center of attention. The switch hands toss, ball bouncing, and drumming strategies offer fun Positive Behavioral Support activities to improve emotional awareness and the verbal expression of feelings.
References:
Anderson, J. S., Druzgal, T. J., Froehlich, A., DuBray, M. B., Lange, N., Alexander, A. L., & Lainhart, J. E. (2010). Decreased interhemispheric functional connectivity in autism. Cerebral cortex, 190.
Bengtsson, S.L., Nagy, Z., Skare, S., Forsman, L., Forssberg, H., Ullen, F. (2005). Extensive piano practicing has regionally specific effects on white matter development. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 1148-1150.
Miller, A. L., Rathus, J. H. & Linehan, M. M. (2007). Dialectical behavior therapy with suicidal adolescents. NY, NY: The Guilford Press.
Pechtel, P., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2011). Effects of early life stress on cognitive and affective function: an integrated review of human literature. Psychopharmacology, 214(1), 55-70.
Riggs, N. R., Greenberg, M. T., Kusche, C. A., Pentz, M. A. (2006). The mediational role of neurocognition in the behavioral outcomes of a social-emotional prevention program in elementary school students: Effects of the PATHS curriculum. Prevention Science, 7(1), 91-102.
Shobe, E. R. (2014). Independent and collaborative contributions of the cerebral hemispheres to emotional processing. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 8.
Sun, F. T., Miller, L. M., Rao, A. A., Esposito, M. D. (2007). Functional connectivity of cortical networks involved in bimanual motor sequence learning. Cerebral Cortex, 17(5), 1227-1234.
